Will sat in a lecture hall tapping his leg impatiently at the University of Chicago while his professor talked about his latest findings at a dig site in Egypt. It concerned a location important to 18th dynasty of Ancient Egypt, a rather interesting, yet brief period where Egyptians went from a polytheistic religion to a monotheistic one due to the actions of one pharaoh. There was a huge shift in culture easily seen in the art with more elongated, alien bodies that did not seem to be truly human. The god they worshiped, Aten, had been around for a while but only gained popularity for that period of rule, before things reverted right back to a more traditional polytheistic culture. Aten was first described in The Story of Sinhue where a man rose up to the sun, Aten, and merged with it. Will shifted uncomfortably in his seat. This topic would normally fascinate him, however given his own present circumstances it hit much too close to home.
He could feel it swirling around inside him, burning through his veins like lava, calling for its release around the world around him. A bead of sweat rolled down the tip of his nose and dropped with a barely audible plop onto the paper notebook in front of him. He rose suddenly grabbing his things and headed out of the room, ignoring the feel of the professor's eyes on the back of his neck as best as he could. 'I will have to explain that to her later. And think of some sort of explanation that she will accept... again. Damnit!' He ran over to the nearest restroom, stuck his head under the sink and turned the cold water on as high as he could. He yelped as the initial shock of cold hit his head and sizzled atop his skin. He rested there awkwardly letting water the cool him off. 'This can't go on. I have missed so many classes, my GPA is the gutter, and I KEEP LIGHTING THINGS ON FIRE! I wish I had never seen that damn rock. But the worst part by far... I almost want it all to bur-' He cut off the thought quickly and pulled his head out from underneath the sink, shaking his hair slightly to get out some of the droplets. 'I have to get out of here.'
He moved into his father's old car and instantly felt better. While his father had passed away, when he had first entered college after a long bout with cancer, this car was a core piece of his father's identity. Perhaps it was the memories that they had shared inside of it or the way that nothing ever seemed to get out the scent of his father's constantly over-applied cologne, but it never failed to make him feel better about what was going on in his life. Still, he knew it was a temporary reprieve at best and that the flames would escape him some way or another. He started the vehicle, and moved out of his space heading towards a relatively secluded spot by Lake Michigan. He cranked up the AC to its coldest setting and blew it as hard as his car could. He pulled off to the side of the road and hurried down to the shoreline. He nervously looked around and pulled off his clothes folding on the ground. He quickly entered to cold water and waded out past the point where his feet could no longer touch the ground. He dived down into the water and finally let go his barely held control of the raging hell-fire inside of him. Heat blossomed out around him boiling it around him, the heat sustained itself for two minutes before it stopped. He burst his head above the water and gulped down as much air to his empty lungs as he possibly could.
He swam back towards the shore, still panting, and put his clothes back on still sopping wet. If he had left them on, they would have been destroyed almost instantly. He sat down on the shore line and put his head in his hands. This was only a temporary measure, the need to release the flames came more and more frequently. It was a only a matter of time before someone got hurt around him, and he was not sure that he could handle it.
