Light blazes everywhere, engulfing us, a thousand orange petals dancing around our bodies. A trail of flames slithers across the road toward me, a zigzagging snake flowing like water until it reaches my arm and my skin starts to melt. The pain blossoms into a crashing wave and I'm drowning in it.
The pain.
The heat.
Fire everywhere, thick and angry. And I realize this is it. This is how we die.
I lift my head from the cement and look around, searching for Dad, but I don't see him anywhere. The fire rages, cars honk, people yell, but nothing is louder than the searing pain blaring inside my body. I can barely see anything through the blackness narrowing my field of vision as my consciousness fades. I know I need to find him, know I need to get help, to fight my way out of the flames, but the blackness seems so much better, so much easier, as it presses down on me, heavy and welcoming.
It takes me...
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The Receiver
Teen FictionYour pain is not your own. It's 2084 Manhattan and uppercrusters inhabit gleaming skyrises while bottomfeeders struggle to survive in a black mold-infested concrete jungle. The latest tech has some uppercrusters known as Syphons paying desperate bot...