I didn’t want to die. Looking back, I saw the broken flames spew out of the shattered and melted window, licking

the sky like orange tongues. The little, blond four-year-old in my arms was wetting my fire-suit in her fear of the creeping flames.

Apparently, the parents had left her with the babysitter, but this time the woman’s cigarette lighter had caught the white carpet on fire. She was completely wasted on drugs by the time a neighbor called 911, and no one could revive her after she was carried out of the house. My partner and I were the second team to get to the house, but the little girl was already outside with a neighbor. The first firefighter team ran in, carried the babysitter out and the medics took of with her in the ambulance. A few minutes later, a large, gray Cadillac pulled up and the girl’s parents jumped out and ran to her. The green-eyed girl cried for her cat, which was inside the burning house. Her parents kept saying, “Your kitty is fine,” but she still broke away and ran back into the house. Her mom screamed her name, and her dad ran after her, but the other team held him back.

My partner and I took off into the flaming building, our oxygen masks forgotten. The flames seemed alive, pausing only a second to let us in then closed behind us, like creaky doors in a haunted mansion. Instantly, I was blasted with smoke and the smell of burning leather. My partner and I split up, going in opposite directions. My foot crunched on something. I looked down at the clock’s pendulum laying there in three pieces like broken straws. The hands had stopped at exactly on 11:35 am, twenty minutes ago, when the fire reached it. I called the little girl’s name, but something shot past me out the front door. I called her name again, and heard a terrified whimper to my right. I called again, and told her not to worry. Carefully, I broke the door open and she ran to me, crying for her kitty.

“He’s outside,” I whispered. “Let’s get out of here, huh?”

She nodded as I picked her up and turned around. But now, broken beams had blocked the front door. I yelled to my partner that I found her and was headed out the back. I heard his faint grunt somewhere ahead of me. I stumbled down the hall, trying to hang onto the girl and track my way through the impenetrable smoke. The ancient grandfather clock in the darkened hallway chimed noon, seemingly immune to the fiery disaster that shrouded it. She gave a tiny cough and I prayed with all the faith I had left, Please God, not again. Don’t let me lose her. Don’t let it happen again. I stumbled anyway, and choked from the smoke. I saw a light through the dim, ash-infested smoke, and made my way to the only open doorway. I staggered to the railing, falling to the deck with her still in my arms. Righting myself, I heard my partner and the other team call to me. I heard the gentle lapping of the water against the deck and the demonic crackle of the fire behind me and asked the girl if she could swim. I asked again when she didn’t answer. Finally, she nodded and I held her up on the rail, and told her to jump into the lake below, that my partner would catch her. She shook her head and clung to me even harder. Her parents called to her, pleading with her to let go. She screamed when the deck shuddered. The broken wood supports shifted beneath us dangerously. Still, she refused to let me throw her to the safety of the water.

Suddenly, I felt the wood underneath me crack completely, and I shoved her into the water, away from the falling beams. She screamed, and hit the water a few feet from my partner. I didn’t have time to scream as the beams above me collapsed against he deck, trapping me between them as they plunged into the lake below. The broken beams pulled me deeper than I could go. My helmet was lost in the frosty waves and my long hair drifted like unfurled wings.

Now, she has all the time in the world.

But so do I.