The Oblivion

the fire

WE RAN.

I heard my heart screaming in my ears and the fire annihilating everything behind us and the blood disappeared from my bloodstream and the confidence that one burned in my eyes will never come back and I kept sprinting with my friends at my sides and I felt the heat prickle my heels and the world tipping sideways. Blood swirled in my eyes, and I felt like I will never be able to see humans the way they were before. All I can do is think and think about what the children inside the building who are being blown up watch this. I remember their panicked eyes as they watched me try to knock down the exit door, and the accusation in the guard who tried to kill Brook. I just wonder how many people in total I killed today.

How will I learn to live again?

I will need the power of light to be able to get out of this building alive, and all my friends knew it. So instead of thinking about outrunning the fire we needed a downright exit in five-seconds or were dead.

Ariana did the job for us.

I heard her yelling something but my ears couldn't function properly, and I thought she was shouting out of fear, not words. But the heat that exploded in my veins and the flames that very nearly caught my skin made me not think straight.

My heart sank as I heard shallow cries rise upon the hallways of Year six and five. At that moment I wondered why my blood cells were actually there, and why I wasn't the one dead, and why I didn't die a long time ago after watching my friends fall. I wondered why I never turned myself in and just selfishly allowed myself to live when others die because of me. Not only because; some I killed.

Like now.

Tears and anger caught in my throat as my legs pumped me onwards, and I was now breathing on fear, and walking on very, very thin ice. The sudden surge of fire frenzied towards us, and any minute down the flames could swallow me in a whole.

I knew that it was the smoke that killed people as much as the fire could burn you, but in this case it was an explosion, and the whole fire and obliteration was too fast for the fire to even release smoke. To me that felt like I wasn't running from fire, but a source of explosion that only eats up people. The smoke would come later, so even if I didn't get stepped on the fire, the inhaling afterwards would kills us all.

Now I welcomed death.

At the same time I was begging the fire to release me and kill me, free me, and I couldn't make up my mind. To die, it was simple. Stand there and within a second this would all end. To keep on going, it was a whole different story.

I felt the ground get more slippery as I thought about it. Then the question popped into my mind; why was I thinking about it? I was going to die anyway.

I once asked my mother if we could die by just holding our breath, no matter how strong the urge was. Once or twice after the tornado I had tried to that, but no matter how hard I tried, it wouldn't happen. My mother gave me a piercing look but then said that our lungs would take over the emotional desire, because physical happenings are stronger than feelings. I felt that way as I kept running, focusing on the path in front of me. I wanted to die, but my body instinct was the only thing that propelled me to survive. I can survive this fire. Do this to end Steve.

Someone has to do it. And I will take the greatest pleasure in doing so.

But I knew he was unreachable.

This time Ariana screeched again, loud in my ears, but I still couldn't focus. I felt like I was in a dream nightmarish world, and when I would wake up, I would sweat like crazy but have hazy hysteria of realizing it wasn't real, because of course something this brutal and vicious wasn't real.