**Kait**

Fire and searing pain. Flashes of blinding light and an earth-shattering sound nearly break me. Black and silver cross my vision, blurs of color, vague images with no consistency. All I can hear now is my own screaming, my voice raw and on fire.

I drop to my knees, gasping for air and finding none there. For a brief moment, panic takes hold, and I grasp the grass, my life flashing before me.

“Kait!” I hear a woman’s voice, but my lungs scream for air, ...