[ WP ] You ’ re a dragon in your human form . As part of that , you have faked an ID card , Visa , business card , and organ donation card . Your skull is crushed in a car crash , killing you . A smart young man successfully receives your lungs…

There was something different about Eugene after his surgery, but Carol couldn ’ t quite put it into words. Yes, the past year and a half on the waiting list had been tough on him—on them both—but since he left the hospital, their relationship had developed a new dynamic. Before, he had been wishy-washy, indecisive, never venturing an opinion. Now, he debated politics and religion with her parents—loudly—in a voice that she ’ d never heard before. Deep and resonant, he spoke with an authority and maturity beyond his years, and her dyed-in-the-wool fundamentalist parents came around to his way of thinking. 
 
 When did Eugene develop an interest in politics? He didn ’ t give a damn about religion before either. Was it his brush with death, that endless anxiety of waiting for someone to die so he could pick his life up again? 
 
 They nearly came to blows when he took up smoking. “ You almost died! ” she shouted at him, “ and it was all because your parents and grandparents were smokestacks! ” She was on the verge of leaving. She didn ’ t want to give up on Eugene—she ’ d spent two years by his side, through sickness, through recovery. Through the death of his father from lung cancer, through his mother ’ s descent into compulsive gambling and self-destructive behavior. She ’ d been a rock, and now he was smoking. 
 
 “ Someone *died* so you could have those lungs, and you ’ re killing them! ” she had promised to never bring that up. It was something they ’ d discussed early in his sickness, in those first awful months of being on the List. They didn ’ t want to think about the death that would give Eugene his life back. But here he was, polluting that gift with tar and ash. 
 
 To his credit, Eugene tried to stop. He went to counseling. He avoided shops that sold cigarettes, he tried turning the urge into something more productive. He tried hypno-therapy and nicotine patches. But he would go to sleep beside Carol and wake up reeking of fire, with ashes on his fingers and one last huff of smoke drifting from his mouth. And no sign of the cigarettes. No pipe. No tobacco. 
 
 That summer, at a barbeque, Eugene spent the entire day at the grill. He chased off the host and donned the apron, wielded the tongs, and tended the coals with a loving tenderness. When the time came to feast, it was only a startled exclamation and a thrown cup of beer that kept Eugene from setting himself on fire, trying to put a live coal on his hamburger bun. 
 
 Toward winter, he would spend hours staring, fascinated, into the fireplace. Carol patched up burn after burn, when he tried, like a child, to grasp the glowing embers. 
 
 And still he smoked in his sleep, and still he came close to injuring himself. His new lungs burned in his chest, drawing in air, demanding more space to expand. Carol watched him at night, seeing the smoke trailing around his nostrils, a wispy tendril drifting about his body, like some vaporous snake, exploring. Even when there were no cigarettes in the house, somehow he smoked in his sleep. 
 
 There was a fire in those lungs. The fire wanted out. 
 
 Carol left him in January. Eugene had grown too strange, too intently focused on the wrong things. They ’ d had plans, they ’ d had hopes for after his surgery, but he had become a new person, a stranger driven by obsessions she couldn ’ t understand. 
 
 The end of winter held on with a wet grip, burying Eugene ’ s little house in snow. He hated it. This was his ancient enemy, he felt, and he fastidiously cleared his porch and driveway, he anxiously swept the eaves with a long stick, his body hissing and steaming with a fever. 
 
 A gust of wind sent ice crystals into his mouth, he breathed them in and coughed. He coughed up smoke, he coughed up ashes and cinders. His lungs demanded air, they twisted in his body, stretching his ribcage, and he coughed a puddle of molten liquid that melted through the snow and ice and three inches of the ground. He coughed fire and sulfur and scorched his throat and charred his mouth. Frightened and in pain, he called for an ambulance, but could only croak, his vocal cords too damaged. 
 
 The fire department came first, clearing the way through three feet of snow for the police, the ambulance. Eugene was whisked away, struggling to control the coughs, the pain almost too much to bear. Each suppressed cough produced a puff of char, and he could not speak with the emergency personnel. The fire inside him wanted out, it was all he could do to hold it in. He felt withered and dry. His lungs wanted more air to feed their furnace, and he clamped his blistered lips shut turning, his face away from the oxygen mask. No. No. They tried to restrain him. No! 
 
 He coughed and the ambulance filled with smoke. The driver pulled over. The doors opened. Eugene pushed aside the technician with the mask, the one with the belts and staggered out. He vomited blood and coughed fire into a dirty snowbank, weeping. His body wasn ’ t made to support lungs that wanted to breathe fire. 
 
 What had happened to him? Where had Carol gone? He packed snow into his mouth, his throat was too damaged now to swallow the trickle of melt. The technicians were in a frenzy several feet away. They ’ d seen it, and were radioing for support. Something was wrong here. Eugene curled up in the hot snow, shivering and burnt, body seized by racking coughs that, he realized, would eventually burn away the rest of the soft, wet tissues in his mouth and throat. Would eventually kill him. 
 
 He clambered to his feet and ran from death, blind panic spurring him onward. Every breath froze and scorched the burnt parts of his face and deep inside his chest. He stumbled and staggered, ignoring the voices of the ambulance crew. He needed water. 
 
 The creek was frozen over, but as he fell into it, the ice cracked and he buried his face in inches of bitterly cold water. He held his mouth in that shallow trickle, trying to suck it up, failing. He remained face-down until his burning lungs demanded air, and he opened the ruins of his mouth, drawing in only deadly liquid. 
 
 Eugene ’ s world ended in steam. 
 
 -- -- - 
 
 I did n't want to kill him off, but it just made sense. Sorry Eugene. 
 
 The guy with the dragon's heart did n't do much better, I hear.
