The air feels wrong. It’s thick, oppressive, like it’s trying to smother me before I even have a chance to think. Outside, the sky is an unnatural shade of orange, glowing with a kind of rage that doesn’t feel like it belongs to the earth. Ash falls silently, coating the world in a fine layer of death. It’s almost poetic in its eeriness—the kind of beauty that belongs in nightmares, not real life. I glance toward the window again, and for a moment, the shifting shadows from the flickering streetlight almost convince me that something is moving out there, watching, waiting.
There’s a hum in the air, faint but persistent, like the world is vibrating with tension. Maybe it’s the fire. Maybe it’s just me unraveling, but it feels like something more, like the very ground beneath us is holding its breath, waiting for the worst. Every fear I’ve ever buried, every shadow I’ve tried to ignore, feels like it’s clawing its way to the surface tonight.
Zuma sits across the room, curled up on the couch, her tiny frame dwarfed by the oversized blankets she’s buried herself in. She’s too quiet, and that unnerves me more than the chaos outside. She doesn’t flinch when the distant sound of sirens cuts through the eerie stillness. She doesn’t react to the faint crackle of fire carried on the wind. It’s like she’s learned to live in this state of disaster, like she’s resigned herself to this being normal. That scares me more than anything else.
I keep looking out the window, drawn to the fire’s glow on the horizon. It feels alive, like a beast slowly creeping toward us. It’s mesmerizing in a way that makes my stomach churn. The longer I stare, the more it pulls at something deep inside me, something I thought I’d outgrown—a primal fear that doesn’t have a name but has always been there, lurking.
This isn’t just about the fire. It’s about every fear I’ve ever had clawing its way out of the corners of my mind, demanding to be felt. It’s about the ghosts I’ve spent my whole life pretending don’t exist. The ones that come out when it’s too quiet, when the shadows stretch too long, when the air feels charged with something unexplainable. I’ve tried to ignore them, tried to convince myself they were just my imagination. But tonight, with the fire glowing in the distance and the ash falling like some apocalyptic snowfall, it’s like they’ve come back to remind me they were never really gone.
And then there’s the fire itself, this relentless, consuming force that feels less like nature and more like vengeance. It terrifies me in a way I can’t explain. Maybe it’s because fire destroys everything in its path without discrimination, reducing lives, memories, and safety to nothing more than ash and smoke. Or maybe it’s because fire doesn’t just destroy—it reveals. It brings everything to light, exposing every crack, every vulnerability, every fear you thought you’d buried deep enough to never see again.
I think about Zuma and everything she’s already seen, everything she’s endured. Pandemic. Flooding. Earthquakes. Cancer. The fire feels like the final straw, like the universe is testing her limits, testing mine. And yet, there she is, sitting quietly in the middle of all this chaos, not saying a word. I wonder if she feels it too—the ghosts, the fire, the weight of all the things we’ve lost.
When I was a kid, I used to be terrified of disasters. I’d lie awake at night, imagining earthquakes tearing through our home, fires consuming everything I loved, or floods washing it all away. I was scared of ghosts too, though I never admitted it out loud. The idea that something unseen, something I couldn’t fight or control, could be lingering just out of sight always sent chills down my spine. But those were just childhood fears, right? You grow up, and you leave those things behind. Except now, sitting here in this suffocating air, I realize I never really left them behind. I just pushed them down, deep enough that I could pretend they weren’t there.
Until tonight.
Tonight, it all feels too real—the ghosts, the fire, the sense that we’re on the edge of something bigger than any of us. I want to scoop Zuma up, grab whatever we can carry, and drive until we find somewhere safe, somewhere untouched by this endless stream of disasters. But where is that? Is there even a place where the ghosts won’t follow, where the fire won’t find us?
I don’t have the answers. All I know is that this place, this life, feels like it’s trying to break us. And I can’t let it. I can’t let it win. But as I sit here, staring out at the eerie glow in the distance, I can’t shake the feeling that it already has, that the fire and the ghosts and the weight of everything we’ve endured have already taken more from us than I’ll ever be able to get back.
And still, the ash falls, silent and unrelenting, as if the world itself is mourning something it knows we’re about to lose.
