I didn’t notice the fire until it was quite large, and practically impossible to douse. I had no water, no control. My body shook from fear, but it brought no relief. The fire was immense now, I giant wall of orange and red, drowning out all other colors. I tried to see the sky, pretend the fire wasn’t there, but I was impossible. The pretty blue sky, cloudless and full of light, that had been my life for so long, was nowhere to be seen. Only the fire existed now, the fire that was stealing my oxygen and consuming my sun. I sat down in my ring of fire, curled up in a ball, and waited for the ring to close in completely and consume my being. There was no escape, no rescue in my future. I had never pictured myself dying in flames, but it seemed imminent now. In my head I was always old, and ready to die. It wasn’t like this. But I couldn’t fight it, couldn’t resist too much longer. I was giving all I had to nothing.

And then I knew I had to do something, anything. My own disappearance I could handle, but the pain involved was far too much for me to cope with. I looked around my cage frantically, hoping for anything. A bottle of some unknown liquid was at the edge of the fire, blurred buy the heat waves in the air. I didn’t care. Wouldn’t liquid douse fire? So I snatched it up, a second before the fire consumed it as well. I tore the cap off and poured all of it out, frantically, over the fire. for a second, it seemed to have worked. The flames subsided a bit, calmed down.

I was wrong. The fire burst into flames that were all the larger than they had been before. I looked down at the glass bottle in my hands. I read the label, and then threw the bottle to the ground in anger. Kerosene. How had I been so stupid? It shattered into a million pieces, and I could not longer sit on the ground without the fear of glass piercing my skin. I was only making this worse for myself. But maybe, I deserved it. There was no fighting back anymore.

I felt something else cold and wet hit me on the head, I looked up, but I couldn’t see the sky still. And then more and more water came, falling faster and faster. The fire subsided, I could see the clouds in the sky. And I preferred them to any sun that ever shined. They were saving me. As slowly as it had begun, the fire was gone, in its own sweet time. My rain had saved me.