She walked from the couch to the kitchen, where she moved some of the pots and pans aside and quietly started to prepare her dinner. The studio apartment looked like the contents of an entire museum had been crammed in one room. Even though the apartment was jammed packed, it was as spotless as though no one had ever set foot in it before. The main room had one large couch and two other easy chairs in a space that was clearly built for only one small easy chair. On each of the end tables, there were numerous photos of her and her father. Even the twin sized bed in the corner was covered in neat piles of books. For a moment, she looked around the room as though she was lost and couldn’t remember where she was.

Suddenly there was a loud pounding on the door. Startled she dropped a frying pan, froze and held in her breath. “I can hear you in there” a man’s loud raspy voice yelled. “Come out! You have to pay your rent or else!” She stayed silent. A moment later, a pink sheet slipped under the door. “Whatever. You do whatever you want to do. I just want my money!” the voice yelled. She waited for what felt like an eternity, but finally heard his footsteps fade down the hall. Like a mouse, she quickly snatched the pink sheet and ran to her closet sliding the door shut behind her. She yanked down the pull chain and the bare light bulb flickered on, illuminating the scrunched up cot and cheap pillow.

“EVICTION NOTICE,” was printed in capital, bold letters at the top of the pink sheet. “You must pay your rent within 10 days of receiving this letter, or you will be forced to vacate the premises and your belongings will be removed.”

Her hand started to tremble as she realized what this meant. “I can’t do this. I can’t go out there,” she whispered. The thought of stepping outside immediately brought back the fifteen year old memory as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. She saw herself scrunched into a ball with her hands covering her ears as she rocked back and forth near the charred remains of the shed. Her eyes scanned back and forth looking for one kind face in the circle of adults who were screaming at her. 

“So stupid!”

“Your fault!”

“You killed that little girl!”

“Murderer!”

“How could you be so irresponsible!”

The last thing she remembered before she blacked out was the high pitched cries of the dead child’s mother.

She awoke with a shock from a piercingly loud siren. Not being able to tell what time of day it was in her dark and secluded closet, the blinding light from her phone illuminated the time, 5:30. What could have possibly gone on at 5:30 in the morning? She shuddered just with the thought of what might come next.

Still sequestered in her closet, she felt a budding drop of sweat falling into the right side of her tense mouth. That drop tasted salty which made her realize that she hadn’t eaten anything since the morning before. Without thinking twice about the perspiration building on her forehead, she slid open the creaking door of the closet and slowly positioned her right foot outside. Only the kitchen light was on and it took her eyes time to adjust to the light.

For a few minutes, she could not see anything. Finally establishing that she stepped outside her closet, she immediately jerked her foot back feeling a strange heat. “Am I sick?” she wondered. She touched her face again. Sweaty. It had to be a fever, she decided. “Something seems...weird,” she said aloud. She looked around the room. Again she had no second thought of the bizarre heat. Her eyes finally adjusted, and she could see the placement of all the furniture in the apartment. In a sleepless state, her two beady eyes scanned the room seeing her favorite bright orange couch, the stove where she spent most of her time trying new recipes, and the neat stacks of books on the bed where her father used to sleep. She thought her eyes were tricking her, but it seemed like there was a glaring orange flame under the single light in the kitchen. How could this happen? Then she put all the pieces together, the sirens, her sweat, and the heat; she had forgotten to turn off the gas to her stove, and that had created a blazing fire overnight.

Startled, she again heard a loud banging on the door. In a husky voice, a man yelled, “Ma’am are you okay in there? You have to get out of your apartment now. There is a cherry picker waiting for you at one of your windows, please look outside and climb out.” She did not reply. “Ma’am please, you need to evacuate right now!” Again she did not reply. “Ma’am, I am busting down this door and I am going to help you down!”

Then there were five loud bangs of a heavy ax clanking down on a metal doorknob. The firefighter with all of his body weight then rammed into the door and it came crashing down. The fallen wooden door spontaneously burst into flames and the firefighter quickly hopped into the apartment and avoided the growing blaze. He stepped into the small spot of the apartment that looked to be the only spot that hadn’t been engulfed by the fire. Then through the flames, he saw the young girl crouched up in a ball with her eyes and ears closed. “Ma’am, can you hear me? We have to evacuate right now! Ma’am!” Again no response. Avoiding the flames, he gradually made his way across the room to find the unconscious girl. Like a feather she was swiftly picked up and advanced to the closest window. He ripped off the black paper that was plastered onto the window. Luckily that window had the cherry picker waiting right outside. He pushed open the the stuck window that seemed to have not been opened in years and climbed onto the platform with the girl in his arms. He did his best to check her vitals as the cherry picker descended. She was breathing, but it was very faint, she needed medical attention immediately.

When she woke up, she heard shouts coming from opposite sides of the room, the air smelled clean a little too clean, although her eyelids were not open she could sense that bright white lights surrounded her. Her fingertips started to sense the starch bedding underneath her, then traced up her arm where she felt a plastic tube sticking out of it. Where was she, why was she outside of her safe home, she needed to go back, she needed to be out of other people’s sight. With her eyes still closed she removed the tube from her arm, suddenly sat up, opened her eyes slightly scanning for the nearest exit and ran. She ran as far as her legs could take her. She was not running to any certain place, she just wanted to stay away from as many people as possible. She finally stopped. She was in an abandoned parking lot. She found a cardboard box in a secluded area behind the parking lot and curled up into a ball and fainted.

She finally woke up. But her eyes were still closed. She sensed that the air around her was stagnant and musty, the type of air that compels her to not want to move. She steadily opened her eyes and the blazing sun blinded her. With her right hand she shaded her eyes, and she was finally able to make out the elements of the parking lot. There were a couple of old tires resting on rusting pieces of metal, there were three badly beat up cars that you couldn’t even tell if they were cars or not, and there was a single animal, a cat. Besides that cat, there was not a single being around. She suddenly had a surge of comfort. But she realized she did not know what to do next. The one person who she could communicate with would be her father, but he was not in this world. She decided to pull out the battered wallet picture of her and her dad. “Dad what should I do. I don’t know where I am. I am really hungry and I am really scared. I will meet someone that will try and talk to me or just even look at me.” Of course there was no answer. “Without your help dad, I have decided to try and find my way back home, I think that is the best solution. Then we will see how things go from there.”

Similarly to stepping out of her closet, she very cautiously placed her right foot on the ground. She intensely clutched the wallet photo and then courageously took one full step. The ground beneath her was an unpaved cement road that had some sharp shards sticking out of it. She was only wearing her slippers since she was removed from her house without being prepared to go outside. Black rocks were cutting through her slippers which made it impossible for her to walk more than a couple feet without stepping on the piece of cardboard box she ripped apart. After a long journey from the secluded area behind the parking lot she finally made it to the entrance of the lot. “Which way should I turn. Which side would have less people to encounter?” Hmm, maybe the right?” She decided to turn to the right side, so she placed her right foot on a newly paved sidewalk. She walked for what felt like an eternity, hoping that she would not have to face any human being, but in reality that long walk was only one block.

She turned her head to the right, recognizing the stoop to her apartment building. “Who knew there was a parking lot so close to my apartment,” she said in a whisper. Scanning the buildings surroundings, something caught her eye. There was a man speaking on his phone. She started to panic. Encountering another person triggered her to remember the accident from fifteen years ago, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to kill her.”

The man on his phone heard this and said, “I have just located the missing female from the emergency ward. I’ll need transport to the hospital and she will immediately need to be admitted into the mental wards, this girl needs help. Until an ambulance comes I will keep her on the site of the scene.”