Burning Sage

Chapter 11: Heating Up

I awoke to Hope's slap across my face, jolted back into reality, still feeling overwhelmed by everything. I was back in my room, back in bed with Hope, but for some reason, my sense of time was lost to me.

"Sage, do you smell that?" Hope cried, her posture tensing as the troubling scent of smoke filled the room. I coughed, my head buried in the pillow, trying to shake off the dull hangover that clung to me like a disease. I longed for the comfort of my mattress.

"OW!" Hope screamed, pulling back from the doorknob, which was hot to the touch. "The house is on fire, Sage. We're gonna die! Get up!"

I rubbed my chest, which ached with each beat of my heart. I looked around the cold room, the light smoke seeping in through the cracks, inviting itself in like an unwelcome guest.

'The house is on fire,' I muttered, the reality of the situation hitting me like a freight train.

"Sage, how are we gonna get out?" Hope bleated in the cold moment.

"Um . . . Out the window.' I remarked as I peered down the two story drop. The ground held a foot of snow. The floor beneath us suddenly felt warm, and I panicked. "Sage, I'ma break my back if I jump out the window." Hope put on her shoes, "Gawd Sage aren't ya gonna pray for us. I don't wanna die."

With a flick of my wrist, the window was thrown wide open, inviting in the bitter night air and expelling the suffocating heat. Hope's tears fell like diamonds, their gentle light a cruel contrast to the inferno that threatened to consume us both. I paused, staring into her eyes, a world of fear and uncertainty reflected there.

"Come on, Sage! Ya gotta jump out the damn window!" she cried, desperation lacing her voice. "We're goin a fall through if ya don't get a move on."

I swung my legs out the window, balancing precariously on the frame, and gazed back into my fiery home, bidding a silent farewell to all I held dear. Her face, her watery brown eyes, beckoned me to embrace the flames.

But then, disaster struck. The floor gave way beneath Hope, and she stumbled, the charred wood collapsing beneath her feet. She reached out, grasping for me, and I caught her hand, clinging to the outside of the house for dear life.

The floor was now a pile of ash and rubble, and my injured arm trembled under the weight of our combined bodies. Hope looked up at me, her eyes wide with fear. "This is how I die," she shrugged, her hair a tangled mess around her face. "In a blazing inferno, buried beneath a heap of ash and rubble."

I was barely hanging on, my grip slipping inch by inch, and I could only pray that this was not the end. "Hope, look at me." I gulped, trying to face it all.

"This is the pissfall of it all. All right here. '' She kept an eye out for the burning pile of ash below her, "Not in this hell-hole. I wanna have peace, but hell Sage, I reckon ya lemme die in this house of ya's."

"Three, two, ONE, N-" I screamed, jumping down into a soft pile of snow. I blacked out for a couple of seconds. I awoke. Everything was blurry. My experience in hell was a blur. The blood in my eyes pratically splattered along my lens', and dazed me. My lower back ached terribly, like a pregnant grandma's. I could see Hope's arms on the outside of the house, but the rest of her lingered in the burning house. The misty, smoke-filled air took over the black sky. It bellowed out of the windows and charred everything else. The very home that I was raised in was destroyed. My ties to everyone that made me who I was today were officially cut off. But that didn't mean anything to me now, only back then. Only back when I wanted to be dissociated from the entire world.

"Are you ok?" I mumbled, I couldn't scream. I physically couldn't. Hope didn't hear me.

Her arms suddenly disappeared as she fell into the burning house. Love can burn into nothing, but it can also sculpt me into something better.

I ran to the front door without a second thought, slugging through the wet snow. I swung the door wide open, looking to my right. The smoke hit my face, stunning me in place. Rising flames were falling like an off-balance waterfall. It was unbearingly warm, almost like I was in a life-size oven. The stinging stench of burning wood made me cringe, but I knew I couldn't let Hope die, not in my house. The roof was burning through, spraying me with scalding ash and scrap metal. A vivid outline of the stairs were visible, hallowed in place. They couldn't hold up a pebble, muchless me, a 200 pound dude.

I had made a mistake. The pressure was too much. "sageee" I heard. Hope was there, hardly noticeable over the comotion. I could see parts of her through the burnt, charred wall - the one between the living room and bathroom. Her clothes, the ones I gave her, moved as if the flame influenced them. As if she moved any other way she would get burnt and crusaded.

I tripped, blank-facing the black carpet. Blistering coals burned through my skin, but I quickly lit up into the smoke. My whole body was tender and rubbed raw, like an abused cat.

I clenched my sweaty fists in front of my face. The smoke was darker, heavier by the second. I carried on through the crackling house, running against the hot wood. I was getting cooked alive, a literal lobster stubborn enough to kill himself. Welts began to form on my raw, scratched chest. The dried blood was steaming off my white skin. I couldn't let it go quick enough. Parts of the floor fell through, revealing the basement. I swung myself over into the bathroom, for once on solid ground.

"Sage." she cried, falling down onto the vanity which was covered in glowing red coals. She scampered off the vanity and onto me, "I didn't think ya'd actually help me." she smiled, as if she had the world by its ass.

"Yeah yeah yeah. Let's get out of here." I put my hand on her shoulder, faded and dizzy in a jaded moment. Like any Hollywood model, I was too hot for too long. I grabbed Hope without a second thought, and jumped. I covered our heads, and bam!; We hit the planks that held up the second story. They didn't give... but we pinballed through them.

A second or two more passed. We came raining down onto the living room floor; it gave through. The charred carpet, and burnt wood let way onto us when we leveled the heated basement floor. I landed on my knees, but was brought down on my stomach by a crashing force. I rummaged the debris off me, petrified and parilized in place. I unknowingly was laying on top of my mother's rotting, soulless corpse.

"HOLY SHIT!" I screamed, Hope hopping around on the sultry hot floor. I rolled off her corpse, searing my back and sides like a sirloin steak. The air was vividly gaseous, hallucinating amongst itself. A burning sensation increselty formed in my throat, as if I were choking on a grape. Hope grabbed my sweaty hands, pulling up my barely conscious body away from my mother. She struggled, panting aloud. Her hair, her clothes stuck to me - a burning baptism of committing in this hell-hole.

I couldn't let go of my Mom's burning body - the very thing I came out of. I made it to my feet, jolting to a lonely window in the corner of the basement. I grabbed Landon's baseball bat, honing my inner Mark Mcquire. I swung it, busting out the window.. We threw ourselves out the window, rolling around in the snow like pigs in a mudpit. The blitzing cold air felt like an orgasm, washing my burnt lungs. The sudden change from blistering hot flames, to pitch black and freezing cold, made me pass out.