Riviera Hotel – 9:48 A.M.
The suite was unrecognizable.
Walls once pristine and white now bore the scars of a storm no natural disaster could rival charred, blackened, split open with deep cracks that bled soot. Curtains that had billowed gently in the morning breeze just an hour ago were reduced to scorched threads dangling limply, their edges still smoldering faintly like the remains of funeral pyres. Once dripping with crystals that had refracted light into fractured rainbows across the polished floor, the chandelier had collapsed in a molten heap, a grotesque sculpture of glass and metal melted into one.
The acrid stench of burned carpet and scorched paint filled the air, bitter and choking, embedding itself in the lungs with every breath. Smoke clung to the ceiling like a parasite,
