Touched by Smoke

Chapter 7

Adam

"Adam?" I hear Elara’s frightened voice, and I can feel her approaching.

"No… Don’t touch me." I whisper sharply, my voice no longer human.

I collapse to the floor, my back pressed against the wall, gasping for air.

The smell of burning flesh. Thick smoke filling my lungs. Screams stabbing into my ears like rusted blades. I no longer know if it’s day or night. Around me, there’s only fire. Fire and death.

James is screaming. I see him through waves of heat, writhing. He looks at me with eyes burned by pain and betrayal.

"Adam! My brother… Don’t leave me here!"

I can’t move. My legs are trapped in an invisible pit of guilt and terror. My hands tremble on my weapon, but I don’t shoot. I don’t move. I’m a statue made of shame and blood.

Another comrade, Malik, drags himself forward on his elbows, missing an arm. His blood stains the hot sand in a red trail. He stops, looking at me.

"At least *you* live, Adam… Make it mean something."

Something meaningful?

For what? For what, when I just stood and watched them die?

I fall to my knees in the middle of the chaos, letting my weapon drop from my hands. The heat no longer burns. The pain no longer pierces me. I’m empty. A corpse with a heartbeat.

A ray of sunlight lands on James’s face. The last thing I see before an explosion throws me into the air is his faint, incomprehensible smile.

I come back to the present. I’m in the kitchen, but I still doubt it. I run my palms along the floor, trying to anchor myself to reality. Then I hear a sob.

I lift my eyes from the ground and see Elara crying for me. I want to tell her not to. That I don’t deserve it. But instead, the demons I never managed to silence push me to do something absurd—and yet maybe the only right choice.

I scream at her like a wounded animal. I don’t want to see her anymore. My demons revel in the cracks through which I let some light in. Now they know they can torture me even more.

"Go away!" I shout from the depths of my lungs, with a fury that doesn’t belong to me. It’s theirs. My demons’. My past’s. Only half mine.

Elara flinches, but she doesn’t run. Tears slide down her cheeks silently, like summer rain that cleanses, not destroys. She bites her lip, ready to say something, but I raise a trembling hand, as if I could stop everything with that gesture.

"I don’t need you. I don’t need anyone!"

Lies. But I say them because I don’t know how else to survive. If I don’t destroy everything good, I’ll be stuck again in the darkness, guilty for failing to protect even one beautiful thing.

She shakes her head. Wipes her cheek with the back of her hand, but doesn’t move toward the door.

"You can’t be alone right now."

"You don’t understand! You can’t understand! If you stay… if you stay, you’ll die like the rest! I’ll kill you. Get the hell out and don’t ever come back."

She bites her lip again, then slowly walks to the door and disappears.

My breath comes heavier, and every word I said cuts deep into me. I told her to go. Told her I’d hurt her, destroy her. But I didn’t mean it. I didn’t want her to leave. I didn’t want to lose her, but I don’t know how to stop myself.

I feel like a monster. I always believed I was protecting others from me, but now… now I feel like she was the only one brave enough to get close, and I was too weak to let her stay.

I can’t let her go. I can’t live with the idea that I made her leave.

I stay there, alone, in the middle of the empty room, listening to the echo of my own breathing. In my head, the demons clash and my thoughts overwhelm me.

"What the hell have I done?" I whisper, looking at my trembling hands.

I didn’t hear her leave. Maybe she didn’t. But I don’t have the courage to look. As if I could find her standing there and ask her to stay.

But she’s not there. She’s gone. And I’m left again in the dark, in silence, in the abyss.

Did I scare her enough that she’ll never come back? Maybe that’s for the best… But I got used to watching her bring light to everything she touched. How do I unlearn that now?

A cold shiver runs through my body, and I let myself collapse to the floor again, feeling how the silence grows heavier around me. The darkness embraces every thought and swallows me whole once more. And I… I feel more lost than ever.

I did it. I succeeded in pushing her away, making her believe I’m worse than I ever was. I said all the right things to make myself alone, because that’s safer, right?

But every time I remember her face—her smile, her voice, even her quiet presence—I feel the emptiness in my chest grow deeper, more terrifying. How am I supposed to live with myself now, without her there? How do I face my demons now that I’ve lost the last flicker of light?

She gave me hope, even though I pushed her away. She brought life to a graveyard. But now… now I feel I chose the wrong path.

I get up slowly, trying to breathe deeply, but the air barely reaches my lungs. The door is closed, and all I hear are the echoes of my own thoughts.

I was so selfish. So afraid. But what happens now? What’s next? Will it be too late to ask for forgiveness? Or have I lost her forever?

I don’t know if I’ll ever escape this abyss.

At least she could anchor me to her reality, help me stay afloat.

I go into the bathroom—because biological needs don’t stop just because I’ve stopped living—and then I smell it.

It’s me.

I wrinkle my nose and feel like dying. I’m in a deplorable state. I smell like a dumpster, and Elara was holding me, staying near me while I reeked like this?

I take off my clothes and step into the shower. The cool water lashes my skin, making me feel alive. Am I?

I try to focus on the sensations the water gives me, but the thoughts won’t stop. They slam into invisible walls that hold me prisoner. I feel like a stranger in my own body, a stranger in my own life.

When I step out of the shower, I look in the mirror. A thin, exhausted figure, with cloudy eyes and deep shadows under them. A scar that will always remind me of who I was, what I lost, and what haunts me. That’s me now. A lost man, a man who doesn’t know if he deserves to be saved.

I avert my eyes because I can’t look at myself for too long. I’m sick of what I see. How could Elara look at me?

After dressing in clean clothes, I leave the bathroom and begin the waiting game.

Will Elara come back tomorrow?