The smell of smoke awoke the young boy in his room.
"What the?" he whispered to himself. Young Brandon walked down the hall to his brother Jess's room. There was a faint flickering light shining from his desk. Brandon, or Bam as everyone called him, pushed open the bedroom door to find a blazing fire.
"Jess!" Bam screamed. He heard a faint coughing and shouting come from the corner of the room.
"Bam-Bam," Jess yelled, "help me!" Bam nodded.
"I'm coming!" The 8 year old carefully entered his 9 year old brother's room, to find him hidden in the far away corner of the room.
"Where's Mom and Dad?" Jess screamed.
"I don't know!" Bam yelled back in reply. He dodged the chairs, that were currently on fire, in the room and grabbed Jess up and ran out of the room with him.
The two boys ran to their parents room and knocked on the door, nearly knocking it down. A tired Phil answered the door.
"What is it now?" he asked, in a grumpy voice.
"DAD! DAD! A FIRE! A FIRE!" the brother's yelled. Phil's eyes widened and he sniffed the air, smelling smoke immediately.
"Holy shit..." he said, pushing past the boys and walking quickly towards Jess's room. April came up to the doorway and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes.
"Boys, what's going on?" she asked. Even though she was only half awake, she had worry in her voice.
"A FIRE! A FIRE!" was all they could say. April saw an explosion out of the corner of her eye and ran towards it.
"Stay there, boys!" she exclaimed, running. The boys stood in the hallway, watching as the whole other house was being destroyed by many big flames, that was caused by one small candle flame. Suddenly, the boy's hearts fell to the bottom of their stomach, as fast as the floor of Jess's bedroom, which supported their parents, collapsed to the first floor of the house.
"We have to get out of here!" Jess yelled, over the sound of the loud crackles coming from the fire.
"We can't just leave Mom and Dad here!" Bam said back.
"They'll be fine," Jess lied, "follow me, Bam!" The half of the house that was still standing, started to catch on fire, too. Bam, his eyes filling with tears, sadly followed his older brother to the window near the stairs. Jess grabbed the window handle and lifted it open. He helped Bam up to the window first.
"Just jump to the roof just a few feet below you and wait for me, okay?" Bam nodded, and did what his brother ordered.
A few minutes later, they were both safely on the ground, watching their whole house go up in flames.
"It's like a mile to the nearest neighbor's house." Jess said, quietly. "We have to go there. Come on"
"I'm gonna stay here and wait for Mom and D"
"Bam, they aren't coming out, okay?" Jess's eyes filled with tears and so did Bam's. "They're gone"
"What!" asked Bam in a weak voice. "This isn't true!" Bam started over in the direction of the fire which was now starting to calm down. Jess grabbed his younger brother's arm.
"You can't go in there...we have to call an ambulance, fire truck, something!" Still holding on to Bam's arm, Jess started to run in the direction of their neighbor's house. Bam groaned and turned around, following the 9 year old.