to sit up. What’s happening? It’s so fucking hot. I blink and try to open my eyes, but they’re stinging. As if someone maced me. I try to swallow but my throat burns. Smoke. Acrid smoke. Trying to suffocate me, penetrating my mouth and nose. My head throbs and my hip pulses with pain but none of that matters because I now understand what’s going on.
The cottage is on fire.
A breeze dances across my cheek, respite from the smoke and heat. I turn in this direction. The patio door is open. Thank god, a way out. But to get there I have to get there and moving feels impossible. My body is encased in concrete. My muscles, jelly. I try to pull myself upright. Move, Jack. Goddam it, move your ass.
Grunting and panting—how am I already this creaky—and my lungs complaining, I hoist myself to my hands and knees and crawl toward the door. Only a few feet away. I groan as I extend one hand, swaying with the effort—why is everything so difficult—and shove it at the door. It pulses outward but only a little. Damn you. I push again, nearly falling forward with the effort, and it swings open. Still on hands and knees, I inch painfully down the steps toward the dock. I only get a few feet. I think I’m done. I’m ready to collapse in a heap. I want to sleep. I want to give up and just lie here, slowly cooking. I cough, blinking against the smoke. Damn this is unpleasant. Smoke burns my eyes and heat pulses at my back. Hot. So hot. I turn awkwardly and see a wall of flames. The wind must have changed because it’s now charging at me, licking at my feet, forcing me to move. The only way out is forward. The lake.
Lungs burning, throat tightening, stomach heaving, retching, trying to get rid of the smoke, I’m finally at the end of the dock and all I can do is roll off the side and plop into the water like a large lump of coal.