"Someone, get the stretcher—we have a patient here!"
A voice cut through the night, urgent and young—probably a student, maybe a warden—someone who had sprinted from the growing crowd gathering on the lawn.
Above them, the girl's cry cracked again, raw and fracturing.
"Someone please… I don't want to die… please, please…"
Her voice splintered on the last word.
Kael's gaze flicked to the fat boy sprawled motionless in the grass, chest barely rising. He wanted to demand why she hadn't escaped with him, but the question died uselessly. The man beside him only shook his head when Kael asked, voice low and ragged,
"Where's the fire truck? When did the fire start?"
"I don't know. I just got here."
Fuck.
Kael bit the curse between his teeth, then strode toward the warden standing farthest from the flames—uniform half-buttoned, face streaked with sweat and panic.
"Uncle, when will the fire trucks come? We still have one person inside."
The warden shook his head, words tumbling out in a frantic loop.
"I don't know, I don't know how this fire happened, I was just outside and the fire—"
The sour reek of alcohol rolled off the man's breath, thick enough to cut through the smoke.
God fucking damn it!
Time was bleeding out.
Kael spun on his heel and broke into a run—straight back toward the burning dormitory.
"Hey!"
"Don't go!"
Voices shouted after him, desperate, useless. No one moved to stop him.
He plunged through the entrance again.
Smoke slammed into his face like a wet fist. He coughed hard—once, twice—lungs seizing even as he tried to hold it back. The reflex was merciless.
He yanked the neck of his t-shirt up over his nose and mouth once more, eyes streaming, and pushed forward.
The stairwell was a furnace. Heat pressed against his skin, singed the fine hairs on his arms. Flames snapped and hissed along the walls, forcing him to pause, to duck, to weave between reaching tongues of fire.
But the corridor leading to his room—miraculously—had not yet been fully claimed.
The door stood open.
Through the window, framed by billowing black smoke, the woman's face appeared—tear-streaked, terrified, eyes wide with the reflection of the inferno behind her.
"Hey!" Kael shouted.
She flinched at his voice, then broke into fresh sobs when she saw him.
Kael didn't hesitate.
"Come on. Let's get out—quickly."
He thrust his hand toward her.
She shook her head violently, voice trembling.
"No, fire is too scary—"
He didn't let her finish.
His palm cracked across her cheek—sharp, stinging, unmistakable.
The words died in her throat.
Before shock could settle, he seized her wrist, pulled hard, and dragged her out over the sill. She stumbled against him; he turned, crouched, and hauled her onto his back in one rough motion.
"Say another word or try to move even an inch and I will throw you directly into the fire. Remember—no one will even know I killed you. Understand, bitch?"
She could only nod, frantic little jerks of the head, throat working around silent sobs.
Kael understood then why the fat man had been the only one to escape earlier. The realization flickered through him, cold and bright, but he felt nothing about it. Nothing mattered except forward. He shifted the woman's weight higher on his back and ran again.
This time he couldn't press the shirt to his face. The smoke poured in with every heaving breath—hot, acrid, oily. It coated his tongue, lined his throat, burned deep into his lungs like swallowed embers. His vision smeared at the edges, lungs spasming, but the orange glow ahead sharpened into an open doorway.
Freedom.
He staggered through it just as the building gave its death groan. Timbers cracked like gunshots; the roofline sagged, then collapsed inward in a roar of sparks and black smoke. Heat blasted against his back.
"Fuck—fuck—fuck—"
The curses tore out between coughs as he stumbled clear, legs shaking. The woman stayed silent against him, a limp weight, even now.
Outside, the night had changed. A crowd had gathered at a wary distance—faces lit red and gold by the fire, mouths open in the same stunned O. Sirens wailed closer. Fire trucks hulked at the curb, red lights pulsing across wet asphalt.
Kael exhaled, long and ragged. The worst was over.
Two medics jogged toward him, silhouettes cutting through the haze. They went straight for the woman. The instant he lowered her she staggered, knees buckling. One medic caught her elbow.
"Stretcher!" one medic called out, and the woman was lifted onto the stretcher by both medics, while he wasn't even given a thanks.
Haah, well, that's just how it is, he thought, but suddenly his eyes began to blur, the edges of his vision softening into haze.
He shook his head to clear it away, but the world tilted, swirling in a nauseating spin around him.
What is happening?
The ground seemed to heave beneath his feet, the air thick and acrid with lingering smoke, and his body crumpled heavily onto the rough pavement, knees buckling first, then the rest of him collapsing in a heap.
"Medic!" Someone must have spotted him falling, their voice cutting through the chaos like a distant echo.
Kael's mind, fogged and faltering, began to replay his past—fragments he desperately wished to bury, yet they unspooled relentlessly.
The joyful days of his childhood with his parents, their laughter warm and enveloping as they beamed at him; their faces alight with unbridled happiness when he clutched his medals, pride radiating from them like sunlight at his every good deed.
But then the shadows crept in: the hollow ache of their absence, the sad days when they were gone forever; his uncle's family, cold and unyielding, denying him even the space to grieve properly, their indifference a fresh wound.
And finally, the bitter echo of that same woman's voice—the one entangled with that fatty, their disturbances piercing his fragile focus during study—but he had still rushed in to save that bitch, only to receive not even a thank you in return.
As those memories flickered through his dimming mind, he couldn't help but reflect, What a good and pathetic life to have... If I was given a second chance, I would not waste my time just being good. I will...
The thought trailed into oblivion, fading to an all-encompassing black, until a final message—or perhaps an echo—resonated in his ears, his consciousness:
[System awakening condition met..... System downloading]
What the fuck..was...
As that final question drifted through his breaking awareness, his soul quietly slipped from its vessel. Kael, only nineteen years old, died from the smoke he had inhaled too deeply while saving someone who didn't even thank him.
----
If you're enjoying this novel, please add it to your library. Comments and Power Stones are greatly appreciated!