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“Congratulations, Mrs. Blackwell,” Noel murmured, eyes frenzied, blood dripping from her hands and lips as she curled her long, slender fingers around the form of my baby. “You’ve a precious baby girl.”
She held the baby by the back of her neck, and I reached for her, not fully aware of the blood pouring from my gaping stomach. The stench of iron and flesh hung heavy in the air.
“Please… may I just hold her…” I gargled, vision fading black around the edges, my chest heavier with each breath. I could not take my eyes off my dangling infant.
My daughter.
“Shit!” Adam cursed. Noel disappeared or my eyes began to flutter, I do not know which. I could feel my heart glugging, trying to keep beating. It was tired.
I was tired. So tired. There was the smell of fire, something burning nearby.
“Please…” I slurred. I just needed to sleep. Please.
Please.
Part Two
Chapter Ten
My mind was swirling aimlessly in the black, lost.
It was thick, a blanket thrown over my body and I could not rid myself of it for fresh air. Only muffled noises, muffled scents made their way to me. My skin hummed; my mouth full of cotton. Swimming in the black, letting the numbness of it take over everything...
It was welcomed; a much needed reprieve from all that had accumulated over the last several months.
Surely this had to be what death felt like.
This had to be where we go when we die. It was too still, too languid.
Was my mother right? Did we go to heaven? Or since I had sinned, was the destination in turn hell? Out of all the possibilities of death, I did not think it would be like this. This strange in between of void and feeling.
Voices, familiar voices, where are you?
Reaching out, I could not grasp them. Could not formulate their words in whatever mind I possessed in death. Who did those voices belong to? Could they hear me, hear me calling out to them?
Where are you? Can you hear me? Am I dead?
All the pain I had endured was numbed by the fuzzy blanket of black. I could feel where it had been, but it was dulled. It was so loose a sensation, practically levitating above me. So nice.
Until the fire.
Fire, fire, FIRE!
Flames filled my mouth, running down my throat and scorching the flesh in its wake. I wanted to scream, needed to scream, but where was my voice?
The fire snaked around in my head, gripping my brain with its tendrils, down to my chest and arms. Further still the fire licked down to my legs, my toes. So painstakingly slow it crawled leaving no stone unturned, encasing me in wild heat, searing every inch of me inside and out.
Excruciating, thismustbe death.
This must be hell. I’ve been punished for the life I led.
I tried to weep, tried to thrash and put it out, tried to tear the fire from me for relief. My whole body was collapsing in on itself under the fire, crumbling, breaking. All I could do was endure.
There was no beginning and no end to these flames. I tried to hold onto images of William, of my family, tried to carry them in my mind through the pain but they were burned away, cast into the wind, ash. I couldn’t remember my name, couldn’t remember where I had come from, how I had gotten here. Only the fire.
I was in hell. This would be my eternity.
Then it stopped.
