Contest Title: A past in flames.
Prompt:
Three years ago.
The fire alarm blares as we make our way outside in a rush. No one noticed that I got left behind. And if they did they didn’t care. I cough breathing in the smoke. “Killian!” I hear someone shout from the entrance, most likely being held back as it crumbles in the fire. I look up and see a man dressed in black walking towards me in the fire. He picks me up and caries me out the back and into an unmarked van. I struggle making eye contact with Gorge.
“Help!” I cried out, my voice muffled as I’m shoved into the back of the car and drive off.
14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡT0HMbN3Mn8
Gorge
I run towards the entrance, noticing that Killian isn’t with me like he promised he would be. “Killian!” I yell a teacher holding me back as the entire entrance crumbles. “Let me go, Killian is still in there!” I yell at the teacher.
”Gorge, you can’t go back in!” The teacher yells letting go of me. I run to the back entrance and see a man holding Killian. The second he spots me Killian yells asking for help. I break out into a sprint but I’m too slow and far away. As I watch the car drive away I collapse to the ground sobbing. Principal Winters runs around the corner and spots me, lying there broken on the ground.
“He was kidnapped…” I whisper to Principal Winters. “Killian is gone, a man in black took him!”
”Gorge, Killian died in the fire.” Principal Winters says wrapping his arms around me.
”No, he didn’t.” I whisper, staring off in the direction the van went.
Present.
14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf7XJ7bBqwW
---
14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5KvccxKOyH
Killian
14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmU4v2alBea
Three years of silence can carve scars deeper than fire.
The man in black doesn’t chain me, but he doesn’t have to. His rules are the walls, his eyes the locks. I learned quickly: don’t ask questions, don’t speak unless spoken to, and most importantly—don’t hope.
But I do. Quietly. Secretly. I keep one ember alive: Gorge’s voice, screaming my name through smoke. It lives in me like a heartbeat.
If they’ve tried to break me, they’ve failed.
Because I am not broken.
Not yet.
---
Gorge
14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjHtabk1WVI
Everyone thinks grief has an expiration date.
After the fire, they gave me a year. Then they said, “move on.” But I couldn’t. Killian wasn’t ashes. I saw him taken. Nobody believed me—not the teachers, not Principal Winters, not even my parents.
So I stopped asking for belief. I started looking for proof.
Now, at seventeen, I’m not just haunted by his absence. I’m armed with it. With every shadow of a rumor, every scrap of a lead, every sleepless night filled with maps and theories.
Killian’s not dead. He’s waiting.
And I’m done waiting too.
---
Killian
14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdMfzplsORl
They finally let me outside.
The man in black calls it “testing readiness.” I call it oxygen. Streets blur past the window, but I drink them in like water. Colors. Neon signs. A world that never knew I was missing.
And then—impossible, unbearable—there he is.
Standing at a crosswalk. Taller now, jaw sharper, but unmistakably him.
Gorge.
For a single heartbeat, our eyes lock through the tinted glass. My lungs forget how to breathe. His face twists—shock, hope, pain all at once.
The light turns green.
The van carries me away.
But the ember in my chest roars into flame.
---
Gorge
14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvDZ0QmjP5c
I stand there, traffic rushing past, like the world just cracked open.
I saw him. Not a dream, not a memory—Killian. Alive. His eyes on mine, wide with the same impossible recognition.
I chase the van until my legs burn, until it vanishes into the city. People stare, whisper. I don’t care. My chest feels like it’s going to break open.
When I stagger home, my mom tries to stop me at the door. “Gorge, you look pale. What happened?”
“I found him.” My voice trembles, but the words are steel.
“Sweetheart…”
“No.” I look straight at her. “He’s alive. I’m going to bring him back.”
And for the first time in three years, I believe it. Not like an obsession. Not like a dream.
Like a vow.
---
Killian
14Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHWJmFG5epv
That night, I don’t sleep. I lie awake in the gray room, tracing that moment over and over—the flash of Gorge’s face, the way he moved like he would run through the world itself to reach me.
They want me obedient. Silent. Small.
But I’ve been reminded of who I am.
I am Killian.
And Gorge is coming.
The man in black doesn’t know it yet.
But his walls won’t hold me much longer.
Because hope, once lit, burns hotter than fire.
ns216.73.216.13da2
and then Add to home screen.