Dab dhagax ma qabto
Fire does not burn stone
Chxpter 5
I curled my fingers into my palms, pressing until my nails bit skin. The small pain helped focus my thoughts, anchoring me to the moment rather than the rising tide of panic that threatened to pull me under. Each indentation was a tether to reality.
Upstairs, Edith let out a sharp sob, then silence—it sent ice along my spine.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
I squeezed my eyes shut, willing my mind to push past the fear that clouded my thought as my heartbeat drummed against my sternum.
Focus. Move.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, the texture beneath my soles was comforting in its familiarity—worn threads that had supported my weight through countless nightmares, both sleeping and waking. My mind raced, thoughts colliding like a car crash, too fast and too loud to make sense of anything beyond the immediate need to survive.
Think.
My breaths came sharp and uneven, the air catching in my throat like fabric on barbed wire. My arms trembled as I braced my hands against the mattress, forcing myself to stay grounded when every instinct screamed for flight. The basement's familiar shadows, once benign companions through lonely nights now seemed malevolent.
The basement only had one exit—the stairs leading up to the kitchen. And someone was about to come down.
I pushed off the bed, moving quickly but quietly. If I had to fight, I wouldn't fight standing still. Levi's voice echoed in my head, clear as if he stood beside me—"Movement is life. Stillness is death." His lessons, drilled into muscle memory through countless training sessions surfaced at the most clutch time.
I bent my knees slightly, shifting my weight into my heels, positioning myself between the bed and the wall—a strategic corner where I'd see them before they saw me. The darkness wrapped around me, not quite concealing but offering the small advantage of shadows.
No running. No hiding. What's left?
My heart continued to hammered against my ribs as I scanned the darkness, eyes darting from corner to corner of the basement room. The sounds from above—the muffled violence, Edith's cut-off cries—pressed down on me with suffocating weight. Time stretched and compressed in irregular rhythms, each second both eternal and vanishing too quickly.
I needed something, anything. My hands trembled as they ghosted over familiar surfaces. "Think," I whispered, the word barely a breath. "Think."
My fingers frantically searched the darkness, desperate for anything that could serve as a weapon. The old desk drawer—nothing but papers and dried-up pens, fragile remnants of mundane life.. The shelf above my bed—just books and a half-empty water bottle, their ordinary presence almost mocking in the face of extraordinary danger. Under the bed? My fingertips brushed against cold metal—a screwdriver. I pulled it out, gripping the broken handle tightly. The plastic was cracked, the edge jagged where it had split years ago, but the metal shaft was still solid, still pointed. Not ideal, but better than nothing.
The footsteps above shifted, the floorboards groaning beneath unknown weight, footsteps that spoke of someone who took their time because they knew they had it.
The sound brought an unexpected clarity, something Levi had tried to teach me during our sessions. Fear is useful, he'd said, if you don't let it own you. Let it sharpen you instead. His voice in my memory was steady.
I need something solid and heavy.
My fingers curled around the side of the old wooden nightstand, the wood worn smooth by years of touch. I shoved the nightstand forward, tilting it just enough so it would block part of the way but not fall completely. A trap. If they weren't careful, they'd trip over it. The small action felt like reclaiming a fragment of control in a situation rapidly spiraling beyond my grasp.
My fingers twitched against the screwdriver's handle, the plastic warm now from my grip. Fight? I had no real weapon, and no plan. But if they were coming down here, I needed the advantage, however slight.
Fuck. Okay. Control what you can.
I've been in worse situations. Fuck –No, I haven't.
If they wanted me, they were going to have to fight for it.
Another sound from upstairs—a sharp slap, a muffled cry. A solid thud and a second letter a large boom cascades through the ceiling across the kitchen. And then silence.
My stomach twisted, nausea rising like a tide. The palms of my hands grew slick with sweat, making the screwdriver's handle slippery in my grip.
Why is he looking for me?
The stairs creaked, each groan of wood marked another step closer to whatever awaited.
The air in the basement shifted—a slow, creeping pressure sunk into my gut like something rotten and heavy. My stomach plummeted, a sharp wave of nausea rolling through me.
It wasn't just fear. I'd felt fear before—the cold sweat before exams, the knot in my throat when Edith raised her voice, the freeze in my muscles when confronted by school bullies. This was terror.
It slithered under my skin, like oil slicking over my bones. My breath hitched, my body screaming at me to run, hide, or disappear—but there was nowhere to go. The basement walls seemed to close in, the ceiling lowering by imperceptible degrees.
A boot scuffed against the carpeted steps.
The sickness deepened. I gritted my teeth, swallowing down the bile rising in my throat. The taste was acidic, burning, a physical manifestation of the fear corroding me from within.
I tightened my grip on the screwdriver, and for a fleeting second, it felt strangely warm in my palm—like it wanted to respond, to fight as desperately as I did. The sensation was subtle but distinct, a pulse of heat that seemed to sync with my racing heartbeat. I shook it off. I was losing it.
Get a grip, Waris.
I heard the shift of fabric, another step.
Then—a voice.
"You're going to make this harder than it needs to be."
The words slid through the darkness like velvet over stone.
I didn't move. I can't.
Another step. The faintest rustle of a cloak shifting against leather. I gritted my teeth, tasting copper where I'd bitten the inside of my cheek without realizing it. The small pain was clarifying, a pinpoint of reality in a moment that felt increasingly surreal.
A slow breath. Focus.
The intruder moved closer. I could barely make him out in the dim light—a tall figure cloaked in black, face obscured, only his lips visible beneath the dark fabric wrapped around his head. His boots were silent against the bottom steps now, the deliberate hush of a trained hunter who knows exactly how much noise to make and when to make none at all.
Shit. He knows exactly what he's doing.
"I don't have time for games," he said, voice smooth, edged with something sharper—impatience, perhaps, or the edge of true danger held in temporary check.
I adjusted my stance, shifting my weight onto the balls of my feet. The nightstand was still tipped at an angle, a half-fallen obstacle waiting to be a weapon.
The man stepped around it smoothly.
"Come with me quietly, and I won't have to—"
The moment he stepped past it, I kicked the nightstand full force into his legs. The wood connected with satisfying solidity, the impact traveling up my leg like a confirmation.
A sharp crack—the wood slammed into his knee. He hissed, staggering back. The momentary loss of composure was revelatory—beneath the controlled exterior was something vulnerable, something human enough to feel pain.
I didn't hesitate.
I lunged.
My hands wrapped around the closest thing I could reach—his wrist, his sleeve, anything to disrupt his advantage. I swung my knee up—aiming for his ribs, for any soft target that might buy me seconds of advantage.
But he was fast.
His free hand shot up, catching my leg mid-strike. My stomach lurched as he yanked me off balance, the world tilting precariously beneath me.
I twisted—broke free—hit the floor in a roll, landing in a crouch. The impact rattled through my body, but I'd managed to slip from his grasp.
Good. Not dead yet.
The man exhaled sharply, straightening. Annoyed, like I was a minor inconvenience rather than a fight worthy of trying.
"Well," he muttered. "That was a mistake."
"Mine or yours?" I spat, tasting fear and defiance on my tongue.
I have no time to doubt myself now.
I pushed myself up to my feet. He was bigger, stronger, and trained.
He didn't know this basement. I did. Every uneven floorboard, every shadow, every potential weapon hidden in plain sight—this had been my world for years.
This was my terrain.
The dim glow from the overhead light flickered, casting his half-shrouded face in shadows. His lips curled into something resembling amusement, the expression more terrifying for its genuineness.
"You're a fighter," he mused. "Makes sense."
Makes sense?
My fingers curled into fists. Clutching the screwdriver, I held the sharp edge against my forearm and out of view. The cool metal against my skin was grounding, a reminder of the reality of this moment when everything else felt like a nightmare from which I couldn't wake.
"Who the hell are you?" I demanded. "Why are you looking for me?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he stepped forward again—faster this time, his motion a blur that my eyes struggled to track.
I moved to sidestep—but he was already shifting with me. A feint. The realization came too late.
Shit.
Before I could fully react, he caught my wrist in a vise grip, yanking me toward him. I threw my weight back, but he was too strong.
I drove my elbow up, slamming it hard into his chest. The impact sent a ripple of pain up my arm, like hitting stone rather than flesh.
He grunted—but didn't let go. His grip remained unyielding, fingers digging into my skin.
"Persistent," he muttered, almost like a compliment. "But this is over."
Not yet, asshole.
I kicked off the ground, using his hold against him, twisting–
Then—
A sharp pressure at my ribs.
Cold.
I froze.
He pressed a dagger just under my ribs. I felt the cold steel pressing in my skin—he wasn't stabbing, but that didn't mean he wouldn't. My mind raced, assessing angles, escape routes. I couldn't overpower him directly, but I wasn't helpless either. Levi had made sure of that through countless hours of training that now seemed like prophecy rather than precaution.
"That's better," he murmured, his grip steady. "Now, be a good girl—"
I bent forward, whimpered and then – drove the back of my head into his face
The action was instinctive, primal, a rejection of his control when I had few other options.
He snarled, but before he could move I twisted my body towards him and drove my knee up with all the force I had left.
Straight into his stomach and then I rammed the screwdriver into his shoulder.
He cursed, stumbling back. The word wasn't English, it wasn't any language I recognized, but the meaning was universal—pain, surprise, rage.
Blood dripped from my fingers. My stomach twisted violently from the sickening realization of what I'd just done. The warm wetness was visceral proof that I'd crossed a line. But survival outweighed guilt.
Run now, unravel later.
I turned—bolted for the stairs. Freedom waited above, if I could only reach it.
The second my foot hit the bottom step, something yanked me back.
Hard.
Like an invisible rope had cinched tight around my throat, dragging me off my feet before I could even scream. The sensation was impossible—nothing was touching me, yet I felt the pressure like a physical hand.
My body snapped backward, heels leaving the ground. My arms flailed for purchase—grasping at air, at nothing—before my spine slammed against the basement wall.
The force knocked the breath out of me. My vision went white for a split second, black creeping at the edges like spilled ink. The basement walls seemed to ripple in the dim light. Dust motes hung suspended in the air, refusing to settle, moving against natural laws as if time itself had fractured.
I tried to gasp, but my throat was locked in the unseen grip. It closed my windpipe—icy, unrelenting pressure crushing me from the inside. My heartbeat echoed painfully in my ears, an erratic drumming that marked my fading time.
I thrashed, nails clawing at my throat, my body desperate to understand what the hell was happening. Each scrape of my fingernails against my own skin left burning trails, but found no reprieve against whatever force held me.
My toes barely scraped the carpeted floor. The worn fibers brushed against my skin, each thread a distant memory of solidity as I dangled like a marionett. The ceiling light swung gently above, casting pendulum shadows that counted down seconds I might not have left.
Below me, the cloaked man laughed, low and amused. The sound didn't echo as it should have. Instead, it seemed to absorb into the walls, into my skin.
Nothing was touching me, but I was choking all the same.
The pressure increased, my neck arching involuntarily as the force lifted me higher. The ceiling approached, each crack and water stain becoming sharper in my vision.
My head hit the ceiling with a thud. The pain blossomed spreading like watercolor across my consciousness.
A deep, rasping chuckle.
"That's better." He cooed
"You're stronger than expected," he murmured, a cruel smile tugging at his lips. "He was right—you're dangerous."
My fingers still grasped, digging into empty air as my lungs begged for oxygen. The movement felt distant, as if I was watching my own body struggle from somewhere else, my consciousness beginning to separate from my physical form.The room began to tilt and spin, the single bulb overhead now seemed to contain a universe of light and impossible geometry.
This is it.
My chest spasmed, my limbs grew heavy. Each small movement required impossible effort. My body was forgetting its own mechanics.
No air.
My lungs felt like collapsed paper bags, useless and flat. Memories flickered behind my eyes—disjointed, rapid. Edith teaching me to make bread, her flour-covered hands surprisingly gentle. Levi laughed in the sunlight, head thrown back. Levi urging me to jump off a swing at the highest point for the first time.
This is how I die.
This isn't real. It couldn't be. This had to be a nightmare—some fucked-up dream I'd wake from, drenched in sweat, gasping in the familiar darkness of my room. But I wasn't waking up.
My arms dropped to my sides, fingers still twitching with my body's last desperate attempt to signal its desire to live.
My vision swam, black spots creeping at the edges. Each one a small infinity, expanding to swallow the world in absolute darkness.
This isn't fair.
Why me?
The question burned more fiercely than my need for air—the raw injustice of dying without understanding why. Tears rolled down my face uncontrollably from the unfairness of it all.
No.
Not like this.
Please.
I had fought my whole life to survive. I had taken every beating, every cruel word, every moment of pain and kept moving—kept fighting. Endless fighting.
No.
No…
"BREATHE." The voice shattered through the dark. It didn't come from the cloaked figure below, nor from anywhere in the basement. It resonated from everywhere—from inside my own mind.
My voice. A command.
My body folding in on itself, darkness caving in like a collapsing star.
A flicker.
Heat, but there was no sun. The desert. I could feel the sand beneath my feet, impossibly real, each grain distinct and scorching.
My two realities layered over each other like double-exposed film, both equally present. The basement with its dying light and the desert with its merciless sun occupied the same space, neither more real than the other.
A massive wing flickered in the distance and a face appeared before me. With features that shifted subtly, refusing to settle into any one form.
Her lips moved, but I couldn't hear her over the roaring in my ears.
My vision darkened.
A face. The same one floating and now she was closer. Her presence filled the world, pushing everything else aside. Heat radiated from her, not the stale warmth of the basement but something older—like sunlight on the first day of creation. And for the first time I saw her clearly. It was my face staring back at me.
Her lips parted, her gaze fierce, she shouted.
"BREATHE!"
The word slammed into my ribs like a fist. A force—intention made command. It carried the authority of law.
The heat in my core swelled. My chest caved in—then expanded. Something inside me answered the call, reaching back through whatever impossible connection spanned between us. I gasped.
Air rushed in, burning down my throat like liquid fire. Every molecule seared its way into my lungs, painful and exquisite.
The unseen grip fractured. I felt it shatter, breaking apart like glass struck by a hammer.
I fell to the floor, coughing, gasping, lungs dragging in air like I'd been drowning. Each breath was agony and salvation, the sweetest pain I'd ever known.
The cloaked man staggered, his hand snapping away as if burned. He took a step back, eyes wide with something I hadn't expected to see—fear.
And fire.
It erupted over the walls, the ceiling, from me.
Not normal flames, but something wilder. Blue-white at their cores, they moved against physics, seeking the cloaked figure with purpose as they consumed everything in their wake. The fire felt familiar, like an extension of myself I'd instantly recognized as mine.
I dashed through the flames as I lunged for the stairs, creating a pathway through the growing inferno. The wood creaked beneath my feet, each step threatening to give way. Heat pressed against my back, urging me forward, almost sentient in its encouragement.
The man was frantically muttering in a language I didn't recognize—couldn't even place. One hand covered his face, his other arm extended toward the flames, palm out, trembling with effort as he held back the fire.
I didn't have time to think about it. Didn't have time to wonder why the fire obeyed me but fought him. Answers can come later—if there was a later. The staircase groaned beneath my weight, a warning that this escape route wouldn't last much longer.
Behind me, his muttering grew more desperate. The flames responded, curling higher, reaching for him with hungry tendrils that seemed to understand exactly what I needed from them.
I burst into the kitchen, my breath ragged, the sharp scent of smoke and burning wood burning my throat. The familiar space was transformed into something alien and hostile, every surface shimmering with heat.
The house was coming down around us.
The walls cracked, flames skittering across splintered wood. The air was thick—choking, blistering, turning every breath into a battle. Heat pulsed from the doorway leading to the basement, the glow of fire crawling up the walls like hungry fingers.
My eyes darted, wild, searching—Edith.
She lay crumpled on the floor, her body lifeless. The sight was fundamentally wrong.
Her face was pale beneath the layer of soot, her hair spread out in tangled, sweat-damp strands. The silver streaks I'd always teased her about caught the firelight, transforming into threads of actual silver—precious and final.
No.
I dropped beside her, hands hovering, trembling, too afraid to touch, too desperate not to. The heat of the floor seeped through my jeans, but compared to the ice forming in my chest, it was nothing.
Her chest rose. It was shallow and unsteady, but she was alive. Just barely. A flicker of hope sparked, fragile as a candle flame in a storm.
"Edith?" My voice wasn't mine. It was small. Fractured. Useless. The sound of a child afraid of the dark.
My eyes scattered across the flames and disarray to find a way to get her out of here. The front door seemed miles away, the path to it a gauntlet of falling debris and spreading fire. The windows were already licked by flames, the glass heated to breaking.
Her eyelids fluttered, her head rolling slightly toward me. The movement was so small I might have imagined it, but I clung to it desperately.
Her lips parted, trying to form a word, but the effort seemed too much. Each breath was a battle she was losing. Her skin had a translucence to it that I'd never seen before—as if she was already becoming something less solid.
Her fingers brushed against my sleeve. Just a whisper of touch. Even now, her hands were strong—worker's hands, with calluses and scars and history written in each line.
"Run," she whispered, her breath rattling in her throat, words like a dying matchstick. Her eyes, suddenly clear and focused, held mine with fierce intention.
Her lips parted again.
A tremor, a barely-there movement. "I'm sor—"
Her chest rose and shuddered. The last breath left her, carrying away whatever final words she'd meant for me. Whatever truth, whatever confession, whatever reconciliation might have been possible—gone forever.
A jagged, raw sound tore from my throat—a sound I didn't control. It contained everything I couldn't articulate.
No, no, no, no—
My eyes scattered across the flames to find a way to get her out of here. But it was already too late. The rational part of me knew this, even as hope continued its desperate search for solutions.
The heat from the fire licked against my back, but the coldness in my chest was worse. It spread outward from my heart, numbing everything it touched.
My face was wet, but I couldn't feel the wetness of tears—just the way they burned as they fell. They dropped onto Edith's face, creating small clean circles on her ashen skin.
My hand shook violently as I pressed my palm against her face. Her skin was still warm, still Edith, still the woman who had reluctantly become the closest thing to family I'd ever known. The dissonance between her warmth and her stillness made everything feel unreal.
I blinked down at her, blinded by the sting, by the smoke, by the sheer fucking impossibility of this.
The woman who made my life a living hell. Who locked me in basements, shouted at me, cursing my existence. Who had grudgingly tended my fever when I was sick. Who had thrown a plate at my head when I'd come home past curfew.
Her laugh echoed in my mind—not the sharp, critical sound I'd braced against daily, but the full-bodied and genuine laugh. It had been as rare as snow in summer, but all the more precious for it. She'd shared reluctantly, like she couldn't help herself. It had burst from her when I'd accidentally dyed all our laundry pink. When I'd attempted to make dinner and set off every smoke alarm in the house. When I'd come home with my first A in math, and she'd tried to hide her pride behind criticism about my other grades.
My chest burned hotter than the fire. I didn't realize until that moment how much of my identity hinged on proving her wrong.
She was gone.
A crash from the basement echoed through the burning house, the sound of support beams giving way to the unstoppable hunger of flames.
I flinched.
I exhaled, forcing my shaking hands to gently, carefully lower Edith's body to the ground, as if she could still feel it. As if dignity mattered now.
For one final moment, I looked at her.
At the lines on her face, the ones I had never truly memorized. The furrow between her brows that had become permanent from years of worry. The thin lips that had spoken so many harsh words but had sometimes, rarely, formed kind ones too. One last look at the woman I had hated and pitied.
I swallowed, my throat raw.
"Goodbye," I whispered. The word was inadequate, a single drop in an ocean of things unsaid between us. Questions that would never have answers. Regrets that would never find resolution.
The fire roared, the sound like applause for a tragedy too vast to comprehend.
The crash came again—closer. The cloaked man was coming.
Death had taken one person tonight, but it wasn't satisfied.
I pushed myself to my feet, staggering back toward the door. My legs felt wooden, divorced from my control. Each step away from Edith felt like a betrayal, but each second I stayed was a surrender.
xoxo
Until your shadow meets mine again—
Simxn
Author, Crown of Thorns: Desert Rose • Editor, The Alchemxst