Burn

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of graphic violence, death by suicide, and child death.

The Prologue of Burn begins in medias res—in the middle of the story. A person named Jess stamps out a fire and contemplates his surroundings. It’s been several days since he’s found a destroyed bridge, and he has since had strange dreams. He’s dreamed of landscapes and houses he once lived in that he no longer recognizes. Now, he dreams of a former lover who handed him a stone the size of a radish, which she called a “prayer stone.” Jess stands at the shores of a lake and feels the stone in his pocket, wishing he could tell his former lover that he’s still alive. He squeezes the stone, feeling an immense sense of loss and sadness.

Two friends, Jess and Storey, emerge from the woods to find a lake with a village nearby. Like most of the other villages they’ve seen, the houses and stores are mostly burned to the ground. They find four blackened, burned bodies in the ruins and wonder where the rest of the residents are.