The figure flinched at my voice. A soft sound escaped from under the blanket. A whimper. Then a word.

“Dad…?”

My heart didn’t just skip a beat. It seemed to stop and then slam back into my chest so hard I had to grab the edge of the desk.

I stood up slowly. My legs felt like they were made of stone. The room tilted, and for a second I was sure this was another one of those strange moments where the world went soft around the edges and I woke up later without remembering what had happened.

But the closer I got, the more details I saw.

The blanket was stained, the fabric worn out in places. Bare feet peeked out from underneath, scraped and raw. Mud streaked skinny ankles. Tangled hair clung to a face striped with dirt and dried tears.

And the eyes—those eyes—looked up at me.

I knew those eyes.

I had seen them the first time I held her, blinking up at me through scrunched lids. I had seen them light up when she scored a winning goal in middle school soccer, when she opened her acceptance letter to the art program she wanted, when she ran down the stairs on Christmas morning in fuzzy socks.

I would have recognized them in any country, in any life.

“Chloe?” I breathed.

The girl flinched and pulled back against the glass, like I might hit her.

“Please,” she whispered, her voice rough and thin. “Please don’t let them hear me. They’ll find me if they know I came.”

What Chloe Saw

I stopped a few feet from her, afraid that if I reached out too fast she would disappear like smoke.

“Who?” I asked, my voice hoarse. “Chloe, who are you hiding from? What happened?”

Her eyes darted to the door, then to the hallway, listening for footsteps only she could hear.

“Vanessa,” she said, the name barely audible. “And Uncle Colby.”

I froze.

My wife. My brother.

The two people who had held me up while everything else fell apart. The ones who arranged the service, who stood beside me at the front of the chapel, who greeted every guest with tears in their eyes and hands folded over their hearts. The ones who told me, over and over, that I had to let her go.

“That doesn’t make sense,” I said, shaking my head. “They’ve been here every day. They’ve been the ones taking care of me, of everything. They arranged—”

“The service,” Chloe whispered, her voice suddenly sharp, like broken glass. “It wasn’t real, Dad. They planned all of it. The fire. The story. Everything.”

I stared at her.