There were no candles lit in the windows. The family inside must have been asleep. A lump built in her throat as she climbed to the roof—the place that had saved her while the gunman filled her parents with lead. She stared at the roof’s surface and imagined the room below.

She’d hidden here the entire night and the next day after her parents were killed.

As night fell, she had woken up, flexing her stiff fingers and toes. Her lips were chapped and nearly stuck together with the cold air. Her voice ached from how she’d sobbed the night before. Her stomach rumbled for food.

Had it all been a dream?

The city looked the same. All the streets surrounding her were exactly as she’d always known them, a mix of rust and cardboard descending farther south toward the river and, in the other direction, ascending the hill toward the Center of the city. Most of the Stacks were under a dusky-blue evening sky since the sun had nearly set, its final red rays spreading over the western horizon likes the wings of a bird. The air still smelled like smoke, mixed with the scent of rice and beans cooking in a nearby house. A busker somewhere nearby played a flute. The music blended with quiet voices from beyond the thin walls of homes.

It didn’t seem possible that something so terrible could have happened and not changed the way the whole world looked, smelled, sounded.

It was a nightmare, she decided. Her parents were probably looking for her. Her father would have dinner ready soon.

She scrambled to the edge of the roof and dropped to the ground, getting dirt on her pant legs. Her mother would scold her, but she was so hungry, it was hard to care.

The back door to her house was dark. At this time of night, her parents usually lit a candle. Unless they’d run out, of course, then they would eat dinner under the Mothers’ moons outside.

Right before she entered, a firecracker set off in a distant corner of the neighborhood, making her jump. A dog from the other side of the road barked. A door slammed nearby. These sounds were all normal, but for some reason now, they set her pulse racing.

She pushed open the back door. “Mami? Papi?”

Darkness enveloped her as she walked inside, leaving the door open a crack. A small sliver of light from outside spread over her foot and across the floor like a trail. A foul stench reached her, like old meat, but sickly sweet at once, clinging to her nostrils and clothes in a way that made her certain she’d never be able to wash it off. Her stomach turned over as she took tiny steps beyond the threshold of the house. Flies swept past her ears, their whining buzz setting her nerves on edge.

Maybe I’m still in the nightmare.

Fear gripped her. If this were the nightmare, maybe the man with the gun was still here.