After the Fire

It took Riley a few seconds to realise she was utterly and completely lost.

The cold bit at her cheeks as she walked, her boots clicking in an uneven rhythm—one too heavy step, then a dragging shuffle. Her head throbbed, dull and slow. Not quite a hangover. Not like anything she recognised. Her limbs felt wrong somehow, like she was wearing someone else’s body, moving through syrup instead of air.

She didn’t remember drinking. Not really. But her body moved like it had, and the fog in her head made her wonder what she’d missed. There were flashes—music, voices, the heat of too many people in one room—but no clear memory of a glass in her hand, of laughter, of leaving.

Still, the shortcut made sense. Just past the old servo, a left through the chain-link gate and across the train tracks. She’d taken it a dozen times, maybe more, whenever she was coming back from this part of town. It was instinct more than decision. Familiar.

The tracks shimmered under the glow of a streetlamp. She stepped carefully onto the first rail, balancing for a moment. Then she moved forward—

And staggered.

Her foot didn’t land where it should have. The second rail wasn’t there.

She turned, confused, blinking hard. The gate she’d come through—rusted metal, sagging open—was gone.

A hum filled the space around her, thick and low, like the air itself was holding its breath. No wind. No cars in the distance. Even the streetlamp overhead had changed—cooler now, casting a faint white-blue light instead of the warm, familiar orange. She could have sworn it had always been sodium-yellow.

The street ahead looked right. But not.

The angles were too clean. The shadows stretched the wrong way.

She turned back toward the tracks.

The first rail was gone, too.

No sign of rails, no groove in the gravel—just blank earth where steel should’ve been.

Riley stepped away from where the tracks should have been, moving slowly, like her legs were filled with wet sand. The street ahead was familiar in layout—row houses, trimmed hedges, power lines overhead—but everything was too still, too clean. There were no bins out for collection. No porch lights left on. Not even the faint rustle of leaves in the wind.

There was no wind.

She glanced at her phone. Black screen. No buzz, no clock, no sign of life. She held the power button anyway, just in case, but nothing happened. She slipped it back into her jacket pocket and walked.

A dog barked once, distantly. It sounded muffled, like it came from underground.

The further she went, the more the details pulled at her. The corner store that had been boarded up for years looked open again, its sign newly painted, windows spotless. A “Now Hiring” flyer curled slightly on the glass. She reached for the door out of instinct—but the windows showed only black behind the glass. Flat and depthless. Like a painted set.

She moved on.

On the next block, she passed a house with the porch light on and paused. Her heart skipped. She knew that house. Knew the worn sandstone steps, the wonky letterbox with the peeling sticker—#12A. That used to be Eli’s place. Before the fire. But this version of it looked untouched—just like it had in high school, before the smoke stains, before everything ended. Like nothing bad had ever happened here. Her feet carried her up the path before she realised what she was doing.

The door creaked open a little, unprompted.

Inside, the air smelled like lavender and dust. The furniture was wrong—her grandmother’s old couch was here. Her own handwriting was on a grocery list by the door. Her throat tightened.

She had never lived here.

But this house remembered her.

The floorboards creaked beneath Riley’s feet as she stepped into the hallway. The layout tugged at her memory—half-remembered sleepovers, the smell of toasted cheese, Eli’s voice bouncing off the walls. But none of those things had happened in this version of the house. Not really.

The lights were on, but dim. The edges of the room seemed to blur if she looked too long, like parts of it were still deciding whether to exist. A photograph on the wall caught her eye. It showed her and Eli, arms slung around each other, both laughing. She’d never seen the photo before. She was sure of it. Her hair was too long. His was shorter what she ever rememgered seeing. In the corner, someone had written a date—but it was smudged beyond reading.

She moved toward the living room.

A sideboard lined the hall wall, and on top of it sat a scattering of framed photos. Riley paused. Her breath caught in her throat. One photo showed Eli older than he had ever been—mid-twenties, maybe, hair longer now, dressed in a graduation robe he could never have worn. Another was of them together, sitting in front of a bonfire, smiling like nothing could touch them. But those moments had never happened. Not in the life she remembered. Not after the fire.

Beyond the photos, the room opened into the lounge, where soft light pooled across the carpet. Something tugged at her—an unease, a quiet invitation. It took a moment to realise what held her attention.

It was the mirror.

Not because it was out of place, but because it was too familiar. It had always been there in Eli’s house, above the fireplace, slightly tilted like it had never been properly mounted. But now it seemed to glow faintly, drawing her gaze like a sound she couldn’t quite hear.

The mirror above the fireplace didn’t reflect the space behind her. It showed something else: a sterile room, washed in white light. A hospital bed. Machines. Monitors. Someone—herself—lying motionless beneath a sheet.

She staggered back.

The room flickered, just for a second. The couch became a hospital chair. The carpet dissolved into linoleum. Then it settled again, back into the cosy, familiar falsehood.

“You weren’t supposed to see that yet,” said a voice behind her.

She turned. A boy stood in the doorway, maybe twelve or thirteen. Too young to be Eli, but something in his posture reminded her of him. He looked at her with quiet sympathy, head tilted.

“Who are you?” she asked.

He tilted his head, almost smiling. “I’m someone who remembers you.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“No,” he said. “But it’s true.”

She turned toward the mirror. A horible thought crossed her mind. What if...

“You’re not dead,” he said softly, as if hearing the thought. “Not yet anyway. But you’re not awake, either.”

Riley looked back at her reflection—at the herself lying in the bed, pale and still, a dark purple bruise blooming along her temple.

“Is this real?” she asked.

“Real enough,” he said. “For now.”

Riley sat on the edge of the couch, her fingers curling around a cushion’s worn seam. The silence around her wasn’t empty—it pressed in from all sides, heavy and waiting.

The boy remained near the mirror, still and watchful.

Riley glanced up at him again. “If I’m not dead, then how do I go back?”

He looked at her, his voice quiet. “You lie down. You stop holding on to this place.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you never will. You’ll forget what came before. Forget why you wanted to wake up. Forget it all.”

She stood slowly. Her legs ached. Her chest felt tight.

She turned toward the mirror. The hospital room was darker now. A figure sat beside the bed—blurry, hunched. Someone waiting.

Riley’s breath caught. She didn’t know who it was. Didn't recognse the body shape. There was something familiar though. Something she couldn't place.

She stepped toward the mirror and placed her palm against the glass. It was warm.

Then, slowly, she returned to the couch and lay down—That something niggled at her. For a moment there, she thought that she did recognise the person beside the bed.

But that was impossible. The fire had made sure of that when it had taken him from her far too soon.

But she had to be sure.

The boy stepped back into the shadows. Within moments he was gone as if he had never been there.

The room began to hum—soft at first, then fading to silence.

She closed her eyes. Willed her self to wake up, to leave this place.

The first thing she felt was weight.

Not the weight of fear, or pain—but of her body. Dense. Real. Her limbs tingled, slow to wake. Her chest rose, then fell. Air filled her lungs like it hadn’t in a long time.

The second thing was sound.

A monitor beeped, steady and slow. Somewhere close, someone breathed—uneven, anxious, familiar.

She opened her eyes.

The ceiling above was dull white. Fluorescent light pooled against a discoloured tile. Machines clicked softly around her.

She turned her head.

And saw him.

Eli.

He was slouched in a plastic chair, elbows on his knees, face in his hands. His hair was longer now, just as it had been in the photo. His jaw covered in uneven stubble. Impossible, but it was unmistakably him. Her Eli.

Riley blinked hard. Her lips parted, but no words came.

As if sensing the shift, he looked up.

At first, his expression didn’t change. Then his eyes widened—shocked, then hopeful, then suddenly full. He whispered her name like a breath he’d been holding for too long.

"Riley."

She tried to sit up. Her body protested.

"You’re really here," she rasped. "Alive"

"Of couse I'm here. Where else would I be?" He smiled hesitantly, a hint of confustion behind his words.

She didn’t ask how. Or why. Or what it meant.

None of that mattered.

She just reached for his hand and held it in her own.