Prologue

The room was pitch black. I could not see but I knew that there were sheets around me, and I knew that a breeze was coming in through a window. Just as I knew that my world was about to change.

It started out as a warm feeling on my stomach, as if a cat had climbed onto me and curled up there. Then it got too warm. Then it got to be burning and I started tossing and turning, trying to get the covers off me.

Then hell erupted around me.

My sheets were alight in a split second, and I screamed as I fought to get them off of me. The fire was too hot though. It seemed to be melting the blanket to my skin. I tried to scream louder but the smoke was already filling the room, forcing most of the air down as the blaze absorbed what was left above. I was choking and rasping as the smoke and heat seared my throat and made my lungs seize up.

I knew that I needed to get down off the bed, needed to get to the floor so that I could breathe and crawl to safety. I struggled hard to turn in the sheets even as the pain radiated from my stomach to my legs and arms. The fire just spread faster and grew hotter.

Just as I had dragged my top half to the edge of the bed, my entire body went ridged and the horrid noise of ripping flesh and cracking bone filled my ears. A massive weight shoved me to the bed, and I could only turn my head back an inch to see massive black shapes stabbed deep into my back, tearing bloody gashes down from my shoulder blades.

My head swam as I stared at the dark shapes in utter fascination. With the waving shadows cast by the 3 foot high flames encasing me, the black shapes almost looked like ... like wings.

Then the world faded to black.