We roamed around the musty hallways as the sizzling boards popped with every step we took. Just like ants, we filed one by one up the diminished stairs. Most of the furniture and walls were gone. The wooden railing where my siblings and I once threw stuffed animals over at each of us were then heaps of ash where each post stood. The bathroom where I had my first few teeth pulled existed as a floorless room with charred planks making the back wall. Before we went in, the Chief of the fire department had warned my parents that the bedroom above the kitchen, my bedroom, was barely even there and would be tricky to walk into. My bedroom floor didn’t exist anymore except for the disintegrating two-foot wide path leading to my closet where our blue plastic tubs with all our milestone items such as birth certificates and baby blankets had been saved by a miracle. My closet was the only structured room saved in through that whole disaster. The possibility seemed to be unlikely since the combustion began right underneath the bins of treasured mementos. Our whole world combusted around my family simply by a spark.
The night of December 5, 2006, my parents decided to go out on a date. I along with my three siblings, Spencer, my six-year-old twin brother, Brooklyn, my older sister, and Mason, my oldest brother, had to be babysat by my favorite babysitter, cousin Meghan, who would cornrow my hair after my bubble baths. She never followed my parents’ guidelines on our snacks while we watched Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer that night. Meghan gave each one of us twenty Pringle chips, but they weren’t just any old original Pringle chips. No, these were the ones with the neon blue jokes printed on them. These were my favorite movie snacks. Full from the toasty pizza rolls, my sister did not finish her chips. Not letting those jokes or the crunchy chips go to waste, I finished my sister’s portion for her. This came back and to bite me in the butt the following morning. After the colorful animated movie, my cousin tucked all of us into bed.
I am not normally a morning person, so the next morning was odd to me. I woke up early at six in the morning before my parents. Moping down the stairs, I went to our computer room to watch SpongeBob Square Pants. My twin brother, unlike me, is a morning person, so he was already in the cozy room watching the staticky box television.  As I snuggled up next to him, I wrapped myself with my father’s favorite wool grey wolf quilt. Soon after my stomach rumbled and tossed and turned; then the chips decided to come back up. Under Spencer’s breath, he slurred, “I will go get mommy.” Tripping over his toes, Spencer sped down the dim hardwood hallway to my parents’ bedroom. Frozen with embarrassment, I sat like a statue as tears cascaded down my cheeks.
My mom appeared with a towel and comforting open arms. After I cleaned myself up, Mom insisted that I lie down on the love seat and let my stomach settle. The next words my mom said I will remember for the rest of my life because this shocked my six-year-old brain. My mom sighed, “Let me grab you some 7up. It will help your stomach ache.”  My young brain could not wrap around the fact that a type of pop could make a person less sick. Puzzled, I wondered, “Mom, you know 7up is pop, correct?” She then clarified that the sparkling carbon bubbles would make my tummy feel happy again. Peering into the fridge, my mom realized we didn’t have any 7up. With a tight red face, she returned back to me and handed me a paper grocery list then commanded, “Hold this while I gather your brother and sister.”
She took a step into the hallway and shouted, “Everyone get dressed and grab your shoes. We are going to Meijer.” I rolled off the seat and retrieved my dark green Crocs and slid them onto my bare feet. Within fifteen minutes my mom had Brooklyn, Spencer, and me awake, dressed, and buckled up into Tator, our old, rusty miniature van that appeared like a tator tot. Mason and my dad left earlier that morning for a YMCA basketball league. My mom started Tator, and we headed off to Meijer. 
After an hour and half of strolling in the food filled isles, we finally made it to the final destination, the checkout lines. It was our turn to have the cashier scan our items and tell us our price, but we never heard our price. While our cashier scanned all the items, my mom received a life-changing phone call.
The call was from my dad. My mom stood there speechless, eyes wide open with disbelief noticeable from three isles away. I knew something was definitely wrong. Suddenly, my mom shoved her wallet and phone into her purse and scramble around looking for the van keys. With Tator’s keys in her hand, she looked at the cashier and calmly announced, “I will not be buying any of this. I have to leave right now.” My oblivious siblings asked if we could ride the brown mechanical horse Sandy. My mom then replied, “No, we are headed to the car right now!” When trotting away, I foolishly stated, “Wait, Mommy, the 7up!” Without a stutter she scolded me, ”There are more important matters right now than the 7up!”
On our way back home, my mom called my dad and basically shouted, “Are you okay? Randy, are you okay?” She soon realized just how bad it was. Turning left at the intersection of East Second Street and Domersville, my mom’s questions were answered. We looked out our windows expecting the baby blue sky with snowy white clouds, but what we saw was bad. We saw a large ashen gray cloud floating up from the forest in the distance in front of my house, or so I thought. Flustered, I asked myself, “Why is there smoke rising from the forest?” Driving closer and closer, I finally realized this was a house fire, but not just a house fire. It was our house fire. Tator made it about twenty feet into our mile-long asphalt paved driveway before we were stuck behind by all the flaming red fire trucks. We didn’t have to get any closer to see the scorching burnt orange flames flowing out of our home. Managing to weave around all the wailing engines, we parked in our round about. As tears trickled towards the ashy ground, my mom commanded, “Stay put. Everything will be okay.” During this moment, I didn’t know what to feel.
So much was happening around us. Seven fire departments had joined forces trying to tame the dragon by drowning it with a rainstorm from their tanks and our neighbors’ moats. They had men invading the flames, examining the damage, and trying to find what could be salvaged. Like a phoenix marching through the soot-polluted air, I saw my dad carrying our Australian, German Shepard Daisy as if she were a baby. The smell of burning memories flooded Tator as my dad opened the driver’s door to set Daisy inside. Behind us with my great grandma’s orange wool quilt wrapped around her, my mom begged the firemen, “Go back inside! You have to look for my wedding ring.”
At the same time our cousins drove up the entrance to take us away from this horrifying scene. When they arrived, we left Tator, and we all climbed into their van and went to their house where we would stay for a few hours until my parents picked us back up to go back to Meijer to get new clothes.
We didn’t get to see aftermath of the furious battle till the following day. Many hours passed as I tried to imagine what it would look like. I was surely wrong. There wasn’t much left except scorched boards fixed diagonally from the blows of the water. We took our first step through what was once a front door but now remained a scorched hole as big as the one in our hearts.