The last thing she remembered was the fire swallowing her childhood home, whole.
Smoke filled the air, flaring beyond the tallest trees. The heat attempted to envelop her as she ran, barefoot and desperate, into the night. She didn’t know where she was going—only that she had to get away. The flames roared behind her, devouring walls, memories, lives.
She stumbled into a nearby empty barnhouse a few yards away, chest heaving, vision blurred by tears and smoke. The building was abandoned but familiar to her. It was her quiet place to read, write and listen to her praise and worship music without any interruptions. She looked down at her bare feet as the coarse debris on the floor of the old building breaks the skin on her soles. She treads carefully as she walks toward a window to get a closer look at her brothers walking away from the home.
Just as she stepped forward—just as she opened her mouth to call their names—Boom.
Her world shattered before her eyes as her childhood home exploded. She felt herself lifted, weightless, crashing down into something cold and unforgiving. Her body lay limp on a bed of twigs in a neighbor’s backyard.
She woke up to a steady beeping.
Her body ached. Her head throbbed. She had no idea how long she’d been unconscious, how she’d gotten here.
And then she heard them.
The TV mounted on the wall flickered with the faces of her brothers. Somber. Tear-streaked. Draped in grief like a perfectly tailored suit.
“It’s just so hard to believe they’re gone,” her eldest brother said, voice breaking. “Our parents. Our sisters. Our baby brother. We lost everyone.”
She sat up too fast, dizziness slamming into her.
Her pulse hammered in her ears, drowning out the rest of their rehearsed sorrow.
One week later, she stood outside a family friend’s house, her fingers hovering over the doorbell. She had taken a taxi from the hospital.
And then she heard their voices.
Laughter. Clinking glasses. And words that chilled her blood.
“The insurance money came through faster than expected,” her eldest brother said, his voice laced with satisfaction. “And the city’s sympathy payout? It’s more than we hoped for.”
A chuckle. “So, it worked?” The voice belonged to the son of their family friend.
“Perfectly,” her youngest brother chimed in. “No loose ends.”
She felt her stomach twist, bile rising in her throat.
The air in her lungs turned to ice.
Two days later, she sat across from a police detective, her hands wrapped around a cup of cold coffee, her face grew darker, sinister.
She told them everything.
The fire. The explosion. Her brothers running. The conversation she overheard.
The detective listened, silent, his gaze sharp and unreadable. When she finished, he only nodded. “We’ll handle it.”
And they did.
Her brothers and their co-conspirators were charged with five counts of murder.
Months later, she stood on a sunlit balcony, a city spread before her, a check in her hand. Made out to Nyathera Jamison.
But no amount of wealth could wash away the truth.
She closed her eyes, inhaled deeply, and made a silent promise.
She would not let their legacy end in greed.
The Begining of the end....
Please note:
- There are no victims in this story.
- Nothing is what it seems.
- Only one survives in the end.
- Start from 1. and read that again.
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