Rising pillars of orange and grey fill my vision as I wake. I begin to panic as the flames devour my bedroom. Despite being on the second floor, I try opening the window to no avail. The heat from the blaze has melted the latch beyond use and it burns my palm severely when I try.

I try to make my way to the door, coughing as I inhale the smoke. I start to feel lightheaded from the lack of oxygen. The door is already burning, and my only way out is to try and kick it down. With my small frame, it doesn’t work very well, but I manage to at least kick a hole big enough for my body to fit through.

I try to make my way down the stairs, but there’s a raging fire burning up the carpet of the stairs. I hurry back up the steps and make my way to the other bedrooms. The fire is worse in them, and portions of the floor has already collapsed into a bonfire in the kitchen.

There’s barely any fire in the upstairs bathroom, and I run in there. I open the small window and inhale what little fresh air I can. The air smells of gas fumes, and it nauseates me. I try to scream and yell as much as I can from the window, but it doesn’t seem like anyone can hear me or has noticed the fire yet. It doesn’t seem to have spread outside of the house much yet.

I start ripping the screen out of the window and try to squeeze myself through it. I’m hanging halfway out the window with my body covered in burns and scrapes when I hear a rumbling. As I manage to slip the rest of my body out and begin falling from the second floor, the rumbling reaches a climax and I’m blown into the air as I black out.

I wake up lying face down in the grass and push myself to my feet expecting great pain as I do so. No pain comes and I stand with ease. I wonder if it was all a nightmare as I brush the grass from my clothes and begin to look around.

I stand atop a grassy hill with a single enormous tree in the darkness outlined only by the waning moon and stars on a cloudy night.