Thing 41: What would you run out of the house with if your house caught fire?

Well, school's back in. I'm hoping hat having responsibility again will keep me motivated rather than barring my creativity, and as such I hope to produce more regular content. Here goes nothing...

Thing 41: What would you run out of the house with if your house caught fire?

It starts as but a hint of sensation. The warmth creeps over you, gentle and inviting. It is a childhood friend, a beloved pet, a pleasant memory sparked by a wayward dream.

But the warmth grows more bold. A rivulet of sweat provides evidence that perhaps the warmth is not coming from within. Your covers, so tightly wrapped about you, become a prison. Their comforting protection against a night of terrors is now a suffocating burden.

You open your eyes, trying desperately to clear the fog clouding your mind. The world is a blur, and your senses are assaulted by phenomena beyond understanding. Around you echo inhuman screams, cloaked in a synaesthetic nightmare of red and orange.

Each frantic blink washes away another layer fog. Your room slowly comes to focus as your haze is banished. The screams reveal themselves as the piercing ring of the fire alarm. The colours reveal themselves as the hungry tendrils of flame consuming the life you've built around you. For a moment a pang of despair consumes you as your belongings are consumed. All you've worked for, gone in an instant.

Despair turns to panic, for your life is in danger. Your belongings may soon be followed by your person. The flames grow ever closer, and you are a fragile being. Should you remain it would surely mean your doom.

Panic turns to resolve, for you realize that there is another in this place; another whose precious life must face the perilous flames.

It is the one you love. Above all, this one must be saved, for your life is nothing before theirs.

You fly out of the comfort of your bed, for no blanket can hold back the beast you now face. Arid smoke enters your lungs and burns your pupils, but you ignore it. It will not deter you from your goal.

With gritted teeth and firm resolve, you rush forward, into the clawing flames.

They must survive.