Sample Chapter - Aubrey Graham
Background: Aubrey is watching her house burn to bits and pieces.
Alone against the roaring firestorm that had once been her sanctuary, Aubrey stood outside her home. The memories she created into the fabric of her home had been consumed by the flames, which were blazing orange and red. The air was heavy with the smell of acidic gasses, a stinging reminder of the tragedy she was seeing. The deep grief that hung in the air caused even the stars to shake in the night sky, their flickering light appearing to fade away.
While the night danced, the shadows whispered stories of destruction, rage, and frustration. Every flicker of the flames appeared to reflect the harsh dance that veiled the devastation below, a deception of their beauty. Trapped in confinement, Aubrey looked on helplessly as the life she
It had fallen into flames, all glimmers of hope drowned away by the sizzling symphony of devastation.
Aubrey's life flashed before her eyes like a vivid picture, painted on a canvas as the fire ate everything in its path. All of it was reduced to ashes, including her favorite couch where she spent carefree Sunday afternoons, the beloved blanket that kept her warm on chilly nights, her clothes that held the memories of good times, and the books whose characters felt like lifetime friends.
The flames had now devoured the cards her father had sent her, each one full of love and encouragement, and the pictures on the walls that captured happy times spent with friends. Her mother's physical remains, conserved over time, were now being ate up by the very thing that once stood for comfort and warmth.
Aubrey's eyes filled with tears when she realized that her home, the storehouse of her memories and the place where her past echoing was disappearing right before her eyes. Her gut twisted with a mixture of shock and despair, and her throat tightened. The flames went on their greedy dance, as if they were unaware of the emotional burden they carried.
In the midst of the chaos, Aubrey's muffled sobs blended with the fire's roar, creating a symphony of pain that appeared to break through the darkness. The flickering fire appeared to be taunting her with its brief existence and the vulnerability of the cages we build around it.
"Oh my god," she said. Her words faded off like a scream for comfort in the face of unbearable loss. However, Aubrey's thoughts moved inward even as the flames raged louder, drowning out her words. She was burdened by the significance of what was now only blazing ruins and was unable to let go of it.
When the firefighters came, the flames that had become a sign of a coming catastrophe were slowly put out thanks to their heroic efforts. The sky was painted in muted colours as dawn approached, a sharp contrast to the flaming chaos that had ruled the previous night. With their outlines against the decreasing embers, the firefighters represented the start of a new chapter.
Aubrey stood among the rubble as the last of the fire's remnants were put out, resilience and sorrow mixed in her gaze. Dawn marked the shaky start of a new era as well as the end of an old one. The ruins contained the ashes of her past, but she discovered the ink there and used it to pen a narrative about the spirit that rises from the depths of hopelessness. Rebuilding had only just gotten underway, a monument to the human spirit's everlasting resilience that emerges from the ashes of its own devastation like a rising star.
