Mayfly Melodies

Forty

Caroline

After a traumatic experience, the human system of self-preservation seems to go onto permanent alert, as if the danger might return at any moment—Judith Lewis Herman

She was uncomfortably warm.  Hot even.  She felt as if she were in a sauna with the heat cranked to the extreme but this, of course, was not true.  She could feel the cotton sheets beneath her body, feel the give of the soft mattress she was lying on.  She wasn't in a sauna though. It was August and given the house didn't have air conditioning, she was used to feeling overheated in the summer.

Still, Caroline was certain that she'd never been this warm before.  Not to the point where she was drenched in sweat and it was so hot that it was hard to breathe.  Almost as if she were inhaling something thick like carbon-rich smoke instead of oxygen...

Her eyes flew open.  Caroline lurched out of bed, half-tangled in her bed sheets.  Her bare feet hit the wooden floor and the ground felt warmer than it should have but it was dark, so dark, and she could hardly see a foot in front of her face.  She reached around blindly, searching for the light on her bedside table.  Something crashed to the ground—her alarm clock?—but it didn't matter.  She'd finally found the light switch. 

Light burst into the room and with it came a sudden dose of horror.  Instead of dispelling a nightmare, as light was supposed to do, it illuminated one.  Thick, pungent smoke was unfurling into her bedroom through the crack beneath her door.  The air in her bedroom was still relatively clear but she knew that it wouldn't be for long.

Terror shot through her like ice flooding her veins.  For a moment she could do little more than stand petrified while watching the smoke advancing towards her.  Her head was foggy, confused.  She didn't know where it was coming from and yet at the same time she did.  Some distant part of her head was telling her that her house was on fire.  The other part, the irrational part that had taken over her brain was holding her captive and restrained, keeping her from moving.

"Mom!  Dad!"

It was that voice that spurred Caroline into movement.  Aaron!  Her baby brother.  He sounded so scared. 

Caroline ran to the wall that separated their two rooms and banged on it hard.  "Aaron!"

"Caroline?  Caroline, is that you?"

"It's me!"

"Stay there!  I'm coming to you!"

She was about to reply, to tell him to stay where he was and that she would go to him but she could hear the sound of his door opening and slamming shut.  There was a shout, a loud expletive, and then a brief moment, so brief that it barely felt as if more than two seconds had passed.  The door to her bedroom flew open and Caroline had the briefest view of white-hot flames licking the walls of her house before Aaron stumbled in and the door fell shut behind him.

"Aaron!" she cried as she ran towards him. 

He was coughing, the sound hoarse and painful.  His brown-blonde hair was flattened on one side, she assumed the side he'd been sleeping on, but his midnight blue eyes were bright and aware.  He was seven years younger than she was but despite the age difference he was taller.  He towered over her by nearly half-a-foot and Caroline had to tilt her head up to look at him in the face.

"I'm okay.  I'm okay," he said.  He patted her on the arm and pulled her in for a quick hug.  "We've gotta get out of here or we're gonna be burnt to a crisp in a few minutes."