The Visitor - Chapter 7

Let me put it bluntly, I was wrong. 

That fire, the one at the church, was happening now. I didn't think about the possibility that the order of events would change this much. My only conclusion that I can safely say is true, is that I wasn't cut out for this. I'm not a critical thinker, and I can't fake being one. Charging straight ahead at things is what I do best, which is exactly what I did.

Adrenaline had already kicked in, smoke gathered inside the room, faster than I could manage. It grabbed the bottom of the door, its heated tendrils reaching inside, the stone floor halting its advancement. If the fire wouldn't kill me, the smoke at this rate would surely do the trick. 

It was already suffocating me. I knew people from home who told me stories of how it felt. The ones that survived at least. Burning lungs, pressure against your head, weighing you down. 

I waited as long as I possibly withstand, saving my strength for one conclusive bash against the door. I only had the energy to do this once, if this failed I knew I wouldn't get back up.

After what felt like an eternity of holding my breath, waiting for the door to get as weak as possible, I charged.

Closing my eyes, I aimed at the door, and with a loud crash, the door swung open and I rolled into the pile of blazing crates. 

Luckily, the crates were stacked strong, and my flimsy body barely moved them. But that didn't stop the flames from reaching me. It crawled like ants up my legs, thousands- no millions of tiny ants, crawling, biting, tearing my flesh until the nerves ceased to be. Only then did I advance.

"Argh!."

I struggled to stand, maybe out of pure determination or the overall desire to make it end, I managed to stand up.

I could see the staircase. It was surrounded by fire, and my body was no longer under my control. I was a machine, running purely for my self-preservation and before I knew it, I had gone to the very top.

Fire still scored the building but it seemed less intense than compared to how it was in the basement. The door was a few steps away from me, fire no longer reached and with a few more steps, I would walk out of there alive.

But, that's when I saw something, in the corner of my eye, a woman, with black hair, and white ends, lying on the ground, her hand reaching out towards the door. It was Elizabeth and she was alive.

She wasn't far but she also wasn't close to me. It would take all my strength and maybe even more to drag myself over to her and somehow drag her out with me. I weighed each option, thinking of each outcome if I attempted this. If I got to her in time what were the chances of both of us making it out alive? What if both of us died, what if I didn't get another chance and I spent my last breath in fruitless effort? What if I was wrong about her even being alive, what if, because of the smoke I was hallucinating her? 

Then the pain came to me again. Not the fire, but the knife entering my body and the emptiness that followed, I didn't want to experience that again, I didn't want to die again. So I made a choice, I decided to leave her.