“But what if it’snot?”
Her sad smile makes my heart hurt.
She kisses both his eyes, her lips sparkly from his tears. “Then I’ll come with you, and we’ll be flowers together.”
* * *
Awet drip to my cheek rips me back to the now.
I’m not even sure where I was …
Somewhere.A soft, happy place that felt too real, with people that no longer exist.
Serren.
He called me Serren.
The name strikes something in me, a hurt flaring to life that’s so raw, I feel like my chest is being split open one snapped rib at a time.
He called me his favorite person.
I whimper, open my eyes, expect to see a canopy of lush leaves and plump, dangling peaches—instead confronted by the spindly, charred fingers of a burning tree, popping and sparking as flames gobble it up.
A harsh smell hits the back of my throat, making me gag—the raw, sulfurous reek of burning hair and flesh spawning from the pit of my darkest nightmares.
Still asleep. Must be.
“Wake up ...” I rasp, squeezing my eyes shut, hands pressed flat against my temples while I choke on this emptiness inside, like my chest could cave at any moment. Like someone just rummaged through my body and hauled out everything but my thumping heart.
A blow of wind sprinkles me with icy rain, making goosebumps jump all over my skin that feels too bare …
My eyes fly open.
I look down at my naked body sprawled across the ground, dusted in ash. See the charred remnants of my clothing and bits of rope scattered around me.
Reality plunges a stake through my chest, a sob bursting up my grated throat …
I’m not dreaming.
This is real.
My gaze drifts past my feet, catching on a severed leg, its flesh a blistered mess of bubbled, oozing welts that stagger my heart to a standstill.
Memory shards bore into my brain. A different place, similar scene. Same smell. Same eerie silence void of life—a moment of still before chaos erupted, the beasts no doubt drawn to the reek of burning death.
Past and present meld and drift and reach down my throat, gripping my heart in a crushing fist.
What have I done?
Get away. I have to get away.
I roll to the side, almost colliding with an arm, flesh melted from the clawed finger bones that are reaching for me. My entire body locks, a scream bubbling up my throat, cut off as a fierce cracking sound ratchets through the eerie silence. I roll my gaze back to the tree. See its torso tilting—squashing the space between us in a fiery frenzy. I tumble sideways, the singed arm crunching beneath me, leaving a warm, wet smear across my cheek and chest.
Nausea spills through me, and I gag, rolling,rolling…
The ground shudders, sparks burst, and I cover my face, tucked in a protective ball that doesn’t save me from the rank smell sticking to me, making my guts twist into an aching knot.
Silence blankets the world. Not even the birds are singing.
