Agony , white hot fires lashing in silken tongues against my skin .I feel the surface of my flesh char and crack under the raging heat and the metallic tang of blood fills my mouth as I bite down hard on my tongue . I barely even register the sharp consensus of pain which flashes through my mouth as the flames continue their relentless pavane .

The iron manacles holding my emaciated form have begun to melt , I can feel the metal sticky and hot adhering to my flesh as brilliant white pin points dance across my vision as I slip in and out of conscious thought . The pain is indescribable , my vocabulary fails me and I settle instead for a ruptured , broken squeal which erupts from my lungs in a coughing fit , spraying boiling crimson which lines my throat .

I can feel the last vestiges of my sentience slipping away , and realise with sickening hatred that I am laughing . I hear the hacking , croaking litany escape my charred lips even as my flesh begins to slough from my form . So , this is what insanity feels like . I can see my consciousness now within my minds eye , a silver tendril of light slipping further and further into the obsidian void beyond , like the tail end of an escapee fish , the one that got away .

The blackness encompasses me , even the pain recedes and I am floating , floating on a black cloud of unconsciousness . A new sensation now , an intense feeling of bouyancy , I can feel my integral self , my conscious mind rising from the suffocating chasm into which it had fled . A shock of physical sensation , of having substantial mass , of musculature and sinew envelopes me , wrapping me in it's fleshy embrace . I feel myself being absorbed into it , my soul and essence fusing with this fleshy mass and infusing it with life , tendons stretch , muscles tense and I feel eye lids flicker open .

Bright , painful light floods my head with it's irritance , and I relaise , like a sliver of ice in my mind that I feel.......new , and foreign , almost alien . I shake my head and my vision begins to clear . Blurred at first , like waking with the dawn , then infinitely , impossibly clear . I see every detail of my environment , every miniscule detail in beautiful intricacy , every miniscule nuance and aspect inegrated and registered in one fell swoop , and I realise that I ........know , so much more .

I can feel knowledge , words , thoughts , visions , sensations entirely new to me flying across my mind , visions both terrible and beautiul , sensations both revolting and enticing as I drink deeply from this well of data within me . Then a familiar friend rejoins me . I feel the shard of anger , like a splinter of hot iron behind my eyes , anger at the hypocracy that had sent me to the pyre , hatred of those oppressors whom had both subjugated my people and sent me to hell and beyond .

I repress the bile rising in both my stomach and thought and attempt to take stock of my surroundings . I stand in a landscape of impossible geography , and yet feel no sense of awe or surprise . Blasted , ashen rocks flecked with sheer reflective surfaces rose at insane angles from the white sands which spread for countless miles in all directions . A scent which I recognise as sulphur and methane permeates the air and the skies shift violently , purple , bruise like clouds shooting and spreading at ridiculously emphasised speeds spread fungus like tendrils across it's crimson surface .

I run my tongue over my teeth and find that once again , my very body feelss somehow ......unfamiliar . My teeth have risen into carniverous spikes , row upon row lining my mouth . My tongue itself feels......long , prehensile , and I realise with shock that it is serpentine , forked and almost instinctual in it's movements .

I raise my hand so that I may scrutinise myself yet further . Once again , despite the disturbing nature of the unfamiliar appendage which greets my site , I feel neither shock nor horror . Skin a deep , rich blue adorned upon a gaunt , spidery like frame are the first abiding impressions , the second comes from the 12 inche long talons which extend from my bony digits , black and smooth as cut marble . I flex my hand experimentally and recoil as white spikes of light , like electricity from a severed wire jumps and crackles from the tips of my fingers . The sensation is intoxicating , almost decadent in it's nature . I can feel energies like freezing water flowing through my body . I know that if I wished the same sparks could flow in great gouts from my eyes and mouth , I could dance upon a pinwheel of energies and fire , I could ride the eye of the storm .

But I hold myself in check . having been so precariously plucked from the pit for so short a time , it would be little less than a blasphemy to expunge such a gift on one reckless whim . I can feel joints and bones , protrusions and tendons which I did not have before , my legs feel as if they have been snapped and bent inwards so that the joint faces in the opposite direction . I also suddenly realise that I cannot feel my feet . Such an inane , almost petty recognition , and yet , so ridiculously significant .

I look down and find that where my feet once were are cloven , bony blocks like cloven hooves protruding from taught , deeply muscled legs which are joitned in several places . I take a faltering step and smile with satisfaction as one of the small black shards cracks beneath my hoof .

I run my hands down my face , tracing the deeply acented features , the aqualine nose and strong , muscled jaw . It is at this point that the full extent of my metamorphosis impresses it's significance onto my mind like a hot branding iron .

My old life was gone , erased by the same fires which scorched my body , and like the pheonix a new one arises . never before have I experienced such an overwhelming sense of.....purpose . Although I know not what my purpose is , I can feel it's force enveloping me , a palpable sense of propulsion within the consistency of time .

The howling winds begin the chafe a vast proportion of what feels like taught flesh , and I am for the first time over awed by the true extent of my change . I flex muscles and bone in what feels like , an extra set of arms and I sense a tightening of fleshy membrane and the extension of long , bony digits . leathery , protrusioned wings spread from my shoulder blades , the same brilliant shade of blue contrasted by the perfect blackness of the bony striucture which supports it .

I feel blood and fluids running through previously non existant veins as I flex and stretch my new found appendages , beating them violently in an effort to exorcise a sense of rapidly fleeing numbness . The musuclar memnrane begins to fill with a sinewy strength , becoming tight and confortable against my back . I beat them experimentally against the insane winds and succeed in only destroying my sense of balance , my immense form carreening forward into the sands .

I rise cackling insanely , and I realise that my voice too has gone through the same transmogriphication as my body . A deep , resounding bass note conveying nothing but strength flew from my throat and echoed throughout the vast plabnes , carrying even above the high pitched squeal of the winds .

I rise , using my wings for balance and once more I attempt to beat the fleshy hide of my wings against the winds , a rythmic motion which is reminiscent of flexing one's fingers . I feel the cool and violent drafts from the motion of my wings against my skin , swirling clouds of white sand tossed and whirled in swirling eddies and currents as I feel my legs part contact with the ground . My first sensation is an over aweing feeling of weightlessness , directionlessness .

I rise yet further and stare out across the planes , a sickly orange sun rises lazily from behind a mound of sickly looking clouds and casts it's pallid beams across the ash strewn desert , illuminating my form with orange fires . The winds rush under my wings and I bank , cavorting amidst the currents and eddies .

I begin to feel an affinity for this new form , here , soaring into the infinite , dying sky of a dead world I feel at long last , free . I feel the energies within me building in intensity as my emotion flares , behind my eyes and within my skull I feel living rivulets of fire . The sense of impetus builds into nearly unbearable levels as I dive below the cloud covering once more . I cry my emotion to the heavens and Earth , neither anger nor joy , resentment nor gratitude , merely pure , unbridled emotion and with it comes a raging torrent of the white fire , bursting from my maw in a steady stream .

I taste ice from a newly born winter's day , I feel the raging fires of a sun's core . I sense my emotion and thought being sculpted into tangible energies , my body and soul screaming in mute surrender as they are fused by a pyrotechnic symbiosis into an integral , divine whole .

Whatever actions in which I partook to constitute such metaphysical ecstacy , I bless their circumstance . Now I can taste the earthy sensation of fire in my throat , now I can feel the sharp , cool pleasures of wind beneath my wings I feel truly blessed .