"It's not the same," he says, and there is crackling, blackened flesh curling up around his eye, burning in reverse; slick wet meat, alighting again. "Youi don't know what it's like; it's in your nose and on your skin, and it's thick and sticky and it stays with you like a stain, marking you!"

Like a brand, the glowing, bubbling flesh around his face moves like wax, hot hot hot -- smooth till he is unmarred, a teenabe boy with nothing to distinguish him from a legion of young men but golden eyes.