“Tora. . .wait—”
“I’ll be right back.”
Worry laced his voice. "No. Tora, come backnow."
“Why?” I wrapped my arms around myself and kept moving toward the window. I heard the bed shift behind me, heard him sitting up. “I’ll be quick, Kenji. I just love when it snows—”
“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.
