The Girl Who Knew Fire

Rain clawed at the windowpane of Celia Hart's fourth-story apartment like a restless animal. Across the street, the man under the streetlamp didn’t move. His dark coat billowed slightly in the wind, and the flame from the matchstick he held flickered, never quite dying. Celia froze.

She didn’t blink.

Was it him?

She reached slowly for her service weapon on the table, her gaze never leaving the figure. As her fingers wrapped around the cold grip, the flame vanished. The man turned. Walked into the fog. Gone.

She rushed to the window, but by the time she flung it open, the street was empty. Only the bouquet remained where he had stood—twelve red roses and a single white one in the center. A matchstick lay across them, burned halfway.

She didn’t sleep.

By morning, Celia stood in the rain with Langley, crouched near the bouquet now tagged and bagged. No cameras had caught anything. No one in the building had seen a man. Just like before.

"He wanted you to see him," Langley said, voice low with unease.

"I know," Celia replied, her voice tight, her eyes still fixed on the wilted roses.

"Same roses as before. But the white one? That’s new."

Celia stared into the center of the bouquet. A white rose among red. Purity inside violence. Hope inside blood.

Or maybe a warning.

Back inside the precinct, she pulled out the file on Eliza Quinn. The woman was still in protective custody, staying at the department's safehouse, guarded around the clock. Celia needed more from her. A name. A face. Anything.

Eliza sat cross-legged on the couch, hands wrapped tightly around a mug of chamomile tea. The room was sparse. Quiet. A table lamp was the only light, casting long shadows on the walls.

"He’s watching me, isn’t he?" Eliza asked without looking up, voice barely a whisper.

Celia sat across from her, folding her hands. "He left a bouquet outside my window last night."

Eliza's breath caught. "Then it’s begun."

"What is 'it'?" Celia pressed.

Eliza looked up, her eyes rimmed with red from sleepless nights. "The Selection."

Celia waited, heart tightening.

"The Ash Protocol doesn't just find you. It chooses people. It tests them. If you see the match burning... it means you're part of it."

Celia leaned forward, trying to absorb every word. "You said he found the Protocol. You never told me how."

Eliza shook her head, a tremor running through her fingers. "Because I don’t know. Not exactly. But I can tell you this: the version that exists now isn't the original. It's evolved. It changes each time someone reads it. Like it's... alive."

"You make it sound sentient."

"It might as well be. After I read it, I stopped dreaming. I only remembered things I never lived. Other people's memories. Or maybe things yet to happen."

"Where did you read it?"

Eliza was quiet for a long moment. Then, voice barely above a breath, "There was a man named Keller. He ran an underground bookstore in Oldtown. He dealt in banned texts, conspiracy archives, arcane stuff."

Celia took out her notepad, scribbling rapidly. "Full name? Address?"

"I never knew his last name. He disappeared years ago. The store was called The Hollow Spine. It was on Lambert and Fifth, beneath a butcher shop."

By evening, Celia was standing in front of the old butcher shop, boarded up and tagged with graffiti. The sign was half-fallen. Inside, it smelled of mold and rot. She stepped carefully, flashlight cutting through the gloom.

In the back, behind the ruined freezer units, she found it—a narrow staircase leading downward. Dust fell like snow with every step. At the bottom: a rusted door. Locked. But a single knock and the lock clicked open.

The room beyond was lined with bookshelves. Empty now. Only a few scraps of parchment and faded titles remained. But near the back wall, a desk stood untouched, a single drawer ajar.

Inside it, she found an envelope. A wax seal marked with a symbol she'd seen before—on the ribbon of the bouquet: a spiral burning from the inside out.

She opened it slowly, fingers trembling.

Inside: a photo. Black and white. Dated 1973.

Five men in military uniform stood around a chalkboard. On it: “Ash Protocol / Phase Three.”

Below the photo, a typed note:

Psych-Weaponization via Cognitive Symbolism. Subject response: irreversible. Usage discontinued post-1975. Do not replicate.

Langley met her back at the precinct, reading over the photo with furrowed brow.

"This isn’t urban legend, then," he muttered. "This is government."

"We need access to Cold War archives. If this was a black project, it might be buried under something else."

Langley looked grim. "I know someone who used to work in military records. She owes me."

That night, Celia received a drive from Langley. On it: heavily redacted documents from Project Solace, an experimental psychological warfare program that ran from 1968 to 1975.

One file stood out. Operation ASH-3.

Keywords: semantic disintegration, pattern exposure, linguistic recursion, symbol bleed.

Case Study 019: Subject exposure resulted in loss of identity, language decay, hallucinations, and suicidal ideation.

Final note: Protocol classified as memetic hazard. Restricted from all levels.

Her eyes burned as she scrolled. The documents were fragmented, but the pattern was clear. The Ash Protocol wasn’t just a book. It was a weapon. A design for psychological implosion.

And someone was using it again.

At 2 a.m., her phone buzzed.

Eliza.

"He left something for me," she whispered, voice trembling.

Celia dressed in under a minute, rushing to the safehouse.

Eliza stood at the window, pale, holding a folded page. Not printed. Handwritten.

"It was inside my pillowcase. I swear I didn’t hear anyone."

Celia unfolded the page carefully. The handwriting was delicate, curved, almost ornamental.

It was a passage. Not in English. Latin, maybe. But the shape of the words made her stomach turn.

In the corner: a drawing.

The white rose.

With ash spilling from its petals.

Celia turned to Eliza. "Do you know what this says?"

Eliza shook her head slowly. "But I think... it's meant for you."

Thunder cracked violently, shaking the windows. Ra

in fell harder, pounding like drums against the roof.

The Protocol wasn’t a legend. It was active. And she was in it now.