Excerpt:

I have been here so long that I have difficulty remembering what light looks like. There’s some peace in being devoured by darkness so dense that I can see nothing. There are no distractions or compassion or hope. Everything is simplified and uncomplicated. I am alone in a decrepit, dirty environment and feel rage so consuming that I yearn to break free, to be driven by it absolutely. I desire violence and the contented hollowness that comes with it. I remember the freedom and power, the heady scent of blood, the warmth of it on my hands. There’s something liberating in losing my conscience, my guilt. Nothing is left in me but wrath and the insatiable desire to kill.

I woke up screaming. There was barely time to register my nightmare about Darien before everything around me exploded. Fire coalesced in the air with no clear ground source and rose high above my head, growing far more swiftly than was natural. Flames licked the edges of my blanket, and I screamed anew, tossing it off of me and toward the inferno. Panicked, I quickly glanced around me to find a way out, but there was none. I was surrounded.