CHAPTER ONE — THE HOUSE WHERE CHILDHOOD ECHOED
Lune was born in River Mountain Village, a place where the river sang louder than people did. The houses were close, but the hearts inside them often stayed far away. She grew up in a home that was never silent—doors closing, utensils clattering, brothers arguing, parents worrying.
But her own heart was always quiet.
Her long black hair, soft at the ends and browned by the sun, framed a face that rarely raised its voice. She walked lightly, as if afraid the world might notice she existed.
Her parents were always working.
Her brothers were always growing.
And she—she was simply surviving.
She didn't know her birthday until she was ten. No one had celebrated it, no one had marked it. She had asked her mother one afternoon, clutching her brand-new Grade 5 books to her chest:
"Mom… everyone celebrates their birthday. When is mine?"
Her mother paused, washing lentils in a steel bowl.
"Maybe… around April. Who remembers these things, Lune? It's not that important."
But to Lune, it was everything.
That year, she bought grapes with her pocket money and quietly whispered to herself,
Happy birthday,
as she sat outside the house, feet dangling above the dusty ground.
Her brothers, Devid and Dean, had their own worlds. Their own pain. Their own mistakes. But they also had each other. Lune watched them from the corner of every room, never quite belonging, but always wanting to.
Still, things weren't always dark.
There were small moments—simple, fragile pieces of childhood that slipped into her hands like sunlight between leaves.
The day Dean took her to a movie for the first time.
The evenings when her sister-in-law smiled warmly at her.
The rare nights when the family laughed together over rice and curry, as if life was simple.
Those moments made her believe she wasn't unlucky.
That someday she would feel safe.
Someday she would feel loved.
Someday she would belong.
But life was waiting.
And it never waited kindly.
Lune didn't know it then, but the house she once thought was home would soon become the first fire she ever walked through.
And she would walk alone.