Fire Giants

If you're the smart cookie that we think you are, you might have noticed that every time the fire giants make an appearance, Cameron promptly experiences an attack from his illness. They become Cam's way of experiencing the pain associated with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. Check it out:

They're not real. They're not real. They'renotrealnotrealnotreal. It's another dream, Cam. Just wake up. But I can't. In my ears is the hiss and pop of flame coming closer. My knees buckle. I'm on the floor, shaking. Above me, the fire giants laugh, and I feel it in my body like a virus I can't eject.

[…]

"Cameron?" Mom's eyes are wide with fear. I want to tell her, warn her, but I can't make the words. And the fire giants are so close. Feels like I'm melting from their heat. One bends down, cocks its head. Its flickering tongue snakes out and licks along my arm to the shoulder, sending hot shards of stabbing pain through me. It laughs that terrible laugh I heard in the cotton fields. I can't wake up and I can't make it stop.

And then the only sound I hear is my own terrified screams. (10.83)

See where Cam compares the fire giants to "a virus" he "can't eject"? Symbolism doesn't get much more straightforward than that. But Cam's not the only one who knows pain on this level. When he meets Mrs. Morae she refers to the fire giant in her own battle against death and disease:

The hair on the back of my neck stands at attention. "You've seen those freaky fire giants?"

She nods, her eyes wide and fearful.

"What are they?" I whisper.

"They are chaos. Destruction. The end of hope. Oh, these are frightening times. I have to get away!" (13.80-83)

Fire is a destructive force that obliterates everything in its path without discrimination. Using fire giants to represents the pain Cam feels helps him not only describe how he feels, but also categorize his pain as an enemy. Pain is the nemesis Cam has to combat, just as he needs to battle with the Wizard of Reckoning—a.k.a. himself—on his mission to try to defeat death.