Chloe began to shake her head violently, her hands flying to her ears as if she could physically block the words. “No… no…”

“You don’t remember it,” I continued, refusing to let her look away, forcing the blinding light of truth into the dark corners of her amnesia. “Your mind broke to protect you from the terror. You blocked it out.

But I remember. I remember waking up. I remember crawling through the suffocating gray smoke. I remember finding you screaming in the closet. And I remember the ceiling coming down.”

Tears began to streak through the makeup on Chloe’s face.

“There was nowhere to go,” I whispered, the microphone catching the raw emotion in my throat. “So I laid my body over yours.

I pinned you to the floor, and I took the flames onto my own back. I burned for ten minutes, Chloe. I melted, so your skin could stay flawless. And I hid my body in heavy clothes every single day for twelve years, suffering in the heat, letting you call me a freak, so you would never, ever have to remember the smell of your own burning room.”

I dropped the microphone. It hit the concrete with a loud, final thud.

The silence that followed was the sound of a world ending…