My Story

“Matt, “I yelled out. There was smoke everywhere and I couldn’t see a thing.

“Holly!” I heard Matthew say some distance away, “over here, it’s not as smoky!”

As I walked blindly towards his voice I couldn’t help but think. Just a few hours ago I would have liked nothing better than to never see Matthew again. But with everything that had been happening, well it was like nothing had happened. We were just to friends’ content on saving another friend’s life. But what would happen after we found Amy? That’s if we did find her, but I didn’t wan to think about that. Would everything go back to how it was? Or would the fire change everything and we would become best friends again? Sure as hell I didn’t know, I didn’t even know if I wanted Matt and I to be friends and I wasn’t sure if he wanted to be friends with me either. But with everything going on it was hard to think anything different than, we have to find Amy.

I walked further and as my sight became clearer my panic also started to lessen. I saw Matt and walked towards him. “Which way now?” I asked him.

He looked around, “I don’t know. I can’t even tell which way is north and which way is south. I think we’re lost, “He groaned.

I sighed, great, just great. We were here t save Amy but who was going to come save us? I heard a bang and then a clatter of something dropping on the ground. Footsteps then, coming towards us. I jumped behind Matthew. We saw a dark figure appear out of the smoke, Matthew jumped back onto my toe.

“Sorry!” he told me.

But I didn’t answer, I was to busy staring at the figure approaching us, “What are two kids doing here!” the figure growled.

I sighed with relief as the figure stepped out of the smoke and into our view. It was the firefighter, the very same one that we had convinced to go look for Amy.

“Well?” he asked us.

“We were just looking for our friend!” Matthew piped up.

“Are you insane, we’re taking care of this. You to could have been killed for crying out loud. You still could be killed, you ‘re in the middle of a bloody fire!” He yelled at us.

I cringed, “Please sir, we think we know where she is! If you could just tell us which way north is.”

The firefighter stopped dead in his tracks, “Of course I can Miss,” he was staring right at me with a look of awe in his eyes.

“Sir?” Matt asked, “Are you feeling all right?” I had to admit myself that he was acting a little strange, a little far from strange.

He shook his head, “Of course I am,” he growled at Matthew, he turned to me, “Now where do you think you’re friend might be?”

“We think she’d be near the home Economics room in the girls’ toilets. That’s in the west side of the school,” I told him.

He took out a compass, with all the smoke surrounding us; it was impossible to tell which way was which. And that’s when it him me, smoke. Completely surrounding us, I hadn’t really thought about it before, but don’t most people who die in fires, die from suffocating on the smoke rather than from the flames themselves? Oh! No!
The coughs started to roll out and I couldn’t stop them. They soon turned into a coughing fit. I couldn’t breathe!

Mathew gasped and coughed a bit too, “Here, take this,” he thrust a handkerchief into my hand.

I stared at it, “is it clean?” I asked him.

He sighed, “of course it’d clean!”

“Right, sorry!” I put the handkerchief to my hand and tried to stop coughing. I could breathe a little better now that I wasn’t breathing in much smoke.

“There’s not much time!” the firefighter yelled, “this way!” He ran to our left and we followed suit.

A few minutes later and we were still running, the air around us was becoming more smoke filled and far hotter than before. All I wanted was to find Amy and get out of here.

“Which way now?” Matthew asked.

“This way!” the firefighter called to us, “Don’t touch anything, you could get seriously burnt, stay low!”

We crouched down and I grabbed Matthew’s hand, I didn’t want to lose him, “Amy!” I called out, figuring it wouldn’t do any harm, it wasn’t like we we’re hiding from anyone.

As the smoke stared to get thicker I could tell that Matthew was struggling. I tried to hand back his handkerchief but he wouldn’t accept it.

“Stay safe,” he told me, “I don’t ant to lose both of you.”

As time passed things began to look hopeless, if we were going to find Amy we were going to have to search every building in the school separately and didn’t have the time or strength for that.

My heart was beating so fast, although we couldn’t see the actual flame we didn’t know where it was either.

Every few seconds or so we would call out Amy’s name, but we never heard any reply.

“I think we’re going to have to call for back up!” The firefighter yelled to us.

“Will they be able to find us?” I asked. If I didn’t know where we were how were they going to find out.

“I hope so,” he told me, “We best keep looking though.”

We kept walking, all this time I was holding onto Mathew’s hand, but then suddenly it slipped out of my grasp. I spun around, “Matt?” I called.

“Over here!” I walked towards his voice, “I think I’ve found it, the toilets!”

My hands flew to my mouth this was it. Hoping for the best-case scenario I walked towards the door ad reached my hand out. A few inches away form the door handle Matthew’s hand stopped mine in its course. My head turned to his with and incredulous look on my face.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the firefighter walked towards us. He took out a bottle of water.

Looking at it, it reminded me of just how thirst I was. My mouth was dry and my throat ached. I didn’t think on it though. If Amy were in here we’d be getting out of here soon.

He unscrewed the bottle cap and threw the bottle forward, not letting go but letting a few droplets of water escape. They collided with the door and sizzled. “Hopefully that’s from the outside heat,” he told us with a grave look on his face.

He pulled out a cloth from his pocket and used it to cover his hands, then we a groan he heaved the door open. I looked in; there was no sign of fire, thank god! We stepped in one after another. Mr. Firefighter, me, then Matthew on the behind.

We looked around and my gasp was the first sound any of us made.