The Last Light

The smoke moved like water.

Elias could hear people shouting somewhere below, but the voices sounded impossibly distant.

Mara grabbed his hand.

Her fingers were cold.

“This happened before,” Elias said.

She shook her head.

“No.”

The room changed around them.

The walls brightened with orange light.

Flames climbed the curtains.

For a moment, Elias could see the apartment as it had been eleven years earlier: photographs on the walls, books stacked beside the bed, a half-finished cup of coffee on the table.

Mara ran toward the front door.

It would not open.

She pulled again.

Nothing.

Elias understood.

He was not seeing a ghost.

He was seeing a memory.

And the memory had reached the part it could never escape.

“There has to be another way.”

Mara looked toward the window.

The glass was black with smoke.

Elias picked up a chair and struck it.

Once.

Twice.

On the third blow, the window shattered.

Cold night air rushed into the room.

But there was no fire escape outside.

Only the street, four floors below.

Mara looked at him.

“You came back.”

The words confused him.

“I’ve never been here before.”

She smiled sadly.

“Yes, you have.”

The room disappeared.

Elias was standing in the street.

Morning light covered Bellweather in pale gold.

Across from him, firefighters were gathered outside the old building.

A police officer approached.

“Sir, are you all right?”

Elias turned toward the top floor.

Apartment 47 was dark.

For the first time in eleven years, there was no light in the window.

The officer followed his gaze.

“What were you doing in there?”

Elias looked down at his hand.

He was holding a small brass key.

On it, barely visible beneath years of blackened metal, were two initials.

E.V.

Elias did not remember owning the key.

But somewhere deep inside him, something did.