Chapter 2 - The Night of the Fire
Hannah had been seventeen when the fire started.
Emily was ten.
Their parents were outside speaking with a neighbor when an electrical fault sparked behind the wall of the upstairs hallway. By the time smoke reached the first floor, Emily was trapped in her bedroom.
Hannah heard her screaming.
Their father tried to enter but was driven back by heat. Their mother stood in the yard shouting Emily’s name while someone called emergency services.
Firefighters were still minutes away.
Hannah went inside.
She climbed the stairs beneath thick smoke, found Emily crouched under a fallen curtain, and wrapped her own body around the child before crawling toward the landing.
A burning beam collapsed behind them.
Hannah shielded Emily until a firefighter reached both girls near the stairs.
Emily left the hospital with smoke irritation and one small scar near her shoulder.
Hannah remained for months.
The burns covered much of her back, arms, legs, neck, and part of her face. Multiple surgeries followed. She learned to walk again, but nerve damage and chronic pain eventually required her to use a wheelchair for longer distances.
At first, Emily slept beside Hannah’s hospital bed.
“You saved me,” she whispered repeatedly.
Hannah always answered the same way.
“You’re my sister.”
Years passed.
Gratitude became discomfort.
Discomfort became silence.
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Eventually, the family stopped discussing the fire unless it made Emily’s survival sound miraculous.
Hannah’s sacrifice became the detail everyone edited out.
