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It was hard to imagine a death much worse than fire. The thought of being burned alive simply horrific. To be fair though, under the current circumstances it was hard to think of anything but being burned alive. The flames were so close now that I could feel the heat on my skin. Flames danced along behind us in the tree branches and tiny flecks and embers weaved around us as we ran. I had to dodge the occasional falling tree branch too, making my mad dash to the river all that much more challenging. The only upside to the fire was that the once dark forest had become as bright as day! The light from the flames made it easier to see the snarling roots that grew up out of the ground and tried their best to snag my feet as I ran.
“OOFFF!!” A painful cry went up from my side. I twisted my head and saw Mike, one of the guys from our group, catch his ankle on a particularly nasty root. He flailed his arms in the air, uselessly, and tumbled to the ground. I instinctively turned and rushed toward him to help, ignoring the ever growing intensity of the flames.
“Come on dude, let's get you out of here!” I said to him and set about trying to get him up.
“OWW!!” He let out an agonizing scream of pain. My heart sank when I heard it. Looking down at his ankle I could see it still caught up in the root system. Even through his pants, I could see it was broken. There was no hope for Mike. He looked up at me with a calm expression, understanding his situation perfectly.
“Leave me, man,” he said to me. “Neither of us will survive if you don't go now. It'll be alright.”
I wanted to stay. I wanted to argue with him. But in the end, there was simply no time, and I could see from the look in his eyes he was resolute. I grabbed his hand and squeezed it hard, then turned and ran on towards the river. I never heard another sound from Mike, but in just a few more seconds the flames had engulfed him.
I lost all track of time at that point, my face was stinging from tears of anger and sorrow. I pushed on through the trees, ignoring the painful slaps of branches against my bare arms and face until I suddenly burst into the opening. Pete, Sarah, and what remained of the original group, were all standing at the edge of a steep embankment. Below us, probably fifty feet down was the river.
“We came to the wrong spot!” cried one of the people fearfully. “We won't survive a jump from this height! We're doomed!”
I turned and looked back into the woods. By my estimation, we had less than a minute before the fire reached us. To our left and right there was no indication that the embankment became any smaller. To me, the answer was very simple: take our chances and jump into the river below, or stay here and be burned alive. I wasn't going to bother trying to convince anyone what to do. In the end, it was their life anyway.
I turned, walked resolutely to the edge of the cliff, closed my eyes....
And jumped.