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CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ZOEY
The acrid tang of smoke clawed at my throat, searing my lungs with every ragged breath. Flames danced before my eyes, licking at the tattered wallpaper and gnawing at the wooden beams above. Each crackle and hiss was a taunting whisper, echoing the inferno that had consumed my childhood.
I was six again, small and terrified, huddled against the inferno with my mother. Her comforting embrace, once a haven, was now a scorching cage. The heat warped the air, blurring the lines between reality and nightmare. Was I trapped in the burning embers of the past, or was this the chilling reality?
The inferno pulsed around us, a monstrous heart spewing licks of fire like venomous tongues. The screams of my mother, raw and desperate, pierced the cacophony of crackling wood and roaring flames. She shielded me with her own body, a frail barrier against the searing heat.
"Mommy, it hurts!" My voice, a thin thread of terror, was lost in the inferno's
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