A Flare of Life

Prologue

It was summer in the house, although it was winter outside. It had to be. Because the hot was that of a summer night. The sticky feeling on my skin and the suffocating air felt odd because of how my body was used to the cold weather.

There was a creaking sound in the hallway. Maybe it was dad coming up from Beck's room. The little monster was still afraid of the dark and still needed a bed time story before sleep, even though he was already a big nine year old boy. In the morning I will tease him non stop over breakfast, maybe getting one or two scoldings from mom about it.

Tomorrow is Sunday, is pancake day. Dad will whip out his secret blueberry pancake recipe and mom will make hot cocoa with marshmallows, and they will take us to that place they promised last time, the Italian restaurant with fairy lights.

Suddenly is hotter in my room. Hotter than any summer we ever had. If I can get myself to get up I could go ask mom if she would let me turn the air conditioner on.

Groggy and moody from the scorching temperature I get up from the comfy bed. Thank God I decided to wear light clothes to sleep, if I hadn't I would've been melting right now. 

The room is strangely dark. It is usually somewhat bright from the lights that drape over the walls. I lit them at night, having some problems with the dark myself. Perhaps I shouldn't tease Beck about our shared fear.

Getting across the room I get a hold of the door knob. "Mother. . . sucker." Its boiling hot, almost to the point that I know it will leave a mark from where my hand tried to grab the pommel. Still in my semi sleepy state I go to grab it again, but this time I stop myself before reaching it. I grab two shirts so the handle won't burn me and get to the hallway.

There sense come to me. The summer warmth, the darkness, the piping hot handle. It must be a nightmare, because there is no way that the house is filled with smoke and fire in reality. There is no room in my real, perfect, happy life that the stairs are devoured by massive, bright flames. There is no way that for the looks of it, the whole first floor has been consumed in a blaze, taking my brother with it. My sweet and innocent and terrified of the dark nine-year-old brother. It must be a nightmare. Please God, let it be a nightmare.

"Mom! Mom!?" A sob comes to my throat, but stays there and instead a cough comes out. I try to pinch myself awake. Wake up! Wake up! Wake up Everly!

The flames dance at the stop of the staircase, laying waste to everything that they touch. 

Wake up.

I ran across the hallway to the white door that goes to my parents room and start banging on the door as loud and hard as I can manage while coughing like some piece of food travelled to the wrong pipe.

 Wake up.

"Mom, mom please open up!" Tears are streaming down my cheeks, sliding their way down my neck, making me itchy where they stay. "Mom!" I scream. Is she sleeping? Is dad there with her? Please, let him be with her. 

Wake up.

With her eyes almost shut she opens her door. Calmed, with a satin robe covering her body. "Everly is the middle of the night, you should be sleeping. . ." She cuts off. And when her eyes widen and her mouth part in a horrifying soundless scream, I know. I know it's not a nightmare.

"Mom, is dad with you? Where is dad, mom? Where is dad?" She doesn't respond, she just stands there, moving her head around like she's too whishing it were a nightmare.

The blaze Doesn't stop at our fright, it's still dancing, it is still destroying everything I once loved, it still consumes.

When mom snaps out of her daze she really screams, a sorrowful shriek, a plea muffled with despair. But it is not just a sound, it's my dad's name, and as she screams at the flames, I realize, my dad was with Beck, and he's probably still with him, reading my brother to sleep. The little one probably beg for a second story, he loves to hear 'Travels across the stars', this afternoon he said he wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up, he also said that he wanted cream with his pancakes in the morning.

Yanking my mom's hand I get inside her room. It's really happening. There's a fire, the house is on fire, and unless I do something we are going to be burned alive tonight, burned alive like witches in a pyre. I can't die tonight, not now, not when I've seen so little, not when I've never been in love, not when I haven't drove a car, not when I've yet to travel outside of Utah for the first time. Not tonight. I will fight, with all my strength, and we are going to get out of here, even if dad and Beck won't.

"Mom, listen to me okay?" She doesn't seem to notice that I am talking to her. Maybe this is what the movies mean when someone gets paralyzed with shock, it must be shock. "Mom we need to get out." She just blinks, like she's still wishing to wake up.

The room. My parents room. It has no windows. We can't get out because it has no windows, so we need to get to the hallway, where the fire's still dancing.

"Mom we are going to my room and we are going to climb down the window to the street, do you hear me? Can you do that?" I don't know when my eyes started to burn so much, when breathing became also a battle. "I think the smoke is bad, I think we can't stay her for much longer mom." She shakes her head. No. She shakes her head again and then tears come from her eyes too. 

I grab her and the two shirts I dropped on the floor. She shakes her head a little more.

The I hold the knob, the hotness from it burning my hand even with the shirts over it.

Then we cross the hallway, my mom being dragged by me because she wouldn't move. A pain, like I never felt before was all over me, while crossing the hallway near the fire, it seems to embrace me. Just for a second or two but I felt it. And when we lay on the cool grass, with the sirens at our back and the windows spitting fire, I notice. 

I'm gazing at hell and it stared back at me with a wicked grin.