I wake up and there is a boulder in my skull and a hand on my cheek. I startle and struggle to lift myself from the ground, and when I do, bolts of pain stab my eyes and brain. I lie back down. I let the hand caress my cheek, because it’s the only good thing I feel right now, and I want to hang on to it.

In the seconds that follow, I assess my surroundings. I am lying in an alley. Or maybe a small, empty lot between two houses. The air is saturated with the smell of cinder and meat, as if there has been a giant cookout nearby. I turn my neck cautiously and feel it creak, hot-poker pain shooting up my head and down my back. I can barely make out the feeling of intense heat, then the flames to my left, which blaze a strange, brilliant white against the last of what looks like it had once been a two-story home. Then I turn to my right and see an angel-god-boy. His face fills my line of vision, infiltrates my nerves and synapses until the hairs on my body rise toward him and my heart strains against my rib cage.

Come with me, he says urgently. His eyes are molten lava. He looks over his shoulder and takes my hands in his. Hurry, he tells me. They’ll be coming soon. I hesitate at first, and he tugs my wrist hard. They’ll come to put it out.

Put what out?

This fire, he says impatiently, looking behind me.

I turn and stare at the rubble through the smoke haze. I’m sure I’ve never seen the house before. Just to make certain, I look long at the yard, at the houses beyond. I’ve never seen any of them before. I’ve never seen this boy before, either; I am sure of it until just after I’ve thought it, when nothing seems sure at all.

I know you? I ask. A few seconds tick by, and he stares hard.

Yes, he says carefully, speaking slower than before. You know me. His eyes look confused, like he can’t believe I’d forget.

I let his words sit there in my head until they feel comfortable. The boy looks sweaty, panicked. His eyes dart to one side and then the other, a metronome of glances. He looks afraid. For me?

My eyes move to the striped tank top I’m wearing, then the tattered jeans, both heavy with soot. I don’t recognize these clothes. Something thick lurches in my gut. Would I recognize my face if I saw it?

Come on, he says again, his voice so tense it might snap.

Who am I? I whisper. His face is a mask of confusion, and mine is only a mask.

Who are you?

I nod. There is a pause. His eyes dart downward and linger there for a moment, like he’s trying to figure out how to handle me. Like I’m an unpredictable thing.

You’re Abby, he says, meeting my eyes again.

Abby? I ask him. The name rolls thick and unfamiliar off my tongue.

Yes, he says, and his confidence and urgency have returned. It’s written right here.

He taps my chest and I flinch, but he’s only going for a thin gold chain that encircles my neck. He gives it a quick tug. I look down and see there’s a name formed from cursive gold, an upside-down Abby. Is that who I am? A girl who carefully selected this chain from all the rest, mulling first over rows of gold, cursive names?

He’s tugging me again, harder now, saying something: Abby, we really have to go right now. They’ll be here soon. There were others in there.

Where are they now?

They didn’t make it.

Who are you? How do I know you? I am reluctant to leave.

Sam, he says in a gravelly, smoke-congested voice. I’m your friend, Abby. Now, let’s move.

I nod slowly and a strange look passes over his face, something like pleasure mixed with relief. I remember Sam about as well as the house, but I let him help me stand up anyway and then I nearly collapse, I am coughing so hard. The boulder in my skull has turned into a knife. It halves my brain. Right brain, left brain — they are halved already anyway, so I’m not worried. Sam lifts me all the way up, draping me over his shoulders as if I’m a sack of feed and he is a mule. I press my cheek against his shoulder, where I can faintly feel his skin pulsing with exertion, and it is familiar somehow. I feel suddenly as if Sam is the only person I have ever known, and I don’t even mind, because I hear distant voices and all of a sudden I have to leave as badly as he does. Something about all of this seems so desperately wrong.

We are silent for many minutes. My sharp panting sounds staccato against his longer, deeper breaths. I am glad to be on his back. I’m relieved he’s taken charge. I wouldn’t have known where to go on my own. No one is behind us; no one follows. It is just the two of us heading away from everything else.

For a time, I sleep.

Where are you taking me? I ask him when I wake in a fog after what seems like many hours.

North a few miles, he tells me. Just up a ways into the forest, to my place. You’ll be safe there. I hear his breath laboring, shorter and quicker now, so I wriggle my way down his body. I am small, but not so small that carrying me miles would be easy. We go on like this for a while, me stumbling in halting steps and him leading. I have to stop a lot to catch my breath. It seems my lungs are full of something thick and unkind. My right arm shrieks in pain when I grasp Sam’s elbow for support. And when I can’t make it anymore on my own, he carries me again. And again I sleep.

When we get to Sam’s, he puts me down on the ground. I am awake but barely — just enough to see that Sam doesn’t have a house. He has something better: a craggy underground lair like a hidden kingdom. He brings me tea and plumps pillows on a mattress for me, then helps me up so I can nestle on it. The mattress is on the ground, like what you might find in Asia, but I’m not sure how I know that or whether it’s accurate in the first place. I am suddenly seized by the compulsion to know who I am. I search for memories, but my mind is empty and there’s a profound exhaustion settling into my limbs. I remember nothing and no one. I look at Sam drowsily and am at once so grateful to have someone by my side. I trust him. Then I realize it doesn’t matter whether I do. I try to think about the right and wrong of this, but it eludes me. It’s as if all of my innate senses have vanished entirely.