The sky over the town is the color of a week-old bruise—yellow at the edges, a deep, sickly purple at its heart. It hasn’t changed in a year. Not since the final quake. Not since the world cracked open and bled something old and hungry into the soil.

You’re standing at the kitchen sink in the Wheeler house, hands submerged in lukewarm, soapy water. The window above it looks out onto a backyard that hasn’t seen a dandelion in months. The grass is gray. The swing set is rusted. In the distance, the jagged, unnatural scar of the Creel House rift cuts across the horizon like a black stitch in the earth.

From the living room, the low, frantic murmur of the television news is a constant white noise. “…recovery efforts continue in the designated Red Zone… mandatory curfew remains in effect…” The volume is down, but you know the script by heart.

On the counter beside you, next to a half-empty bottle of infant Tylenol, is a charcoal sketch. It’s a study of hands—long fingers, knobby knuckles, a silver skull ring on the index finger. You’d drawn it from memory last night, the lines shaky, the shading too dark in some places, not dark enough in others. You can never get the hands right.

Upstairs, your daughter is crying. A thin, reedy sound that cuts through the news anchor’s drone and the clink of dishes. She’s eleven months old. She has your eyes, people say. And his hair—a wild, dark curl that refuses to be tamed.

The stairs creak under familiar, hurried footsteps.