The rain had been falling since morning. Not a storm, not a drizzle—just that steady, gray kind that makes the world feel slow and tired. A black car rolled up the long gravel drive, its tires crackling over loose stones, water streaking down the windows like tears. It stopped in front of the orphanage.
The building loomed like an old breath held too long. Stone walls stained with time, windows shuttered from within. No light flickered behind the glass.
The passenger door opened.
An eight year old boy stepped out. He was Isaac.
He stood still for a moment, his thin frame soaked in seconds. His suitcase was small. His eyes were quieter than the rain.
He didn't knock. The front door creaked open on its own as if the house had been waiting.
The moment he crossed the threshold, the warmth of the air hit him—thick, musty, and too still. Somewhere deep in the hall, a child coughed. Another whispered. Then silence again.
Children peeked from behind banisters and doorframes. Eyes wide. Some curious. Some wary.
Isaac walked slowly, his shoes squeaking. He didn't return the stares. He just took in the tall ceilings, the long corridors, the way the walls seemed to lean in.
The doors creaked behind him like sighs.
⸻
He wasn't like the others.
He didn't run. Didn't chatter. He sat in the corners of rooms, barely noticed until someone turned and found his gaze already there.
He didn't smile.
During outdoor playtime, the children scattered in the dying autumn light, chasing balls or giggling over secrets. Isaac stood near the wall, hands in pockets, his face unreadable.
That was when Mira approached.
She wasn't the loudest girl, nor the prettiest. But there was a brightness in her that made people softer when she passed.
"Hi," she said, offering him a piece of chalk. "You can draw with us if you want."
Isaac didn't take the chalk. But he looked at her. Really looked.
And in that instant, it was like something inside him settled.
She turned away soon, rejoining the others. But Isaac stayed still, watching her like she was something sacred. Like a hymn he didn't know the words to.
Later that night, he sat at the window of the dormitory, the chalk in his hand.
⸻
Evening had fallen. The children had gone back inside after playtime. Mira sat alone beneath a tree, holding the same piece of chalk she'd offered to Isaac—the one he never took.
"Everything okay?"
The voice was Jonas's—soft, familiar.
He sat beside her, the way he always did. Not too close, but close enough to feel safe.
"That new boy… Isaac," Mira said quietly. "He's kind of strange, isn't he?"
Jonas looked up at the sky. "Everyone here comes with some kind of wound, Mira. Some just… bleed in silence."
Mira gave a small nod.
"But you," Jonas said with a faint smile, "you're different. You're the light in this place. Don't let the darkness take that from you."
And for the first time that day… Mira smiled.
But not far away, from a narrow upstairs window—
Isaac was watching them.
___________
The orphanage didn't sleep easily.
Isaac woke to sounds the others didn't seem to hear—whispers, too soft to follow. Children's voices, repeating something in an old tongue. Not playful. Not kind.
He lay still in the dark, breath shallow.
Then he got up.
On the floor beneath his bed, he scratched something—carefully, rhythmically. Symbols. Lines. Circles. He didn't know what they meant. But they felt right.
And Mira's name was there too.
Sometimes, he drew her face on the last page of his journal. Over and over, until the paper tore.
One night, when he rose to refill his water, he saw her.
Not Mira.
Elva.
She stood at the end of the hallway, a long silhouette where the candlelight didn't reach. Her face pale and knowing, her smile small and too still. She didn't blink.
She didn't speak.
She just watched.
And then she was gone.
⸻
The next morning, Elva summoned him.
They met in the chapel—a room unused for worship, with dust-coated pews and stained glass that filtered no light.
She held something in her hands. Wrapped in cloth. Heavy.
"A gift," she said.
Isaac didn't reach for it.
She pressed it into his arms anyway. "Some boys," she murmured, "are born to carry more than others."
He looked at her. The way she stood. The way her voice made the air shift. She was nothing like the caretakers.
He opened the cloth. Inside was a book—old, cracked, bound in leather dark as dried blood. Its pages were filled with text he didn't recognize and drawings that felt too alive.
Something moved inside his chest.
And for the first time since he arrived—
He smiled.
⸻
That night, beneath his blanket, he opened his journal.
The words he wrote were sharp, etched into the page like a curse:
"She spoke to me again today.
I will burn Jonas's name from her lips."
And beneath that, he sketched Mira's face.
And behind her—a flame.