Seeking Safety

Part 2 - The heat of it

Heat. Searing heat. I can feel it licking its way up my legs. Today is a hot day, I think, I deserve some cool water. But this is not just a hot day, this is fire. Suddenly I register what is happening. I force my eyes open. Everywhere there are flames reaching up into the sky, but all I can see of the sky is a grey mass. I am sprawled on my back. I try to get up, but my head throbs and I feel like I will pass out again. The timber beams of the classroom sag and buckle with fire. The roof is gone, collapsed inward. The flaming walls are going to disintegrate and I know I am too close. I will my body to move, yet I still cannot get up and run. I hear something thud and then there is a sharp pain under each of my arms. I am being lifted up.

"Run. Run." I am on my feet and the voice pushes me along. I cannot see who it is. I run, but the flames surround me. Where can I run, I am trapped, I panic. I see the man, his clothes hang in fragments from his chest and legs.

"This way." He grabs my hand and we run through the flames, over burning beams. There is too much smoke and I cannot see properly, otherwise I may have seen the bodies. He drags me along. We burst through a clearing and I spot a safe area. We run towards a shallow ditch behind a water tank and there we collapse.

For a while I cough and splutter, the smoke has filled my lungs. I look down at my body. My feet and legs are burned and raw.The pale yellow dress I am wearing is smeared with grey and brown and blood. My eyes sting with smoke. Then I look across at my rescuer and my heart skips a beat. His legs are far worse than mine and his arms are also seared. His hair is thick with soot and his face completely blackened. Yet still I recognize this man. He is nineteen, he volunteers with the Middle Years kids and he is the boy I have hidden a crush from for the past two years. It is Nile.