Burning Daises

Part 1

The world seemed to be ending. Fire dissolved my lungs to powder and smoke blindfolded me in ashy clouds of dust. I was tumbling backwards, falling into a pit of obscurity with no hands to propel me upwards. I was dying, choking on air, and coughing up fumes, as I watched hundreds of blazing red eyes flicker and burn the far chalky white wall.

The past seemed to all blur together into one black blob. I remember the storm blazing though our neighborhood maliciously, growling and barking with its iron voice. I remember the lights turning dark, and my younger brother falling down the stairs with curse words hot on his heels. I remember my twin, Jessie, dropping a glass in the kitchen, and the sound of it shattering into a million sharp pieces. I remember my little sister whaling for our mother and her blanket, and my father walking zombie-like though the house, trying to find matches or a miniature flashlight. I remember my mother corralling us into the living room, where we all sat on the couch together, cocooned in blankets, listening to the rain pound violently like angry fists against our roof. And I vividly remember when the world broke up like an egg, and doused us in heavenly fire and hellish ice.

A tree hit the one of the power lines standing in the woods behind our house and caught fire. I remember looking out the window and watching the mouth of the flames turn the trees into toothpicks and the grass die and turn a crispy brown in a couple of seconds. I watched the fire tackle our pool screen to the ground first, and then engulf the guest house that resided on the end of our long plot of land.

I could still hear my mother yelling at us grab the photo albums, and my little sister screaming bloody murder as my father grabbed her tiny eight year old body and dashed towards the front door. In our scramble to evacuate, somehow, I got left behind. I became an orphan of the house after my brother ran towards his room to grab something of sentimental value, and Jessie and mother darted from my side with photo albums looped under both of their arms. I do not know if fear paralyzed me from moving or if I tried to run, but got taught in the flame's blistering hands. Nonetheless, in seconds I was pulled into hell and was lost in a sea of blood. All I could do was lie in a tomb of fire on my living room floor and gaze up at the roof that was dissolving into chunks of gray cinders. I could feel the fire lick my skin with its forked tongue, and I could hear my name being screamed though the cracked laugher of the fire.

At first I tried to get up, but I could not move my legs, for they had turned into liquid metal that had stuck to the carpeted floor. All I could do was wait for the fire to chew me up with its fanged teeth, and spit my over-cooked remains out to my family, so they could morn over me. I knew death was going to be my end. Life was throwing me into hell for me to burn like the wicked, even though I have never sinned.

But then, I heard the sirens and hope crashed though my body like a rouge green wave tumbling over a vacant beach. Help did not reach my aid though. My mother's lost scream still roared in my ears and orange tears rolled down my blistered cheeks. I waited for nothing. All I could think was the fact that my house had become a hazard; a piece of yellow caution tape flapping in the wind that marked this place to dangerous to enter. The fire's only enemy were the valor firemen, and if they had let the fire win, then my house was a lost perilous, and I was a casualty to be checked off as dead.

Lost hope is what finally closed my eyes. I could no longer observe this fire destroy the home I spent almost nineteen years of my life living in. This house protected me and sheltered me though my toddler day, my fussy hormonal teenage years. and through my first semester at the local community college. Now the house had turned on me, and let me become a hostage of the fire's fury. In a way, the house was killing me, and all I could do to counter it was laugh silently.

I knew death could take me any minute and I accepted it sourly and waited for the flames to finally blanket me in heat. However, right when I was about to sink into the tranquil waters of sleep, I heard a faint buzzing that sounded like a walky-talky and a deep voice-belonging to a male-calling my name. When I finally opened my eye, I saw a tall man towering over me. He looked like an alien at first and I felt like I was on a distance planet with all the smoke and scarlet flares of light. Nevertheless, when I focused more on the man, I saw an oxygen tank straddling his back, a dull yellow suit protecting his skin, and the outline of his face hidden behind a clear mask.