Jason sank to his knees as smoke swallowed the sky, the color of it an angry crimson, like the world itself was bleeding. The house before him—her house—collapsed in slow motion, boards shrieking and crumbling as if mourning their own destruction.
His chest caved with a ragged sob, the kind that seemed to come from somewhere deeper than his lungs, deeper even than his body. Everything around him blurred—faces, sirens, flames—until all that remained was the ash.
He should have looked away. Should have closed his eyes.
But he didn't. He couldn't.
The paramedics moved solemnly through the smoke, their silhouettes stark against the firelit haze. The stretchers were draped in white sheets—too still, too final. He counted them without meaning to.
One... two... three.
Jason didn't flinch. His heart was hollowed out, like something had been carved from within him with a hot blade.
It should've been him.
Not Selena.
"No," he whispered hoarsely, his voice splintering. "No, it can't be."
He stumbled backward, eyes wide, brain refusing to bridge the gap between what he saw and what he believed. Reality came in slow waves, each one more unbearable than the last. And then he was moving—sprinting toward the stretchers with a desperate, raw urgency. A rescuer with no one left to save.
"Selena," he choked, reaching trembling hands toward the nearest form.
The heat of the fire still lingered in the air, as if the world itself was scorched. He lifted the sheet with shaking fingers. What stared back at him was no longer her face—just blackened skin, unrecognizable. His mind rejected it. It can't be her. It isn't.
Until he saw the bracelet.
A delicate silver chain with a tiny sapphire charm. A gift from her twelfth birthday. She'd never taken it off.
His breath caught. A sound escaped him—guttural, broken.
It was her.
A scream built in his throat but never made it out. Just silence. Just pain.
A figure approached from the smoke—his housekeeper. She rushed to his side, her face pale with fear and recognition. Without speaking, she knelt beside him and pulled him into her arms, wrapping him in warmth he couldn't feel. He pressed his hands over his eyes, trying to block out the image, as if darkness alone could erase it.
She held him as he trembled, as the world cracked open beneath him.
But then something snapped.
Jason pulled away, breath hitching, stumbling to his feet like a man possessed. "No—there's something—I have to—"
He bolted toward the remains of the house, ignoring the shouts behind him. His legs moved on instinct, driven by a single, desperate purpose.
There has to be something left.
The flames had quieted, but the wreckage still smoked. He waded through the rubble, coughing, shielding his face from the heat. And then—half-buried under a scorched beam—he found it.
A photo album.
Blackened at the edges, brittle and wet with soot. He pried it free with shaking hands. Inside, the pages clung to each other, charred and torn. Some photographs were already lost—just outlines and ash. But a few had survived. Selena's smile. Her messy handwriting on the corner of a Polaroid. One picture of the two of them, arms slung around each other, grinning like fools.
Jason collapsed to his knees again, cradling the album like it was sacred.
In the ruins of everything, this was all that remained of her.
And still… it wasn't enough.