Kevin's head jerked up, heart skipping a bit in incipient panic at the faint knock on the door.
"Shitshitshit!" He scrambled to his feet, cursing under his breath as more of his shirt dissolved and the backs of his hands and a couple knuckles suddenly appeared through his cheap vinyl gloves. It took him a moment to force his nerves - and his heart rate - to settle, while he brushed ineffectually at the new ash layering his skin.
"Pete?" He called, once he was fairly sure nothing else was going to fall to ash, at least in the next few seconds, and his voice wasn't going to crack. He wondered vaguely if maybe he was supposed to call him Mr. Rasputin now, but he'd always told all the kids to call him Pete. Before.
Damn. He brushed almost frantically at another spot on the front of his ratty plaid polyester shirt as the deformed remains of a button dropped to the floor and reminded himself that before didn't matter.