All Chapters of The Burning: Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

The air stung my throat, thick with smoke and the bitter tang of gunpowder, making my eyes water. New Haven’s walls loomed in front of us, but they weren’t the sanctuary I’d imagined. From a distance, it looked like salvation—rusted and battered, sure—but still standing. Still there. But as we got closer, the cracks started to show. The walls, once tall and imposing, were now riddled with bullet holes, blackened by fire, and the gate hung awkwardly from its hinges. The place was crumbling, barely holding on. Ben stirred weakly in my arms, his body heavy and limp. His breathing was shallow, each breath weaker than the last. I tightened my grip on him, determined to keep going even though my legs were screaming in protest. We were so close. I wasn’t going to let him die now. Not after everything. Behind us, the small group of stragglers who had helped carry Ben this far moved quietly, their faces drawn and hollow. We had barely escaped the Scorchers’ assault, slipping through

I stood frozen in the dim light of the settlement, still processing. Chloe—my sister, my *dead* sister—was alive, had stood right in front of me. But she wasn’t the Chloe I remembered. No..... She seemed harder now, colder, with nothing but survival etched into her sharp features. The spark that once made her Chloe—the laughter, the warmth—was long gone, replaced by something dark and unrecognizable. Something lifeless... I watched as she disappeared into the shadows, her words still ringing in my ears: 'Sisters don’t mean much in this world anymore.' I wanted to scream after her, to demand answers. But I stood there, rooted to the spot, my mind spinning. How could she be alive? How could she have survived The Burning? My heart ached with the memory of the last time I saw her, screaming for me as the flames swallowed our world. I had thought she was dead. I had mourned her. And now, here she was, leading this crumbling settlement like a ghost from my past. The C

Chloe’s eyes, cold and calculating, never left mine.. The fires had died down, but the air was still thick with smoke and tension. I could feel the weight of everything unspoken between us—the years of separation, the choices we’d both made, the people we had become. The sister I had once known was long gone, replaced by someone harder, someone who had done things I couldn’t even begin to understand. “You don’t get it, do you?” Chloe’s voice was sharp, cutting through the heavy silence. “You still think there’s a right way to survive in this world. But there isn’t. There’s only survival, and the choices you make to keep breathing.” I crossed my arms, trying to keep my voice steady. “I know survival, Chloe. I’ve been out there, fighting every day just like you. But I didn’t—” I stopped myself, biting back the words that threatened to spill out. 'I didn’t become like you.' She raised an eyebrow, a slight smirk playing on her lips. “Didn’t what?!! Didn’t make hard choices? Didn’

Thhe smell of antiseptic and sweat hit me the moment I stepped into the clinic. It wasn’t much more than a hastily erected tent with a few cots and a couple of shelves lined with ragged bandages and half-empty bottles of medication. The moans of the injured filled the air, mixing with the low hum of voices and the occasional clatter of metal. It took me back—back to long nights in the ER, back to the controlled chaos of saving lives on the fly. But this wasn’t the ER. This was New Haven, and we were ALL hanging on by a thread. I forced myself to swallow the knot in my throat and stepped deeper into the tent. One of the settlement’s guards, a young woman no older than twenty, sat on the edge of a cot, clutching her arm. Blood seeped through the makeshift bandage wrapped around her forearm, and her face was pale, her lips trembling. “Hey,” I said gently, kneeling beside her. “Let me take a look at that.” She flinched at first, like she wasn’t used to someone offering help.

I couldn’t sleep. The weight of everything pressed down on me—Chloe’s cold words echoing in my mind, the tension in the settlement, the gnawing feeling that something deeper was wrong. I tossed and turned on the small cot in the corner of the clinic, listening to the soft rustle of the wind outside. The fires had died down, leaving the night dark and eerily quiet. Too quiet, especially for a place like this. Ben lay a few feet away, his chest rising and falling steadily now that he was mostly recovered. He was still pale, but the strength was coming back to him, slowly but surely. Part of me wanted to wake him up, to talk through everything that was swirling in my head. But I knew his answer already: We needed to leave. But I... I wasn’t ready for that yet. I couldn’t just leave Chloe behind, no matter what she had become. She was still my sister, and some small, stubborn part of me believed I could reach her. That I could help her see what she was doing. But the more I tried to co