The heat was unbearable, licking at every surface, twisting metal and cracking wood. The flames had spread faster than anyone could have imagined, racing up the old apartment building’s brittle walls. Screams had pierced the night as people stumbled into the streets, faces smeared with ash and eyes wide with fear. But one person—Cameron—hadn’t made it out.
Cameron was trapped on the top floor.
The smoke billowed thick and heavy, filling his lungs, pressing into his eyes, making every breath a gasp of agony. He’d sprinted down the hallway to the stairs, only to be met with a wall of flames. There was no way down. The air itself felt alive, roiling with anger, the fire crackling and snapping like some ravenous beast.
As Cameron stumbled back from the heat, he felt his skin prickle, an unnatural chill slicing through the flames. He spun, searching for an escape, his heart hammering as he caught sight of something out of place in the smoke. At first, he thought it was a trick of his mind, a mirage in the swirling haze. But as the smoke thickened, he realized he was staring at letters.
Words.
They formed slowly, curling in tendrils of dark smoke against the flickering backdrop of fire.
“YOU CANNOT ESCAPE.”
His heart seized, a cold shiver of terror drowning out even the burn of the flames. He blinked, wondering if it was a hallucination brought on by the lack of oxygen, by the toxic fumes searing his lungs. But the words stayed, solid and clear, hanging in the air as though etched by some invisible hand.
He coughed violently, the smoke tearing through his throat, and staggered back, away from the burning walls. But no matter where he turned, the letters floated before him, shifting and twisting, as if following his gaze.
“Who’s there?” he choked out, his voice hoarse and weak, drowned by the roar of the fire.
The letters twisted, morphing in a sluggish, unnatural way, forming a new sentence.
“YOU CALLED ME.”
A tremor ran through him. No, he thought, struggling to remember anything, anyone, that might make him deserving of this fate. Cameron had never believed in the supernatural, had always been the one to laugh off ghost stories. But now, trapped in a burning building with words manifesting in smoke, a creeping fear clawed at the edges of his mind. Was this the spirit of someone he’d wronged? Some punishment he didn’t understand?
“What do you want?” he rasped, every word slicing at his parched throat.
For a moment, the smoke swirled aimlessly, as if pondering his question. Then it solidified again.
“REPENT.”
His blood ran cold, and he took a step back, though there was nowhere to go. The fire roared closer, closing in from all sides, but the words seemed unaffected, stable and thick as though made of ink.
“Repent for what?” he gasped, struggling to keep his voice steady, forcing himself not to choke on his fear. “What did I do?”
This time, the letters formed faster, as if the presence behind them was losing patience.
“YOU KNOW.”
He clutched his head, desperately sorting through his memories, feeling the heat around him swell. His skin began to blister, but he pushed past the pain, sifting through every mistake, every moment he might have crossed someone. The flames drew closer, their heat now searing his back. But he was transfixed, his gaze locked onto the words.
A new message formed.
“THE GIRL.”
It hit him like a punch to the gut, a memory he’d buried deep, hoping to forget. Years ago, when he was a teenager, there had been an accident. He had been driving with a girl he barely knew—a hitchhiker, really. Her name was Lily, he remembered now, and she’d just needed a ride. But it had started raining, the roads slick, his grip on the wheel unsteady. He’d lost control, swerving off the road, the car flipping down an embankment. When he’d crawled out of the wreckage, dazed and terrified, he hadn’t seen her.
He’d run, convinced she was dead, hoping no one would trace it back to him. He never looked back.
Now, staring at the words in the smoke, he could feel her presence—the accusation, the anger, thick as the fire closing in on him. It was as if the flames themselves were her fury, licking and devouring, hungry for justice.
The letters twisted again, each word sharper, as if gouged into the smoke.
“YOU LEFT ME TO DIE.”
“I didn’t know!” he shouted, the words scraping painfully from his throat. “I—I thought you were already gone. I was afraid!”
But the fire didn’t care. The flames rose higher, clawing toward the ceiling, and the air became dense, pressing down on him, urging him to kneel, to surrender.
“YOU WILL KNOW MY SUFFERING.”
The words seethed, and in an instant, Cameron felt a terrible force press down on him, suffocating, as if his lungs were filling with something thicker than smoke, heavier than air. He dropped to his knees, clutching his chest as a pain—sharp, cold, and foreign—clamped down on his heart. It felt like the impact of that night, like the terrible realization of what he’d done, twisted and magnified a thousand times.
The smoke began to change, swirling around him, thickening until it took shape—hazy, transparent, but unmistakable. He was staring at her, Lily, her face pale and angry, her eyes burning with a dark intensity that outshone the fire around them.
“You ran,” she whispered, her voice not a sound but a vibration in the very air, as if coming from the fire itself. “You left me to die alone, buried in the dark, while you ran.”
Her eyes, empty and cold, held him in place, the weight of her anger crushing him. His lungs burned as he gasped for air, every breath heavy, painful. “I—I’m sorry,” he choked, barely able to force the words out, the heat, and the guilt pressing down on him.
Lily’s expression remained cold, unmoved. Her hand, smoke and shadow, reached out to him, and as it passed through his chest, an icy shock filled him, cutting deeper than the flames.
“Feel what I felt,” she whispered, and suddenly, he was back in that car.
The rain pounded against the windshield, the dark road slipping beneath him, the world tilting as they spun out of control. And then the silence—cold, suffocating darkness, the broken shards of the car pinning him down, breath seizing in his lungs as his vision dimmed.
He tried to scream, but no sound came. He was buried alive in the memory, every agonizing second stretching into eternity. The darkness was consuming him, an endless void that tasted like earth and blood and betrayal.
Then, just as quickly, he was back in the apartment, gasping, the smoke pressing in on him, the fire scorching his skin. But he couldn’t escape the feeling, the weight of the dark, silent death she’d suffered because of him.
“Please,” he begged, every nerve frayed, “let me go. I’ll do anything.”
The words in the smoke shifted, turning cruel.
“ANYTHING?”
He nodded, his voice barely a whisper. “Anything.”
For a brief moment, the room fell silent. The fire seemed to hush, as if waiting, considering his plea.
Then Lily smiled, a twisted, vengeful expression that chilled him more than the flames ever could.
“Then burn.”
The words hung in the air, sealing his fate. The smoke thickened, winding around his throat, squeezing tighter and tighter. The flames surged, consuming everything, and he knew that there would be no escape, no mercy.
As he sank to the floor, the fire roared higher, his vision fading into a haze of smoke and agony. The last thing he saw was Lily’s face, watching, satisfied, as he was swallowed by the flames.
And in his final moments, as the darkness claimed him, he understood. This wasn’t justice. It was revenge—hers, and now his eternal prison.
He was trapped in the fire’s grip, a spirit bound to the smoke, condemned to haunt the flames, to lure others into the same fiery fate he could never escape.
And as he faded, the smoke spelled his final sentence, a grim warning for the next soul caught in its inferno:
“YOUR TURN.”
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