Nothing Burns Like The Cold Novels & Stories

A scream tore from the back of my throat. Hot, pulsing pain spread through my entire body, like I’d been set on fire—every part of me burned. I screamed until my voice went hoarse. “Stop… stop—it hurts,” I cried out. It couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. The burning pain was gone, replaced by something else. I was cold. So, so cold. It felt like I was freezing from the inside out, and I couldn’t even tell which was worse. I couldn’t scream, couldn’t speak. All that came out were silent whimpers.

My fingers tremble as if they no longer knew where they belonged. Then nausea lashes me like a whip. I roll to the side and retch. First only air, then bile, then nothing. But the cramp doesn’t pass. My whole body shakes, and my throat burns as if it were aflame. Every breath is pain. My lungs can’t take this new air—it isn’t of this world. Something in it is wrong. And then comes the cold. Not the kind you can recognize. Not weather. Not winter. Something deeper—a lack of heat itself, a denial that life is warm. My bones chatter. My hands are purpled. My hair clings to my face like icicles.

Maria POV The cold here had a texture. It was not the cold of winter, not the kind a person could bundle against and outlast. It was the cold of stone that had not seen sunlight in fifty years, cold that rose up through the floor into the bones and stayed. The kind of cold I had read about in books once and dismissed as gothic exaggeration. I was finding out it was not exaggeration. I was finding out it was inadequate.

Every part of me feels like it's burning in hell fire. A feeling of something cold enters my bloodstream, cooling the burning sensation, running through my arm and I find myself slipping back into the darkness. I groan once more. There is that damn beeping again! Can someone please shut the thing off? If I had a sledgehammer I'd be using it on the offensive noise right now. Did someone forget to turn off their alarm? It sure as hell isn't mine! It's agitating me enough to make me want to see what the bloody thing is.

Chapter 55 Set Fire and Burn by Ruth Nalio Angelica… How could a heart ache when it no longer existed? I had become something unholy—flame-wreathed bone, a screaming soul bound in fire. When I snapped, I didn’t break—I burned. My rage flared hotter than the sun, a molten scream that cracked the earth open beneath my feet and pulled the sky down in a frenzy of tornados.

The bonfire roared like it had something to prove, flames licking the night sky while half the town huddled around it in puffy coats and scarves. I’d layered up like a paranoid onion—thermal, hoodie, jacket, gloves—and still felt the cold biting through my boots as I picked my way across the snowy field behind the old mill. Music thumped from someone’s truck speakers, a mix of country and whatever playlist Finn had screamed was “fire.” Literal and figurative.

Even now, standing alone in the dark, the memory made my face flush bright red. I brought the collar slightly closer to my face, and even with the dried coffee, that intoxicating scent of luxury, a fresh cedarwood, expensive cologne, and crisp winter air that lingered faintly on the threads. It was a smell that belonged to someone who ruled the world, completely different from a nobody like me. But the brief rush of heat in my chest was instantly crushed by a cold wave of pure terror.

For every fear that pops into your mind, my hands make it a reality. Flames of blue, red and white, hot enough to melt any earthly metal sweeps across my nails. The fire jumps from side to side as if hell’s small doe jumping through the ominous forest. One touch could make you feel pain for weeks, yet to me, it is my sweet burn of menthol across my chest. Breathing deeply, smelling your skin crisp under me that everyone here deserved, fuels my lust for destruction.

“‘Live like you were dying.” -Tim McGraw "W-O-W," Sabrina exclaims as she helps me carry boxes through the mansion and my room, "Looks like Momma Bear caught herself a big fish." She whistles while tossing the box to the ground and then flopping herself onto my bed. "Yeah, it looks like it," I grumbled back.

Nova shrugs. Anguish runs through my body just like a small flame of fire burning through my veins. I just go numb. Totally numb.