Through a break in the flames, he saw Rudolph, dancing across the singed ground, barking. The sight gave Desmond a burst of energy. He pushed himself, dashed with the last bit of strength he had.

He fell the second he cleared the fire. The simmering coals on the burned ground were digging into his legs. He began crawling, the sack wrapped around his forearms sparing them the agony his legs endured. Rudolph whimpered, licked his blackened, soot-covered face, encouraging him.

Right before Desmond passed out, he thought, I failed. I could have saved them. I should have saved them.

When he awoke, he still had the smell of smoke in his nose—and the taste in his mouth. His body ached, legs burned as if the fire were still roasting them. As he acclimated to the pain, he realized something was on his chest: a cold metal disc. He opened his eyes, which were watery and irritated from the smoke. A brown-haired woman, maybe in her early twenties, leaned over him, listening to a stethoscope. Desmond thought she was incredibly beautiful.

She smiled. “Hi.”

Desmond looked around. He was in a large room with heavy blankets on the floor. White bedsheets hung from twine pulled tight, held with clothespins, loosely separating several makeshift beds from one another.

It was night; he could tell from the air. There was no power where they were. Gas lanterns lit the place.

At the end of the row of white sheets, he saw a blackboard with letters of the alphabet strung across the top.

A classroom. At the school where he would start soon. Or would have.

Moans and cries rose from every corner, seeming to have no point of origin. Screams erupted every now and then. And the smell… it was like nothing Desmond had ever experienced. A barbecue came the closest, but this was different. And he knew why. When animals were slaughtered, the organs and fluid were discarded before the meat was cooked. But here… the fire was indiscriminate. The smells assaulted him. Charcoal. Sweet perfume. Burned fat. Copper. And rot, like a carcass shut up in the barn for a few days.

When his eyes returned to the woman, she said. “You’re going to be all right, Desmond. You were very lucky.”

He didn’t feel very lucky.

“Where’s my family?”

Her smile disappeared. He knew before she told him. He closed his eyes and cried. He didn’t care who saw him.

She returned just before lunch the next day, performed an examination as she had the night before, and changed the bandages covering his legs and a few other places. He gritted his teeth through the pain, but never cried out. From the look on her face, he thought the episode might have caused her more anguish than him.

She told him her name was Charlotte and that she was a volunteer, one of many working in southeast Australia in the wake of the deadly bushfires.