The Bachelor's Bride

Chapter 9-Etta

2 hours ago.....
I kept glancing up at the clock, silently groaning to myself. It was still early in the day, and I still hadn't finished sticking up this dress piece. I was in the midst if my thoughts when Beth immediately shot out of her chair. She walked over the door, pointing, "W-what's that?!"

Lin jumped to her feet at the sight of the gray mass seeping under the door. Mary-Jane settled her hand on Lin's arm while saying, "Okay, let's just calm down for a minute. Beth, can you open the door?"

Beth jiggled the knob fiercely, fear evident in her every movement, "It's locked! And the handle is hot!"

"I wonder where all this smoke is coming from. Or where the fire is that's causing it." I said. I settled in my chair, trying to think. "We could potentially be safe if the fire department gets here fast."

Almost immediately after I said that, we heard a loud and viscous explosion in the next room over. Beth and Lin yelped in fear. Mary-Jane hurried over to the windows, shoving at them with a her weight, "We can't wait for them or we will be toast!  Etta, help me get these windows open!"

I hurried over and together we managed to shove open the window. I gasped at the sight below us. It was worse than I thought. The three floors below us was a roaring mass of crumbling wood and hot brick. I could hear everyone screaming from up here, over the angry roar of the fire. Beth grabbed my arm in fear, "What do we do?!"

"We have to jump." Mary-Jane already had her foot up on the ledge.

"From the fourth floor?! We won't make it!" Lin exclaimed.

I grabbed Mary-Jane, pulling her back inside.  We would break our necks trying to jump out of here.  Even through the heavy, dense smoke, I could see bodies littering the ground.  I shivered.  I didn't want to join them.  Suddenly, I remembered a door I had spotted next to the closet room when Mary-Jane had been showing me around the place on my first day here, "Wait, the roof access!"

"There isn't one." Mary-Jane said in exasperation.

I shoved against the heavy storage shelves in the back. Beth ran over to help and together we managed to move it enough to reveal the door behind it.  I swung open the door, revealing a set of stairs that led to the roof.

"But what will we do once we get up there?" Beth asked nervously. "We can't jump from that height."

"We don't have to jump down," I explained. "Be we can jump across to the roof of the building beside it."

"Alright, but we need to hurry before...." Mary-Jane's voice was drowned out by the sound of the ceiling crashing in on us.

I felt a heavy piece of wood hit me in the shoulder, sending me sprawling.  I groaned at the terrible feeling of flames licking their way up my back, but I was in too much pain to try and put them out.  Lin grabbed a heavy piece of fabric and beat at my back with it, putting out the flames.  She helped me get to my feet as we choked against the heat and the smoke that now enveloped the room.

Beth and Mary-Jane hurried up the steps as Lin and I stumbled along behind them.  I drew myself away from Lin, pushing on her to hurry, "Don't let me hold you back.  You need to get out."

Lin reluctantly left me in the stairwell to join the other girls up top.  I managed to slowly stumble up the stairwell, the hot railing scorching my arms each time I fell or brushed against it.  My vision was full of black spots and I was dizzy by time I had reached the roof.  I had been expecting the air up top to relieve me of the burning sensation that scorched my throat and lungs.  But the air on the roof was just as thick with smoke, blinding me from the sight of the others.