10. With Fire (II)

I felt cold.

I didn't know where the feeling had come from, but it was horribly ill-timed and deeply strange—I was floating above the largest volcano I had ever seen in my life, where the temperature was so high it defied logic and reason.

By all rights, never mind feeling cold, I should have been drenched in sweat, even though I was wearing a new set of armor issued by the Inquisition.

I liked it well enough. Unlike the bulkier force-feedback power armor, this thing was highly flexible, yet its defensive capabilities had not been reduced by much.

That was excellent news for us, seeing as we did not have Black Carapaces. Someone had once entertained the wild idea of implanting one in himself so he could wear better armor and gain more advantages in battle against daemons.

Unfortunately, the surgery failed. Due to sensory dissonance, he spent twelve whole years enduring the illusion that all the skin on his body had been stripped away, before one late night, he actually skinned himself.

Death was probably a good thing for him.

But then again, no matter how good this armor was—even if it was so good that it felt a little unreal—it could not help me escape the omnipresent heat surrounding Death Volcano.

To be honest, heat was the thing I hated most in this life. When I was still a child, I had already learned to seize the chances when my father was off the ship to escape the stuffy cockpit and sneak outside.

Though I did not succeed very often, and was frequently beaten black and blue when caught, I still loved the cold of the ports where we often docked back then.

You could say I was the sort of person who would rather survive in a