Inheritance of ash

...until you can't.

They had no idea.

None of them.

Except maybe Natasha. But even she didn't know this.

No one did except—

Kate.

But not really.

Her fingers hovered again near the old lines. She didn't move. Didn't press.

But the want was there.

Real. Sharp. Alive in a way she hadn't felt until now.

She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them, curling in like she could make herself smaller, safer. Invisible.

"I don't want to," she whispered to the empty room. Her voice was steady, but her breath hitched on the last word. "But I... get it now. I get why she did it."

She didn't mean someone else.

She meant the version of herself she couldn't remember.

The one who had done it.

She pressed her forehead to her knees and shut her eyes, as if it might keep the thoughts from growing teeth.

She stayed like that for a long time.

The bracelet pulsed green across the room, soft and slow, like a heartbeat. But it didn't feel like a comfort tonight.

It felt like a question.

One she still didn't have an answer to.

⸻

Eventually, the thoughts dulled enough for her to crawl back into bed.

The mirror still stood behind her like a second version of herself, quiet and watching. She didn't dare look at it again. She didn't pull the blanket all the way up. Just laid there. On her side. Eyes half-open, facing the wall. Still, silent.

The green bracelet sat on the nightstand, casting a sleepy pulse across the room like a lighthouse she wasn't ready to sail toward.

Somewhere between thought and silence, between tension and release—
Sleep took her.
Softly.
Without asking.

⸻

The light in the dream was amber. Golden, almost. Not too bright — like the last stretch of sun at the end of a late afternoon. Shadows stretched long across the wood floors of a modest home.

Vicky stood barefoot in a hallway that smelled like cinnamon and dust. The wallpaper was slightly faded in places, like hands had leaned there for years. Family photos lined one wall — too blurry to focus on if she tried, but warm in the periphery.

She was taller in this dream. Older than the last. Maybe twelve. Old enough to feel the weight of the air. Young enough to still wish for softness from the world.

From the kitchen came a voice — a man's — deep and kind.

"Peanut? You want syrup or jam?"

She blinked.

A dad. Her dad.

She couldn't remember his face. Not clearly. Not in the way people are supposed to remember the people who made them. But the voice? That felt real. Heavy with love and routine. The kind of sound that wrapped around your ribs and made you feel like home wasn't a place — just a person saying your name.

"I don't care," she heard herself call back — a little playful, a little shy.

A laugh followed. Warm. Familiar.