By evening, the rain had turned to fog — thick and heavy, swallowing the glow of the streetlights. Luke locked up the shop, his nerves raw, his hands trembling from too much caffeine and too little sense.
Iris stood by the window, her reflection pale in the glass. "You said the symbol's been showing up everywhere. What did you mean?"
Luke hesitated, then pulled a folder from beneath the counter — photos of burned buildings. Old homes, warehouses, even a church. Each reduced to ash, each bearing the same spiral mark scorched into a wall or beam.
"I've been tracking them for months," he said. "Different cities. No pattern. But every time, someone reports strange lights before it happens — red and gold. Like… the fire's alive."
Iris leaned over the photos, her brow furrowing. "This one."
She pointed to an image — a house in Indiana, half-collapsed, windows melted. "I've seen it."
Luke blinked. "When?"
She swallowed. "Last night. In a dream."
Her voice dropped to a whisper. "There was a man inside. He looked at me and said, 'You shouldn't have come back.' Then everything turned to fire."
Luke's stomach sank. "That house burned down two nights ago."
Iris stared at him. "Then someone wants me to see it."
They drove through the night, the fog trailing behind them like smoke.
By dawn, they reached what was left of the Indiana property. Police tape fluttered in the breeze; the ruins still reeked of burnt wood and melted metal.
Iris stepped over the tape, her boots crunching on blackened glass. Luke followed, flashlight in hand.
The house's interior was eerily preserved — furniture half-charred, photos fused to walls, mirrors shattered but still standing.
On what was left of the living room wall, the spiral symbol had been carved again — deeper this time, as if done with claws.
Iris's hand shook as she reached toward it. "It's the same mark from my dream."
Luke moved closer. "Don't touch it—"
Too late.
The second her fingers grazed the soot, the air turned molten.
The ground trembled. The walls around them seemed to inhale — expanding, groaning. Then, faintly, voices began to whisper from the ashes.
Not one voice.
Hundreds.
She's returned.
The fire remembers.
The heart beats again.
Luke grabbed her hand, pulling her back. "We have to go—"
But something moved in the doorway — a figure watching through the smoke. Tall. Still. The silhouette of a man in a long coat.
When the wind shifted, the smoke cleared just enough for Luke to see his face — pale, scorched, one side burned beyond recognition.
Yet his eyes glowed faintly gold.
And when he spoke, his voice was calm, almost gentle.
"You shouldn't have come here, Iris. She's not done with you yet."
Before Luke could react, the man vanished into the smoke.
Iris turned to him, trembling. "Luke… who was that?"
He stared at the place the man had stood, the echo of his voice still hanging in the air.
"I don't know," he whispered. "But I think… he used to live at Ashmere Hill."