Collection of Short Stories

House Fire

 Sirens. I remember sirens. They were penetrating my skull like a bullet. Like a thousand bullets. My eyes were bleary and so heavy. So heavy. Everything became a chore and I was just so tired. I couldn't breathe and I couldn't open my eyes. I couldn't move my fingers or my legs or my toes. And I was so tired. So tired and betrayed.

My bedroom was a smoky hellish red mess when I woke up. Shadows were dancing on the walls and the ceiling, and smoke was pouring in from under my door. I coughed so hard my lungs felt as if they might shatter. Fire. I didn't think much about it then; I guess I was confused and tired and I don't know. But I didn't dwell on the why's or how's. I crawled off of the bed and laid as flat as possible on the floor, and started yelling. I could hear the fire raging in my ears and honestly my voice didn't seem all that loud. It was hoarse and choked up, I had tears in my eyes from the smoke and I could only go a few seconds without coughing. "Mom! Mom you have to get up!"

I shimmied my way towards my door and lifted my left hand for the door handle. But before I could make contact with the metal, my hand jerked violently to the left. I don't know if there was a ghost or I did it myself because I was so out of it, but I tore off the large shirt that I slept in, wadded it up, and wrapped it around the knob. Sure enough the shirt started to sizzle and became hot. I struggled with the door knob for a few seconds before I realized I locked the door before going to bed. Of course.

I cursed and threw the shirt to the floor. Maybe going further into a burning house wasn't a good idea, especially because I had absolutely no idea where it started or anything remotely important, but there was a chance that my mother was still in her room asleep or.. And so with all of the courage I had, I pinched the lock on the door and turned it. More tears started to stream down my face as I cried out. The skin on my fingers resembled lava, bubbling and angry.

I ripped some fabric from my jeans and opened the door, the heat surely burning my hand further into oblivion. I didn't feel it much this time, although the adrenaline coursing through me must have had something to do with it. I shoved the door open hard, making it bounce off of the wall slightly. The hellish red color increased tenfold and I could see the fire that was consuming my house. It was flowing and graceful, but sinister. Laughing at my poor attempts to get out of my room and down the hall to my mother's room. Smirking at me all while ascending the stairs one by one, engorging the banister. Or maybe I was crazy.

I tried to pull myself down the hall, sort of like a military crawl, but the floor was slick from my sweat and my whole body was trembling. I got up on my hands and knees to crawl and coughed hard. Tears were streaming down my face, mingling with sweat and fear too, it was so palpable. I could hardly see because of the smoke and tears and sweat in my eyes.

Maybe smoke was a fire's first and last defense; it made it so terribly hard to breathe or see anything. If the fire wasn't there the smoke was and it was so suffocating. If the fire didn't kill you, hopefully the smoke would. Fire seemed such a sinister thing.

I was at my mother's door and I couldn't swallow the lump of fear in my throat. I could barely breathe before because of the smoke but now it seemed utterly impossible. Panic had planted itself in my throat and soul and didn't seem to want to leave. I pushed on the door and was only slightly relieved to find that it was open. Then I was swallowed in panic and anger and fear and everything horrible. An abyss of emptying feelings.

She wasn't there. I got up immediately from my crouched position and ran to the window. She was just standing there, dog in one arm, phone in the other. She looked completely and utterly okay, like our house wasn't on fire, and she wasn't standing outside watching it burn. Her facial expressions were relaxed and maybe even... Happy?

I beat on the window with my right hand in anger and frustration. How could she just stand there and look at the house? With her daughter inside and... I broke the window with a trophy that was on her desk and climbed out of the window. And I jumped. From a second story window.

Next thing I know I'm on a stretcher. And there's a man standing over me, checking my glorified body in nothing but a sports bra and ripped pair of pajama pants for injuries. And it's hard to breathe. My lungs feel like fire, my eyes are burning and my heart is heavy. She was the first thing you thought of and you didn't even cross her mind.

She was my mother, all I had. That was the reason I went through hell to save her. 

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So this one had a prompt. "If your house was on fire, what is the one thing you would grab and why?" I kinda just went with it and I'm not sure how I feel about this one. It feels like there's not enough emotion in it, or things aren't described. To me it almost feels like a list, "I did this, I did that, then this happened and I did this..." Butttttt yeah this is what I came up with and its kinda meh.

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