Estimated reading time: ±3 minutes
On that beautiful summer night, I slept peacefully. Downtown was quiet, traffic had stopped since midnight. I had just fallen asleep when I woke up to the loud sound of the apartment block fire alarm. Still tired, I looked at the alarm clock; two hours. Suddenly I understood the scale. A fire had started.
Wamien: Mom! Dad!
I ran into their room and touched the door handle; it was burning. I took a step back and smashed it like I had learned to do. My parents were suffocating in the smoke that had cleverly slipped from the first floor to the very last floor that was our apartment. My parents looked at me and groped towards me on the floor. The fire having eaten into part of the bedroom furniture, it fell just behind my father, leaving him barely enough time to scream in fear. My mother turned when she heard my father's cry and the sound of the furniture crashing to the ground. The floor made a horrible "crack" and opened to swallow the furniture and part of the floor. The bottom of my father's body disappeared in the hole and, having no point to cling to, I saw this horrible scene where my father slipped and disappeared into the hole of the floor, the cry of my strident parents; my mother who had seen the scene too and my father whose cry stopped abruptly after we heard his body breaking on the floor of the apartment below. I pronounced my mother's name with difficulty. She turned slowly and move to me. I took her in my arms and we went to the apartment door. In two blows of shoulder, I broke down the door, dislocating me at the same time the shoulder. Under the effect of the adrenaline, I did not even feel my wound. I came out of the apartment hugging my mother to keep her safe. Heading towards the stairwell, the floor cracked with every step we took. The floor just in front of me fell sharply into the corridor of the fourth floor, letting a geyser of flames gush out. Me and my mother had just enough time to back off to avoid burning our arms. We were trapped, my mother paralyzed by fear and I, too heavy to jump with my mother across the hole nearly two meters long.
Wamien : Mom, I'm gonna throw you across the hole and stick you to the wall so I can jump afterwards.
Mom: Okay, I... I trust you.
I'll hold her against me, hoping we'll get through this. I gently released her and helped her jump to the other side of the floor. I saw her stand up and stand against the wall and jumped back. We immediately set off again for the door leading to the fire escape. The fire had already carried some of the stairs down with it.
Wamien: We're never gonna make it.
Mom: We'll go through the window. I know there's a big bush under here, we're gonna make it, baby.
Wamien: Okay.
We headed towards the window and I broke it with energy using my elbow, the shards of glass causing me injuries. I looked down and saw the bush that was there, intact because of the distance that separated it from the burning block. I took my mother's hand and we jumped out of the window at the same time. I closed my eyes and hoped for our survival. I felt the branches of the bush engrave me and some, smaller and more pointed, pierce me like needles. I could no longer feel my mother's hand and I opened my eyes. I managed, with the help of the firemen, to get out of the bush and saw the worst thing in the world; my mother, her neck broken on the ground. She could not get to the bush despite the momentum she had given herself. I cry and faint.