Prologue
He assured the cameras that it was a drill as he lit a cig, threw it and some lighter fluid into a small waste paper basket and strolled out of the little cupboard without even looking back. He was about to be a hero.
The unusual calm of the office was broken as soon as Dwight's impatient prompts had drawn attention to the smoke. Everyone stood up. Michael led the crowd, shouting stiffly, fighting the rising panic. The mastermind making knowing suggestions and grinning as the worry grew with each door remaining firmly closed. The handles, the handles! The fear reached fever pitch when, after scrambling to all of the exits and finding them jammed; there was no exit.
Everyone scattered. Michael raced to his office to bash repeatedly on his window, every time more desperately. Oscar leapt into the air vents, agile and desperate, and Angela ran after her fallen cat screaming. Kevin smashed the vending machine in a crazed panic, grabbing sweets manically. Jim fumbles to release the copier before he and Andy crashed it into the fire escape again and again. Oscar's legs reappeared suddenly and flailed from the vent forcing Creed to turn and scream.
A klaxon pierced the chaos. Everyone quietened, and stopped and turned to a Dwight standing above them, aloft through the thickening smoke. Bright flames flickered up the door behind him as he opened his mouth to announce that it had all been a drill. Kelly saw them and screamed causing the fire safety expert to turn and almost jump off the table.
What Dwight hadn't realised was that the fuel can he'd thrown into the bin had unbalanced it. With the shutting of the door, the paper bin had toppled over and the carpet, soaking with Meredith's secret boozing session, had caught alight.
This definitely wasn't a drill anymore.