The air is hot—so smoky it's suffocating. The world is burning; the sky is shades of red no matter where you go. Yet here I am, having a conversation my father and I have had too many times before.

"So, you're just gonna listen to whatever the T.V. tells ya?" he berates me.

"Dad, we need to get out of here. I couldn't watch T.V. if I wanted to anyways. The remote is melting!" I tell him.

"Don't raise your voice at me."

"I–" I pause, then I stop. He's not going to listen—he never will. My father tells me I'm too young to really know about the fires. He knows about them, he says. What he 'knows' is that there are no fires. It always smells like smoke because of the neighbours. The sky is getting redder because of the time of year. It's only hot because there's been a heatwave—it'll be over soon. He's not the only fire skeptic, though. He used to spend all of his time on Phoenix group chats–the people there just as willfully ignorant as he's always convinced himself it's righteous to be.

The truth is, we're dying. It doesn't matter where we go, but we'll die faster in this house.

My dad starts up again: "You know, I don't know how I raised a daughter so quick to believe everything the news says. Next, they're gonna say the sky's falling. There's a lot of misinformation out there, baby, but we're not leaving this house just because the government told us to."

"Dad," I begin, "half the world is ash now!"

He scoffs. "Raised a sheep, I did."

My heart aches. I spent nights wondering if this is the man my father has always been—hoping that one day I'd meet a man who would listen to someone other than his buddies on the screen. I'm done hoping.

I stare out the window, hues of reddish orange illuminating the sky. I swear I can hear the crackling now. The fires are getting closer. They always have been.

"Fine." I'm up before I can think. "Stay if you want, but I'm not waiting here to die."

"And where are you gonna go? I thought you said the fires were everywhere!" he yells as I head for the door.

"I'm driving south. Call me if you haven't burned."

CBC Books asked students to give us a glimpse of the great Canadian novel of the year 2174. They wrote the first page of a book set 150 years in the future, with the protagonist facing an issue that's topical today and set the scene for how it's all playing out in a century and a half.

Two winning entries — one from the Grades 7 to 9 category and one from the Grades 10 to 12 category — will be chosen by middle-grade author Basil Sylvester.

They are the co-author of the middle-grade novel The Fabulous Zed Watson and the recently published second book in the series, Night of the Living Zed.

Both winners will receive a one-year subscription to OwlCrate, which sends fresh boxes of books to young readers across Canada on a monthly basis. In addition, each winners' school libraries will receive 50 free YA books.

Last year's winners were Christian A. Yiouroukis for his story Where the Maple Leaf Grows and Bee Lang for their story One Question.

The winner will be announced on CBC Books on June 12, 2024.