Someone had innocently left a dish towel by the stove, and somebody else had innocently left the stove on. Fire, a naturally curious element, prodded the towel to see what would happen, and then crawled up its stained pattern and onto a nearby curtain. It crept across the window until it had burned through the material and fell on the living room's soft beige carpet.
James was downstairs, sleeping. His bedroom had been painted three months earlier a baby blue that was much less somber looking in the catalogue. He was seven years old, and an only child.
His father was upstairs, having just succumbed to exhaustion from insomnia. His wife had left him two and a half years ago. These nights with James were all he had left. He lay dreaming of the court case, and his wife's final words in her testimony kept echoing through his ears - You're irresponsible, Gordon.
The fire alarms broke last week.
The stairs were a loose, light carpet.
Gordon awoke when the smoke began to strangle his dreams and he snapped awake. His thoughts began to collect themselves, starting with: smoke. Smoke means heat. Heat and smoke mean fire. Fire means... Gordon threw off his sheets and sprinted out of his room. He could barely see.
James woke to the growing purrs of flame, and the creak of the load bearing post. Lights danced past his ajar door. He stood up and almost objectively noticed his own adrenaline set in. His room had no windows.
Hideous orange encased the stairway, but it wasn't made long, it was steep for the small house. Gordon jumped down. Fortuitously, the basement ground was concrete and cool. He grabbed his son from his doorway and held him tightly. They turned to the staircase. A slabe of roof above them nearly collided and succeded in knocking the man's glasses off. Gordon knelt and prayed.
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