1 Girl On Fire

{MAYA}

"I swear someone or something is out here, and it is trying to get to me."

The sun was blazing hot, it was as if hell has frozen and the sun had borrowed some heat from it. To say it was hot would be an understatement.

Walking was her way of refreshing her mind, and Maya cussed herself for following that rule. She would have forgotten the rule for a day and he wouldn't have died. Right? She looked up and laugh at herself.

"Seriously Maya, Maya. Even a two-year-old kid knows that you are not supposed to look directly at the sun." She told herself and rubbed her eyes which she hoped hadn't turned red. She wondered how the people in dry areas stayed, or people from the Sahara.

It was only a few days ago that they had had rain, and yet the land looked like it had never seen rain for ten years.

Maya was walking on a pathway, and it seem like she was all alone. The only people she saw were the ones who had small businesses on the side of the road and once again she found herself worried about how they stayed under the hot blazing sun.

Maya found what she was looking for and walked to it. She was looking for a tree, she wanted to catch some breeze air and take some water, or else she was going to faint and she could imagine her brother making fun of her.

In her family, among her siblings, she was the only one who cared much about health, good meals, and exercising. And she couldn't help but imagine her brothers would behave after receiving the news that their sister who always explained to them the importance of good food had fainted.

Opening her bag, she felt like screaming that there was no water inside but there was no way she was going to scream; her throat was too way dry.

"Nature is out there and it wants to kill me, the sun and now water," she groaned and continued searching for her water from inside the bag as if she was hoping the water bottle had shrunken and it was in her bag.

There was no water, so she decided to look for an umbrella to shield herself from the sun but too bad the umbrella was also missing.

"Oh, come on!" She exclaimed. Maya looked at her watch and tried to swallow some saliva which again didn't work. She closed her bag and began walking to where she was sent by her mother.

She wanted to call her mother and complain to her about why she decided to send her abruptly without allowing her to get her things in order, but first thing first, where the hell was the umbrella? She always made sure it stayed inside her bag.

Maya's mother was in town for work and instead of her coming with her work assistant so she could send her to wherever she saw it good to send Maya.

"Mother wants to kill me, she just sent me to the wolves." Maya thought and stared at the people who were sitting at the shops near the road. She was exaggerating though; the sun wasn't anywhere close to the wolves.

She saw some of her coursemates from a distance and she was sure they were going for a class they had in the afternoon. Maya had canceled it when her mother asked if she could send her.

Maya had said yes, there was no way she was going to allow her mother to get tortured by the sun, and anyways, she wasn't going to miss that much, the class she had canceled was a common unit. She hated the common unit and wished if she had an option, she wouldn't have taken it and only take the course related to her field.

She took a handkerchief from the outside pocket of her handbag and wiped the sweat from her face. And after that, she put it back and as if by sense, she began looking for the water bottle from the bag forgetting that she had done that earlier on and it wasn't there.

"Maya, hi." She heard someone calling her.

Turning around as slow as possible to avoid fainting she found it was her mother's friend.

"Hi, how are you?"

"I am fine and you?"

"I am also fine," Maya answered cringing in her heart. What was that?

"The sun is burning like hell, it's only a few days ago that we had rain. I am surprised…" The guy said and Maya nodded.

"Great! Just great. Now I have to talk about the weather." She thought and stared at the man who was still talking.

"…anyways, say hi to your mother." The man said and Maya said bye to him.

She turned and walked, looking ahead she smiled thinking of how she had never thought she would be happy to see, 'Gary and Co. Advocates.' She thought of running to the building and telling them to shut the door the sun was coming.

Arriving at the building, she walked to the receptionist and said to her, "Hi, I am Maya. I have been sent by Mrs. Smith to pick up some files from here."

Maya gripped her bag and stared at the receptionist who was looking at her as if all she wanted to ask was, "so?"

"Hi, welcome to Gary and Co. Advocates. Okay, you have said, Mrs. Smith?"

Maya nodded, she was all dried up and all she wanted to do was to ask for water but she didn't. The receptionist was supposed to offer her something to drink, right? It was super-hot outside.

"Why hasn't she offered me anything to drink? I have seen it happening in another office, well others I mean my mother's. Or is it in interviews only? Good Lord! I am not sure." Maya thought and licked her dry lips, she stared at the receptionist waiting for a response.

"Take a sit there." The receptionist said and Maya looked behind her and saw an empty chair and sat.

And the wait began.