The flame in this room never wavers. She loved that about it.
Back on Earth, flames were restless things. Blow on one and it flinched away. Open a door and it writhed. Let someone walk past and it threw shadows everywhere. But this small flame stood perfectly straight, and never said a word.
“Good night.”
Every night before sleep, she struck a single match. A golden point caught on the thin wick and held there, motionless until morning. Outside the window, black stretched in every direction. The stars flickered. The flame didn’t. She knew why — the air in this room never moved. Nothing made it stir except moving air, and nothing moved the air except someone coming through the door, or her own laugh letting a breath slip loose.
So that night, when the flame suddenly leaned, she laughed first.
“What is it? Did someone come in?”
No answer. The flame kept tilting toward the window, swaying the way Earth fire used to — soft, familiar. She reached out for it, and stopped.
No one had come in.
She caught her breath, and the flame bent harder, drawn toward the window, and drawn again. She hadn’t been laughing. Still the flame moved. No one had opened anything. Still the air moved.
A crack ran across the window — fine as a hair, the color of silver. At its tip, tiny crystals were growing, white and crackling. Near the crack, the hem of the curtain lifted. A strand of her hair drifted the same way.
The flame flared bright, greedy, like it had just been served a feast.
She pressed both hands against the glass. Beneath her palms, the crack had already grown longer than her fingers.