The Geiger counter beneath my skull. It must be unsafe. Radiation. Background. Foreground. Out of focus. Can't see a thing.

Microwave cooking the meat within bone. Flesh made red. Made purple. Spots. Dots. Lines that intersect with saturated hues. Fuzzy meat clung to dead frame. Can't feel a thing.

I could make out little of his form. Between his wide-brimmed hat, cloak, and steel plate mask there were few identifiable features. I noticed his fingers were capped with metal contraptions. How odd.

I remember talking to that stranger, and taking in the stove's warmth. I appreciated how it helped chase off the relentless chill of wet foggy air.

He let me try some drags from his pipe. Another pipe like it I never have seen. It was shaped like a stick and made of some warm metal. When I held it in hand I felt the rod heat up, boiling a vial at the end I could inhale from. It was smooth. Unnaturally so. It made me worry less about the night.

After that the stranger was more chatty. Like he thought I could be trusted. While my comrades slept in their bags the stranger told me stories of his past. What was true or embellished I would never know.

Before we'd left the next morning the stranger had disappeared out under the black cloaked canopy of the Rotwilds; leaving behind his stove and a single full vial of what he'd called "Sorcerer's Elixir".

How strange he was, and yet he showed me kindness.