"A Cherished Memory"- Oneshot story

A Cherished Memory

It's Friday evening and the streets were filled with people enjoying their time outside. Kids run happily, showing their parents all the fascinating stuff which they see. The couples were looking at the stores with various luxuries, talking and drinking coffee. Even that small dog was having fun, chilling in the sunlight among the colorful flowers.

"Ah, such a bliss...if only that was me". I complained internally, while looking grungily at my exam notes on the table. Why did it have to be an exam period...? The teachers had stuffed us with so many assignments already and we had to study the materials from so many different sources...if it wasn't for those, I wouldn't be sitting in this mall, trying to finish them with few hours of sleep!

"*Sigh*..." I sighed. I still had a couple of hours before my next class started. My hand shook the pen on the notepad, sketching random doodles, which was a habit since primary school for every time I was bored during lessons. If only something interesting happened for once...

Little did I know back then...that the saying "Watch out what you wish for" is not to be taken lightly.

As I was doodling, my notepad suddenly started heating up rapidly!

"OUCH!! What the f-" Just as I removed my hand away from the notepad, it burst and a fireball emerged from within, striking the ceiling with force! The sudden light caught me off guard and I fell from my chair.

"Aaaahh!! FIRE! THERE'S A FIRE!!" a person shouted with all their might pointing at the roof.

The building was on fire. The people were panicking and trying to get out of the building before it became worse. I could hear screams and calls for help everywhere. While all of this was happening, I was frozen, still in shock about what happened. Fear consumed me and multiple questions lingered in my mind. What is going on? Did I do this?

I looked down at my notepad in horror. It didn't have flames anymore, but it was completely black and looked like a scorned piece of wood. A blue neon light was emitting from it. It had a strange shape...in fact it seemed just like one of my doodles.

"HEY, YOU! WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE?!! DO YOU WANNA DIE!?"

The shouting got me out of my thoughts. I finally noticed that I was surrounded by flames and the wooden ceiling was almost ready to collapse.

"WE NEED TO GO! NOW!" someone pulled me by my hand and dragged me to the exit.

The air started to become suffocating and my throat was hurting from the smoke. Dizziness filled me and my body was becoming heavy. I looked at the person pulling me. He was wearing a waiter's uniform and had dark brown hair. Unfortunately, I couldn't see his face due to the smoke. Strangely, I don't remember this building ever having a cafe in it or nearby. I would have known since I worked once here. So, were did he come from...?

*Bam!*

The ceiling collapsed right behind us, creating a new wave of flames, making them spread further.

"We are almost out!" I heard him shout.

My legs were hurting from the constant running and dodging. I don't remember the exit being so far away and why did the surroundings become so different?

"W-wait *cough* Sir, I think we took a wrong- the wrong turn!" I finally managed to utter after all this time. The man stopped and for the first time he turned his head at me.

"What the heck!!!?" I don't know what I looked like then, but I am pretty sure I had never felt more freaked out in my life (ironic because just a while ago I created a fireball from my notepad).