CHAPTER 63

"Every flat here has a gallon of fuel somewhere because of the generator. If the fire increases any more than this then the whole compound will explode!" I screamed in panic.

"Calm down Mira, get everyone out of here first." He instructed. He pushed me aside and ran out.

"Scar where are you going_" My voice trailed off. He was already out of the gate before I could say Jack.

Do you remember when I said that everyone was selfish in some ways. Well I was too. I ran upstairs first.

My family always came first before anyone else or anything else and that included me. I felt guilty for not alerting the neighbors downstairs before going up most especially because it was my fault that the fire broke out in the first place. But I was hoping that their sense of smell was still intact. Taking the stairs three at a time, I quickly got to my door.

I knocked at the door with all the strength I had. Fuck generators even if we didn't have one the ones our neighbours had gave us enough noise. Imagine then if we had one of our own. Disaster!

"Mum! Mum!" I shouted, impatiently knocking hard on the door.

The door opened almost immediately and my mum came out. She was looking very angry as she hated us banging on the door which was what I just did. I expected her to chop of my head, but that didn't matter now.

"Mira are you mad!" she shouted "Why are you knocking like a crazy person? Do you want to break the door? You are lucky your Dad isn't back or you would not have heard the last of it." She said all at once, glaring angrily at me.

I was still trying to catch my breath.

"Mummy can't you smell the smoke? The compound is on fire! Please get David and Daniel out of here?" I managed to say though I was still breathless from running upstairs and from panic.

Her expression softened. "I smelt the smoke oh but I thought our neighbours were burning something outside."

"No! no, someon.. Something is burning." I informed her deciding to be selectively honest.  I trusted my mum in matters like this, she panicked immediately as I expected. She started shouting at my brothers to stop playing and come out.

When I saw that she had taken over I went over to my neighbours door and banged on it. From the space on the stair wall I could see that the families that lived downstairs had already come out. They must have smelt the smoke like I predicted.

It appeared that my neighbour was the only one not aware of the fire. I think my landlady already knew about it, she was the landlady after all. They must have informed her already.

My neighbour took long to open the door as they could not hear the knock over the sound of their big generator. In fact I was almost giving up on alerting them when the woman finally unlocked the door.

"Fire!" I shouted without even as much as a good evening ma.

Just then my mother came out holding my siblings in one hand and in the other she carried a blanket and a gallon of water.

"Let's go!" I said to David and Daniel.

They both looked tired and scared but theirs could not be compared to mine. I took their hands as we sprinted down the stairs.

"Wait here. Stay with mummy." I told them, letting go of their hands immediately we got downstairs.

"Where are you going to?" My mum asked worriedly.

"I want to check something." I replied.

She was about to object when I sprinted backyard. All this was my fault and I needed to make sure no one suffers for it.

Luckily my mum didn't follow me as my brothers held her tight.

I went through a fog of smoke to the back of the house and realized that the fire had finished burning every  thing at the back, the flowers and dirt were now ashes.

It was now starting to spread to the houses. If the house burns down it would leave us homeless. We had no money or land or house anywhere, and my father was not around and even if he was around he would be of no use.

I stopped breathing when the realization hit me that my family would have to relocate to the village if our house burnt down.

"Jesus! Jesus!" I screamed before all the generators went off.

My head started pounding again. Where was scar?

This was all too much for me to handle alone. A tear dropped from my eyes and I quickly wiped it away.

I was not weak.