“MUM!!” I woke up choking.
Not slowly. Not gently. It rips me out of sleep like something is trying to drag me back under before I can understand what’s happening. My chest burns, my throat feels raw, and for a second I don’t even know where I am. Then I smell it.
Smoke.
Thick. Suffocating. Everywhere.
My eyes snap open and the room is wrong. The walls are glowing, flickering in violent shades of orange and red, shadows shaking like they’re alive. The air is heavy, pressing down on me, stealing every breath before I can even take it properly. My heart starts pounding so hard it hurts.
“No. No no no”
I throw the blanket off and stumble out of bed, my legs unsteady, my head spinning. The heat hits me immediately, wrapping around my skin like something burning through me, not just around me.
“Mum” My voice comes out broken, barely there. I try again, louder this time, but it doesn’t sound like me. It sounds small. Useless. Like it’s already too late.
There’s no answer.
There’s never been silence like this in our house. Never. It’s wrong. It’s so wrong it makes my chest tighten in a way that has nothing to do with the smoke.
I rush to the door, my hands shaking so badly I almost miss the handle. The moment I touch it, I flinch.
It’s hot.
Too hot.
For a second I hesitate, fear locking me in place, but then something inside me snaps and I kick the door down, it came apart like paper.
The hallway is drowning in smoke.
It spills toward me like a wave, thick and black, swallowing everything beyond a few steps. I can barely see. I can barely breathe.
“Mum!”
This time I scream it. It tears out of my throat, desperate and sharp, echoing into nothing.
No answer. No footsteps. Nothing.
Panic hits me all at once, violent and overwhelming, crashing through me so hard my knees almost give out. I force myself forward anyway, one step, then another, coughing, choking, my eyes burning as tears start streaming down my face.
The house doesn’t look like my house anymore.
It looks like something breaking apart. Flames lick up the walls further down the corridor, spreading fast, hungry, devouring everything in their path. The heat is unbearable now, suffocating, like I’m being pushed back with every step I take forward.
“Mum please…”
My voice cracks completely this time. I can’t hear her. I can’t see her.
And then I do.
At the end of the hallway, through the smoke and the fire, I see her.
For a second my brain refuses to understand what I’m looking at. It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t fit into anything real.
She’s on the floor. She’s not moving.
The fire is too close. Too close to her. Too close to everything.
“No.”
The word falls out of me before I even realize I’ve said it.
“No no no!”
I try to run to her, but the heat slams into me like a wall. It’s unbearable, searing, forcing me back as I reach out like I can somehow close the distance anyway.
“Mum!”
I scream it until my throat burns, until my voice breaks into something unrecognizable.
She doesn’t move. She doesn’t answer. She doesn’t look at me. Something inside me shatters.
I try again, pushing forward, ignoring the way my skin feels like it’s burning, ignoring the way my lungs are giving out. I don’t care. I don’t care if it hurts. I don’t care about anything except getting to her.
“I’m here, I’m here…”
But I can’t reach her.
I can’t.
The fire spreads faster, louder, swallowing the space between us, cutting me off completely. It roars, violent and consuming, like it’s alive, like it’s decided this is where it ends.
My vision blurs, my body weakens, and the realization hits me all at once.
I’m not getting to her. I’m not saving her.
I’m not…
A sob rips out of me so hard it feels like it tears something in my chest.
“No, please, please don’t, please…”
I don’t even know what I’m begging for anymore.
For the fire to stop. For her to move. For this to not be real.
Anything.
Everything.
But nothing changes. She doesn’t move. And I’m still standing there, useless, watching.
That’s when I feel it. Not the heat. Not the smoke. Something else. A presence.
I freeze.
Slowly, painfully, I lift my head. Through the smoke, beyond the flames, I see them.
Shapes.
Figures.
Standing where no one should be standing. They’re not running. They’re not trying to help. They’re just… watching.
My heart stops. That’s when I realized this isn’t an accident. The thought comes out of nowhere, sharp and clear, cutting through everything else.
“This isn’t…”
The floor shifts beneath me, my body giving out completely as the smoke overwhelms me. My vision darkens at the edges, everything collapsing inward, the fire, the hallway, my mother-
Everything.
The last thing I feel is something grabbing me.
Not gentle. Not panicked. Controlled. And then…Nothing.
For years, I told myself it was a fire. A tragedy. Something that just… happened. But I remember now. The way she didn’t move. The way they stood there. The way no one tried to save her. And the worst part isn’t that she died. It’s that somewhere, deep down… I knew I wasn’t meant to save her.
I was meant to survive.