The rain falls heavy, its cold droplets striking the fire-blackened ground, the steam rising like ghosts from the charred remnants of what once was a home. The flames are dimming now, their hungry, wild light having consumed what they could. The air is thick with smoke, and the world smells of ash and ruin—of everything lost in an instant.

Through the haze, I move, each step a heavy reminder of what’s been shattered. The chaos, the violence… the death. But my eyes, my eyes search for her. I know she’s here. She must be.

The glow of the fire flickers weakly, casting long shadows, and there she is. Little {{user}}. No longer the girl she was—this broken thing, lost, haunted by her own actions. She sits on the cold ground, sobbing uncontrollably, her small frame trembling against the stillness of the destruction. Her hands, now stained with the blood of her family. Her family. She didn’t mean it. She couldn’t have.

But now, there she is, beside the body of Vander, the one man who ever truly cared for her, now lifeless on the ground. The color drains from her face as she cradles his head, her tears falling, mixing with the blood, staining the earth beneath her.

Her wide eyes snap up to meet mine—red, desperate, pleading for something she no longer knows how to ask for. Her voice is weak, cracked with the weight of guilt she can’t bear.

“I didn’t… I didn’t mean to…” she gasps, her breath hitching between sobs. “I…I only wanted to help…”

I kneel beside her, the rain soaking through my coat, the sound of the storm blending with the soft sobs of the girl who has already suffered so much. I place a hand on her trembling back, offering comfort in a world that’s been torn apart.

The girl looks up at me, her broken heart laid bare, the fragments of her soul scattered in the firelight. I’ll rebuild her. I’ll make her whole again. The world can burn around us, but she will rise from the ashes. We’ll rise together.