Into the Flames... Part 3

Sylvia and Ian watched as the flames began to consume the house. She screamed as the flesh from her body ignited. She turned her hand to look at it and screamed louder as the bones were revealed. Ian stood motionless, not two feet from her. She felt a hand touch her shoulder and jumped. She turned to look into the face of Abby. Her eyebrows crinkled in question.
"Why are you not burning!?!?!! What the hell is going on here!???"
"In time dear one, in time. For now stop and realize what you are feeling. Do you feel the flames burning you?"
"Of course I..." Sylvia stopped and stared at her hands and arms. For the first time she realized that though there was almost no flesh left on her body, she felt... Nothing. There was no burning sensation, no smell of flesh burning and there was one more thing. Her head and hair did not burn at all. She looked at Ian and saw the same phenomenon was happening to him.
"Ian, look at yourself! You are burning everywhere but your face and there is no pain!"
Ian moved for the first time since the flames had begun. He looked at his hands, now little more than bone, and shook his head.
"Sylvia, what the hell is going on here!?"
Sylvia turned back to face Abby. "It is time you started talking. We need to know what is going on and we need to know NOW!"
"Yes, you do deserve to know. Listen carefully because I will not tell this story again. eighty years ago, the man you saw walking through the flames was as real as you and I. His name was Jeffrey Thomas. He lived in that house with his wife and 2 baby daughters. They were Emily and Leona and they were 5 years old. There was no electricity in the house then, only kerosene lanterns. The two girls were playing hide and seek one day. One of them hid under a bed. The other, looking for her sister took the kerosene lantern and slid it under the bed. The flames reached out of the top of the glass and set the bed afire."
"Stop! Just stop this, Abby! That is not a story from eighty years ago! That is a novel I started many years ago and abandoned it. I couldn't come up with a ending and so I just shoved it into a drawer somewhere."
Suddenly the flames grew more intense. The furniture was being reduced to ashes all through the house. She heard a door slam shut on her porch and the sound of someone walking towards the dining room where they sat. As Sylvia and Ian stared at the opening between the living room and the dining room, Jeffrey came through the open doorway. He did not look as friendly as he had when Sylvia last saw him. His face was contorted with anger. Abby stood up and positioned herself between Jeffrey and Sylvia.
"No Jeffrey, this is not the way." Abby placed her hand on his chest and the flames turned to a bright blue and yellow. Intense heat came from them and Ian and Sylvia both could feel the heat. "She had no way of knowing that this was going to happen. You must realize that now. We have to stay focused so we can save your daughters."
He pushed her hand away from his chest and now stood in front of Sylvia and Ian. "You," he said while pointing at Ian. "You are the one that caused my daughters to be burned alive! I want you to feel everything they did!" Jeffrey reached out and touched Ian's chest. The flames turned blue and yellow again. Ian screamed out in pain. For the first time since the fire had started, he felt the searing pain of the flames that licked at his body. "I want you to feel this so you know how they felt!"
Abby rushed between them and shoved Jeffrey away from Ian. Jeffrey fell to the ground and held the place that Ian had touched.
"How? Why did he feel the pain from that man!? And what the hell did Ian ever do to this man!?" She went to Ian and held him. She could see the pain in his eyes. Her tears came out but were dried up buy the flames as soon as they touched her cheek.
"Do you really not remember what he did!? I have hated you for so many years. I wanted to kill you with my bare hands! I had to wait and that waiting has forced me to watch my little girls burn every time the anniversary of their death came around. Seventy-nine years of torture that you could not even imagine!"
"I still don't understand what I had to do with their deaths!? I wasn't even alive eighty years ago!"
"Neither was I, until she created me!" Jeffrey pointed at Sylvia again, the hatred in his eyes so horribly vivid. "She created me and my wife and my daughters and then she left us to relive this nightmare for all of eternity. But she is merely a writer. YOU!!!! You caused this horror to be eternal! And I am going to make you suffer as much!"
"How!?!? I want to know How I am responsible!!!!!"