5

S uddenly, she jolted. As if struck by a bolt of lightning. Her feet started beneath her and carried her clumsily out of the room, stumbling on the edge of the ornate rug and barely catching herself against the door frame. Her breasts heaved as her lungs strained, unsure whether to scream or struggle for more air. Eyes wide with horror, she spared a backward glance into the room and nearly collided with the wall upon entering the hallway, upsetting the side table and causing the glass shade of an oil lamp to shatter at her feet. Flames licked down the table following the line of oil that now dripped from the base and pooled to the floor.

Her fear was already at its limit and she spared no thought to the growing flame she left behind her as she pulled wildly at her skirts to descend the winding staircase. Stairs that felt steeper and wider with every step. They seemed to wind impossibly long until suddenly her foot hit the main floor, which she swore hadn’t been there before she stepped off the last stair. As though the staircase had been rearranging itself as she ran. Her ankle bent to an uncomfortable degree, and her knee slammed against the floor, causing her to hiss between gritted teeth.

The sizable baroque door, still open from her arrival, began to close as if pushed by an invisible hand and she forced herself upward, panic surging her forward. One bruised arm outstretched with her fingers grasping as if to hold it open by sheer will alone -but something else outwilled her. The door slammed shut just as she reached it and both her hands braced against the heavy brass handle, jostling it with no success. It remained immovable. She screamed, terrified confusion mingling with frustration as she began to pound her fists against the door, again and again, the sides of her hands reddening with each strike. The door hardly creaked at the impact.

She spun frantically, the auburn hair once held tidily in a loose braided bun at the back of her head was now wildly undone and unkempt about her shoulders and back. Her green eyes scanned the foyer for an exit, catching the orange glow of the flames she left behind on the floor above her. It began to descend the staircase. Smoke billowed down, step by step. She lurched towards a window, open almost imperceptibly but enough that she could slide her fingers underneath and feel the cool air outside. She heaved the pane upward but, again, it didn’t move. She tried a second and a third time but, despite the effort, it didn’t budge.

The smoke crept along the base of the stairs and red-hot flames engulfed the banister and jumped from the open mezzanine to the thick velvet curtains that framed the windows. Her screams choked off into fits of coughing and her hand grabbed the nearest thing to her- an unlit candelabra that she hurtled at the window. It bounced off as if the window weren’t made of glass at all. Another item was flung from her hand before she even registered what it was. Again, the glass remained unbroken. The mezzanine above her began to creak and debris fell, crashing to the main floor as the blaze now fully consumed it behind her.

She covered her mouth with part of her skirts in an attempt to breathe through the smoke. Eyes red and watering she ran, stumbling from the foyer and into the adjacent hallway, the wallpaper already curling from the heat in the other room. She stopped at every window but nothing budged or broke. Her exits were few and her panic was suffocating.

She shrieked and coughed and wailed but, even if there was anyone around, they wouldn’t hear. She crashed into the kitchen and threw herself at the back door. Rattling it so hard that it should’ve come off the hinges. Futile. She grabbed a cast iron pan resting on the large range and tried to smash it against the window on the door- but it held firm, barricading her from escape.

Smoke, thick and heavy, almost brown in color, completely consumed the hallway behind her now. Like an animal surrounded, such as she was, she began to throw herself at the door, the walls, directly into the windows, with force enough to break bones. Battered and bruising, blood trickling from her nose and fingernails as she used her body as a tool for escape, her eyes began to glaze as she lost her will, realization coming to a head.

Trapped.

Her back up against the door, her breathing was quick and sharp, but each breath drew in less and less air as the fire burned up the oxygen in the Manor.

Tired.

Shaking, she collapsed onto the floor, choking on smoke.

Sleep.

Her eyes closed.