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ON AVERAGE, A body takes three hours to burn to ash. A thermophile can live through almost an hour of that time.

Ruby couldn’t stop hearing the sound of his screams. They echoed in her skull like broken glass dragged across stone, the high-pitched rasp of fear, the guttural rasp of confusion. She pressed her hands against her ears, knuckles white, but the sound bled through, too visceral to block out.

Still, she couldn’t bring herself to leave.

Her back pressed against the cold wall, each breath sticking in her throat like needles.

She watched the clock on the wall beside her, its hands creeping in slow motion.

Seconds were lifetimes. She tried to count, her vision blurring through the tears, as if focusing on the numbers would change the outcome.

The screaming lasted fifty-three minutes.

When it stopped, the silence crashed into her like a wave, suffocating and vast. She gasped, realizing her nails had dug into her palms so hard they left half-moon scars.

An agent had pulled her aside afterward.

She couldn’t focus, couldn’t hear anything past the suffocating silence that had followed the screams. “Thermophiles don’t take well to anesthesia,” they explained calmly, too practiced for talking about the death of another.

“They wake up within a few minutes without a constant stream of drugs.”

Her throat burned as she tried to ask why they hadn’t kept him under longer. The agent’s smile was sad, distant, as if they’d had this conversation too many times before. “Highly flammable,” they said, an apology without weight.

Ruby had stared, unblinking, as they explained.

They had tried a more "humane" method—a wooden pyre where they could administer the drug freely.

The word humane stabbed at her, sharp and wrong, like an insult wrapped in velvet.

How could burning someone alive, fully conscious, be humane?

The bacteria in their body forced them awake every time, wrenching them from unconsciousness into pain, an automatic response to the agony.

The only way out of this life was to burn, to scream, until the brain disintegrated into ash.

The same agent offered to drive her back to her hotel. She declined. Stumbling through the city, her legs had carried her for miles, each step mechanical, disconnected from her body. The city was a blur—lights, colors, sounds merging into one endless hum that clung to her skin like static.

One day, this would be her fate. She would be packed into a metal box, faceless agents sealing her inside.

The world would carry on, indifferent. An agent might pop in a headphone to drown out her screams—a minor inconvenience, nothing more.

She would be no more than an animal to be put down, her existence forgotten as soon as the fire claimed her.

Her skin tingled, the world around her too loud, too bright, too close. She forced herself to move, each step heavy as if she were walking through water. She pushed through the crowded streets, feeling like she might drown in the noise, until she reached the quiet of the hotel lobby.

The door to her room clicked shut behind her, the sound startling in the quiet. She stood, frozen, a step inside, her breath caught in her throat. Nothing. No thoughts, no movement—just an overwhelming sense of dread that anchored her to the spot.

Her fingers twitched, a familiar hunger clawing its way up from the pit of her stomach. Her limbs moved on autopilot, reaching for her travel bag.

The wooden box she pulled out was worn and familiar, the edges smoothed from years of use. Inside was her escape—a pipe and a small bundle of opium mixed with marijuana. A thermophile’s perfect high.

The first inhale was like slipping into water, a warm numbness spreading through her veins. She exhaled slowly, watching the smoke curl lazily in the air before dissolving.

She floated. Her body lay nestled in the hotel bed, the sheets crisp and cold against her skin, but she was somewhere above it all. The ceiling blurred as she stared up at it, her mind drifting, untethered.

The comforter shifted beside her, a slow, rhythmic rise and fall. For a moment, it was alive.

A soft smile touched her lips as she turned her head, her body slow to respond. “Andy,” she slurred, barely audible even in the stillness of the room.

Her hand trembled as it reached across the bed, her fingers brushing against the lump in the blankets. It flattened beneath her palm.

Reality hit her like a punch to the gut.

“Fuck.” Her voice cracked, the word barely escaping her lips. She recoiled, curling into herself, her body folding inwards as if she could make herself disappear.

She lay there, eyes open, unmoving, as the minutes passed.

The drugs dulled everything but didn’t stop the ache in her chest. Time crawled, the sun creeping up over the horizon, its light casting long shadows across the room.

The high faded. Gerald’s screams echoed through the room. She reached for the box once more.