Two years had passed since the
school shooting
. That event changed her whole life. She and her gang of friends had been the most popular kids in school. Seniors enjoying their high social positions. Slated to do great things. Graduate with high honors and attend great universities afterwards.
She had been dating the star athlete who had even secured a
full-ride
scholarship
to a top tier
university
. It was an athletic scholarship, so when Kyle Sardinsky fell into a two week
coma
, she and everybody who knew Kyle had expected the worst. That he would lose the scholarship.
By a miracle Kyle had woken up not to a world that had abandoned him, but one that praised him. His scholarship, wasn't rescinded, it was upgraded. Now he would be enrolling not as an athlete, liable to lose it on the whim of an injury, but as a humanitarian.
Lacy's dream of being high honors boyfriend girlfriend at a top tier university disappeared in a strange manner. Kyle began to distance himself from her. Began spending more time talking to the public. He was always making videos on
TikTok
. By
spring
he had even announced that he no longer planned on attending
college
. Instead he would focus on his
activism
.
What did his activism fight for? Lacy couldn't tell. But she seemed to be the only one. The rest of the world loved Kyle Sardinsky and his message resonated far and wide. Perhaps she was the odd one, she thought.
Now that she was in college she had given up on her old boyfriend. He was now in a different world. A mega star. She was just a no name student at university. However she had once tried to reconcile things with Kyle. There had been one other person who found Kyle's sudden transformation bizarre. He had come over that one gray afternoon, when she was making tea. He had called her. Lacy had initially been frightened that another person out there could see what she saw. But along with the fright, she also felt comforted. She wasn't alone. She wasn't just seeing things.
The two of them met twice more after that afternoon tea. They had a plan. But then everything changed. Perhaps even more of a change than the shooting itself. She couldn't even remember what his name was anymore. She was only 20, how could she not remember a guy's name from high school? This was supposed to only happen in old age. Whenever she tried remembering him and their plan, images of that cloudy day, and the sound of his footsteps in the stairwell outside of her family's apartment would come to her only to be interrupted by black. And then images of a man in a lavish suit. And the sound of fire. But she could never see the
fire
. Could only smell and hear it.
She didn't like to think of this memory anymore. Because one time while thinking about it, trying to find the fire... trying to see the face of the man in the lavish suit, she had suddenly heard a voice.
"Come here. Stay here long enough. And I promise you. You will not only hear and smell the fire. You will feel it."
She had gulped. "Who are you?"
"And when you feel the fire. I will never let you leave."
"Who are you?!" she screamed. But there was no reply. She screamed that question into the void until her voice gave out. But after that she never tried to remember that boy's name and their plan to rescue Kyle Sardinsky ever again.