Chapter 23

The fire was roaring in my ears, the flames higher than my head and around me in a complete circle, the shadows behind the fire obscured and barely visible between the flickering or the flames, the loud inhuman shrieks overridden by the waves. I turned in a circle, my heart pounding, and my breathing ragged. I lifted my hands over my mouth to combat the choking smoke that felt like its thick ashy tendrils were crawling down my throat. I coughed and blinked away the tears as my eyes watered, grunting and cowering away from the flames and the wisps of it reached for me, burning my clothes and singing my skin. I screamed in fear seeing the flames lower slightly and the dark monstrous creatures beyond, arched and deformed with sharp teeth and claws, the stuff of nightmares and fear. I screamed and thrashed as one of them grabbed me from behind, it’s claws digging into my shoulders and tearing skin as it shook me and opened it’s jaws to rip out my throat.<