4-3: Wildfire
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Sissy batted her eyes and fingered the necklace clasped around her throat. The small crystal pendant sparkled as the light touched its faceted surface.
"This? Why, thank you for noticing, Ulrich." She stopped and leaned closer. "Is there something in my teeth?"
The mirror made no complaint. It merely told the truth.
"This is so not fair! I've brushed my teeth five times already!" Sighing resolutely, she posed again. "Thank you for noticing, Ulrich. Thank you for noticing, Ulrich. Thank you for noticing, Ulrich."
The lights suddenly flickered and went out. Sissy muttered about the dumb electricity and tucked the necklace beneath her nightgown. She stepped out of the bathroom into the hall and was assaulted by a pungent smell at the same time that she stepped in a puddle.
"Eeew! That's just sick. It smells like a—" she gasped suddenly as it hit her, "—like a gas station!"
Gasoline had been spilt everywhere! Sissy ran to the stairwell and tried to open the door, but it was locked. She panicked and began banging on the door closest to her. It happened to be Janika's. After about a minute it opened.
"What is it, Sissy?" Yumi groaned. She looked very tired and was holding a flashlight. "This had better be good if you woke me up in the middle of the night. I don't know why the power is out, if that's what you're thinking."
"What are you doing here?" Sissy was so shocked she forgot why she was distressed.
"Janika invited me to stay in her room tonight. You know, to talk and get to know each other. We've been on bad terms since last week and I just thought—what's that rancid smell?"
"Someone spilled gasoline all over the floor!" Sissy screamed as she remembered why she had been terrified.
Other doors opened and more girls filed into the hall.
"The stairwell door won't open and we're on the third floor! How are we going to get out?"
Yumi looked toward the door at the end of the hall and saw wafts of smoke illumined by the flashlight's beam. Her brain worked furiously.
"Everyone grab some sheets! We have to make a rope to get out of here!"
She ran to the door and stuffed her robe into the crack beneath it to block the smoke. Next she pulled the fire alarm, but it didn't go off.
The twenty or so girls on the floor started screaming along with Sissy, but they all ran to their rooms and got sheets anyway. They clustered together in Janika's dorm, nervously knotting the long cloths into an amateur rope.
Yumi stared at the empty bed beside the window and then called Ulrich on her cell. She could hear Kiwi barking frantically in the background.
"Wake up now! The building's on fire and you guys are in trouble! The electricity is out, the doors won't open, and we're making a rope to get out the window. You'd better do the same."
"We're up. Couldn't sleep with Kiwi barking his head off and Odd refused to gag him. Oh, don't forget to warn Janika." Yumi's hand almost crushed the phone. "She told me once she could sleep through an elephant stampede. I'll warn the first and second floors."
"Janika isn't in her room. I'm standing right here and she's gone," Yumi snarled. "Look, let's worry about this later. Now just worry about getting out."
She helped the girls down the makeshift rope just as the fire exploded past her robe and consumed the entire hall in deadly flames. The stairwell's wall had been soaked with gasoline and the ravenous fire found no opposition as it roared upward.
Yumi and the girls from the third floor helped the other kids as they climbed down more crude ropes made from extension cords and bedspreads. At one point the rope from the fourth floor snapped and the last few kids left in the building were trapped inside.
The fire department showed up as flickering flames and billowing black smoke poured from the windows. The night was illumined by the horrible spectacle.
Yumi could only stare, captivated, as the inferno devoured the dorms. A ladder reached the fourth floor and firemen carried the five unconscious children down to safety. Firehoses blasted into the fire's heart, battling for control.
Yeah, yeah. I've gotten mixed reviews from my friends saying they would jump out of a burning building even if it was 4 stories high, but let's just pretend that there is some really good reason none of the kids went crazy and leaped to their deaths.