“Fire.”

“Smoke.”

“Can’t breathe.”

That’s all my mind screamed at me as I fell to the ground. Years of being told what to do in a fire don’t mean shit once you’re in one. That’s what’s happening to me now as I struggle to look for an exit or to even try and get the air to breathe.

Trying to remember where the stairs were so I could get down to the first floor was getting harder with every second. I crawled to where I think they were as I grumbled to myself. It had to have been the pot heads at the back shelves. Who else would start a fire in the middle of the library?

My head hit the glass for the balcony with a thunk and I could already feel the sore spot on the top of my head. Slowly, with my hand on the glass, I moved until I felt the stairs. I began to carefully back myself down the stairs, each step down I could almost feel the clearer air forming. Once at the bottom I could see the large glass doors leading out. People were standing outside watching in horror and I needed to join them.

Standing up I ran. I hit the doors hard with my shoulder throwing them open as I stumbled out and down the stairs. Fresh air. The best thing in the world. I gasped and quickly gulped it down. I saw people rushing over to me, but I held my hand up. There was no way in hell someone was gonna get my air right now.

When my head didn’t feel like it was on a rollercoaster and my eyes didn’t sting like I had ants crawling on them I looked back. Fire was shooting out of the second-floor windows, near where I had been sitting. I had thought that had only happened in movies, but right before me I could see it. Somehow, I had escaped that hell. I knew I should be hopeful that others made it out, but right now I was just happy that I was alive. Does that make me a dick? It shouldn’t. Luckily, I didn’t have to feel too bad though since others were stumbling out as well.

As I stood there and watched I felt a hand grab my shoulder. I spun around, arm raised, ready to see who it was that had grabbed me, but no one was there. I know that someone had grabbed me. I wasn’t going crazy. I kept looking around, but everyone was looking at the library.

When I turned back around, I realized that my bag wasn’t on me. It was still in there. With all my books. And my laptop. And my phone. Mom is gonna kill me if I lost another phone. I quickly felt my pockets and sighed when I felt it in there though. Along with my flash drive. School work was safe. And my neck and ears were safe from Mom.

I heard the firetrucks arriving along with the ambulances arriving as the crowd continued to grow. Looking down I could see the soot on me, and I knew they would know I had been in the fire. Quickly looking around I ran to the closest building so that I could hide.

I don’t know why, but Mom had always told me that my father, if I could use that to describe the man, said I could never have doctors look at me, get blood drawn, or anything. After he was gone when I was ten, I tried to get Mom to break that rule, but it was the one rule that she kept up after he was gone.

Once I was out of sight, I pulled my phone out and called that dreaded number. It rang like half a ring before she answered. I could hear her voice shaking and I knew she was already glued to the TV. Or to her computer streaming the local news here. She can be pretty psycho about that. I could only imagine, and I didn’t want to imagine, everything that was running through her mind. However from the first words that came through my phone I knew what mood she was in that day. She wasn’t her depressed, anxiety ridden self. She was in pissed off at the world mode, and I was the victim in her crosshairs.

“Benjamin Orion Bloom, if you were involved in that fire, I swear I will come down to that school and beat your ass in front of everyone,” my mother’s voice came out through the phone. I didn’t even have to have it near my ear to hear her.

“I’m safe if you were wondering,” I said trying to mask the annoyance in my voice.

“Don’t you use that tone with me.”

Obviously, I failed.