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Pyrophobia
22:30 hours
Phlox had been busy with T'Pol all afternoon ever since the amoeba had discovered that Enterprise was a more interesting place to be than it's own gas giant. It had otherwise been quite a slow day for Elizabeth Cutler as she turned in for the night. What she had noticed though that the crew had been increasingly jumpy since the creature had arrived earlier that afternoon, although she had at the time put that down to the crew being more alert to outside threats ever since the Xindi attacks, even if that had been some time ago now. That wasn't something you could just put aside and get over just like that. Unless you were Vulcan, perhaps, she thought to herself.
She had surprised herself though when she herself had begun to feel ever so slightly paranoid around dinner-time, and her jumpiness had increased, even as she noticed it in the others around her. It was more than unsettling: it was downright unlike her, so she had decided not to stay around the Mess Hall being sociable, but instead have a nice warm shower and go to bed.
As she stood in her bathroom drying off, she realised that her usually fail-safe shower method of relaxing hadn't entirely worked- her muscles weren't tense anymore, and there were no physical aches and pains, but she just couldn't shake the wound-up feeling that something bad was about to happen.
It was a horrible feeling, but short of going to bed and sleeping the feeling off, there wasn't much else she could do about it. She changed into her pyjamas, brushed her hair, did her teeth, and activated the door to her bedroom.
Her room was on fire.
She couldn't believe it. It was silent, and nothing smelled of smoke or flames, and more than scared, she was utterly confused.
She closed the bathroom door, and then opened it again. Just to make sure she wasn't going mad.
It was a proper fire that time- the smoke billowed into the the bathroom above her head, causing her to choke. She covered her nose and mouth with the sleeve of her pyjamas and ducked, squinting into the room. This time, the flames properly burned through her quarters.
Not only that, but the worst of the blaze was right by her bedroom door out to the corridor, completely blocking her only exit out of the room.
That was when the heat suddenly drove her backwards, suddenly flaring up, making her skin pucker.
She stumbled back into the bathroom, slapping the panel so the door would shut behind her, and she slipped, landing clumsily and painfully on the floor, choking, drawing in raggedy breaths, trying to make the hideous dry sandpaper feeling in her throat abate.
As the worst of the choking subsided, she looked up at the comm panel on the wall. Her heart was trying to blast through her chest as she scrambled her way to her knees and feet to find someone- anyone- who could help her.
She activated the panel, desperately calling for help- pleading to anyone to hear her, but all Liz could hear was the sound of someone else screaming down the comm panel for help, and no helpful voice, no saviour told her that they would come and help her- not even help for the other person begging for rescue either.
For all Liz knew, everyone on board was caught in the fire. She prayed that wasn't so. For all their sakes.
Switching frequencies, she went to the secondary general ship-wide emergency channel, but no one answered that call- all was quiet there. It would have been spooky if she hadn't been scared rigid about her own problem. Plus by now, she could hear the sound of the roaring furnace through the door. She glanced back at the door, wondering if there was any possibly way she could dampen herself down in the shower and then run for the main door to the corridor.
She went back to the door, opening it again, but the fire was now most definitely impossible for her to cross- it had moved right in the way of the bathroom doorway, and there wasn't a single thing she could do about it now. She couldn't even reach a blanket or something that she could cover herself or smother the flames with. It seemed honestly hopeless.
So instead, Liz did the only thing she could think of. She closed the bathroom door again, another bout of coughs and chokes racking her body, destroying her throat and lungs, momentarily stopping her again. She stumbled forward to the sink and turned on the taps, full blast. She went to the shower and turned that on all the way, then she slid down the wall, the needles of water from above coursing down all over her, plastering her hair to her face. She welcomed the cool water to her tender skin, made so by the sudden heat of the fire, she realised.
The utter hopelessness of the situation made her sob suddenly, and she wrapped her arms around her knees, drawing them to her chin, and resting her head on top as she watched the smoke slowly make its way around the door frame.
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