A torrent of rain fell from the broken clouds above, screaming into the night as each drop sizzled against his raging skin. He knelt, pleading into the rapidly warming mud caking his body and clothes for some kind of mercy, but each cell in him continued to burst into flickering wisps of flames. The pain was maddening, his joints seizing and flexing under the strain like he was a marionette strung tight to a demonic marionettist. Spittle foamed out of his mouth and waves upon waves of colors like churning cinder washed across his vision. Death had been far more peaceful than this furious rebirth. His robes, spun from the finest material, burned like wicks, surrounding him in a glowing pulsing light as the individual flames bursting from his skin began to merge and grow together. The air surrounding him was suffocating--billows of colored smoke rising up, tangling themselves with the rain drops that contin...