The Heartthrob Won't Leave

Chapter Forty-Six (New Chapters)

That was when all hell broke loose, as the people struggled for the doors, people scattered, while others tried to calm everyone down in an attempt to make the evacuation go smoother. Blake didn't even see the crowds, not from behind the curtain, but felt when her arm was grabbed, pulling her off from the highchair. She stumbled to the ground at its ubruptness, with the slightest hint of perfume she had smelled the moment before. Stella. Her eyes blurred, her feet stumbled, using nothing but the hand she was holding on to as a guide. But, it got hotter, like the depths of hell descending upon her senses with a fury. She tried to stay up, she tried to stay awake, but her eyes kept falling closed entirely out of her control. Am I going to die?

"Hurry up Blake!" Stella insisted, grabbing her by the wrist and helping her along down the halls of the building. "I know a shortcut that's not blocked by people! we'll get out safe that way!" The world looked sideways, or perhaps that was the way her heard was tilted. The floor, it looked like it was waving, like the shores of a beach, but perhaps that was from the heat rising into the air. The lights were blinding, white and yellow, but fading to an ugly orange that danced. She could feel the heat on her feet through her shoes, everytime she pressed her hand against one of the hallway walls to steady herself, the tips of her fingers burned. The sweat, it was palatable, sliding across her forehead in small drops that hardly missed her eyes, but still managed to make them burn. She stumbled, and suddenly the hand that held her was no longer there, it was gone.

"Stella?!" she called, leaning against the wall that seared her with contact. "Stella! where are you?!" she panicked, tears falling across her cheeks. Her friend was in trouble, and she was too disoriented to know which way was up let alone to help. It was so hot, so bloody hot, like a summer's day without a cloud. It was that kind of heat you could feel on your skin as it did its damage, a painful assault. Her shoe slipped below her, sending her to the floor. The linoleum was so hot she screamed, her hands searing in the waves of assault, her knees developing horribly painful blistering. She crawled across the floor, with no way to know where she was going, her heart pounding, her clothes soaked with sweat and clinging to her sheened skin. 

The floor, she could feel it was covered with dirt, with charred wood, ashe and papers with flames across the seams. So exhausted, she wanted to give up, she really did, and when she pressed her hand against a black-encrusted piece of wood that slipped, sending her to the floor with brief contact by her chin, she thought about just giving up. She would burn to death in this place, or perhaps the fire would eat all the oxygen from the air and she would suffocate instead. The world flickered, it screamed and it crumbled around her, the upside was down and the downside was up. She didn't know if she was walking across the roof or the floor, if it was the lights or the flames. Why? Why me?

She cried, she just cried, her hands and knees burning, her skin blistering. She felt a sudden eruption of pain near her back thigh, causing a scream to release from her lips. It was agony, quick to lean back and slap her hand on the edge of the dress. It was on fire, sitting right against her skin it was on fire. She patted it until the flames dissipated, or at least she thought they did. She grabbed the wall, forcing herself onto shaking legs. She tried to focus, but her eyes wouldn't listen, everything just appeared like a turning mosaic of death. But, pressing her hands against the wall, sliding them gently, limping with hands on fire, she found herself in a room. 

It was vaguely familiar, but she couldn't remember what room it was. But, what signified more than anything, was surrounded by faded eyes of echoed red and orange flurries and blizzards, there was a fraction of the wall that was dark, like a black pit of nothing but the slightest streaks of reflected light. So, she did the only thing she could think of, reaching for the nearest chair, gripping it with screaming red hands. She lifted it up, her legs nearly giving out on her fron the extra weight. She stumbled as she threw it, as hard as she was capable. 

She threw it right at the darkness, and it did nothing but bounce off, tumbling off the counter against the wall in a dizzy array of noise, clattering to the floor so loud her ears hurt. But, she wasn't done. She wouldn't die here, at least not without trying her absolute best. She didn't even know what the reflected darkness was, but it wasn't orange and red, and that was good enough. With shaking arms, uncontrollable pain from any number of places across her body, she picked up the items around her, throwing them as hard as she could at the fading darkness, her lungs burning from the spoke and starving for oxygen. 

She did it again, and again, and again. She did it until the heard the shattering of freedom. It was a horrible sound, like the screams of agony, but it sounded like a beautiful symphony. She crawled onto the hot counter, holding out her hand, feeling the hold breeze against her burned fingertips. She pushed through the small opening, forcing more of the glass to cave and crack, forcing lacerations across her palms, her arms, her legs. The world was a flurry of black, her eyes no longer able to sight anything but the air below the blanket. She cried, leaning over a particularly sharp edge that dug into her lower stomach, gripping with tight bloody hands. Gravity won, and there was only so far she could go before it took her, causing her hands to slip. She fell, and in a single moment she was mid-air, like she was falling off the greatest mountain, jumped off the highest plane. That was until she hit the snow, so cold it shocked her body into submission. It bleeded red with her blood, dirtied by grime and ashe that coated her hands and cheeks. She could hear the sirens, the people not far away, but still not close enough. But, despite the pain, despite the cold, what overtook her was exhaustion, so tired that one moment she was awake and the next she was out.

No, she hear the people when they finally found her, she didn't feel it when they picked her up, forcing her onto a stretcher and a mask over her face. She didn't hear it when her friends were screaming at the blood, the burns that littered her knees, her elbows and her hands, the back of her thigh where her dress had set fire, now smoldering. She didn't feel it when the stretcher was lifted into the back of an ambulance, nor did she hear its echoing sirens as they drove. She didn't feel it when someone gripped her wrist, trying to comfort her because the hand of her skin was too damaged to hold, and she didn't hear it either when they told her to hold on just a little bit longer.