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    Fiction

    When the World Tips Over

    by

    Cassidy’s life in Whis­per­ing Riv­er had always felt like a frag­ile illu­sion of sta­bil­i­ty, a calm sur­face mask­ing the lin­ger­ing fear that every­thing she loved could be tak­en away. Liv­ing on Dan­de­lion Road with her father, Nigel, a ranch man­ag­er, she had found com­fort in the pre­dictable rhythm of her days—working at the hot springs, enjoy­ing the warmth of her close-knit com­mu­ni­ty, and car­ing for her beloved pets. Her father, a steady and reli­able pres­ence, had become the foun­da­tion of her world, some­one she could trust with­out hes­i­ta­tion. Yet, in the back of her mind, she always car­ried the shad­ow of her past with her moth­er, Marigold, whose chaot­ic and unpre­dictable nature had made Cas­sidy fear­ful of sud­den upheavals. She had deferred her admis­sion to Stan­ford, unsure whether leav­ing this place she called home would be the right choice. Despite the love she felt for her father and the peo­ple around her, there was an ever-present fear that her hap­pi­ness was only tem­po­rary, some­thing fleet­ing that could van­ish in an instant.

    That fear became real­i­ty when the night sky turned an eerie shade of orange, and the smell of smoke filled the air, sig­nal­ing an approach­ing wild­fire. Cas­sidy woke to the sound of fire­fight­ers shout­ing orders out­side, their voic­es sharp against the crack­ling air. Her father stood at her bed­room door, his expres­sion calm but firm, telling her it was time to leave. Pan­ic gripped her as she strug­gled to process the urgency of the sit­u­a­tion, her body refus­ing to move even as her mind screamed at her to run. She didn’t want to aban­don the home that had become her sanc­tu­ary, nor did she want to acknowl­edge the pos­si­bil­i­ty that she might not return. Her father, always the ratio­nal one, reas­sured her that they would be fine, but the uncer­tain­ty in his voice unset­tled her. Instead of act­ing imme­di­ate­ly, she found her­self curl­ing beneath the blan­kets, as if shield­ing her­self from the real­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion could some­how keep the dan­ger at bay. But as the urgency grew, she forced her­self up and grabbed only the few things that mat­tered most—her mother’s old dig­i­tal cam­era, a note­book filled with mem­o­ries, and a bag of trea­sured let­ters and words that car­ried the weight of her emo­tions. Every­thing else—the tan­gi­ble evi­dence of her life—was left behind, sac­ri­ficed to the unknown fate of the fire.

    As they drove away, Cassidy’s thoughts fix­at­ed not only on the fire but also on the strange behav­ior of her father before their depar­ture. Just as they were leav­ing, she had noticed him retriev­ing two dusty box­es from the attic, han­dling them with an almost rev­er­ent care that sent unease rip­pling through her. She had nev­er seen those box­es before, nor had she ever heard him men­tion them, yet there they were, car­ried with the same urgency as their most essen­tial belong­ings. When she final­ly worked up the courage to ask him about their con­tents, his response was unchar­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly short, almost dis­mis­sive, as if he was hid­ing some­thing. The way he avoid­ed her gaze, the tight­ness in his jaw—it all sig­naled that what­ev­er was inside those box­es car­ried a weight far heav­ier than she had antic­i­pat­ed. Cas­sidy had always trust­ed her father implic­it­ly, believ­ing him to be the one per­son in her life who had nev­er kept secrets from her. But as they drove fur­ther away from the flames, she couldn’t shake the feel­ing that this moment had changed every­thing.

    She stared out the win­dow, the once-famil­iar land­scape now dis­tort­ed by smoke and the omi­nous glow of the fire, her mind a storm of unan­swered ques­tions. Who was her father before he became the man she knew? What had he hid­den away in those box­es for so many years? And why now—of all times—did he choose to take them with him? She real­ized with grow­ing unease that the fire was not the only thing threat­en­ing to con­sume her world. What­ev­er secrets her father car­ried, they had been buried long before the flames arrived, and Cas­sidy could no longer ignore the feel­ing that their escape wasn’t just about survival—it was about some­thing much deep­er. As the road stretched ahead of them, she felt an unset­tling cer­tain­ty set­tle in her chest: she was about to uncov­er truths that would change every­thing she thought she knew.

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