Dream Memory - Anka Frein - Madwoman's Crown

Dream-Memory: “Madwoman’s Crown”
Morrow dreams of Anka Frein — not the mask, but the woman before the fire took her name.
 
Rain drums on corrugated metal in a frantic rhythm — fast, erratic, like a warning too late to matter.
 
The alley is choked with refuse, rusted out pipework, and the stink of bleach and mildew. Light from a cracked street-lantern reflects in puddles as though trying to crawl away from the filth.
 
He — Morrow — huddles beneath a rusted awning, collar up, clipboard in hand like a shield. He watches through the drizzle, just another shadow in the city’s ribs. Watching her.
 
She is not yet Anka.
Her name was Ressa Aldvine then.
 
A preacher's daughter turned insurrectionist courier, mouth full of poetry and prophecy before the Flame ever touched her. She wears threadbare robes stitched with runes no one reads anymore, but her voice slices through the rain like glass.
 
She stands barefoot on a crate in the heart of the tenement square, face lit by a flickering lamp, eyes lit by something else.
 
“Your names are not your own! You were branded at birth and told to smile!”
“The truth isn’t gone. It’s buried. And the shovel is fire!”
 
People watch. Some smirk. Most avoid. A few… listen.
 
Morrow does not breathe. He listens. Not just to her words — but the spaces between them. The way she leans forward at the end of a sentence. The crack in her voice when she says “truth.” The tilt of her head, like she's trying to remember something very old.
 
And in the space behind Morrow — in the wall’s reflection, in the puddle's tremble — the black fire begins to whisper.
 
“She is not mad. She is unchained.”
“Her mind was not broken — it was opened.”
“Take her ruin. Let it seed.”
 
And then it happens.
 
A tremor in the pipe above.
A hiss of pressure.
An explosion of steam and boiling light from within the building she leans against.
 
The blast is not meant for her. But the effect is the same.
 
Ressa is thrown backwards into flame. Old gas lines ignite like serpents awakening.
The world screams — not in grief, but in recognition.
 
Morrow rushes forward, against instinct. Against training.
Through the smoke, he sees her. Limbs broken. Hair aflame. Eyes open.
 
She looks through him.
She knows him.
 
She smiles.
 
“I remember you,” she says. “Even if you don’t.”
 
And then she burns.
 
But not in red. Not in gold.
 
In black.
 
The fire coils around her like a shroud, consuming not her body, but her bindings. Her name. Her shame. Her limits. Her silence.
 
In the ashes that remain, Morrow finds her shawl — singed, scorched, but intact. He lifts it.
 
The voice of the Forgotten Flame curls in his ear like smoke in the lungs:
 
“She did not die. She became.”
“Wear her. Speak her. Be the prophecy unfulfilled.”
“Truth is not silent. It screams. It weeps. It laughs.”
 
Later, in the mirror, Anka Frein stares back at him.
 
Eyes milky. Smile crooked. Madness performed — but never false.
She walks barefoot through gutters and churches alike, speaking riddles to children, cultists, and corpsemen.
 
And the fire laughs with her.