Rain fell heavy and null on the roof of the burning home as smoke billowed from the windows into the pitch-black night. Rose lay on the floor of her room, clinging to consciousness as the smoke thickened. Voices bled together outside, villagers shouting words she couldn’t make sense of. A bell rang somewhere below, steady and wrong, each toll dimmer than the last. “Move.” The word cut through the chaos. Rough. Commanding. Somehow calm. She tried to answer, but her lungs seize