In the flames

It was hot that night, so hot, far too hot to be a normal spring night.

It was a powerful and invasive heat, which almost as an oxymoron seemed in a certain sense to bring a sort of humidity into the air.

How could two so different things be accumulated in one, so long time.

It made her exhausted, all that climatic instability that that night had decided to attack every person, who was blissfully sleeping at that moment.

Diane kept her eyes closed, tight, she couldn't open them in a certain sense, but in the same way she couldn't even sleep or get quiet in her body.

It was weird, she didn't have a fever, she was sure, it was hot, way too hot and it made her nervous that she didn't even know what was going on, why she felt so bad.

Her children probably slept, they didn't move or complain, they seemed to suffer like their mother at that moment.

Diane opened her eyes, tried to force herself to open them as much as she could, and with this effort she saw, in that night, the most troubling thing that she could have imagined.

The room was in fact full of flames, numerous, of a reddish color, sometimes tending to dark orange.

What was going on? What was happening? Was the house on fire?

She heard no noise, no footsteps, no voice, where was everyone? Where were the attendants? Had they escaped?

She had to get up, go call Meredith and Olivia, reassure herself that they were okay and above all that they were still alive.

Diane removed the white blankets from her sweaty body, which was still lying in a fine and comfortable nightgown with a light dye tending to pale pink.

Some of her black curls were, from sweat, stuck to her forehead, while all the rest rested limply on her back.

She had to get up, she had to do it, save herself and save the lives of her children as well.

She was more than sure that that uncomfortable and dangerous situation was particularly linked to a fact and to a person.

She was more than sure, almost certain, that in one way or another she would meet her again.

The lady checked in the cradle that had been placed next to her bed, she observed her children, both of them, the twins, it seemed they had not yet understood, in their young age what was happening around them.

Obviously they could not know, in their first month of life they still weren't really capable of observing what was happening around them.

She delicately placed one of her thin and delicate fingers directly under the small, round nostrils of the two little noses, felt their breath, she sensed, that the two were still alive, although she wasn't sure if the two little ones had lost their senses.

Diane took them in her arms, hugged them to her chest, they did not move, yet they breathed, she knew they were alive.

She placed the two small bodies close to each other on the mattress, exactly above the light, but precious and firm sheet which, at that moment, hot from the fire that had started to burn in the room, had begun to accumulate heat.

She closed it around their little bodies, tied it several times, one end against the other, she had to hurry if she wanted to save herself and the little Logan and Cassidy.

She tightened the sheet more tightly around them and placed it, after a short time placed it on both of her shoulders, it was exactly suitable, in order to be able to keep the twins tied at the least.

Anyway she had to hurry before the fire completely enveloped the room.

The window had been left open that night, not completely, but good enough for a person to pass inside.

It was also luckily for her that the side of the house where she was was too high to jump but provided with a fairly sturdy scaffolding, above which a plant of vines grew.

Diane could get out of there, she was slim enough, at least to the minimum to be able to save herself that way, simply climbing over the window and lowering herself down without the boards breaking.

So she did, and as much as she seemed to understand from her own calculations, that plan had worked, at least managing to lead her to the ground without injuries and burns.

It was cold there, outside the house, it was an almost wintry cold, which compared to that stifling dry heat of the fire was much better, even if her skin was beginning to feel the first shivers.

She hid behind a bush, one of the most swollen and greenest, she tried to hold her breath.

What would she do now?