(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

It was thick and muggy inside, and the harsh miasma of ash and char
thickened the air. The scent was heavy and hot, but my lungs quickly
adjusted with each breath. In the center of the bar a series of grills gave off
heat and light, flooding the room with an ember-bright orange glow. The
steady pulse of light made the shadows twitch and dance in fickle against
the few bar patrons here that slowly milled around, absorbed in their own
business.
In one corner I spied a pair of fiends hissed over thick metal tankards and
crunched down on raw, reddish meat. Bone snapped under their jaws and
the stench of sulfur wafted not so subtly from them. Best not to think about
what creature yielded that stringy gristle.
Writhing in the maw of a thousand lapping tongues of flame, a billowing
creature twisted slowly above an iron grill upon the floor of the bar. It may
have once been human, but now its skin was charred beyond recognition.
Streams of fire formed a wreath around the creature's body, and the flames
licked at the few remaining pockets of flesh, causing them to bubble and run
like wax down the creature's skeletal frame.
The heat surrounding this... creature... was incredible. To my surprise, the
iron grill the creature floated above had sagged and bent from the heat. At
first, I thought the heat came from the grill... but now I realized it emanated
from the creature. As I watched, flecks of ash drifted from the writhing
corpse and floated slowly to the ceiling.
"Greetings...?"
The thing made no response. It writhed slowly within the flames -- it lived,
but it didn’t seem aware of anything other than the fire that surrounded it.
Its skin was flame, its heart was flame, and I knew, within some shadowed
corner of my memory, that this thing was dangerous.
Just past the entrance there was a woman with fading bruises on her face
and arms and a look of despairing longing in her sunken eyes. She might
have been pretty once, but those days were long ago. She turned slowly to
face me. Life pours into her features, and the spark of sardonic light that
danced in her eyes now made me wonder if my eyes were deceiving me.
"Welcome to the Smoldering Corpse, scarred man. I am Drusilla. And you
must be clueless. Don't ask me how I know that. It just shines off you."
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