In a diner packed with fifty Hells Angels, the storm outside wasn’t the problem. The problem was the small, drenched girl who just walked in and broke the silence with five words that stopped every heart in the room. The rain wasn’t just falling; it was an assault. It sheeted against the big plate-glass windows of Norah’s Lighthouse Diner as if someone had taken the churning gray sea from down in the cove, hauled it up the winding hill, and was now trying to force it back through the glass. The

They saw a quiet woman in the corner and whispered their jokes, never guessing her silence was a map of ghosts. The valley on the screen was a mission to them; to her, it was a memory of fire and survival, a debt she was about to collect for them all. The briefing room was already thick with the smell of burnt coffee and nervous energy when Staff Sergeant Cara Blake slipped inside. It was that thin, blue hour just before dawn, when the world holds its breath. Outside, the vast Nevada desert was

something inside me. 20.06.23. | Isaac Gracie