Her lungs were being consumed by flames and turning into ashes. All she could breathe in was smoke and all she could breathe out was soot and the remnants of her charred insides. Eventually Wen was going to have nothing left and wind up as a corpse in the crumbled remains of her home. Coughing, (except she knew that was a bad sign because she was wasting oxygen, she was wasting precious air, wasting her [i]life[/i]), Wen huddled in the corner of her apartment.

It was the only part of her house left that hadn't been swallowed by flames or broken to pieces from the destruction. Internally, she laughed at the fact that the only reason she was still alive was because her computer desk was placed diagonally in the corner instead of occupying it. One day's rearranging whim turned out to prolong her life what measly hours (or maybe minutes, all the smoke was making her dizzy) in the end. Wen's computer, saving her life yet again.

Sitting there, slowly being burnt to death, Wen wondered how she hadn't noticed the fire before it was too late. Putting the computer desk and all her software facing the corner away from the door and windows was probably why. The irony of the situation made her sneer, not that anybody could see it. Inevitably killed by her computers and living longer because of them, hilarious.

Actually, sneering was a bad idea and she grimaced. Wen's lips (and her skin and her hair and [i]everything else[/i]) were cracked, stiff, and burned. The pain made her lean back against the cracking wall. Hissing, she leaned away from it. The paint was melting from the temperatures and dripping down, sticking painfully to her shirt and plastering it to her back like wax. Heh, [i]plaster[/i]. She wheezed a bit, maybe from the pun or the smoke.

Everything was slowly burning and melting around her (like her home, her life, and herself). Wen, gripping her knees and curled into a ball, wished her inevitable death would hurry itself up. She hadn't even opened her eyes from when she first crawled into the corner. All she could rely on were her senses of sound, smell, and touch, but it was more than enough. They gave her a clear enough picture in her head.

Drip, drip, plop: paint oozing down from the walls, settling into blobs on the floor. Creaking and groaning all around her: the snapping of support beams in the walls. She could smell the flames, like spice and smoke (and glass and plastic and granite and wood and electronics, everything she had). Crackle, pop: Wen's wooden desk, turning to kindling in front of her, radiating heat. A fire in a fire. She wanted the last time she saw her apartment to be when it was still intact and beautiful, but the picture in her head was worse than the reality. It had to be.

Her ears pricked up and the hairs on her arms and legs singed. The ceiling made a creaking sound; it seemed like it was about to collapse on top of her. Finally, Wen sighed in relief. A stop to all the torture. It surprised her that she hadn't died from lack of oxygen yet. Steeling herself for her last moments alive, she snapped open her eyes and the ceiling collapsed down on top of her just as her last breath left her body.

---

Wen felt nothing. It wasn't the nothing she felt only moments before. It was the nothing of peace and health she felt currently, not the nothing of there being nothing left and her life being drained from her at an agonizing pace. No, it was the nothing of grass against her back and the warm (not heat, not [i]burning[/i]) sunshine on her skin.

This couldn't be her next life. Anyway, for all she had thought, Wen was supposed to end up reincarnated as a baby or a tree or something. Not as herself. It was a nice surprise though. Eyes still closed, Wen realized how much she didn't want to open them. The darkness behind her lids were comforting in a way that what she last glimpsed moments ago would never be. There wasn't actually a difference between the inky blackness and the flaming brightness; they both blinded her from what she didn't want to see. It was just that the dark was cooling and wasn't going to be imprinted in her mind for a long time.

Her hands gripped the grass beneath her; if wherever she was had grass, surely it couldn't be too hostile. The place was nice though, even if Wen hadn't seen it yet. The cool grass against her bare skin; the fresh breeze ruffling her hair; actually being able to feel and smell something other than her burning home. It was time to get up though. Couldn't just stay on the grass forever.

Brown eyes slowly opened and Wen could see the sky. It was purple and blue and a little orange. Nice sky to wake up to, even if it was strange. Colors like that in the sky that weren't at sunset said a lot about wherever she was because it certainly wasn't Earth. Maybe Wen should be worried about that, but hey. New lives brought people places they've never seen; who wasn't to say she got lucky and landed in a different world?

Sitting upright, Wen gazed at her new surroundings. She noticed the other people on the same hill as her, asking about what was happening and where all of them were. Her movements were back to normal now as well. No more jerky movements and third degree burns on her skin like Wen had expected. She wasn't even wearing the same clothes as she was when she was dying which was a relief. Didn't want to scare people off with the smell of burnt cotton and polyester like she [i]survived[/i] a fire. Instead, Wen wore her [url=http://www.shefinds.com/files/2013/10/8285292-260x400.jpeg]black drape front faux leather jacket[/url], tight black jeans, [url=http://thumbs3.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/m8YQGYwNas6GOSEWdY_8B8w.jpg]black calf length buckled boots[/url], and her much-loved [url=http://www.polyvore.com/cgi/img-thing?.out=jpg&size=l&tid=85129149]galaxy top[/url]. If she had to say so, she was glad to be wearing her favorite clothes.

Getting off the ground, she patted the dirt off of herself and made her way to the cluster of people. Wen admired the surroundings along the way from the new vantage point. If she looked, she could see a river and the floating islands with castles on top of them, suspended in the air. Distantly wondering how the laws of science applied to the new plant, she stepped into the little circle of worried people and said nothing. Wen was content with letting them get the worries out before devising a plan and calmly thought back to everything that happened (this new world, her apartment burning down, her new life and her death).