The Crematorium is not a room oft seen in the bowels of The Mortuary. Tombstone’s presence in it, less so.
“When I was a mere mortal, this is how I wanted to be laid to rest.”
He taps a coffin sat on a large table.
“Not that I wanted to go.”
Tombstone walks over to a control panel and picks it up.
“The dancing flame licks away the rot. It consumes defiantly, desperately and without emotion. It cleanses, Blaze. It cleans.
And when I was nearing the end of my life, I wanted to be taken to ash and dust. I saw no mileage in being buried six feet under; the maggots and creatures of the underground feasting upon my flesh and bones, returning me to the soil as a putrid toxic fertilizer.”
Tombstone’s face screws up. Suddenly, the sound of banging from the coffin can be heard. Someone rests inside it, laying on the table. They’ve just awoken and begin screaming, begging to be released.
“Do you know why you were perfect for Six Feet Under? It’s because you were no longer burdened by the toxic abdominal odious stench of humanity. When you resisted death but allowed it in the form of a dancing flame to feast upon your flesh, you became more than these treacherous mortals.
It changed you, Maxwell. It cleaned you of your sins. It took away the grime of humanity that rested upon your flesh and replaced it with the scorching of hardened, rigid, tougher skin.”
The man inside the coffin begs. “Please… let me out!”
Tombstone ignores him.
“Six Feet Under has no affection for the sentimental human condition. These abominations deserve nothing short of annihilation and eradication, Maxwell. You joined our cause because you believed in the same thing…
Didn’t you?
You still believe, don’t you?”
The Ferryman presses the button on the control in his hand and a curtain shifts around the coffin, taking it from view and into the burner. The man’s screams echo violently and rapidly, until they become silent.
The smile on Tombstone’s face is heinous.
“There are rumors that your humanity may not be gone after all. There is discussion that despite the cleansing flame, you’ve abandoned your decree to Six Feet Under and will oppose us, instead.
There are rumor’s that you’ve become unwashed, unclean and covered in the mire of humanity once more.”
His smile turns to a grimace.
“I do not accept that, Maxwell.
But what dawns on me is not what you are or may be, but what must be done. Because if the dancing flame succeeded once, it can succeed again.
It can cleanse you once more.
It can burn away the rotting sense of growing humanity within you.”
Tombstone turns around and walks towards the door.
“And if it doesn’t, and you’ve betrayed your oath to Six Feet Under, then the dancing flame will finish the task it once started and failed.
And I will send you on your way.”