A Grim Awakening

         Morty Ericson, whom first responders thought was dead after a tornado decimated his town, felt a severe ache all over his disintegrating body, and the stench of burning flesh permeated his nostrils. His eyes popped open, but he could perceive nothing but the flames consuming his flesh. His foot, once quick and healthy, now consisted of bones surrounded by ash. His bony hands on either side of his disappearing frame lay in piles of soot. The stench was unlike anything Morty had ever smelled. He thought he heard someone outside of the incinerator.

         "Help! Let me out! I'm not dead!" Morty cried with as much volume as he could muster.

         The attendant, who put his body in the incinerator, thought she heard something. "I must be imagining that noise could come out of the incinerator," she said to herself. "He's dead. A lightning bolt struck him and they located him after the tornado passed. The whole town is gone. He would not have survived."

         "But I did survive! Help me!" Morty recalled the storm, and looking on with horror as the tornado approached his home. The storm caused a tree to fall nearby, and his beloved cat had bolted out the door at the terrifying sound of it crashing into the house. As he ran after her, he was hit by a lightning bolt and passed out, but the rescuers thought he was dead.

         The attendant looked at the timer on the incinerator. "About an hour left," she said to herself.

         "I have to burn for another hour?! No!"wailed Morty.

         At the end of the longest hour ever experienced by Morty, the flames suddenly stopped. He could perceive nothing but the stench, as the interior of the incinerator had no source of light. What now? he thought.

         As the attendant opened the door, Morty gasped as he beheld his scorched body. All of his flesh was gone, and his body consisted of nothing but a skeleton in a pile of ashes. His once fit physique was no more. The biceps he had been so proud of were nothing but ash. The attendant gathered up his bones and placed them in a machine similar to a blender before sweeping up the remaining ashes in the incinerator.

         "No! Not the blender!" Morty tried to cry but no longer had a voice box. The attendant stopped the blender, pouring his skeletal ashes into a fancy urn with the previous embers. "Don't put me in there!" he attempted to say, but the attendant heard nothing.

         Several days passed. One day, Morty felt someone pick up his urn. Morty heard automotive sounds, and later made out church music. This must be my funeral, he thought.

         Later, he heard a tractor digging a small grave, and then the sound of dirt piling on top of the urn. After that, he heard nothing else.

         He felt himself descending into a lake of fire, and smelled the now familiar stench of burning flesh. Glowing red eyes stared from all around. His eternal torment had just begun.