ASHES OF REBELLION

The Last Normal Morning *BURNING ALIVE*

The city never slept, but my house did.

At 6:02am, my apartment in downtown smelled like vanilla coffee and Mama’s fried plantain. The moon was still hanging low behind the skyscrapers outside my window. In 3 hours it would be gone, and the sun would turn everything to gold and noise.

I didn’t need an alarm. My body had been trained by grief and survival.

*6:10am — Family*

“Maya Your coffee is getting cold and your attitude is getting worse,” Mama shouted from the kitchen, her voice carrying through our small two stories below flat.

I walked in barefoot, hoodie oversized, hair in a messy bun. Mama was at the stove, gold bangles clanking. Daddy sat at the table in his vest, reading the news on his tablet, glasses perched low. My older brother, was drawing on the table and stealing plantain.

“Morning, Queen,” Daddy said, pulling me into a side hug. He called me that since I was 12. “Big presentation today?”

“Big presentation,” I nodded. “Then I’m meeting the girls after.”

We held hands for prayer. It was our thing. Every morning, no matter how rushed.

“Father,” Daddy prayed, “cover my two kids today. Let no evil come near this home. Let Maya’s work be blessed. Let my son be protected. Amen.”

“Amen,” we echoed.

For 7 minutes, the world was safe. Just us. Coffee. Laughter. My older brother trying to braid my hair and failing.

*6:45am — Friends*

The girls were waiting for me at the BRT bus stop, like every Tuesday.

Zara — my ride-or-die since university. Leather jacket, red lipstick, talks too loud.

Kemi — quiet, smart, the one who always had a charger and advice.

Nana — our baby, 22, loud laugh, always with snacks.

“Maya !” Zara yelled, already pulling me into a hug. “You look like you’re about to take over a company.”

“I am,” I said, and we all laughed.

We walked together past the street vendors, past the boys washing cars, past the mural of Fela. Nana broke a meatpie into 4. “For strength,” she said.

Kemi squeezed my hand. “You got this. After work, drinks? We need to celebrate you.”

“Deal,” I said.

At my office gate we did our thing — quick group hug.

“From ashes, we rise,” Zara whispered. It was our dumb motto from since college.

“From ashes, we rise,” we answered.

I went in smiling. My last thought before the elevator closed was: _Today is a good day._

*7:28am — The Minute After*

I was in the boardroom. Slide 14. The investors were nodding. My phone was face down on the table.

It buzzed.

Once.

Five times.

Twenty times.

My assistant burst through the door. Her face was white.

“Miss Maya. You need to come. Now.”

The room went silent. 12 executives stared.

“What is it, Tolu?”

“It’s your house, ma. There’s been… a fire.”

Fire.

House.

*7:51am — Ashes*

"I wish the fire was when I was at work taking care of some projects and carrying out some office duties " my routine plans and my timing where all illusion to excap , what was in front of me.

But my street and smoke was sitting over the buildings like a crown. Thick. Black. Wrong.

People were in the street. Neighbors. Firefighters. A crowd with phones out.

And my home.

The windows were blown out. The roof was gone. The balcony where Mama grew her flowers was charcoal. Firemen were still spraying water. Steam rose and hissed.

“Where are they?” My voice was steady. Too steady. “Mama? Daddy? My older brother?”

No one answered right away.

An officer came over. Young. He couldn’t look me in the eye.

“Miss… we found three bodies. The fire started in the kitchen. Gas explosion. I’m so sorry.”

The world didn’t go dark. It went sharp.

Too sharp.

I could see every detail. The melted laptop in the gutter.my older brother was with.

Mama’s bangle, half-burned, on the pavement.

The photo frame. The one from last Christmas. All of us smiling. The glass cracked but the picture still there.

I picked it up. My hands didn’t shake.

In the photo: Mama laughing. Daddy’s arm around me. My older brother carrying me on his back. Me, smiling like I didn’t know what was coming.

The comfy was gone.

The coffee. The prayers. The meatpie. The “Queen”.

All of it, erased in the time it took me to present one slide.

Something cold settled in my chest. Not grief. Not yet.

Rage.

Zara was crying into my shoulder. Kemi was praying out loud. Nana was just shaking.

I looked at the ruins. Then I looked at the city behind it. The same city that let this happen.

I closed my eyes. I remembered Daddy’s last prayer: _“Let no evil come near this home.”_

I opened them.

“From ashes,” I whispered.

Zara pulled back. “What?”

I held up the photo. My knuckles were white.

“A queen rises.”

The officer blinked. “Miss, you should sit down—”

“No.” I turned to my girls. To the fire. To the city. “They took everything from me. My family. My home. My normal.”

I pulled the last picture of my family, half I should say 'out of the fire . I didn’t even know I was reaching for it.

“But they left me.”

The wind blew ash across my face. Behind me, the skyscrapers glittered. In front of me, only smoke.

I wasn’t Maya the employee anymore.

I wasn’t the daughter. The sister.

I was what was left.

I think am a big think, my world is burning alive in front of me but my brain thinks of a better approach to my tragic life , a friend to talk too, a work, future, hahaha lies Daddy likes Mommy u promise me a lot for my future, tears running down from my face and I have to snap back to reality.

The fire doesn't make a sound before it takes everything.

Maya hears the explosion first—a concussion that throws her

Out of bed, through the window, onto the cold concrete of the

Parking garage two stories below. Her body hits hard enough that she should break. Instead, she breaks through the moment of impact into a reality where everyone else is already dead.

The apartment building is engulfed. Windows burst from the heat. Shadows of people appear in the flames, silhouetted

Against orange and red, and then they're gone. Just gone.

Maya's father. Her mother. Her older brother. All of them inside.

All of them—

She tries to stand, but her legs don't work. Something is broken.

Everything is broken. She can smell burning flesh and her own

Blood on the concrete, and she realizes with a jolt that the

Burning might be her.

Sirens are coming. Voices are shouting. Someone is running

Toward her, but Maya's vision is fragmenting, and the only thing

She can hold onto a single thought:

Someone did this. Someone killed them.

And she's going to find them.

The hospital calls it a miracle that she survived. The doctors

Call it luck. Maya calls it a beginning.

She spends three months learning to walk again. Three months

Of physical therapy where her muscles scream and her body

Remembers the sensation of fire. Three months of lies—telling

The insurance company doesn't remember how the

The explosion happened, telling the police she was asleep, telling the firefighters it was an accident.

It wasn't an accident.

She knows this the way you know something in your bones—not

From evidence, but from the absolute certainty of someone

Who's watched her family burn?

On the day they release her from the hospital, Maya steals a

Laptop from a patient's bedside table. It takes her four hours to

Find the information she needs. Four hours of searching

Property records, financial statements, and court documents

Before she discovers that the building her family died in was

Owned by a shell corporation, which was owned by another

Shell corporation, which traces back to a single name:

Alexei Volkov.

Russian. Crime boss. Dead.

Well, mostly dead. The police report says he was killed in a

Warehouse fire six months ago, before the explosion that killed

Maya's family. But the timing is too convenient, and when Maya

Starts digging deeper—into his organization, into his affiliates,

Into the man who took over after he died—she finds a name that

Appears repeatedly:

Viktor Sokolov.

Alexei's second. Alexei's successor. Alexei's heir.

And according to the financial records, Viktor ordered a hit on

The building where Maya lived.

She doesn't know why yet. She doesn't know what her family

Had to do with Alexei Volkov's operation. But she knows one

Things with absolute certainty:

Viktor Sokolov burned her family alive. And before she dies,

She's going to make him understand what that costs.