The rickety bridge splays out before me. It’s long, stretching out into the dense blanket of fog ahead. As dire as it is now, I cannot move. I cannot make the trek forward.

“Simona, come on!” My lemur Pip takes me by the finger. “This bridge here takes us over the Cerulean Sea! If we run now, we can catch the perpetrator!”

My body sags against his pull. I’m like the chains that once held his little paws down to submission. Smoky ash imprints his gray fur with dusty black spots.

“Simona!” He squeaks louder this time. His eyes give me empathy.

I extend my hands forward, veins and muscles stiff in my skin. The fog parts way in command. The other side is a lush green grassland, contrasting to the destruction behind me. Pieces my village scatter around me, coated in cinder. The berries that needed picking in the forest seemed to have predicted this tragedy. I am the last woman standing.

“Please, don’t fret,” Pip pleads. “I know you miss them but—“

“I’m not sad,” I say. He gives me a knowing look, as if he caught a lie that’s not there. I am not sad. I’m stuck between sanity and insanity, drowning in the unknown. I’m trying to reach the surface. My feet freeze to the ground.

“We still have to cross.”

I scoop my furry friend in my palms and let out a quiet cough. “I…can’t. It’s all my fault. Leaving would be wrong, even if the one with the matches is still out there, searching for other villages to burn, other lives to take. My family…”

Tears trickle down my cheeks. Pip wipes them away, his tiny claws scraping my face. The magic that gave him his voice seeps through my skin, doing its best to life my spirits. “Cross the bridge, and you will be okay. I promise.”

I trust his words. It’s a slow venture. The soles of my feet press against the gentle grass at the end. I turn back towards what was once my home, when a piece of paper attached to one of the bridge’s posts fluttered in my vision. A soft gust ripped it off and carried it towards me.

Dear Simona,

Everyone is safe. We fled with many others before the flames could reach us. Pip has led you across this bridge. Keep walking south until you see a tent.

_ _

_ Love, Sybil_

My brother’s handwriting relieves me. Hope lifts my heart.

“I told you,” Pip says.

The grasslands welcome me, and I twirl with glee and fall onto my back.

Tomorrow, I will see my family again.