I woke up in a forest of sorts, though "woke" felt like the wrong word. It was more like being dropped into a furnace. I couldn't foretell how I had arrived or what sin I had committed to deserve this. The world was screaming in shades of orange and gold; the very air was a physical weight, thick with the scent of pine resin turning into black, cloying smoke. The place was on fire, an inferno so absolute that the horizon was nothing but a wall of shimmering heat. I ran. My heart hammered against my ribs like a panicked bird in a cage, and every breath felt like swallowing liquid lead.
The flames seemed to be everywhere, scaling the bark of ancient, revered trees until they stood like pillars of bone-white ash against a soot-black sky. I needed to get out, but the geometry of the woods had
