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tarkana1
— Fate's Inferno
Published:
2011-02-05 03:58:33 +0000 UTC
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Step 1
Gathering
I wake up to an ambient red glow on the other side of my eyelids. I lie there in wait just staring at it for about three minutes. The glow isn't sunlight. Warm air surrounds me; someone turned the furnace too high. Another minute, I smell burning hair. The air is singeing my nose hairs. Finally, I open my eyes. I wish I hadn't.
My bed is surrounded by flames that all seem to be dancing around me, taunting me, daring me to get out. I sit up in my bed, frozen in fear. Over the roar of the flames, I hear the incessant beeping of the smoke alarm in the hall. Clasping my hands over my ears, I bend down into the cloth on my knees, trying to prevent myself from breathing in the smoke. It seems to be working, if just a little. "Why aren't I dead yet?" I think to myself. I'd rather have been dead than go through that freezing terror of being certain that I was going to die, whether from burns or smoke inhalation. Then I realized that I didn't want to die. I was determined to stay alive any way that I could.
I frantically searched the space around my bed. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, all seemed devoid of any means of escape. I stand up in my bed, slightly crouched; I want to take up as little space as possible. I look around again and notice an empty spot in the flames, an untouched piece of carpet. I steady myself on the bed and get into an amateur runner's pose, bouncing rhythmically on my back leg. With a strong step forward, I quickly place my foot on the left edge of my bed. I'm just about to spring forward on my foot when it slips past the cushion and bangs hard into the bed frame. The fire has weakened the wooden frame and my foot goes right through it, snapping it in half, and slamming, hard, into the floor. This combination of movements and sudden impacts makes me fall slightly backward and then instantly jolts me forward, sending me into a roll through the inferno; and I close my eyes, anticipating what was going to happen next.
Amazingly, I feel no pain, no heat, hardly anything, as my eyes stay tightly shut, waiting for the searing, unbearable pain of the delayed burns. I feel nothing. When I open my eyes again, I find I'm sitting in the clearing that I had been aiming for. Turns out, there really is something to "stop, drop, and roll."For the moment, I feel triumphant, heroic. That is, until I try to stand. The second that I apply the smallest amount of pressure to my right leg, I let out a yelp of searing pain and am doubled over in agony. With reproach, I take a look at my leg. I think it's sprained, but that's the least of my worries. A large, nailed piece of wood is jutting out of the back end of my heel. I can feel it tightening with rigor mortis, it's all in my head, but, all-the-same, my foot isn't going to be useful for long. It's bleeding badly; I need to do something, fast, before the loss of blood causes me to pass out. I grasp the piece of wood, fully, in my hand. Gritting my teeth, I yank on the wood as hard as I can, pulling it out in one swift motion. Pulling it doesn't hurt, but the pain afterword is excruciating with the hot air hitting the wound. The gash starts to bleed even more profusely. I need to stop the bleeding before it's too late. My first aid knowledge tells me to apply pressure. No sterile gauze around here though, they may teach you how to do it, but, unfortunately for me, first aid classes don't teach you how to be resourceful. Luckily, I've been camping; I know how to be resourceful. I tear off a piece of the carpet from the edge of the fire and press it against the hole. Now I wish I'd vacuumed more often. The bleeding slows at least. My instinct now tells me to cauterize it. I cringe at the thought, but it has to be done. I don't need to be too resourceful for this; I light the piece of carpet in the surrounding fire and hold it to the open wound. It won't cauterize. Why won't it cauterize!
I begin to panic. I don't know what to do. That's the end of my first aid training. Before I completely lose it, I use the last trick in my healing repertoire. I tear off the sleeve of my pajama top and tie it tightly around my ankle. Now for the sprain, I grab the closest end of my broken bed frame and break off two small pieces a little smaller than my foot. I tear off my other sleeve and fasten a piece of the wood to either side of my ankle. I use the rest of the length of the wooden frame as a walking stick. Tearing and tying the hem of my pant leg around the top for a make-shift handle. I can stand again.
It's time to get out of here. I need to get to the window, the fire escape, fast. My walking stick and splint won't last too much longer, their already worn from the fire. Luckily, it's only a few feet away from my bed. Moving faster than I should through fire, I delicately step through it, keeping an eye out for the clean spots of carpet for my feet and my stick. After almost a minute of hobbling, I reach the window and a small amount of relief sets in, until I try to open it. I lift up as hard as I can, but the second I do pain shoots through my leg, I'm putting too much weight on it. Ordinarily, that wouldn't be a problem, but, on top of the sprain, the loss of blood has left me weak, I don't have the strength to open the window, I can barely manage a tug. Something cold trickles down my face. I touch my cheek and realize that I'm crying. With a burst of misguided anger, I start to bang against the window pane. I know I can't risk losing any more blood. I know the exertion will probably make me vomit and pass out. I know the hard work is just making me breathe in more smoke. But I don't care. I'll do anything but give up. Anything but admit defeat. Anything but just lay down and die!
I'm not strong enough to break the window. I should have known I wouldn't be able to. I'm overworked and overheated. And I was right about the exertion. I vomit on the floor in front of me. The last bit of moisture that the heat of the fire hadn't stolen just escaped through my mouth, reducing me to a slump on the floor. I don't have the strength to move. I can barely lift a finger up to the window, just scratching in vain at the panel of glass. If only I had a can of spinach.
A short, weird sound emanates from the window panel, a sort of scraping sound. The glass has cracked. Then I hear a sound much more prominently; a violent banging against the window from the other side, causing the glass to bend inward and the cracks to expand to the center of the panel. After about five more of these bangs, the window bursts into the room like a hail of ice. Then something steps through the broken window. I can't make out what it is. All I that I can make out is that it's big and covered in red and yellow. The last thing I see is the huge figure reaching for me before I drift into a sort of half-consciousness. I'm not really aware of what's happening. I think the yellow and red thing is taking me outside. I know what the red and yellow thing is, but I'm too exhausted to think of it. I'm handed off to someone else at a lower height. I must be on the fire escape, because we slowly start to descend straight down on a ladder.
We reach the bottom after about half a minute. I'm taken, by another yellow and red thing, over to a place where red lights flash by and burn my eyes even more than the fire. I'm set down in a small white space made of cold metal; it feels good in contrast to the fire. Apparently, it's obvious that I'm dehydrated, because I'm sat up by someone and given some water. I try to drink, but most of it ends up spilling out of the corners of my mouth. I do swallow some and after a while I become more aware of my surroundings and what's going on. I'm sitting in an ambulance, I'm hooked up to an I.V. and my ankle is professionally wrapped and splinted. The I.V. must be either an antibiotic or nutrient drip. I'm told that my floor of my apartment building and all of the one's below it caught fire. They suspect arson.
At last, I can finally relax: at least until the explosion.
The sound is unmistakable: a roaring, all-consuming explosion, coming from the fire. I take out the I.V. and speed out of the back of the ambulance right as they're closing the doors. Fire is spewing from every window on my floor. The fire must have reached the furnace. Of all the places for an arsonist to strike, it had to be somewhere with a gas furnace. I look around frantically. Where are they? They had to have gotten them out. It's their job as firemen. Right? I can't find them anywhere!
I find the nearest fireman near a small group near a fire engine. "Hey! There were two other people on the second floor besides me. Where are they?" The fireman I'm talking to gets a sorry expression on his face as he looks over to the other firemen in the group. "You got them out didn't you!?" The fireman looks back at me, looking sad and defeated.
With solace in his voice, the fireman replies, "I'm sorry, kid. You were the only one we got off of that floor."
The shock hits me so hard that I can barely breathe. Slowly, I walk back to the ambulance just as the paramedics have come back for me. They must recognize the look on my face, because they don't say anything to me as I approach them. I pass right by them and they follow me back to ambulance.
I stop just before getting in to the ambulance. I stand there in the light of the ambulance's open doors, just staring at the raging inferno that was once my home. The tears begin again as the reality sets in. I am 12 years old. I am now an orphan.
As much as I hate it, I suddenly become fully aware of my surroundings. I guess the death of my parents was enough of a shock to bring me fully back to reality. Or maybe I was hoping it was all a dream, and that coming back to reality would make it all go away. I'm not that lucky.
With my regained sense of reality, I notice and unbearable scratching at my back. It itches to an unimaginable degree: probably because I had been ignoring it all this time, just letting it get worse. I try to scratch, but I can't reach the spot. I start fooling with the collar of my pajama top, hoping to resettle the back to a more comfortable. With the recent death of my parents, I know this shouldn't matter at the moment. I should continue ignoring it. But I can't. It's biting at me relentlessly, refusing to be ignored. I tug harder at my collar and my pajama shirt falls off. There was no rip. No tearing sound. It just falls off.
The back of my shirt is burnt to a crisp. There are clearly visible holes in the fabric. Every inch is completely blackened. Then I notice something even more unsettling. The itching is gone. I feel nothing but the cold air on my back. Not the slightest bit of pain. I reach behind me and touch my back. There isn't a single scar either. Judging by the state of my shirt, I should be in excruciating pain, with every inch of my back covered in scarred tissue.
How am I still standing? For how long was the fire on my back? When was it put out? Did anyone notice? Questions race through my head all at the same time without an answer to a single one.
As I later learn, there is only one answer to my questions: only one that makes sense even in the most remote way. Why my back isn't debilitatingly scarred. Why the wound in my foot wouldn't cauterize. Why I'm not dead. Fire is afraid of me.
To be continued
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