The first thing you notice is the smell.

Not strong at first, just wrong.

It threads into your sleep, something bitter and dry, until your eyes snap open in the dark. For a second, everything is still. The cabin is quiet except for the soft breathing of the others, bodies sprawled across the floor in uneven rows.

Then you see it.

A faint orange flicker crawling along the far wall.

Your chest tightens. “Hey-” your voice comes out rough. “Hey, wake up.”

No one stirs.

The flicker grows. It licks higher, sharper now, shadows stretching and twisting across the wooden beams. The smell thickens into smoke.

“Wake up!” you say louder, scrambling to your feet.

Someone coughs. Another groans. The air is changing fast. Hotter, harder to breathe.

Across the room, Lottie Matthews is already sitting up.

You don’t remember seeing her wake.

She’s staring straight at the wall where the flames are spreading, her face lit gold and red, eyes wide but not panicked. Focused, like she’s been expecting this.

“Lottie—” you start.

“It’s happening,” she says quietly.

There’s no time to ask what she means.

A beam cracks above you, sharp and violent, and suddenly everyone is awake at once- shouting, coughing, scrambling over each other. The fire surges like it’s been waiting, racing up the walls, devouring everything dry enough to take.

“Get out!” someone screams.

You drop to your knees, the smoke already thick near the ceiling. It burns your throat, your eyes. You can barely see.

“Lottie!” you shout again, reaching blindly.

Your hand finds her wrist.

She doesn’t pull away—instead, she grips your hand tightly, grounding, real.

“This way,” you say, even though you can barely tell where the door is anymore.

The room is chaos. Girls are crying, tripping, dragging each other toward the exit. The heat is unbearable now, pressing against your skin, curling the air.

Another crack, louder this time, and something collapses behind you. Sparks burst forward, scattering like fireflies gone wrong.

You flinch, pulling Lottie closer.

“We have to go, now!”

“I know,” she says, but her voice is strange. Calm. Certain.

You finally see it: the door, half-obscured by smoke and bodies pushing through it. Cold air spills in from outside, thin but real.

“Come on,” you urge, tugging her forward.

For a second, she resists.

You turn back, heart hammering.

Lottie isn’t looking at the door.

She’s looking at the fire.

Not with fear, but with something else. Something deeper. Like she’s listening.

“Lottie,” you say, sharper now. “We have to go!”

Her gaze shifts to you.

And just like that, the moment breaks.

She nods once.

Together, you push forward, shoving through the crush of bodies, through the heat and the smoke and the noise. The doorway gets closer, closer-

Then suddenly you’re outside.

You stumble into the snow, dragging in a lungful of freezing air that feels like knives and relief all at once. Around you, the others spill out too, coughing, crying, collapsing into the cold.

Behind you, the cabin roars.

Flames tear through the roof, devouring it from the inside out, sparks flying up into the night sky like something alive trying to escape.