Everyone Learns Faster On Fire

“Well, we’re about to release our first major label album, so yeah, things are pretty hectic.”

Frank was glad he could make it to this party. He was really enjoying meeting up with old friends, and making new ones. He was currently leaning on the worktop in the host’s kitchen, holding a beer in one hand and conversing with a guy named Steve, whom he had only just met. Steve seemed very interested in how My Chemical Romance was doing, and Frank loved talking about it, so he guessed both sides won.
Predictably, Mikey had called up hours before the party had begun, to tell Frank and Gerard that he would not be attending, due to ‘some sort of sickness bug’ causing him to ‘throw up repeatedly’.

“He’s probably staying at home and getting his girlfriend to nurse him back to health” Was Gerard’s unsurprised response when he found out the news.

And now Frank was beginning to get concerned. He hadn’t seen Gerard for a while now, and he began to wonder if he was alright. He didn’t want Gerard, in his probable drunken state, falling down a flight of stairs or anything. And this house was huge, probably twice the size of this own little two-bedroomed home in Belleville, and there was many steps that an intoxicated man could easily trip over and smash his head into a wall or something.
He knocked back the last drops of alcohol left in his bottle and set it down on the granite surface with a dull clank. He muttered something about being back in a second and dashed upstairs to one of the many bathrooms.
The bathroom he chose was surprisingly unoccupied, and Frank went inside, done his business, and emerged back in the hallway a few moments later.
He was approaching the carpeted stairs when all of a sudden he tripped on a rug which seemed to be camouflaged with the beige carpet. The man grabbed onto the edge of a nearby table in a desperate attempt to himself from falling down the staircase, and with that, unsteadied the porcelain vase atop it. The vase shook and hurtled towards the floor. The water and flowers seemed to fall from it in slow motion. Amazingly, Frank dived forward, extended his hand and caught the falling vase millimetres before it hit the ground.

“Holy Crap!” Frank gasped, staring at the unscathed vase in his hand in bewilderment. “Man, my reflexes are better than I expected.”

He dragged himself up onto his knees and began picking up the daffodils which were now scattered randomly across the floor. Frank got up and looked at the wet patch on the carpet, like a guilty child who had just had a little accident. He sighed and headed back to the bathroom in order to fill the vase up with water again.

‘It had to be you, didn’t it Frank.’ He thought as he turned on the cold water. ‘Most people break the habit of ruining things at parties when they’re teenagers. I’m like a walking disaster.’

He neatened up the flowers and replaced their stolen nutrients, doing his best to conceal the few with broken stems or missing petals, before unlocking the bathroom door and heading back out into the party again.
But something wasn’t right. The music had stopped and he could hear panicked voices and shouting drifting up the stairs. Frank put the vase back down on the table and cautiously began to descend the staircase, wondering what on earth was going on. Why were there so many people shouting? Had some gatecrashers arrived?
Horror flooded him when he saw what was going on in the hallway. The guests were flooding out of the front door, grabbing onto each other and dragging those walking slowly outside by their clothing. Thick, black smoke was billowing from one of the rooms on the left, filling the hallway with clouds of grey, causing people to cough and splutter and cover their nose and mouth with their shirts. Everything seemed to be happening so quickly. He had been only upstairs for a matter of minutes.
And suddenly his legs did not want to work. He was rooted to the spot in a house that was burning down. Shock hit him like a blow to the skull. He could see people running towards him, grabbing onto his sleeve and pulling him down the stairs like a rag doll, but he couldn’t feel anything. It was just like his nerve endings had given up at a time when he needed them the most.
The two guys who had grabbed him took Frank outside and across the road to the field where people were gathering. Some of the party guests were still coughing from where the smoke had invaded their lungs and desperately gasped for oxygen. Frank looked back at the burning house.

It was like something you would see in a movie. The front windows had been smashed where people had been frantically trying to escape, and now flames were dancing in their shattered frames. The luminosity from the blaze illuminated the nights sky, a stark contrast to the indefinite space of black which acted as a backdrop for the moonlit glow. Smoke was swirling out of every window, door, chimney, and even gaps in the tiling on the roof.

Frank turned back to the gathering of people and could see the intense light reflected on their faces. He scanned through the crowd in search of a familiar face, looking for that infamous black hair and pale complexion.

“Gerard?” He called, standing on the tips of his toes and looking from side to side for his friend.

He pushed through the crowd who were admiring the tragic scene before them. “Gerard?!” He called loudly, getting more and more anxious by the millisecond. “Gerard?!! Where are you?!!”

When the missing man was nowhere to be found, Frank jogged over to Jake, the distressed owner of the house.

“Have you seen Gerard?” Frank asked distraughtly. “I can’t find him anywhere!”

Jake shook his head. “No. Didn’t he come out with you?”

The reality hit Frank hard. Gerard was trapped in the house. He had to go back.