#vss365 #dead Beneath the ash For years, I kept a house with all its windows shut. The curtains hung like forgotten skin. Dust gathered in the hollows of chairs, along the spines of books, over all we left unspoken. The clocks had stopped. No one thought to remove them. In the hallway, my name hung crooked on the door, faded by weather that had never entered. Once, there had been laughter here. Music spilling from the kitchen, bare feet on wooden floors, the careless opening of doors. Then fire passed through the rooms without leaving flames. It took the colour from the walls, the warmth from the bed, the small things that made a house a home. I called the house empty. I called the garden dead. I called the silence peace. Its rooms grew still beneath the dust, its garden lost to winter and neglect. Until one night, beneath the floorboards, I heard it— water, moving through the dark. And somewhere, beneath the ash, a last ember held its breath. Beneath the ash, beneath the frost, the dark began to loosen its hold. And slowly, the silence changed. Not all at once. Not without its ghosts. But somewhere beneath the ruin, something stirred. What I had called dead was not yet done with living. And I, who had mourned the last of myself, began to wonder what else had survived the fire.