Elena Vasquez

The grass was cold and unforgiving under my bare feet, each blade a tiny needle pricking my skin as I stood there, rooted, staring at the crater where our supposed sanctuary had collapsed into itself. The air was thick with the acrid bite of smoke, the kind that clings to your throat and burns your eyes, refusing to let you forget. The estate, Alexander’s glass-and-steel monument to his empire, was gone, reduced to a smoldering maw of twisted metal and charred wood. Flames still ...