Chapter 8
I gasped for air, but the pain in my neck overcame my ability to breathe. I could feel my lungs trying to expand, craving air, but the pressure of the heat blocked anything from passing through my airways. The pain in my neck got hotter and hotter, and suddenly I could feel a scream building in my throat. In that instant something tore at my wrists, at my arms, and the fire began to spread. I could feel the scream being released from my body, but I did not hear a thing. I felt my body shake against the floor as my head got lighter and lighter.
While it was clear that my entire body was burning, I felt as if I were sinking deeper and deeper into a dark haze. I was drowning. I would roll against the floor in my attempts to escape, but wherever I moved, the fire followed. My chest expanded with the last bit of air I could acquire, and then the pressure. I had endured the pain as inch by inch my body caught on fire. I had no sense of time, but I assumed it must be ending soon, once the fire has no where else to go. Before I could fully take in that last breath, however, my entire chest caught on fire. The pain was no longer the burning sensation, but I felt as if my chest was imploding; engulfing my heart in the center.
I could no longer breathe, or see, or think, or retain any sense of reality; but I could feel. The next wave of pain shot through my entire body. It was like being pressed down by thousands of pounds of pressure all at once. I waited for my bones to begin to break under the weight, but they never did. The pressure continued, never faulting despite my attempts to break free. Under this invisible weight, I thought I should move, I told myself to move, but no matter how hard I tried, I could not get any muscles in my body to shift.
This pain remained constant for a while. My head throbbed.
I see a face; that familiar face that I've longed for so many times. Nate's dark hair frames his pale face, and his arms are open to me as they have been so often before. "Bree?" his eyebrows furrow, and his lips are barely parted. Don't leave, I try to say, but I don't have the energy to even open my mouth. "Bree, are you there?" Is he here? Did I not just feel his blood, and hear his cries? I can hear the slow, uneven thumping of my heart. It is taking a lot of effort to stay beating. "Bree, I love you." And then it stops. With one last feeble attempt, my heart takes its last beat. I can hear it in my chest echoing through my head. The fire has cooled, and the weight is being lifted off of me.
I can feel the ground again under my skin, but it doesn't feel as cold as it had before. How long had I been in such pain? Are those people still here? What happened to Nate? Could I save him, or is it too late? I told myself to get up, but so far I could only rock my head back and forth a little. There was an intense smell of must in the air, and I laid there, still unable to move for several more minutes. I breathed the damp air in through my nose, happy that my lungs could once again be filled with oxygen, but I found that even that was unnecessary. What happened?
I could feel my strength slowly but surely coming back to me, and within a few moments I began to open my eyes. As they started to flutter open, the difference between the black I saw behind my eyelids and the dark room in front of me was very slight. It wasn't until I could fully open my eyes that I saw them; the pair of bright, red eyes staring down on me.
