Page 4 of Torn By Fate

He called out my name again, his sweet painful voice.

I tried to stand, but my legs buckled, pain searing through my body, and I collapsed to the scalding floor again.

“N-no,” I sobbed through the agony.

I tried to crawl—through the flames, through the sticky, impossible air, toward the sound of him.

It hurts.

My pulse thundered in my ears, roaring and drowning every other noise as the skin on my hands and knees grew red. The agony searing through my thigh was almost unbearable.

Everything hurt as everything else around me burned.

The rug was gone, eaten away, and the hardwood floors glowed orange.

My vision blurred.

I can’t breathe.

I reached out, one last time, certain I would find him. Certain I could save him if I just tried hard enough.

I’m coming… I’m here…

I dragged my body closer to the door, where the flames raged…

The closer I got, heat rolled over me in suffocating waves, biting at my skin, and scorching my lungs. My flesh tingled violently. The fire radiated against me with such ferocity that my instincts begged me to retreat, but I couldn’t…

I had to save him. I had to get to him. To them.

My skin throbbed beneath the assault, and I let out a wail. Piercing and anguished.

I was going to die.

We were going to die.

He meant for it to happen this way.

For us to die in such a deceptive, cruel manner.

He promised reprieve but then damned us like the monster he truly was.

A broken sob escaped past my throat.

I didn’t want to die.

Please…

The vision swam, the orange inferno disappearing as my world went dark.

I woke up in a full-body spasm, mouth open and gasping in a silent scream. My body was slick with sweat, trembling with the aftermath of my dream.

No, that wasn’t a dream.

It was a nightmare.

A memory.

Real and hellish.