Flames of red and orange. Smoke burning in my lungs, making it where I couldn't call for help. I was trapped and I had to get out. Otherwise this wasn't going to end well. For me, and for whoever else was still inside the building. I ran for my bedroom door. I placed a single finger on the doorknob - it wasn't hot - I swung open the door. My eyes widened in horror. Flames of red and orange were climbing up the walls. It reminded me of the circus, the part where the tiger jumps through the flaming hoop. But would I make it out like the tiger? I took a deep breath put the hood up on my jacket and ran straight for the flames. Unbelievable I made it through the flames. I smiled slightly and began to cough. I was on the eleventh floor could I run down eleven flights of stairs?
I couldn't hear sirens from fire trucks over the crackles of the flames. And the halls were empty of people. Why did I have to insist to my parents that I could live in an apartment on my own? I wouldn't be stuck here if I hadn't convinced them.

The door to the stairs were right in front of me. Just a little further.

"Mommy?" A voice called.

I froze with my hand on the door handle. What was that?

"Help! Somebody help me!" The voice called again.

I turned and scanned the halls one more time. Someone must be stuck in a room. I walked in the middle of the hallway so I wasn't touching the flames. I listened hard for the voice, but didn't hear it. Had I imagined it?

"Help!" The voice called again. My head snapped up and I ran down the hall.

"Hello?" I shouted.

"In here please help me!"

I ran past a few more doors until I came to a stop in front of the door I thought the person was in. I tried to open the door, but it wouldn't budge. I ginned my teeth and tried to bang it open with my shoulder. On the second hit it slammed open. A little girl was lying on the floor with a bookshelf on top of her. I ran over to her and lifted the shelf up. She crawled out and looked up at me.

"Thanks," she said.

I grabbed her hand and led her out of the room. "Come on we need to get out of here."

We walked out of the room and down the hall. I swung open the door to the stairs. We were eleven floors up and the building could collapse at any second.

We ran as fast as we could. We both tried to make it out alive. I tried to bring her to her parents, safe. But she didn't make it.
A floor had crashed on top of her as we ran down the stairs. I felt guilty for not bringing her back. When I had made it out of the building firemen and ambulance came to assist me. When they hooked me up to an air tank I saw a couple crying. They must have been the girls parents. I told them what had happened after the police did.
They invited me to her funeral. Were they made at me?

*

*

*

It looked like rain. The police said that a cigarette had caused the fire. The person that had been smoking in a none smoking building had started the fire and practically killed the little girl I had tried to save. Her coffin was red, like the flames that she died in. I was wearing a black, short, sleeveless dress and I had yellow roses in my hand. The florist had said that yellow roses meant friendship and joy, so I got them. I thought that the little girl I didn't know could use a little joy. And when I placed the roses on her red coffin it looked like the flames that we had been stuck in, together.