Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 154368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 617(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 772(@200wpm)___ 617(@250wpm)___ 515(@300wpm)
“Tora, that’s not snow—”
“What do you mean?” Confused, I reached the window.
Wait. What the fuck is this?
The heat hit me first—feverish rays branching through the glass and pressing against my face, my bare arms. My skin tightened.
I pulled back the curtain further to truly get a better look.
Horror slammed into me next.
What? No. . .this. . .can’t be real. . .
My brain short-circuited on the grotesque view, refusing to process what was in front of me.
No. . .God no. . .
A mountain of fire was twenty feet from our window. Monstrous flames clawed toward the sky, orange devouring red, yellow riding a terrible blue at the base. Murderous tongues writhing, roaring, and alive.
My stomach damn near collapsed onto itself because. . .within the inferno. . .
No. This can’t be real.
It was all bodies.
Tons of them.
No. No. No.
Men and women.
Piled on top of each other.
Stacked like firewood.
Over a hundred of them—arms jerking as tendons contracted in the obscene heat, legs fused together by melting flesh, torsos split open to reveal organs cooking inside, heads with mouths frozen in eternal screams, contorting in agony. Skin bubbling, splitting, and blackening.
Oh God.
Acid surged up my throat.
No. . .
My lungs locked.
I could barely breathe and I damned sure couldn’t look away.
Off in the distance, Kenji’s voice sounded. “Tora. . .”
I continued to take in this mountain of burning bodies.
Kenji’s men circled the base. One of them lifted a jerry can and the liquid caught the light as it arced through the air.
Gasoline. That’s what he’s pouring.
The flames roared higher, hungrier, and another man threw wood onto the pile like he was stoking a fucking campfire.
Why the fuck are they burning people outside?
And that was when I realized that the white flakes were not snow. . .they were ash.
Now trembling, I looked up at the flakes, still drifting past the window, still dancing on the heat, still so delicate and beautiful, and my stomach turned to ice.
Ash. Human ash.
I froze.
I'm going to be sick.
I dragged my eyes back to the flames. I didn't want to look, yet I couldn't stop.
I spotted a man’s face in the mountain. His mouth was frozen open like he’d been screaming when he died. Then, his skin bubbled, split, and peeled back.
Stop. Don’t look. Turn away.
Still, I watched the fire eat through his face. . .to the red, wet muscle underneath.
A hand was poked out of the pile. Possibly a woman's hand. Those slender fingers curled into claws like she was trying to crawl free and escape.
Oh fuck.
The flesh slid off the bone.
Just slid off.
Wet.
Glistening.
Peeling away in sheets while the fire crackled and popped due to moisture escaping the bodies.
Fat rendering.
Human fat.
It liquefied and dripped down through the pile, sizzling within the flames, and that smell.
No. . .that fucking smell. . .
I gagged on hot air.
That wasn’t Christmas ham. It’s fucking. . .bodies burning.
I looked at one body in the middle. The long hair ignited. A halo of flame around a skull—there and gone in seconds—and the body slumped, shifted, moved like it was still alive, but it wasn't alive, it was just the fire eating through the structure, the muscles burning away, making the dead dance.
Stop. Make it stop. I can't—
Beyond the pyre, people stood there, watching. Men and women with sad, shocked expressions. They just watched with hollow eyes while the flames lit their faces orange.
And the most terrifying reality crashed into me.
If they’re burning a mountain of people then. . .Kenji knew. . .probably ordered it.
My stomach finally heaved.
I doubled over, hand flying to my mouth, bile surging up my throat. My body tried to reject it—all of it—what I was seeing, what I had smelled, what I had breathed.
My knees buckled and I grabbed the windowsill, fingernails scraping wood, and my body convulsed again, trying to purge.
Nothing came up.
Just bile burning the back of my throat. Just that fucking smell filling every breath I tried to take.
I was shaking.
Couldn't stop.
My whole body trembling, teeth chattering, vision blurring with tears I didn't remember starting to cry. The heat from the window pressed against my face like a hand.
Then, Kenji’s hand reached past me and yanked the curtain shut.
Why would they do that? Why?
The fabric fell back into place and cut off the sight, but not the heat. Not the smell. Those weren't going anywhere.
"Don't look." His voice was low. Controlled. Like this was a problem to be managed.
Don't look? What the fuck?
Still gagging on nothing, I stumbled away from the window.
Away from him.
Don’t look. Is he insane?!
My legs barely worked but I made them move me across the room, putting distance between myself and the curtain, the glass, the fire, him.
“Tora. . .”
My breathing came in ragged gasps.
The air still tasted like death.
“W-wait.” I hit the far wall, pressed my back against it, and wrapped my arms around myself, trying to hold my body together because it felt like I was falling apart.