NEURAL ASHES

1 - Ashes Of Memory

“They said memory makes us human. Then they made machines that could remember better.”

Fire doesn’t start loud.

It starts with a smell. Sharp, metallic, wrong. Like the air itself caught a fever.

The lights in the lab flicker before I hear the first explosion.

My father’s voice is somewhere beyond the smoke, shouting numbers, commands I don’t understand.

My mother’s hands find mine. They’re trembling. Soft. Desperate.

“Aaron, take your sister.”

Her voice cuts through everything…. The alarms, the cracking glass, the whine of metal melting.

I grab Anya’s hand. Her fingers are so small. She smells like the peppermint candy she hid in her pocket that morning.

We were supposed to build towers out of blocks today. We were supposed to draw the stars our parents studied.

Not watch the world collapse.

The air tastes like iron. My eyes burn.

“Mom, what’s happening?” I ask, my voice a whisper. Like I’m afraid to make the fire angrier.

She kneels, pulling us both close. Her face is streaked with ash and light. Every flicker of flame paints her eyes gold, then gray, then gold again.

“You have to listen carefully,” she says, her breath trembling. “You run. You don’t look back. You don’t stop. And you don’t, ever, stay together.”

Anya’s lip quivers. “But… why? We’re twins. How can we not stay together?”

My mother’s eyes glisten. “Because you’re more than twins, my loves. You were connected long before you were born. What I gave you can’t be broken by distance.”

Her voice breaks on the last word. She forces a smile. One I know is for us, not for herself.

She presses her palm over our chests.

“Two hearts, one soul. Remember? And now one pulse. You’ll always find each other through it.”

Behind her, my father’s shadow flickers in the firelight.

“Selene. They’re almost here!”

She looks up at him. For a heartbeat, they just stare.

Like two people memorizing each other’s faces before the end of the world.

Then he’s beside us, breathing hard. There’s a streak of soot across his jaw.

He takes something from his pocket. Small, metallic, glowing faintly blue.

When he presses it to the back of my neck, I flinch.

A sting.

Then warmth.

A strange hum under my skin. Like the sound of my heartbeat learning a new rhythm.

Anya cries when he does the same to her.

“You’ll understand one day,” my father whispers. “Run, Aaron. Take your sister with you and never tell anyone your real names. Ever.”

The next explosion swallows his voice. The glass ceiling shatters. Rain and fire fall together.

My father pushes us toward the corridor, shouting something I can’t hear.

We run.

The hallway stretches forever. Red light, black smoke, the echo of our footsteps over the alarms.

The house that smelled of cinnamon and metal now smells like the end of everything.

The portraits on the wall blur as we pass. Faces we’ll never see again melting into color and shadow.

Outside, the night is cold and alive with noise.

Engines. Tires on wet gravel.

Black cars tear through the trees. Headlights slice the smoke.

By the time we reach the edge of the woods, my throat feels raw. My lungs ache with smoke.

Anya trips. I pull her up.

She’s crying so hard she can’t breathe. “Mom… Dad…”

Gunshots.

Even the forest around us seemed to hold its breath.

Three.

Four.

Then silence….

And I don’t look back.

————

The world is quiet except for the crackle of fire somewhere far behind us.

We collapse beside the old railway tracks. Anya’s bare feet are cut and bleeding.

I tear the hem of my shirt and wrap them. Knotting it too tightly, but afraid to let go.

She leans against me. “What do we do now?”

I want to tell her I know.

I want to tell her we’ll find them. That this is just a dream.

But the words die in my throat.

“Mom said not to stay together,” I whisper. The words taste wrong. Heavy.

She shakes her head. “No. I don’t want to.”

I hold her tighter. “I’ll find you again. I swear it.”

A truck’s engine breaks the silence. A woman climbs out, humming to herself as she unloads crates into the depot light.

Her face is kind, like my mother’s was. Familiar somehow.

“Ma’am,” I call out, voice cracking. “Please… help my sister. Her parents are gone.”

The woman drops the crate. “Sweetheart… where are yours?”

“She’s all I’ve got.” I swallow hard. “Please take her somewhere safe.”

Anya clings to me. Her tiny arms locked around my neck. “Don’t leave me, Aaron.”

I hug her as tight as I can, breathing in the scent of her hair. Smoke, peppermint, rain.

“Never tell anyone our real names,” I whisper. “And don’t worry. You’ll feel me. Always.”

Then I push her gently toward the woman before I can lose the courage to let go.

The night swallows her voice before I hear her cry my name.

I run until I can’t feel my legs.

The forest stretches forever. The smoke follows me.

Every step feels like erasing something I’ll never get back.

When the police find me the next day, I’m too tired to cry. Too numb to speak the truth.

I tell them my name is Kael Vale.

That bad men burned my house and I ran away.

They believe me. After all, what harm can a five-year-old boy covered in soot and blood possibly hide?

But the truth burns quieter than fire.

It never stops.

The night ended, but the fire didn’t.

It just learned to live inside you