Tea & Tattoos

17☕

❝ "When she awoke, the world was on fire.❞

(start playing the video)

A noise woke Desiree. She groggily reached out in the dark for the alarm clock, but on seeing it was only three in the morning on Saturday morning, she thought that it was just a drunk going past the house. But then she heard a sound she didn't recognize - a whooshing noise. And could smell something too.

Puzzled, she sat upright. It was a few moments before she registered that it was a smell of burning, and that the sound was the crackling of fire.

In panic she jumped out of bed and ran to the door. As she opened it she recoiled in horror when she saw a wall of thick smoke. It was so dense she couldn't even see the banisters of the staircase less than four feet away. But even through the smoke she could see an orangey-red glow coming from the kitchen downstairs, and it was making it's way towards the stairs.

The house was one fire, and she was trapped.

Shutting the bedroom door to hold the fire at bay until She could get out, she ran to the windows overlooking the street. Desiree saw her sister and mother screaming and crying while her father was talking on his phone is a hurry, but her grandma was nowhere in sight.

She fumbled for the little key on the sill but she couldn't find it. Frantically she rushed to switch on the light to help her find the key.

she had just got back to the window sill when the light went out, she guessed the fire had burned some wiring and shorted it out. The key had to be on the sill, she always kept it there, but it wasn't there anymore.

The smoke was belching in under the door now. She grabbed the duvet and shoved it down to cover the gap.

Coughing and spluttering, she went back to the windows and crawled along beneath them feeling with her hands for the key. But she still couldn't find it. Terrified now, she began hammering on the windows with her fists, which made her family cry and scream even more. Desiree noticed that some neighbours had went out into the street to see what was going on.

She tried to think of something she could use to break the window.

A chair was first, but when she cracked it against the glass she merely broke off the two front legs. She tried a shoe, but that made no impression at all.

She knew she was going to die. Someone had once told her that smoke killed you before the flames did. And she was chocking now- her lungs were filling up with it- and there was nothing heavy enough in the room to break the glass.

Coughing and wheezing, her lungs feeling as if they were on fire, she fell on to the bed and covered her head with a pillow. She had though about what the future held for her and Elliot, but now she wasn't even going to get a chance to say goodbye to him.

☯

Elliot was smiling to himself as he was on his way to Desiree's grandmother's house. She didn't know that he was going to be there that early, but he had phoned her grandmother and she had told him that it would be a nice surprise if she woke up and found him already there.

As he was about to signal to turn right into the street that he had written on a piece of paper, a fire engine with sirens screaming came up behind him, overtook him and turned into the street. Another one followed it, and Elliot had to pull right over almost on the pavement.

Even before he turned the corner, he knew the fire was close. 

The sirens had stopped, but halfway along the street he could smell smoke and see bright light from the fire engines. 

He parked his car in the first space he saw, got out and ran the rest of the way. As he came in-front of the house he was that it was No.10, Desiree's grandmother house, the small window beside the front door glowing red with flames. He felt himself go cold with fright.

''My girl's in there!'' He yelled at the first fireman he reached. The man had just got of the the fire engine cab and was unrolling the hose. ''I must go in and get her!'' Elliot yelled with panic.

''You can't go in, the whole ground floor is alight.'' The fire man told him.

Elliot was aware that behind the man he had spoken to, the other firemen were moving quickly into their positions, one hose was already out and he heard the gushing sound as the water ran into the gutter.

The glass in the small window by the front door suddenly exploded, pieces falling out onto the pavement. The men lifted the house and aimed it through the window. Elliot heard sizzling as water hit the flames.

It was then he became aware of how many other people were out in the street. There were dozens of them, all wearing dressing gowns. The police arrived then and  started moving people back, away from the fire. One came over to Elliot, signalling with his arms for him to get back too.

''My girl's in there'' Elliot yelled again over the noise of the engines and water. ''Please get her out!'' At that moment he spotted three people in front of him crying and hugging each other, he recognized them as the Locks. Elliot walked up to them and when they saw him they hugged him with them.

Everything seemed to have gone into agonizing slow motion. He saw the fireman he'd spoken to talking to a colleague, and pointing to the window upstairs. His colleague spoke to someone else, and it seemed to take forever before he saw them positioning a ladder.

The first fireman came towards him and the Locks. ''Is there anything in the house or garage we need to know about. Gas cylinders? Cans of petrol?''

''My car is in the garage. Oh hell there's mot only petrol in the car, but there's probably paint stripper, white spirit and God knows what else too!'' Desiree's father said.

This news seemed to have a galvanizing effect on the fire crew. The front door was instantly broken down and the hoses played right into the inferno of the hallway.

A ladder was now firmly in place and a fireman with a breathing apparatus went up it. Elliot was unable to stop himself miming breaking the window, hopping from one foot to the other in agitation.

A woman had walked up to them. ''They will be alright, they'll get them out' she said. ''Look, an ambulance is here now.''

At last Elliot heard the sound of breaking glass falling into the street. He held his breath as the fireman on the ladder put his mask over his face and climbed in.

Elliot's heart was pounding with fear that Desiree was already dead from the smoke. He didn't know what he'd do if she had died.

At last he saw the fireman as the window with Desiree over his shoulder like a sack of coal. At that point there was a loud bang from inside the house and a tongue of flame licked out of the front door and up at the front of the house.

Two more of the team advanced with another hose, and the sound of spitting and hissing as the water attacked the flames filled the air.

Slowly the fireman came down the ladder with Desiree. Elliot and her family rushed towards them.

''Steady on'' the fireman said. ''She's alive but she needs urgent medical treatment.''

The ambulance came forward with a stretcher and laid Desiree down on it, then gave her oxygen as they wheeled her back to the ambulance. She was wearing the same pink pyjamas that she had been wearing when she saved Elliot, in the yellow glow of the street lighting she looked about twelve.

''Will she be alright?'' Elliot's words were a plea more than a question.

''It's too soon to say,'' one of the men replied.''But if you want you can come with her family to the hospital.''

 a/n: Hope you like this chapter!

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