Project Perses: Redemption

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Wandering the streets as the sun rose; I sought out any distraction to calm my nerves.  It’s amazing how many nefarious activities occur in the wee hours of the morning. So far I’d stopped two muggings, a few break-ins, and a carjacking.

Then I had caught the scent of the fire from miles away.  I had covered the distance in minutes.

After it was all over and I had run the several blocks back to my hotel to escape the scene of the fire, I had found out just how prevalent YouTube and Twitter were in social media.  The news stations were having a field day thanks to civilian videos that had been posted seconds after my arrival. I didn’t regret my actions; I just would have appreciated them being a little less public.

I remember my entrance on the scene vividly.  There were already three fire trucks surrounding the high rise, their ladders stretching into the sky in an attempt to reach the fire that was blazing on the eleventh floor of the sixty story condo building.  Their ladders barely made it.  Firemen were perched on the very top, some hundred feet in the air, aiming their hoses into the apartment, having already broken the windows that hadn’t blown out from the fire’s heat.  People were still streaming out of the lobby, some crying and some screaming, many carrying whatever possessions they deemed worthy of saving. The fire alarms were going off non-stop, filling the air with their incessant noise.

The police had cordoned off the area, their cars creating a quasi barrier to keep back the growing masses that had started to form.  That barrier meant little to me though; they’d have to see me first and good luck on actually catching me. 

I hadn’t stopped when I had arrived; instead running straight into the high rise building at full speed.  I tore up each flight of stairs, searching every floor for anyone who may have been trapped while the lights flickered on and off around me, adding to the general discord.  It was surprising to find that the lower floors had all managed to get clear. Those that still passed me on the stairs were the frazzled people streaming down from the upper floors.  It was impossible to tell how many people were still inside above and there were just too many floors to search.  Firemen were everywhere too, their axes slung over their shoulders and fire retardant canisters in their hands as they made their way upstairs.

The only person I found that hadn’t made the attempt to get out during my ascent was on the tenth floor.    I would have totally missed her if she hadn’t made a little yelping and coughing sound as I pounded on the door. 

Her little face was dirty with soot, her Asian eyes wide in fear as I busted in the door when she wouldn’t open it.  It was right about then that the lights flickered for the last time before they died completely; the fire alarms went silent too.

She couldn’t have been more than twelve or thirteen, huddling in the living room by the window. Had there been a balcony the girl could have stepped out onto it and perhaps been saved by the firemen, but this building had no such escape option.  The windows were all the fixed type except for a six inch section at the bottom that opened for fresh air.  The girl had wisely opened it and was sticking her face in the gap, attempting to breathe the cleaner air outside.

The sight around me, illuminated by the light of both the window and the raging fire, was both shocking and horrific.  The fire was directly upstairs.  There was so much smoke here already that it was making it hard to see.  The fire had already burned through the floor upstairs and through the ceiling over my head, opening it wide like a skylight to the apartment above. 

The girl hadn’t escaped because she simply couldn’t make it to the door. The air was thick with the burning embers that were raining down from the inferno engulfing the apartment upstairs. Even my eyes watered with it, causing me to reach up and rub them. When I dropped my hands away, peering though the false gloom from the smoke, I was surprised to find that my vision had shifted, the room bathed in a soft blue hue that made everything brighter, clearer.