I wake up burning.
My hair, my skin, my brain - everything is on fire, and I struggle against it, screaming out as the hungry flames devour me.
"Lucy!" A voice comes from somewhere nearby. "Lucy! Lucy! Wake up! You're ok now."
I look down, and the golden tongues of flame have gone, the burning hell fires fading back into the dream as I regain lucidity. I'm sitting upright in a hospital bed, in an unfamiliar room. The sky outside the window is darkening, the first purple hues of dusk staining the blue of the dying day, pulling a thin blanket of stars over the bed of the heavens. The birdsong of early evening is in the air.
A nun is standing next to the hospital bed, her bright blue eyes filled with concern.
Sister Cora, I think. The one who brought me to Sister Evelyn's chambers at daw
