The afternoon sun hung low and heavy in the sky, painting the city in shades of burnt orange and exhausted gold as I trudged up the front steps of our brownstone, my shoulders aching from the weight of my backpack and my mind still cluttered with the noise of the school day.
The subway had been packed, the walk from the station too long, and every muscle in my body felt like it had been wrung out and left to dry.
"Gosh!! What a very stressful day! I can finally rest," I said to myself the moment I got home and reached for the door handle, my fingers closing around the cool brass with a sigh of relief.
But the second I pushed the door open, something was wrong.
The air that greeted me was thick and wrong—heavy with a sharp, bitter smell of something burning that clawed at the back of m
