It was dark... and so very cold. The smell of blood-tainted gold intoxicating my lungs as it had been for millions of years earlier. The longer I sat in this small, rounded space, I knew it was driving me further and further into insanity. Chilled, hard metallic walls and this blackness was nearly all I could remember. Really I wouldn't have minded being trapped here... if it weren't for the things I couldn't forget. In a flash it rushed back to me, nearly giving me a head-ache. Tan-skinned people, men and woman and children, turbaned, shouting erratic curses and protections as they ran. Ran away from me. They kept toppling head over heels for the ground kept shifting, the sand was melting, trapping the people, skin smoldering and faces contorted in pain and horror as they were drown in molten glass. If such a terror had come from the sun this would be considered a natural disaster but something standing, more-so hovering, much closer than the sun, was far more dreadful. A girl barely fifteen years of age, floated just above the ground; the source of such massive heat. Her legs were replaced by large billows of fire and smoke, long scarlet hair and arms aflame as well. Her eyes themselves had pupils that burned red as hot charcoals. Her laugh was layered with others, feminine of all sorts but all sinister, rising higher and higher in a dissonant chorus. Without hesitation she reached forward and lifted a man from the ground by his neck and melted straight through... I gasped and scrambled backwards in my small den clutching my own throat. Striking a metal wall I shivered as the coldness of it met my bare shoulders. A brief flash of a face, gray skin, ghostly eyes, dark spiked hair. I closed my eyes tight, cowering and covered my ears but was still able to hear his cackle still. And then men, many, many of those turbaned men. I hurt their families, their friends, their reasons for living, and so they hurt me. The flames I had I felt leave my body in my weakened state and I had to resort to crawling, straining against the burning sand to get away from them. I had to get away! But I was gagged, and very thirsty.. and so tired... They had me, they wouldn't let me go. They bound me with ropes I couldn't burn, I was trapped! Was I going to die alone like this? One crouched, crooked rotting teeth gleaming as he raised a knife to the back of my neck. Did they think they could kill me this way? The blade briefly met my burning skin but after a shouted order from another he yanked my hair back... and he cut it! Shorn all off! Just like that... I could feel my life dwindle like my flames and tears sprung to my eyes only to sizzle and evaporate as they fell. The men chanted and bounced about and it sucked me in! That accursed metal lamp. Only half within, I clawed at the ground, my other hand reaching towards the sky as I cried, begging forgiveness. I was born as such a foul beast, i knew, but I had never meant to cause so much pain! There he was... on an adobe roof-top, in the shadows, a reflection in the bloody puddle. Desperate as I was, whispering his name, he shook his head in dismay. No! Don't leave! Don't be disappointed with me! Don't leave me here... alone... He vanished into thin air, an eclipse against the blistering sun. Bogeyman... Bogeyman... I will have my vengeance! and it seemed... as my lamp lifted and shook, that the time, was now.