Fire does not arrive loudly.
It whispers first.
A faint crackle in the walls.
A cough of smoke hiding in the corners of the ceiling.
A heat that feels like breath against the skin.
By the time you understand what it wants, it already owns you.
I was seventeen the night my house burned down.
Seventeen, barefoot, half-asleep, my hair loose and my heart still innocent enough to believe homes were permanent things.
The clock on the wall read 2:11 a.m.
I remember because I stared at it while the smoke crept under my bedroom door like something alive.
At first, I thought I was dreaming, Then I heard my mother scream. It wasn't loud. It wasn't dramatic.
It was the sound of someone realizing there is no time left.
"Mira!" she called. "Mira, wake up!"
I jumped out of bed, my chest already tight, my throat burning. The air tasted wrong bitter, thick, angry. When I opened my door, heat slapped my face so hard I stumbled back.
The hallway was on fire.
Not flickering.
Not starting.
On fire.
Flames climbed the walls like they were being chased, orange and violent, swallowing family photos, memories, laughter. The ceiling cracked and dropped sparks like burning rain.
"Papa!" I screamed.
No answer.
"Myra!" My younger sister's voice came from somewhere behind the fire. Crying. Choking. Small.
I tried to run forward.
The heat pushed me back, Someone grabbed me from behind, strong arms, shaking hands.
My brother.
"Don't!" he shouted. "You'll die!"
His face was smeared with soot, eyes wild, hair singed. He looked older in that moment. Terrified. Desperate. Human.
"Myra is inside!" I screamed, fighting him. "Mama is inside!"
Another explosion cracked through the house. The sound of glass shattering. The sound of endings.
He dragged me backward.
I remember screaming his name over and over.
"Eli! Eli, please!"
The roof collapsed And the screaming stopped.
———
The neighbors said the fire spread too fast.The police said it was faulty wiring.
The doctors said I was lucky But luck is a cruel word for a girl who watched her entire family turn into smoke.
My mother.
My father.
My little sister.
Gone.
And my brother?
Missing.
They searched for him for days. Then weeks. Then months.
They told me maybe he ran.
Maybe he didn't make it out.
Maybe he didn't want to be found.
I stopped listening. Because grief teaches you one thing very well, Silence is louder than lies.
⸻
Five years passed. Five years of survival, not living.
At twenty two, I had learned how to disappear in plain sight.
I worked at a small café on the edge of the city, black uniforms, burned coffee, polite smiles I didn't feel. I rented a one room apartment with peeling paint and windows that refused to open fully.
I slept lightly. Fire does that to you.
Every night, I dreamed in orange and red. Every night, I woke up choking.
People said time heals. They lied.
Time doesn't heal, it teaches you how to carry wounds without dropping them.
⸻
The night I crossed paths with my brother again, I didn't know it.
I only knew the city felt wrong.
The café closed late that night. Rain soaked the streets, reflecting neon lights and secrets. I pulled my jacket tighter around myself, head down, moving fast.
That was when a black car stopped beside me.
Slow, Deliberate.
The window rolled down.
"Miss," a man said. "You dropped this."
I looked.
It was my scarf, I hadn't dropped it.
Before I could answer, my body froze.
Because I felt it, That pressure in the air.
That shift.
Someone was watching me.
From the back seat, a man leaned forward into the light.
Sharp jaw.
Cold eyes.
A scar cutting through his eyebrow like a memory that refused to heal.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Not because he was dangerous. But because I knew him.
Even after five years. Even after fire and silence and death. Those eyes had once looked at me across a burning hallway.
Those hands had once dragged me away from flames. My breath left my body.
"Eli.?" I whispered.
His face didn't change.But something in his eyes broke.
Just for a second.
Then he leaned back into the shadows and said, voice low and lethal.
"Drive."
The car pulled away. Leaving me shaking in the rain.
And somewhere deep inside my bones, I understood something terrifying.
My brother was alive, And whatever he had become Fire followed him.