The government building was loud and chaotic the next morning. The Prime Minister climbed out of his car and, without looking at anyone or offering a single greeting, hurried straight to his private office. He hadn't slept a single wink that night, despite taking a massive dose of sleeping pills. All the graphic, stomach-turning details of President Konstantin's fiery death refused to leave his mind. The investigators probing the extraordinary incident had already informed him that the entire combustion process had taken a mere three and a half minutes.
The tragedy closely bore an uncanny, terrifying resemblance to historical cases of spontaneous human combustion—anomalies known since time immemorial, where individuals suddenly erupted into flames of an unknown origin and were rapidly reduced to ash. For a human body and its dense bone structure to be entirely to turn into a heap of ash so quickly, the combustion temperature had to have reached between two thousand and twenty-five hundred degrees Celsius. Shaken by the raw data, the Prime Minister had immediately ordered his assistants to compile an exhaustive research report on the subject.
At 10:00 AM, the emergency cabinet meeting commenced. Every minister in the room already knew the horrific truth. Together, they decided to inform the public of President Konstantin's sudden passing, labeling it a generic accident and withholding all graphic details while declaring three days of national mourning. According to the Constitution, Prime Minister Martin was officially named the successor and Interim President. His live address to the nation was scheduled for 9:00 PM that evening.
After briefly discussing economic stability and immediate political maneuvers, the newly appointed President Martin ended the meeting. He explicitly requested that no one congratulate him on his promotion, citing that he was not feeling well.
Returning to his office, he sank into his armchair for half an hour, closing his eyes and desperately trying to scrub his mind blank. A call from his assistant, announcing that the requested research dossier was ready, sharply brought him back to reality.
The report was stark: Stories of spontaneous human combustion stretched far into the ancient past. In those remote eras, it was frequently called the "wrath of God", as the victim was incinerated within minutes by a seemingly supernatural fire. Others believed a person was consumed by "devil's fire"—a cosmic penalty for someone who had sold their soul to the Prince of Darkness and subsequently violated their unholy contract, triggering an inevitable retribution. However, the phenomenon was only officially documented—appearing in verified police records—starting in the eighteenth century. Since then, barely three hundred such events had ever been verified worldwide.
Martin searched the pages, his eyes frantically tracking a single question: Was there any confirmed link between these historical ignitions and a photograph, a portrait, or a drawing of the victims? The dossier left that specific connection entirely unknown.
According to the compiled evidence, the ignition always originated in the exact center of the body, specifically the solar plexus. The flame literally emanated from within the person. The intense burning would continue for several minutes at an extremely high temperature, as if the living flesh itself had been converted into a highly volatile combustible substance. Frequently, even when the rest of the body was entirely reduced to ash, the hands and feet were left miraculously unburned.
By comparison, the report noted that modern crematoriums incinerated corpses for four to five hours at sixteen hundred degrees Celsius, and even then, the remaining bone fragments had to be mechanically crushed.
The final pages of the document also included fringe accounts of people possessing the ability to set distant objects on fire using nothing but pure psychic energy and the raw power of focused thought.
The report's bottom line was clear: Spontaneous human combustion was a hyper-rare, anomalous phenomenon completely devoid of a rational scientific explanation. It remained an unsolved mystery.
Acting President Martin dismissed his secretary, ordering her not to disturb him under any circumstances, and plunged into deep thought.
I know exactly how much this Republic hates us, he admitted to himself, staring out the window at the heavily armed checkpoints below. I know exactly how unpopular I am. If a million people strike a match for Konstantin... what will they do to me on the eleventh night?
The crushing weight of that realization left him completely hollow. An hour later, he quietly left the building and went home.
At 9:00 PM, several state television channels cut their regular programming to broadcast the address to the nation by Acting President Martin. Unexpectedly for everyone, immediately after offering his formal condolences for the late President Konstantin, he announced his total resignation from all government posts, citing a sudden, debilitating illness. He concluded by stating that he was leaving the country immediately for medical treatment abroad.