He walked out of the bathroom, leaving the door wide open. From my position on the floor, unable to move a single muscle, I watched through the hallway as he grabbed a bottle of high-proof bourbon from the living room bar. He splashed it aggressively across the hallway carpet, the curtains, the wooden stairs.
“Daniel, hurry!” Vanessa’s voice wailed from the front door.
He flicked the lighter. The small flame danced in the darkness of our home, casting long, monstrous shadows against the wall.
“Goodbye, Rachel,” he said loudly.
He dropped the lighter.
Whoomp.
The alcohol-soaked carpet ignited instantly. A wall of bright, aggressive orange fire erupted in the hallway, cutting off the bathroom from the rest of the house. The heat hit my face like a physical blow, instantly drying the sweat on my skin. Thick, black, acrid smoke began to billow toward the ceiling, rolling along the molding and pouring into the bathroom like a dark tidal wave.
Outside, the faint, distant wail of sirens finally broke through the night air. They were close. Maybe thirty seconds away.
But thirty seconds was too long.
The smoke dropped lower, filling the room. I began to cough, a violent, hacking sound that tore at my lungs, but my limbs still refused to obey me. The poison had completely disconnected my brain from my body. I could only watch as the smoke crawled across the floor, creeping toward Noah’s motionless form.
Get up, I screamed at myself. GET UP!
I managed to twitch my fingers. That was it. Just a twitch.
Through the roaring crackle of the flames in the hallway, I heard the front door slam shut. Daniel and Vanessa were gone. They were escaping into the night, leaving us to burn alive in the dark.
