The room is dark, the kind of dark that settles on your chest like weight, a pressure that drags at your every breath. The night presses close, suffocating and thick, and Mason lies in the tangled mess of his bed, his body curled in on itself like he's trying to escape something that's been chasing him for years. The covers are twisted around his legs, and his breath is uneven, shallow—each inhale feels like he's fighting against the suffocating air, as though the room is pressing in on him from all sides.
And then—fire.
The world is red.
The sky cracks open in jagged streaks of scarlet, and smoke billows upward, choking out the sun as the earth beneath him trembles. A low, rumbling roar shakes the air—not thunder, but something worse, something he can't quite place—buildings breaking apart, cities swallowing themselves whole.
Mason's legs carry him, but there's nowhere to run. The fire licks at his heels, hungry, relentless. He stumbles through a field of red crops—their tips glowing, burning as though the very soil has turned to flame.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he sees her.
Olivia.
She's there, standing in the firelight, her hair whipping around her face like it's caught in the wind. But it isn't wind—there is no breeze in this nightmare world. It's just the fire, its roar deafening, its heat pressing in from all sides.
"Mason," she calls out to him, her voice strained, filled with an emotion he can't place.
She's older now. Older than she was when he last saw her, the last time they'd played together in the park, the last time they'd promised to meet again. Mason's heart skips—he knows it's a dream, knows the details don't line up, but that doesn't stop the ache in his chest. It's like memory and fantasy are blurring together, and he can't tell what's real anymore.
She's standing in the fire, reaching for him. Her eyes are wide, frantic, filled with a terror that makes his heart twist.
"Mason!"
He tries to run toward her, but the ground shifts beneath his feet, splitting open like the world itself is falling apart.
"No!"
He reaches for her, but it's too late. The ground gives way, and he falls—no, not falls, yanked downward by something darker, something stronger than gravity itself. The flames rise around him, towering like a monstrous creature, teeth of fire gnashing at the air, licking at his skin.
Screams tear through the air—children, parents, strangers. A choir of fear, layered over each other like a thousand voices crying for help, all at once.
Through it all, he sees her. Olivia. Still reaching for him, her face frozen in terror.
"You said we'd play again tomorrow!" she cries, but the innocence is gone. It's not the playful promise from the clinic floor—it's an accusation now, sharp-edged and aching." she shouts, her voice breaking through the chaos.
Mason's chest tightens. "I tried! I tried to find you!"
But the flames consume her, and with them, the last piece of him he thought he could hold onto.
"You lied, Mason," her voice rings in his ears, distant, hollow. "You left me behind."
And then she's gone.
Obliterated by fire.
Mason's Room
Mason's body jerks awake with a guttural scream—a sound so raw, so primal, it splits the silence of the house like glass. His heart is hammering in his chest, blood roaring in his ears as he struggles to catch his breath, to make sense of the nightmare that still lingers in his mind.
The room is pitch-black, but the fire from the dream still dances behind his eyes. The heat presses in on him, suffocating him, the images of flames and destruction seared into the corners of his vision.
His chest heaves, the air too thin in his lungs, and he curls into himself, trying to escape the world his mind is determined to pull him into. He chokes on a sob, feeling the weight of the nightmare drag him under.
Footsteps. Running.
"Mason?!" Jan's voice is frantic, cutting through the fog of his panic.
Malcolm follows her, blinking rapidly, his eyes still half-closed with sleep.
"What happened? Are you hurt?" Malcolm's voice is tight with concern, but it's almost mechanical, like he's unsure what to do with a kid who wakes up screaming in the middle of the night.
Mason can't speak. He can't even look at them. He's frozen in place, curled into the corner between the bed and the dresser, shaking uncontrollably like he's caught in a storm he can't escape. The room is too bright now, too real, and he can't bring himself to make sense of it. His mind keeps replaying the nightmare, the heat, the flames, Olivia's face.
Jan kneels beside him, her hand trembling as she reaches out to touch him. Her voice is soft, but it feels wrong—too practiced, too rehearsed.
"It's okay, Mason," she murmurs, her words too slow, too gentle. "You're okay. It was just a dream."
But he jerks away from her touch, panic flashing through him, the last remnants of his nightmare crawling beneath his skin.
"It wasn't just a dream," he whispers, his voice raw, broken. He doesn't even recognize it as his own.
Malcolm flicks on the light, too bright, too sudden. The room is the same. Beige walls. Navy comforter. The picture of the mountain on the wall—still, untouched, frozen in time.
But Mason can't stop seeing her. Olivia. Her face, her voice accusing him.
"You left me behind."
Later
The house quiets again.
Jan and Malcolm left after a while. Jan had asked three times if he was sure he didn't want water. Malcolm had stood there, silent, awkward, his hand resting on the doorframe like he was waiting for some instruction no one ever gave him.
They didn't know what to do with a kid who wakes up screaming in the middle of the night.
Now it's silent. Too silent.
But Mason's not asleep. He's staring at the ceiling, arms folded behind his head, the sweat still cold on his skin. The blanket has slipped to his waist, but the chill still lingers in his bones. His heart is still racing, but it's the thoughts in his head that won't shut up.
Why her? Why Olivia?
He hasn't seen her in six years. He barely thinks about her anymore, except for these flashes. Small moments that hit him like a punch to the gut when he least expects it. Her laugh. Her smile. The way she used to tug on his hand and pull him toward the playground, the way she made him believe in something good, even when everything else in the world felt like it was falling apart.
We said we'd play again tomorrow.
The words echo in his mind, but they don't make sense. They never will.
He swallows hard, the lump in his throat heavy. He tries to push the thoughts aside, but it's impossible. He can't escape it.
I didn't leave her behind. It wasn't my fault. I didn't even know—
But dreams don't care about logic. They don't care about the truth.
In the dream, she blamed him. She was gone. Ripped away like everything else in his life.
He rubs his eyes, pressing the heel of his palm into his forehead, trying to make it stop. The colors behind his eyelids blur into red and black.
She's dead. Or maybe she isn't. Maybe it's just the dream trying to make sense of the silence, to fill in the gaps with fire and guilt.
It's the one thought that keeps eating at him. The one thought that refuses to be buried, no matter how hard he tries.
He doesn't know that for sure. No one's ever said it. But deep down, he feels it. In the marrow of his bones.
And that's the thing that makes his chest tighten, that makes it hard to breathe.
What if I forgot her?
That's the part that really gets to him—the thought that maybe, just maybe, she was real. That she was something important, something worth holding onto.
But if he forgot her—if she was real and he forgot her—then maybe there's nothing worth remembering at all.