Flames and Starlight

19🌘

Ruben

Screams from all around reached my ears. Screams of pain, anguish, horror.

They were all around me.

They were never-ending.

They were crushing me.

I snapped my eyes open, my chest heaving as I tried to regain my breath, my heart pounding wildly against my ribcage, hard enough I was scared it would burst out. It felt like a hand was seized around my throat, making it impossible to breathe.

My eyelids were suddenly yanked closed and I was forced back into the tortured oblivion.

The screams were back.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out the terrible noise, willing with everything inside of me to get them to stop, to quit torturing me. I cried out. I clapped my hands over my ears and sank to my knees. The noise was piercing my eardrums to the point it felt like my skull was being split in two and small trickles of blood were seeping from my ears.

A calm voice was suddenly right beside me, somehow standing out over the roar of the screams that were torturing me.

"Ruben, look."

A tear slipped down my face and I refused to open my eyes.

"Ruben," the calm voice said again, this time firmer. "I said look."

"I can't," I whimpered, still not opening my eyes.

"RUBEN." The voice was only an octave lower than a fierce roar that caused my blood to freeze and cause me to turn my belly up with fear. "OPEN YOUR EYES."

I couldn't resist the command anymore. I slowly peeled my eyes open and a terror that I'd never felt before in my life consumed me at what I saw.

The fire was everywhere, destroying everything in its path in its destructive grasps, but that wasn't what was causing the fear to paralyze me.

Through the flames I could see people in there, being burned alive.

They were the source of the screams.

"No," a whisper escaped my lips as I took in the tortured people. "No. . ."

The fire was everywhere, surrounding me, causing heat to sear my skin, smoke filling the air and crowding in my lungs, my eyes tearing up to the point I couldn't see.

I could see the people in the flames coming apart, shrieking and writhing.

And I had no idea how to stop it. Any of it.

I curled onto the ground, covering my face with my hands, trying to block everything out.

"It's no use," the voice snarled right next to my ear. "You can't escape."

"Leave me alone," I moaned.

"I am never gone. You are never alone. This is the world that you will be facing. It's inevitable."

A scream of rage and anguish ripped from my throat, blending in with the other tortured screams that tore into the air.

"You cannot escape it."