Had it hurt to be burned alive, to feel the flames consuming his clothing, skin, hair, flesh? There were times he couldn’t remember. The burning seemed a thing apart, sometimes as immediate and vivid as the dreams that sent him screaming into wakefulness, and at other times remote, a thing that had happened to someone else.

For an eon he had known only pain, coupled with an intense desire to live. He crawled away from where he’d fallen, at first using only the tips of four fingers and a few toes. Three sunsets passed before he’d dragged himself ten yards. Every grain of sand, every bit of leaf he slid over, was a knife, shredding his outraged flesh. He kept going until he fell into a shallow, clear-flowing brook. There he was born again. Chill water dampened the raging fire in his body and cooled-but did not extinguish-the fever in his mind.

He arose from the brook in the grip of an undeniable compulsion to go east. Home lay eastward, and he had to go home. There he would find succor. There the fire would be quenched at last.

He crawled out of the stream like a newborn salamander and turned to the rising sun. Living as an animal in the forest, he ate whatever he could find, whatever couldn’t crawl away fast enough. As his damaged body couldn’t bear the slightest touch of clothing, he went naked, garbed only in mud and leaf litter, or rain and air.

All that existed was the journey eastward. He grew strong enough to walk, but a new horror took shape in his mind: that others might see him as he was-mutilated, disfigured, destroyed. The very thought brought a shame so great he could scarcely breathe. No one must see him, not friend, foe, or stranger. He tried to steer clear of settlements and travelers, but his senses, ruined by the fire, no longer served him as they once had, and he learned then what shame really was.

One morning he was looting carrots from a garden when a dog found him. It circled, growling deep in its throat. He had never been afraid of dogs before, but slow and crippled as he was, the approach of the mongrel filled him with dread. When it drew too near, he flung dirt in its eyes. It shook off the grit and began to bark.