The city was gone, but the fireplace remained.
Someone had rebuilt it by hand, stone by stone, as if ritual mattered more than shelter. Three stockings hung in the heat shimmer. One for the vanished. One for the returned. One left empty, just in case.
Footprints crossed the ash and stopped at the hearth.
At midnight, the fire brightened. The smallest stocking stirred. Inside was no gift, only a folded note, written carefully, lovingly: We remembered you. That was enough.
By morning, nothing else had changed.
The fire still burned.
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