A Firefighter's Ordeal

I sit at the counter in my workplace. I work as a firefighter and I have been assigned the night shift with five of my colleagues. I operate the counter with two of them as we log reports in the record books while the other two are at other parts of the building checking on things.

The other two come back to the counter and find seats. We while away time talking about nothing in particular. Just as the end of the shift is drawing near, the phone rings. The caller is alarmed as she yells incomprehensibly. I manage to catch a few words and my heart sinks as I tell her we will be there and speedily update the others.

I inform them that there has been a fire outbreak in an apartment building thirty minutes away from here. We move outside, form pairs of two and each pair jumps into the a fire truck in the garage. The drive to the address is rushed and thankfully, there is no traffic at this early hour of the morning.

When we get to the building, we pull up, jump out and find people scattered at the front. Most of them are already crying. The highest ranking firefighter around issues the orders and we quickly start putting out the fire on the exterior of the building. I work for an hour battling flames, the protective gear on me making it hard to breathe but I continue anyway.

I hear the voice of a young woman holding a baby and I move towards her. She sobs as she tells me that her five year old son is stuck inside the house. Her sobs increase as she tells me how she was only able to grab the baby before they were pushed outside and that she didn't mean to leave him. I ask her for their apartment number and she describes it.

Without giving myself too much time to think, I head into the house. I make my way to the second floor, check the apartment number and push the door to the woman's house open. I search the kitchen, toilet, bedrooms and living room coming up fruitless. As I turn to go, a box in a corner catches my attention. I flip the lid open and see little boy peering up at me with frightened eyes. I rush down the stairs with the boy in my arms and deposit him unceremoniously in front of his mother who clings tightly to the boy and thanks me.

I head back into the house and begin to search apartments. I comb through many of them, directing frightened people outside. I pass through some apartments and people appear to be trapped inside. My heart aches as I leave them behind but there is nothing I can do.

I step into an apartment in another wing of the building. I follow the sound of a scream and see a young girl hunched in the bedroom, crying. I try to rescue her but the doorway to the room is burning furiously. Tears stream out of my eyes as I make a move to leave the apartment as the screams of the girl begging me to save her, follows me outside.

In the corridor, I encounter two of my colleagues who tell me that we all have to move out because the ceiling has begun to cave in. I am determined to finish with this wing so I fling open some more doors and find them empty. Just as I decide to move out, a door at the far corner catches my attention. I throw it open and find an old woman huddled inside. I usher her toward the exit and she steps outside. I am just about to step out myself when I hear a creak from above. I try to avoid it but it is too late. A burning chunk of wood falls on my back and another heavy beam lands on the back of my head. Instantly, pain shoots through me and my legs give away as I fall into darkness.

When I wake up, the first thought that registers in my muddled brain is the sharp smell of antiseptics so I assume I am in a hospital. A doctor comes in, checks my vitals and injects a sedative into the bag hanging on a rack with a line of fluids that connect to my arm. I feel the drugs washing through my system, dragging my body down and I see one image before being taken over by sleep -- the image of the girl begging me to save her.

About nine days later, I am finally discharged. My sleep is plagued with nightmares. I see the people trapped inside their apartments, I see the little boy peering at me through frightened eyes, I see the old woman smiling at me and I see the girl trapped in the room with the burning doorway, crying as her death draws closer. Toward the end of the nightmare, all of them come crowding around me, pointing fingers and laughing maniacally, as a very large chunk of burning wood drops down on me and I fall to the floor. I still hear their laughter even after I have woken up shaking, scared for my life and wrapped in a cloak of fear.

The nightmare comes more frequently now and the part where they all crowd in on me is more prolonged. Sometimes, they even happen when I take a nap in the afternoons. I am afraid to close my eyes now as I dread what awaits me in my sleep.

Till today, the memory of that day still lies fresh in my mind.