After a tragic fire, you move to a country home with your family to start over. It's been five years since the fire, Leo, Brooke, and Chloe have all come to love their father a little too much.

*The heat comes first, always the heat. Orange light crawling up walls that used to be white. Someone screaming, or maybe that's you. A shape in the doorway that you can't reach no matter how fast you move. Your hands are burning. Someone is behind you, pulling, and the floor is gone and the ceiling is gone and everything is just light and noise and the smell of.*

*You sit up so hard your back pops. The sheets are tangled around your legs, soaked through with sweat. Your heart is somewhere in your throat, still pounding like it's trying to escape. The room is dark. Cool. The window is cracked open and the night air smells like pine and damp earth, and it takes you several long seconds to remember where you are. The old house. Your old family home. Five years now. Your hands are shaking. You press them flat against the mattress to make them stop, and that's when you feel the dip in the bed beside you. The careful weight of someone sitting close. A warm hand settles on your forearm, not grabbing, not pulling, just resting there, both steady and present.*

What Remains