Paradise Incoming (SAMPLE)

Four Years Later...

Enveloping smoke.

Thick, violent flames, licking at searing flesh.

There is no darkness when I go to sleep; the wicked, as they say, never truly rest. I see blinding flashes of desperate arms reaching out, I hear cries for help over the crackling of burning wood, the ashen remains and the gut-wrenching smell of charred bodies.

Despite what you may think it doesn’t frighten me; it’s been this way for four years. I often run my fingers absently over the crinkled burn scars on my torso, and the jagged healed wounds that once lay bleeding and open on my legs, back and arms. It’s like a braille story, littered from head to toe. I need not talk of it; the raised welts speak for themselves.

One thousand, four hundred and sixty days later, and my memory is still sharp as a pin. I could tell you every word that was spoken, every move that was made.

It was 2001. Al-Qaeda had changed the world forever by steering their extremist vision into the Western world, spreading fear and conspiracy theory like a deadly virus. The world has always feared what it failed to understand, but things only got worse after that fateful day in September. 

Four years.

Fire.

Smoke.

Searing flesh.

I’ll tell you one thing, but don’t worry, I won’t expect you understand right now. Maybe you will later.

The killing was the best part.

It was the dying that I couldn’t take.