The Burning Veil

Was the sun still up? Janine couldn't tell. The sky was a suffocating gray, thick with smoke that choked the horizon and turned the air into a gritty, unbreathable fog. Heat pressed in from all sides, relentless and oppressive, scraping her throat raw with every shallow breath. Flames roared across the landscape, devouring everything in their path. What wasn’t already ash was on the verge of becoming it, swirling in the air like restless spirits.

The ground beneath her feet was cracked and glowing, a web of molten fissures leaking magma that bubbled and hissed. She refused to look too closely, unwilling to see if the blackened husks around her still bore any resemblance to the people they’d once been.

A sharp crack shattered her trance. Janine whirled, her heart seizing as her gaze locked on the mountainside. The monastery. It stood defiant, even as flames clawed at its walls with greedy hands. The bell tower groaned under the onslaught before collapsing in a deafening roar, the sound echoing like a dirge across the inferno.

She strained to listen, desperate for something, anything, to make sense of the chaos. Was that a cry for help? A dying scream? Her mind begged for meaning in the cacophony, but all she found was the cold certainty that it was too late.

And yet, her feet moved forward.

Ash crumbled beneath her boots, each step a muffled whisper drowned by the relentless roar of the flames. The closer she came, the more the fire seemed to shift, curling and writhing unnaturally. It moved with intent, as if it were alive.

As she neared the ruins, the flames darkened, coalescing into a shape. No, not a shape. A figure. A presence.

It rose impossibly tall, its body flickering and unstable, a terrible fusion of heat and destruction. A crown of fire blazed atop its head, the jagged edges casting harsh shadows across the scorched earth. Its form was barely distinguishable from the inferno around it, except for its eyes: twin embers that burned steady, fixed on her like a predator sizing up prey.

When it spoke, its voice was soft yet consuming, each word a spark igniting the air.

“A once-great flame, now but an ember. And still you burn everything you touch.”

Janine woke with a gasp, her body jerking upright. The bedroll beneath her felt suffocating, the heat of the nightmare still clinging to her skin. Her breaths came in short, panicked bursts, and she pressed a trembling hand to her sweat-covered chest, willing her heart to slow.

Around her, the world was quiet. The faint chirp of crickets in the distance felt distant, unreal, as if they belonged to another life entirely.

A faint glow caught her eye, and her stomach twisted. She sat up fully, tugging at the frayed edges of her bandages around her arms. The cloth was charred, the heat of her nightmare having burned through the layers. She clenched her jaw, quickly grabbing a fresh roll from her pack. Her motions were sharp, mechanical, practiced. She rewrapped the damaged bandages with tight, deliberate knots, her hands steady even as her thoughts swirled.

It wasn’t real. She told herself that again, and again.

And yet the flames lingered. Not in the air, but inside her. A dull, familiar ache in her core, a spark that refused to die no matter how deeply she buried it. She knew the flames were always there, smoldering just beneath the surface, waiting for their chance to consume.