Dying flames

He got an explanation for the way that the cold seemed more bearable.

At the very centre of the huge platform was a raging fire, the blazing hues a treat to his eyes after days of seeing nothing but the desolate plains.

The fire roared merrily, indifferent to the weather around it. 

The problem?

Wrapping around the fire like the flames were nothing but illusions, was a creature that somehow was the most revolting thing he had ever seen.

The beast was stripped to its skeleton, the pale bones poking out at strange areas. Yet, pieces of flesh hung from it's bones, the flesh being wrinkled and dark. 

'An entity...'

Entities were more or less monsters, but worse. Little about them was known to the general public, other than the fact that they were much more dangerous than normal creatures, and was extremely difficult to defeat without the help of an Enkindled warrior, otherwise known as a torchbearer.

An easy way to differentiate between them was that any monster would be scared of elements such as fire, ice or water, staying far away.

An entity would be attracted to the same.

At first, he had taken it as a dragon, but on closer inspection, it was just a huge lizard. The tail was so badly mangled that Quill had to swallow his spit, doing his best to stay as still as possible.

His options were clear; fight or flight. 

While flight was the better option,at this point, he was dead sure that there was no other way to get fire, rendering the trial incomplete for the rest of his life. 

Fight meant that he was committing suicide. No matter how disgusting and pitiful the creature looked, it was still a hostile enemy who was very interested in eating him alive. In his current state , a severely mangled creature was still enough to defeat him in a few blows.

Besides, even if he tried fighting it, he would need a weapon.

Grimacing, he lamented to himself, wondering why he had chosen this particular day to leave his beautiful sword in his room.

'Shitty luck...'

Fists weren't exactly helpful, and his little flower was only mildly useful if the beast was allergic to pollen.

Quill didn't particularly want to test that theory.

Which left one option.

'Still better than nothing, I guess...'

Sighing, Quill gripped the torch tighter. Backing up slowly, he raised the torch well above his head.

And threw it, straight into the heart of the blaze.

---

If Quill had ever run this fast in his life before, he would have been at the top of those physical training examinations the system forced everyone to do.

He hadn't given his brain any time to consider his rash plan, as he was sure that on reflection, he would realize it was an incredibly stupid idea. It didn't matter now, as he had already done the damage, so he could curse himself out for horrible life decisions.

His plan was simple, throw torch into fire, and it would light up. 

As for the rest of the plan, it was still under modification. 

Right now, his objective was to keep running, divert the beast's attention for long enough to grab the flaming torch, and then run down the stairs and try to find the Pit of Will instead. 

It was a good plan in theory. In practice? Giving a written examination was easier.

At first, the beast seemed to stunned to react, simply staring at the figure that was running around haphazardly.

'I might have a chance.'

His hope was crushed a second later, as the beast let out an infernal scream, screeching so loudly that Quill was surprised that his hears weren't damaged.

As it turned out, while the mangled lizard couldn't fly, it could still slither fast.

And Quill had to witness the utter horror of seeing a large clump of flesh and bones crawl towards you at high speed, all while one of it's eyes hung out of it's socket, connected by a few nerves.

'Very fun times, huh?'

---

Back when he was a child, there was a rather popular show that used to be performed in theaters. It featured three characters; a talking clock, an even larger talking clock and a child.

The story was known for it's simplicity and mimicry, as not a word was said during the entire show. The child would have nightmares every night, and cry a lot, and then at twelve, two clocks would descend from the walls and enter the child's dreams in an attempt to comfort him.

The twist was that in every dream some new horror chased them, and it was a rather funny story of how they ran away from the creature.

Currently, his predicament was extremely similar to the child, except he was actually going to die if didn't run fast enough, and also that there weren't any friendly clocks with him.

The beast let out yet another carnal scream, and Quill cursed, running towards the fire.

'How the hell is it fair to put the fire in such an unreachable area!?'

Quill gritted his teeth. He was almost at the fire, and the damn lizard at was still at the very edge of stone platform. For what reason, he didn't know,.

'Jump off the platform, you damn lizard...'

Quill rushed forward as the heat increased, as a rather obvious realization struck him at the worst time. 

'How am I going to get that torch out?'

Too late to back away, Quill skid across the stone as his legs finally gave out, rolling just before the flames. His body wasn't meant to keep running for such long periods of time, and the overall extortion of the past few days had finally caught up to him.

Desperately, he managed to get on his hands and knees, flinching both at the pain from the wounds received by rolling on the ground, and from the growing heart of the flames.

The torch was right there on the ground. If he reached out a bit further, he could probably grasp it in his hand. 

In hindsight, he should have known. 

His fingers grasped the torch, holding on to it as a support. 

Coughing, he pulled himself to his feet, straightening himself up. 

Blood pounded in his ears. His bleeding fingers gripped the torch tighter, as drops of blood fell on to the stone, staining it red.

As his brain started working again, he hurriedly raised his eyes to the edge of the stone, scanning for the overgrown lizard, each moment vivid in his fear.

He spotted the lizard, his eyes opening wide as he dived to his side.

The huge creature leaped towards him, the dead flesh brushing against his skin, as it missed him narrowly, stopping a little further than him.

Quill's breathing was heavy, as he grasped the torch, sprawled on the ground a little further than than the fire.

The single eye of the lizard staring at him.