The soldiers are marching again, with the heavy sound of drums quick to follow.
Everyone in the town who knows what is coming stays silent and tries to hide, praying that they won't stop here, in Woodson.
And it's every week now that they pick a new...
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I'm in the forest, completely alone this time.
Red hot terror flows through me, and I look down to see why.
The fire under me is spreading.
Fast.
It's tendrils are licking the edges of my toes, taunting. And their red-orange light reflects off of the evergreen trees that surround me.
Yes, I am alone.
And I am being burned on a stake.
I scream, but nothing comes out of my mouth in the dream to my horror. As I frantically try to untie the ropes binding my feet and wrists to the post I'm attached to, I someone quietly laughs behind me.
It's just a dream. Wake up.
I pause, slumping against the wood of the burning stake beneath me. I struggle to regain control of my nausea, my lungs breathing, while feeling an intense heat burn the hair off of my arms.
A molten ember lands on my calf and I flinch.
The shame and the flame is slowly searing me.
"Oh, Adeline. Be careful."
In front of me appears the nurse Beatrice, with her kind hands clasped in front of her calmly. But her face is fuzzy, because I am so dizzy.
"Careful?" I say with a raspy voice.
My teeth grind together as I strain against my bindings harder than before, trying to reach Beatrice before I pass out. But the woman just stares straight at me with a blank face, unresponsive. Tears gather in my eyes, stinging.
"Look around you."
Suddenly, my vision sharpens. A piece of fabric that reads 'A. Marina' is lying on the grass, covered in blood. I squint my eyes to look further into the distance, realizing that amongst the brush there are dead bodies scattered on the floor.
"What -" I start, but I am interrupted by my own blood-curling scream.
The full force of fire on my skin from under me finally hits my nerves, searing them to a white blinding pain. If I thought the sensation upon my skin was burning before, then now I am bursting entirely into flames. I can smell burning flesh, so I gag on it.
It tastes like failure.
The flames just climb higher and higher, the feeling consuming me. It's at my thighs now, and I am still screaming and screaming and screaming. Thrashing and thrashing and thrashing.
Beatrice's mouth is moving, repeating the same three words, but it takes me a couple of agonizing minutes before I am able to hear her clearly.
