Last chapter guys!!! Enjoy!
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Smoke claws at my throat as I sprint down the back corridor, boots slipping on ash and broken glass. The original exit collapsed- ceiling gone, support beams down from the guards- so I carve a new path, smashing through a half-jammed service door and stumbling into an stairwell.
I should leave.
Any normal person would leave. Any normal person would've have gone back.
But I did. And I'm not leaving without her.
I shove back into the main hall, lungs burning, vision blurring. "Lila!" My voice disappears into the smoke-choked air.
A shout echoes from somewhere ahead. Heavy boots. Dragging motion.
I follow the sound, heart detonating in my chest- and then I see it.
At the far end of the corridor, two Syndicate soldiers are hauling a figure by the arms. Small. Fighting. Lila.
"No- NO- " I launch forward, sprinting with everything I have left, but they're already disappearing around the corner. I push harder, but-
An explosion rips through the passage.
A wall of inferno rolls out like a living thing. Heat slams into me, blinding-white and violent. I'm thrown backwards, skidding across the floor.
I scramble up and try to push through, but the flames surge again, sealing the corridor. A wall of burning steel and melting concrete.
"LILA!" My scream fractures. The fire roars back.
She's in there. She's being burned alive. I can't reach her. I can't reach her.
I slam my fists against the wall, choking, coughing so hard black spots explode in my vision. The heat is too much- skin blistering, eyes stinging, lungs collapsing. If I stay, I die. If I leave...
I don't deserve to leave.
But survival instincts are savage. They grab me by the spine and force my legs to move, stumbling through collapsing hallways, past flames clawing down from the ceiling. I don't remember most of it- just running and smoke and the sound of metal screaming.
Then-
I burst through a blown-out door and fall into the night air.
Cold. Sharp. Too bright.
The building behind me is an inferno, flames punching through windows, swallowing entire floors in seconds. The roof groans. A section collapses inward with a deafening crash.
I fall to my knees.
Not from the smoke.
Not from the pain.
From the grief.
It breaks out of me in one violent, wrecking sob. My hands dig into the dirt. My forehead touches the ground. I shake with it- raw, ugly, uncontrollable. The fire reflects in the tears running down my face.
I failed her.
I failed her.
The night howls around me, the fire eating everything I couldn't save, and I stay there- kneeling, weeping, shattered- while the world burns.
I failed her.
THE END