Falling To The Sun | B. Swan + E. Cullen

cinquante-neuf

Flames ripped through her, searing veins, tearing her from the inside. Fire hotter than even that craved a path, racing ahead, stealing away any thoughts, any sense of self.

She didn't know who she was, didn't know what was happening, but she was drowning in a sea of lava, sinking towards death. Roman had no sense of self, no idea what was happening, and she just wanted to die.

But each time she fell to the darkness she spat back out tossed back to the pain that only grew hotter and hotter, doubling with each frantic beat of her heart.

There was no relief as the eternal flames burned on.

Screams sat on the toll of her tongue but her jaw clenched and fear that she might bite her tongue kept her mouth firmly closed. It didn't prevent the whimpers from slipping through as the pain spiked.

Time made no sense here. It could have been a second. It could have been years.

Roman wished it was all over. For it to burn out our claim her, she didn't care. She wanted it to be over.

Her mind was numb off all reason, of all cognitive thought. She wanted to disappear, to cry out and rage — to claw at her skin to free herself from the flames, to set them free so they weren't talked within her veins setting her slight with endless pain.

It feels her hands and feet, shuddering through her and it was like slowly pulling herself from hell while the white-hot inferno raged angry and unrelenting.

Roman tried to remember what she had done to deserve this, why this was harming, but it came to her only in shorts bursts of memory in between darkness and fire.

She wanted this, she tried to remind herself, whispering the words before she was lost one more. Her weak mind claimed she would wake loved, that she would see why it was worth it all when it was over, that she needed to hold on.

The frantic race of her heart, the frightened thrum, made her worry it wouldn't last so long as to fight the fire that fight its way to consume it. Flames would arrive when it was too late. There would be no live prize for it to claim.

She couldn't live through this, couldn't survive. It was so hard, so terribly hard, and the suffering just simply wasn't worth it. She cried, screams burning her raw where they were trapped in her throat.

Slowly, the flames released their hold on her body, pulling away, pulling inward. Her body was released in increments, noting the eventual passage of time that, the mark of change. She hoped it meant she would be waking soon as she ran from the fire -- chasing the memories that kept her sane.

It wasn't like seeing your life flash before your eyes. It was like a pool of everything that she had ever done, of every moment she had ever lived, all at once.

She was in a sea of memories, an ocean of feelings and emotions that she couldn't reach through the thick water that boiled and burned her every touch -- lava around her that smothered her lungs leaving them dead and useless.

There was no distraction, not even when her body was free and she was allowed to claw at her chest, her skin that contained the heat impenetrable.

Her screams were drowned by the roar of her heart as it fought the flame but she could feel them in her throat.

Each time she tried to quiet her pain, the blistering heat turned hotter, smothering each reminder of why she shouldn't let her torment echo free. There was no sense, no way for her to make out what was real.

Her hearing got clearer and clearer, heart fighting to survive the waves of death that came for it. Roman could only try and spoke back her screams as she heard voices around her, soothing the best they could.