Chapter 3
Mara
Something’s wrong with time. My consciousness flickers like bad Wi-Fi: connection, darkness, connection again. I’m floating, then sinking, then surfacing through layers of thick, cottony nothing. My thoughts refuse to line up in the right order.
Fire. Impact. Screaming metal.
No. That was before.
Before what?
I pry my eyes open, immediately regretting it when light stabs my retinas. Not harsh hospital fluorescents but something that dances and shifts, painting uneven shadows across… stone?
Am I in a cave?
I try to swallow, but my mouth feels stuffed with cotton. My limbs won’t cooperate. Everything hurts and doesn’t hurt simultaneously, like my body can’t decide which signals to send.
A figure moves at the edge of my vision. Tall. Male. Unfamiliar.
Fear jolts through me, sharp enough to cut through the fog. Not Luke. Not anyone I know.
“Where—?” My voice scrapes out, rough and rasping. I try again. “Where am I?”
The figure turns, and firelight catches his profile—strong jaw, straight nose, eyes that seem to reflect the flames. He approaches silently, kneeling beside whatever I’m lying on. Thank God, because when he’s standing, it’s like looking up at a redwood.
“You are safe.” The voice is deep, resonant. Each word precisely formed.
My brain scrambles to make sense of anything. The helicopter. The crash. The fire consuming everything.
“Ember? Luke?” I manage.
“Your companions?”
I nod. “Yes. My companions.”
“They escaped,” he says simply.
Relief floods me, followed immediately by confusion. If they escaped, why aren’t they here?
Where is here?
I try to push myself up, and pain rips through my abdomen—sharp at first, then oddly dull, fading faster than it should. My vision swims, reality slipping sideways.
“Do not move yet.” His hand hovers near my shoulder, not touching, but ready to steady me.
I blink hard, forcing the world into focus.
He’s crouched beside me, firelight casting his features into sharp relief.
Broad shoulders, rolled sleeves revealing forearms dusted with dark hair, and twisting tattoos.
His movements are fluid yet restrained, like someone accustomed to measuring their own strength.
I realize I’m wrapped in something rough but warm—a wool cloak? Who even owns cloaks anymore?
“Who are you?” I whisper, because that seems like crucial information when you wake up in strange clothes with a strange man in a strange place.
His expression doesn’t change, but something flickers in his eyes—gold or amber, I can’t tell in this light. He stares at me for so long I wonder if he speaks English.
“K…” he starts, then stops, like he’s reaching for something just beyond grasp.
“Yes…?” I press when he doesn’t finish.
His brow furrows. “K.”
“K?” I supply, raising my brows. “K for Kevin? Karl?” He doesn’t look like either. “Kade?”
He doesn’t respond.
“Alright, K it is.” I would shrug if I could get my body to cooperate. “I’m Mara,” I add, since it seems appropriate to introduce yourself to the person who saved your life. “Mara Jones.”
He inclines his head in a small, formal nod. Like I’ve given him something he needed. “It is an honor to meet you, Mara Jones.”
I scan him more carefully now. He’s wearing supple dark leather pants that look handmade, a weather-worn belt with odd metal fixtures, and a linen shirt under a fitted vest. Nothing like modern outdoor gear.
More like something from a historical reenactment, except it looks worn in all the right places. Authentic.
I try to sit up again, slower this time. The room spins, but I fight through it. As I do, the cloak slips down, and I see I’m wearing a thick shirt that hangs past my hips and drawstring pants rolled several times at the ankles. Both obviously his.
The fog in my brain clears enough for me to piece together what this means. Heat crawls up my neck. This stranger undressed me while I was unconscious. But he also saved me from a helicopter crash and burning to death, so maybe I’ll postpone my feminist outrage for, like, five minutes.
Because I should be dead. The memory of twisted metal, crushing pain, and advancing flames is too vivid to be a nightmare.
Don’t think about it, girl.
“So… um… thanks,” I say, tugging at the oversized shirt as I shove those images out of my head. “For keeping ‘indecent exposure’ off my obituary.”
He frowns at the word “obituary” but doesn’t say anything.
I glance around the small space—definitely a cave, with a fire pit dug into the floor. My own clothes hang nearby… or what’s left of them. The blue hoodie is more charred fabric than clothing, with holes burned through in multiple places. My jeans aren’t much better.
“How bad was I hurt?” I ask, my voice steadier now.
Kay studies me for a moment. “Bad,” he finally says.
Not exactly detailed, but his tone conveys enough.
“How did you find me? How did you get me out?”
He rises in one smooth motion and moves to a crude shelf carved into the wall, returning with a wooden cup.
“Water,” he says, offering it to me.
Avoidance. Great.
I take the cup, our fingers brushing briefly. His skin burns hot against mine—not fever-hot, but unnaturally warm. The water tastes incredible; cold and slightly mineral, nothing like treated city water. I drain it in three gulps.
“The crash,” I try again, handing the cup back. “I was trapped. There was fire everywhere.”
K nods once but offers nothing more.
“Luke and Ember… you said they’re safe? Do they know where I am? They must be looking for me—”
“They escaped,” he repeats. “They are… elsewhere.”
Frustration bubbles up. “Look, I appreciate the mountain man of mystery vibe, but I need actual information. My friends think I’m dead. I need to contact them.”
“You need time,” he says, his tone gentle but firm. “To heal.”
My hand moves to my chest, where the pain lingers. I lift the shirt just enough to examine my abdomen. What I expect: bandages, stitches, something catastrophic. What I see: smooth skin, slightly reddened, with a silvery pattern like branching lightning that’s already fading.
“This isn’t right,” I whisper, pressing my fingertips against my sternum. There’s tenderness, but it feels like a week-old bruise, not a fresh injury. Not the torn flesh and broken bones I remember. “I was hurt worse than this. Much worse.”
K watches me, his face unreadable.
“How long have I been here?” I ask.
“The sun has risen and set.”
A day? That’s impossible. Injuries don’t heal this fast without leaving a mark.
My thoughts race, searching for a rational explanation. Advanced medical treatment? Some kind of experimental technology? But there’s nothing here but stone walls, fire, and primitive amenities.
“I don’t understand,” I say softly. “This can’t be right. How could I heal so fast?”
“These mountains have… power,” he says, sticking to the man of mystery act.
For God’s sake. I’m not going to get anything out of him.
“My phone,” I say suddenly, patting around the makeshift bed. “I need my phone.”
Kay tilts his head. “Phone?”
“Yes, cell phone.” I mime holding one to my ear. “To call people? To figure out where the hell I am?”
“Cell phone,” he repeats, testing the word like he’s never said it before.
I stare at him. This guy is messing with me. Or he’s lived so far off the grid that he doesn’t know basic technology. Neither option seems plausible.
“Plastic,” I say, watching his reaction. “Small rectangle. Probably smashed in the crash, but—”
“Plastic,” he echoes, with that same careful pronunciation.
What the fuck?
Either he’s been living in this cave for far too long, or he’s simple. No one in 2025 doesn’t know what a phone is. No one.
Fragments of memory flash through my mind. The helicopter shaking. The instruments failing. The fire surrounding me. Then something impossible—flames that moved with intelligence, wrapping around me like a living thing. Golden light that didn’t burn.
“The fire,” I whisper, my throat suddenly tight. “In the helicopter. It was… different. Odd.”
K’s eyes sharpen.
“It moved like it was… alive. Like it was protecting me.” I swallow hard. “That’s not possible.”
“Many things thought impossible simply await understanding,” he says, the longest sentence I’ve heard from him.
My heart pounds as pieces click together. The impossible fire. The miraculous healing. This strange man with his weird clothes and burning skin.
“Did I have an NDE?” I finally ask, looking directly into his eyes. Thick dark brows pull together in confusion again. “You know: a near-death experience. Back there, in the crash. Did I actually die?”
Something shifts in his expression, subtle, but unmistakable. Recognition.
“You live,” he says simply.
Not “you lived.” Not “you survived.” You live. Present tense.
“That’s not what I asked,” I press.
He holds my gaze for a long moment, then looks away. “The fire chose,” he says cryptically.
Oh, my God. I did die. I actually died. And something—the fire?—brought me back.
Just wait until I share this on the podcast!
I can already imagine the views I’ll get. It’s one thing to simply report on unexplained phenomena, but to actually experience something like this? That’s pure gold.
K moves closer, and for the first time, he intentionally touches me—one warm fingertip brushing over the fading lightning pattern on my side.
“Do you have pain?” he says.
The touch sends a strange heat spiraling through me, not painful but intensely present, like being aware of every cell in my body simultaneously. I gasp, pulling back.
K withdraws his hand immediately. “I apologize.”
“No,” I reply, pressing my palm where he touched. The sensation lingers, then fades.
“Good,” he says.
“How?” I say. “How does it not hurt worse than this?”
“Your body is healing,” he says, as it makes perfect sense, when it totally doesn’t.
I shake my head. “That’s not an explanation.”
“It is all I have.” He tugs the cloak up around me. “You should rest.”
“I don’t want to rest.” I shake my head. “I have to find my friends. I have to—”
“Shhh…” he says, trailing his fingertips down my forehead and over my eyes. “Sleep now.”
“But…” I want to argue—to demand real answers—but exhaustion crashes over me suddenly, intense and overwhelming. My eyelids grow so heavy, it feels like lead weights have been attached to them.
Tired… So, so tired…
But alive.
I don’t know what happened to me back there.
But one thing’s for certain: this has been the freakiest day of my life.