Falling For You

That's Hot

Waking up was painful, literally. I'd somehow curled into a ball sometime during the night, and I had to roll off the love seat just to stretch out for a minute. With a groan I heaved myself to my feet, mentally kicking myself for being so sore. I'm young and spry, I should be able to get up easier than that! Maybe I just needed food. I got myself situated for the day. Putting the boots back on and tying the sweatshirt around my waist before standing and throwing the axe over my shoulder. I was ready.

When I stepped out of the lounge, the first thing I noticed was the light. There was a lot more of it this morning! I quickly walked over to the windows, and I was happy to see that the snow was no longer falling, and the sun was out! Sure, there were a few scattered clouds, but I could live with that! I felt a surge of happiness that I might just make it to the ground today! With my spirit renewed, I got ready for my trek downward.

I used the bathroom, though no water was available to flush, I still needed to go! I felt good enough for food afterwards and went back to the break room. The vending machines were wide open thanks to the previous night's efforts with the axe, and I grabbed as much food as I could stuff into the little plastic bag for later. I looked around, making sure there was nothing left to grab, and patted my pocket for my dead phone and Eli's contracts, then headed back to the stairway. I opened the door, and immediately had two things strike me.

One, the increased light made its way into the stairwell and allowed me to see. If I could prop open doors, I could see for a change! Two, I smelled gasoline. I know the building had backup generators, but they'd never kicked on that I had seen. Was I smelling diesel? Had the fuel tanks to the generators ruptured? I could only shrug to myself since I had no way of knowing. There wasn't much I could do either way. I had to keep going down, there was no other option.

I grabbed the nearest chair I could and rolled it over to the door to the stairwell and then wedged it into the doorway to keep it open and was happy to see that the light was bright enough to get me to the next landing without fear of cracking my head open again. I happily skipped down to the next floor, then repeated the procedure. It didn't take too long before I was already 10 floors down and had a good bit illuminated by the doors being cracked open.

So of course, things had to go wrong again.

Down below, I heard a loud bang, as though a door had been slammed open. I looked down the center of the stairway in holes of seeing Eli. "Eli! Is that you? Are you okay?" I shouted down, hearing the echoes reverberating through the stairs. "Eli? Anyone?" Maybe someone had come to look for survivors?

When I heard in response wasn't good. "I hope you burn in hell!" I heard Eli's distorted voice yell back, as it echoed continuously through the stairwell.

Huh? What the hell did I do to her? Why would she say that?

Moments later I saw flames flickering down below in the stairwell as the fuel started to burn its way up the cement stairs towards me. I looked at the floor, and didn't see any liquid, so I assumed it wouldn't get to me right away, so I raced down a few more flights until I was a the 25th floor. Once I propped the door open, I could see a puddle of fuel on the floor and knew the fire would get up here soon. To compound the problem, there was broken glass scattered all over the floor as well. I quickly removed the chair and closed to the door and ran to the other stairwell. There was fuel and glass there too, and the flames were already on their way up!

Why was Eli trying to kill me like that? Did she seriously blame me for her fall?

The 25th floor was like the others, and I raced around in hopes that I could find something to put out the fire. I tried the hoses by opening the large valve that was supposed to be for the water supply, there was one next to each stairwell, but as expected the water was out, so that was pretty useless. Would the fire expand beyond the stairwell? It was all cement, right? So maybe it would just burn itself out and I could just wait it out.