#and in the adult timeline tai keeps setting or feeding fires

[novelconcepts]

The earth-water-fire of that shared hallucination. Van going home only to find it’s always going to burn around her, that even the greatest illusion of safety can’t shield her from the flames that have been chasing her for three seasons. Akilah being told by an ostensibly gentle animal that all things with teeth bite—even her, the softest of them—as the earth pulls her into an unbreakable embrace. Shauna swimming, swimming, swimming to nowhere, caught in her grief forever until it quite literally tries to drown her. And to land in a classroom, of all places. An old-timey-style classroom populated with ghosts who don’t care that you’re bleeding. Telling them that death is the kindest sort of loss. Goddamn. Goddamn, dude.