As she meandered up the path to their house, she felt queasy, like she’d done this before. Nervously, she glanced over her shoulder through her mass of wavy brown hair as she kept moving toward the front door. Two people were walking along the street. She stopped and wondered what reason anyone would have to take a walk at this time of night in such an early bird neighborhood.
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It was then she heard the shrill of the
smoke detectors. Chest tightening, she bolted for the door.
“Mom! Dad!” she screamed and tumbled
inside, spotting them almost immediately as they ran down the long upstairs
hallway.
Not again. Please not again, she begged, as she fought her frozen
legs to make them move up the stairs. The smoke detectors shrieked in her ears.
Or was that the shrieking coming from her lungs?
Her parents yelled her name as they
reached for the bedroom door. She couldn’t stop gasping for air long enough to
tell them to stop. She wasn’t in there. Didn’t they know? They
needed to get out of the house. Couldn’t they smell the smoke?
Just like each time, her viewpoint from
the middle of the stairs showed her the yellowish air sucking under the door to
her bedroom. Although trying to use the railing to give her momentum, every
part of her felt like it was in molasses. She cocked her head to the side,
drawing her eyebrows together. Her gaze locked on the eerie breeze.
Almost simultaneously, her mother
rotated the knob as her eyes turned and met hers. For that fraction of a
second, her mother understood the fear on Brie’s face, but it was too late. It
was always too late. As she opened the door, Brie had just enough time to
witness her parents engulfed in flames before the explosion blew her back and
everything went dark.
*
* * *
“Brie, wake up. Wake up, Brie. You’re
dreaming.”
