I dragged myself to my feet and stumbled toward the only place that felt like home.
It was just as I remembered.
The longhouse stood sturdy and strong, its wooden beams darkened by years of sun and smoke. Built by my own hands, it was sturdy and strong. Smoke curled lazily from the chimney. Neatly stacked wood rested beneath the shed roof. Goats grazed on the hillside, their bleating soft and familiar.
I imagined them inside—that other version of me, the one who hadn’t failed, who hadn’t destroyed everything. Zara. The children. Laughter around the hearth. Peace in the air.
I sank onto a smooth stone at the path’s edge, dropped my head into my hands, and wept.
Then—the day everything changed—rushed back with unrelenting clarity.
The smell of burning thatch. The screams. My arms wrapped around limp bodies. My children. Their blood. The sea of fire that devoured everything I had built.
And Zara…
I had blamedher.
The guilt clawed at me like a beast. How could I have ever accused her? How could I have not seen that I had unraveled it all?
Waves lapped gently against the nearby shore, and the wind carried the faint sound of bleating goats. I once took that melody of the mundane—the music of an ordinary life—for granted. I remembered chasing the children barefoot through the fields, milking the herd with sticky hands and laughter in the air.
Now… silence.
Now, only the ghosts of what had been.
Then—a touch.
Light. Familiar.
I opened my eyes.
Zara stood beside me.
Not the Zara of flesh and blood. Not the woman laughing in the longhouse behind me. ButmyZara. The ghost I had seen before. Only this time, she was more solid and radiant, as if the sun had crowned her with a halo.
She smiled, and it was like the clouds parted.
She could see me.
And I could finally seeher.
“I know you miss them,” she said softly, like the wind through pine.
I couldn’t speak for a moment. The sorrow strangled me. When I finally found my voice, it broke.
“I screwed everything up. I pushed you away when I should’ve held you closer. I saw only what I feared—and not what I had. One blink. One breath. And it was gone.”
Zara nodded, eyes full of that quiet strength I had always admired.
“It’s alright,” she said, her words simple but graceful. “We all make mistakes. But remember—you’re never truly alone.”
Tears streamed down my face.
“You’re the only one for me,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “Always were. Darkness with darkness. We were meant to burn as one flame.”
Zara reached out, her hand grazing my cheek, her thumb catching a tear. The touch was impossibly gentle—impossibly real.
“And we still are,” she said, her voice a haunting blend of ash and sunlight. “Even in the void. Even in the dark.”
