Ashes

-3-

Three months ago (PART 1)

"NOVALIE!"

I woke up with a jolt, heavily groggy and my body heaving a full body cough on instinct. It felt as if the ocean was concealed in my brain, the disorient feeling making me feel as if I was swaying in the waves. I couldn't understand why my lungs were so strained or why it hurt to breathe. Why is it so smokey? 

That's when the panic kicked in for me. All I could hear was the crackling of the wood and drywall as the thick smoke started to billow from under my bedroom door and flow up to the ceiling like it was swallowing my room whole.

"NOVALIE!" I hear my mother shout, the distance sounding so strained as the panic in my mother's voice had me immediately jumping from my bed and running to my door. She has asthma and she can't handle something like this and yet, she's worried about getting to me. I stand there for a moment and stare at the door knob and hesitate, I've been taught all my life the metal could be hot if there is fire on the other side of the door. Even though my knee jerk reaction is to open the door open and fly down the stairs to their room. All the times my dad would instruct me each time we made a fire or practiced safety drills. "John, what if it started up there?!" My mother's voice was so hoarse and strained. My heart aches at how long she could have been calling out for me?

"MOM!?" I yell back as loud as I can to let her know that I am okay for the most part. the smoke thats rolling in from under the door was getting thicker and thicker. Which meant that wherever the fire started, it was getting closer and closer to the stairs by my room. My eyes were wide with panic as the dry air stung them, darting around my room trying to assess the situation and cursing for not coming up with anything useful. I couldn't take in enough air, which at the moment was scarce. I am hoping that it's just like that up here on the second story, I just need them to be okay. I can hear the crackling getting louder and the sound of fire raging in the hallway. What the fuck am I supposed to do? My hands shoot to my head, gripping at the roots as I turn around to see my window slightly open. I leave my window like that on summer nights just to hear the frogs and crickets screech to the heavens, it helps me sleep. Even thought my dad hastes it, seeing it as a waste since the air conditioner is on.

Not even thinking, I launch myself to the window so I can look down to see that the flames have consumed this side of the house on the first level. It's only a matter of time before the floor below my feet collapses and I end up burning to death. "Shit" I mutter to myself as I slowly get on my knees so I can start crawling on the floor so I can stop inhaling all this smoke.

I start violently coughing again, getting just a fraction of fresh air, my chest heaving and aching. I can hear a dull thudding in the distance and a loud scream of frustration. I can only guess it's the landing of the steps. "NOVALIE! I DON'T THINK I CAN GET TO YOU!" My father shouted, I could hear the fear in my dad's voice, the unsetting realization that there wasn't a way we could all get to safety. It scared me to my core, my dad wasn't one to be frightened in any situation, he was the brave one. Always telling me that pain was temporary and that he could get through anything. 

If I am trapped up here, then they could be trapped down there.

I can feel the tears trying to fall from my eyes but the heat dries them before they can even fall. Each possible outcome has already flashed through my mind causing me to fold into myself as I lay on the floor of my bedroom. Even though there was only smoke in my room, the heat still danced across my face. I can't just lay here and just wait to either die or be rescued, but everything that I have been taught over the years had eddied from my mind.

The distant thudding hasn't stopped or weakened, meaning my dad was still trying to find some way to get to my room. Each thud was a nudge for me to get up and not just lay there and let it happen. Memories calling out to me from when my father first taught me how to handle a gun when I was ten.