The Cinder Man

The first time I saw him, I thought it was a trick of the light. A flicker at the edge of my vision, a dark smear against the pale blue glow of my monitor. But he kept returning, night after night, always at 3 a.m., always standing just beyond the pool of lamplight, a tall figure of absolute black, as if someone had cut a hole in reality and filled it with nothing. I told myself it was stress from my job at the archives, the long hours, the dust. But deep down, I knew it was something more.

Last Thursday, the air in my apartment turned thick and cold, like entering a walk-in freezer. The clock on my nightstand glowed 3:00. I was half asleep, my mind drifting in that fuzzy space between waking and dreaming. He was there, closer than ever, and for the first time, I could see him clearly. He wasn’t a shadow at all, but a man made of ash. His skin was cracked and gray, lined with glowing orange fissures, like embers buried in a dying fire. His eyes were two burning coals, and they were fixed on me with desperate intensity. He opened his mouth, and instead of a scream, a cloud of cinders burst forth, scattering across the room. Then I was somewhere else.

I stood in a vast, dark chamber, the air thick with the smell of coal dust. Mountains of black rock surrounded me, glittering faint in the light of a single, naked bulb hanging from a distant ceiling. Panic seized me as I realized I was trapped, the coal piled so high I couldn’t see a way out. Then I heard a groan of machinery, and a heavy lever on a rusty control panel outside the chamber began to move, pulled by a figure I couldn’t see. Flames erupted from vents in the floor, and the coal around me began to ignite. The heat was unbearable, searing my skin, and I screamed, a silent scream in the roar of the fire.

I woke with a gasp, my heart pounding, my sheets soaked in sweat. My arms were red, angry, like a fresh sunburn. I stumbled to the bathroom and ran cold water over them, but the sting lingered. I hadn’t felt physical pain from a supernatural encounter in years, not since my grandmother’s ghost tapped me on the shoulder. This was different. This was real.

I couldn’t shake the image of that chamber. It felt like a memory, not a nightmare. So I did something I hadn’t done in ages: I dove into the city archives, the place I worked, looking for records of fires, of disasters, of anything that matched. I spent days in the dusty basement, flipping through yellowed newspapers and crumbling ledgers. And then I found it: a small article from 1923, about a coal-fired power plant on the edge of town that had exploded, killing seven workers. It mentioned a man named Emile Cinder, a stoker who was known for his quiet demeanor. He had been trapped in the coal silo when the boiler burst, and his body was never recovered.

That night, I left the archives with a copy of the article, my hands trembling. In the parking lot, I noticed a faint, warm breeze, and for a moment, I thought I smelled smoke. That night, at exactly 3 a.m., he came again. This time, I didn’t look away. I faced him, my heart racing, and I spoke. ‘Emile,’ I said, my voice barely a whisper. ‘What do you want from me?’

He raised a shaking, ash-caked hand and pointed at my chest. His mouth moved, and a voice like crackling fire filled my mind. ‘Dream,’ he rasped. ‘Dream for me. Let me feel the cold again. Let me feel the rain. Let me dream of anything but fire.’ I understood then. He wasn’t feeding on my dreams. He was borrowing them, clinging to the last shreds of his humanity through the nightmares he created, because his own dreams were nothing but an eternal blaze. He wanted my sleep to escape his own.

I made a decision. I wouldn’t fight him anymore. I would share my dreams with him, let him experience the cool breeze of a winter night, the gentle patter of rain on a window, the peace of a quiet forest. But I had to do it safely, without losing myself. I set alarms to wake me every hour, so I could pull myself out before the fire consumed us. Each night, I lay down, inviting him in. He would sit at the foot of my bed, his form flickering, and we would dream together. I dreamed of the ocean, and I felt him shiver. I dreamed of snow, and he wept, his tears turning to steam.

But one night, my alarm failed. The batteries died. And I fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, deeper than I’d ever gone. I found myself in his chamber again, but this time, I wasn’t alone. Emile stood beside me, his image wavering between young and old, between human and ash. He looked at me with those coal eyes, and for the first time, there was clarity. ‘Find my remains,’ he said. ‘Put me to rest.’ Then he shoved me, and I tumbled backward into a void.

I woke to find my apartment filled with a soft, gray light. The clock read 11 a.m., a time I hadn’t slept past in years. I was exhausted, but I knew what I had to do. I went back to the archives and dug up the old engineering plans for the plant, traced the location of the silo. Then, on a hunch, I took a shovel to the old site, now abandoned and overgrown. It took me three days, but I found it: a rusted, caved-in chamber filled with ash and a few blackened bones. I gathered what I could, placed it in a simple urn, and held a small ceremony under a gray sky. I said a prayer for the dead, and I flung the ashes to the wind.

That night, I slept without interruption, no shadow, no heat. I woke refreshed, the red marks on my arms finally fading. I like to think Emile found peace, his spirit finally released from the coal that entombed him. But sometimes, late at night, when my eyes are heavy, I catch a whiff of smoke, and I see a figure in the corner of my room. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t move. He just stands there, watching, waiting. I tell myself it’s my imagination, a leftover of those months of terror. But I know the truth. He’s not gone. He’s just waiting for me to dream again.