Lost among the less elegant streets of the capital was the Two-Hundred-And–Forty's Street. It was not its number, just a nickname given by the populace in honor of a bar of the same name located there.
At number 16 of the street, nothing stirred yet. Darkness overwhelmed the sole bedroom on the second floor, where one could feel the warm breath of its inhabitants, conquered by sleep. Downstairs, the clock struck 4 AM, but no one moved at first.
Suddenly, it was Kate who rose. By habit, she had counted the chimes of the clock without finding the strength to get up. She scratched her red locks, searching with her eyes for the Salamandrite lamp that should have been at her bedside. As she expected, she saw nothing.
"Zack..."
Letting out a sigh, she left her bed, making her way toward her brothers'. Her foot struck something she almost crushed—it was the object she was looking for. Unfortunately, the reddish piece that was supposed to be inside was gone.
"..."
With a sharp movement, she pulled the sheet covering her brothers' bodies before kicking the eldest.
"Hm?! Ekié, what's that?!" he exclaimed, sitting up abruptly.
"Argh, shut up! I'm sleeping!" groaned her younger brother.
"What do you mean, 'what's that?'" asked Kate, hands on her hips. "I'm asking, Zack, where is the Salamandrite that was in this lamp? Don't give me nonsense; it should've lasted two more days!"
"Kieu, you're waking me up over a rock?! What's wrong with you? Are you possessed?!"
"It is the spirit in your body that will come out when Father asks for his rock! Do you think we pick these off the ground? I'm sure you gave it to the woman!"
Those things were indeed picked off the ground, but her older brother would rather not waste his time arguing about such things.
"Argh, you talk too much," he said, making a dismissive gesture as if shooing something away. "Anyway, shut your mouth. Father doesn't need to know."
"I'm telling you—" she began, but a voice from the floor interrupted her.
"Ah… Oh, Kate... Kate, oh!"
"Papa!" she replied.
"Who are you talking to in the middle of the night? Is it time already?"
"Yes, Papa," she answered.
"Damn! It's time, and you didn't wake me up?! What is this? That's what I always tell your mother! Never give children too much freedom! If you hadn't spent last night dancing, you would've woken us up earlier! Really! Tsk, really…"
Her father's words faded into a jumble of incoherent muttering as he seemed to drift back to sleep. Kate turned to her brother, her lips pressed together.
"Fine, I get it!" he said, finally getting up. "But please, don't tell Father. I'll gather stones from the mine to replace the other one."
"And? What do I get out of it? Now we'll have to wash in the dark and cold because of you. What do you say?"
Indeed. With the power source of the lamp gone, they would have no way of heating water or themselves for that matter. And that was ignoring the lighting concern
"Ayah, this girl," replied Zack, "can't you help your fellow? Just use the moonlight for today, can't you see with it?"
"My fellow, don't you remember how the healer said my eyes are already deteriorating? You make me work—"
"Wait," Zack interrupted. "I'll buy you something when we get paid today. Does that work?"
"There! Now you're talking sense!" she replied, nodding.
"Mâ calcul, Mâ plan," her elder brother muttered under his breath as he shook their younger brother.
Kate decided to ignore the derogatory phrase her brother used to refer to her. What? Was making calculations and plans such a bad thing? He shouldn't do things that could get him into trouble on payday—it was as if he were asking for his money to be taken!
But work still had to be done to receive that pay, and to work, they had to prepare. A new argument erupted over the basin—the boys occupied it, arguing that their sister took forever to finish washing.
This remark earned them a few well-placed kicks. She barely restrained herself from targeting their now-exposed intimate areas. There was no shame or embarrassment—this was simply the mindset of children raised together like a litter of puppies. Even the younger brother, curious about such things at his sensitive pre-adolescent age, no longer sought to know how his sister was made.
Strangely, Kate was the first to be ready. She had donned the black outfit of the sorters — her jaw protector, gloves, and reinforced boots. From afar, one might mistake her for an assassin cloaked to blend into the night, but her green eyes softened this image somewhat.
"They already told you you look like a man when you wear that?" her younger brother teased, letting out a small laugh.
"Wait, I'll turn YOU into a woman," Kate replied, pretending to aim another kick at him.
Her younger brother fled laughing, as fast as if he were chased by a ferocious beast.
But soon, a dispute erupted in the neighboring house.
"Hmhmm," her younger brother hummed with a smile. "There go the Levaks fighting again."
His sister let out a small laugh. The way her younger brother narrated their neighbors' troubles never failed to make her smile, even though she often tried to "play tough."
"Tum, punch! There goes the husband downstairs!"
The noises on the other side of the wall matched his narration and gestures so well that one wondered if he had a rare ability to see through walls.
"Aha! There goes Loup going upstairs! He'll console the wife!"
"Ah, stop it! What if they hear you?" Zack interjected, also visibly amused.
"Hm, you say that because you don't want the woman to know how much of a mbok her mother is!" mused Kate.
"Wah, this girl, leave Filo's name out of this. She knows nothing about these stories."
Filo, or THE woman as they liked to call her, was the name of her elder brother's girlfriend. Well, if one could still call someone a girlfriend after having two children together. She was surely aware of her mother's infidelities with their landlord, a miner from the east of the country named Loup, but Zack always insisted she knew nothing.
"Mind your own lives!" he added. "Always just listening to other people's lives. That's why you're poor!"
"Because you're rich, huh?" Kate retorted with a small laugh.
Zack wanted to respond, but their father's cursing voice downstairs silenced him. Smoke filled the room, its thick tendrils curling through the air like a snake. Kate's heart sank.
"Ah…"
They all understood—the house was on fire.