title: Semia
author: Macbeth, Jesse A.
description: “The fire seemed to have a life of its own. It just consumes without pause. I have never felt such pain. My flesh would char before my melting eyes. The white of my bones blackened as burnt flesh fell off in great chunks. My hair shriveled and disappeared. I gagged on hot fiery air that smelled of my own burnt flesh. When I should have died or passed out from the pain, I did not. I would just stand there, a blackened skeleton. My heart beat between charred ribs suspended by invisible hands. Each beat was an agony stealing more moments of unwanted life. I would scream, I would cry to every god I have ever heard of. I would beg them to save me from this fire. But they were all silent, or they just didn’t care about me. I was lost in the flames and forgotten. The fire was unrelenting. After your flesh was gone, it burned your very soul. I remember feeling my eyes melt and drip down my charred face only to sizzle and evaporate. I screamed for Mala’ik. ‘You said you loved me!’ I begged him to save me, the angel who wept for me and the only witness to my death. But even he would not answer me. I would curse them all. I would curse the gods for their cruelness. Curse Mala’ik for his weakness. I would scream and scream alone lost in the fires of hell. My only company was the fire and the pain. Then, as suddenly as the pain began, it would end. My charred flesh would be restored as if I had imagined everything. I would find myself laying on cool damp grass gasping for breath, my throat ragged and raw from screaming.