Of course I wasn’t there – I can only speculate, but it’s a plausible reconstruction. We all go through it sometime in our dreary immortal existences. I once handcuffed myself to a streetlamp at 4:30 a.m., going to finish it once and for all. That was in ‘43, and I wised-up, unlocked myself, took a nice hunting-trip in Europe instead. Came back refreshed and satisfied I wasn’t especially evil after all.

But Brindle didn’t understand that destruction, like evil, is relative.

Here’s what happened next: his flesh caught fire and the flames went from red to nearly-invisible blue. Rolls of black smoke poured from the inferno until little was left.

Little. Not nothing.

Because the essence of what we are is self-preservation even beyond death. His anima wreathed itself in fire and knit his bones together into a thing driven to survive, driven to feed, free of any restrictions Brindle once placed on it with whatever was left of his humanity.

Remember those carefree children he was watching?