Fire.

The word hardly penetrates her numb thoughts.

Fiery flames lick the utmost corners of the ancient home; scars black as midnight itch farther along the charcoaled walls, clawing over every inch of the wooden house. The heat of the blaze warms her to the bone as she creeps over fallen beams and sullied furniture; her skin burns a red heat, the strenuous night settling upon her shoulders.

A patch of pure darkness struggles to remain untarnished along the far wall, the war beginning to weigh in favor of the glaring blaze. Her hands grapple for the blasting cool air leaning into the flames, her raw skin stinging in the icy breeze.

Then, like scattered petals lost in a June wind, the cold disappears, swallowed by the tongues of the flames. The hope, once rearing and fighting inside of her, dies. The air whooshes out of her as her back falls hard to the ash covered cement. Her auburn hair splays out beneath her, and her heavy eyelids shutter as her chest heaves her last taste of oxygen.

As her vision fades, a dark angel hovers above her, scooping her up in his arms as if she were weightless, carrying her to her final, pending fate.