348 and dropping

'~1974, September 15th, Dear Dairy, Population: 331

They didn't believe me when I told then about old man Sirl, at least not until I literally pulled one of the business men out of his seat. He was laughing as I was urging his strolling legs to walk faster. The laughter lines around his eyes scrunching up as he called to his friends to get him another pint even though the one in his hands was only half empty.

He dropped it when he saw the body. Chrystal spraying the floor. People swarmed round when the man started to scream this really high pitched scream that I have only ever heard girls pull off. My father pushed me out the way telling me to go up stairs and that I couldn't see what was in the piano because it 'isn't for children's eyes to see. I wanted to remind him that I was the first to find him but knew that he would only refuse to listen. Katelyn Grace walked me upstairs and told me to go to sleep.

Sleep came easily, but the images I saw in those dreams were the kind of thing I know I will never forget. I heard the gun shot. Saw the man and woman fall, dead in the church. I saw how white my counsellor's eyes were. I smelled old man Sirl.

I woke up with sweat dripping through my shirt. It smelled like something was burning and I thought that it must be father cooking something down stairs. My room was full of smoke. Maybe father was burning leaves on the fire again, because he ran out of wood, I told him not to do that last time. I opened my door. There was fire everywhere, creeping up the wooden staircase blocking my way out. Katelyn Grace's door was open. I think she got out. Other doors were ajar with people standing in the entrance, not knowing which way to go. A small girl stood a few doors down, she wore a pink dressing gown and had blond curly hair. She held a brown bunny by its ear and she was crying for her parents.

I didn't know how I would get out, but I felt like I should help this girl, even if I didn't know how to help myself. There were no flames to separate us, so I walked over to her and couched down. "Hey, little girl, you ok?" it was a stupid thing to say. O course she wasn't ok. None of us were. She shook her head violently and her bottom lip trembled as tears ran down her face. " Do you know were your mama and papa are? " I asked and she pointed to the fire. "Do you mean there down stairs?" I said.

"They walked in the fire, mister, do you think they'll be ok, it very hot," she said and I wanted to cry for the little girl that had lost her parents and didn't even understand. I covered my mouth and told her that I was sure her parents would be fine. I said it because I didn't want to upset her, I didn't want her to know, not yet. " Hey, mister?" she said, tugging on my shirt, her voice seemed more stable now. "Can you look after Mr. Cherry" she said almost cheerfully now, "you have to take good care of him and don't let him get burnt." She handed me her stuffed bunny and then started to walk away from me. "Were are you going?" I call after her, "to visit mummy and daddy," she says as she walked in to the flames.

I couldn't breathe. I could hear her screams echoing in my ears. And I replayed her last sentence again and again. Add that to the list of things that I will never be able to forget.

I saw the ghosts of people inter-twining with the smoke until I could not distinguish the two. Smoke is such a strange thing, it makes inanimate objects look like shadows and shadows non-existent. It was almost soothing, like I had been wishing my death to be, it only brought up memories of the fire that father lit when it started to get cold, or when I went camping on a school trip out of town. I could almost smell the marshmallows incinerating above an open fire, the memory was so lucid. But I as I drifted out of my dream like memory the smell of burning sweats turned to the smell of burning flesh.

My eyes started to sting and I couldn't open then, I lifted my hands feeling for my blue cotton curtains, knowing they would be gone within the hour, knowing that I also would not make it much longer. I would not survive long enough to make my tenth birthday. I think it to be strange that God would make a life only to kill it off a decade later.

I tripped over something and hit my head on the open window. Which now I think about it, is odd because I always close my windows at night and I distinctly remember closing it before I went to bed that night.

I think I have tried to block out most of that night but I do remember this really horrible sensation, where my lungs started to close up, and I tried so hard to fight for air but all I breathed in was smoke, which incidentally made me cough and splutter only in need of more oxygen. Like a cycle, it was endless and even the memory makes me sick to the stomach.

Even if the mist like smoke didn't cover the room like a blanket I still would see nothing, for my vision had gone blurry from lack of oxygen. I feel for the curtain to pull myself up with, barely enough energy to stand, my shaking legs managed to support me long enough to grab the windowsill. But I had put too much weight on the flimsy fabric of the curtain and the beam that supported it fell on one side blocking the half the window and making my once easy escape root ten times harder.

I pushed at the heavy weight beam with my trembling arms but it didn't budge. Still clinging to the stuffed bunny, not willing to let go if it, not now. Not ever .I poked my head through the bottom half of the window and used my arms to repel myself away from the red flickering embers and the place I once called home that was currently burning to the ground . I had managed to push myself out enough that only my shins remained inside the burning building.

It was a 18ft drop, not really that far from the ground, but I had never liked heights or fire and it had me wondering if this was a dream, a nightmare, I thought it, but knew it not to be true. I knew because in dreams you can't touch things and make them feel real, you can't smell things, you can influence what is happening and you can't die.

All of these things suggested to me that this in fact was not a dream, it made me feel sad to realize that I could touch the wood of the window sill and feel the splinters go in to my skin. It made me feel sad that I could smell the smoke coming out of every crack and crevice this building has ever held. It made me feel sad that I couldn't influence my surrounding and make the wind bend down the nearest tree so I could jump on it and climb to safety. But most of all what made me feel sad was the stunning realism of the moment in my life that I was currently living, it was the moment that I realised I could die, today, right now.

I always new that I would die. I mean, everyone does at one point, right? But it was far off. It's always been something that would happen in the future, even when I was telling Katelyn Grace that I was just another number on the sign and that it didn't matter. Only now do I know that it does, it matters so much. It matters because I didn't want to die.

I thought that thought was the one that fueled me to get out of that building. I reached out for the glass letter 'T', which was the first of a name that spelled out- 'the four horse man hotel'. I managed to swing my legs out of the window and was hanging off the glass letter, it used to light up, big florescent red letters that illuminated the houses around ours. I dropped the bunny to the ground, hoping it will be safe from the flames down there. I saw out of my periferal vision the sight of fighters, I think they may have even put out the fire, but smoke still filled the hotel like helium would a balloon.

I don't know how long I swung there, on that glass letter, but it was long enough that I was considering letting go, just because I couldn't hold it any longer. I was pondering whether I would make the fall, the odds were not in my favour, when a ladder was pressed up against the wall next to me. A ladder. A real god damned ladder. I don't think I have ever been happier to see a ladder in my life. Ever.

A fire fighter in full kit to protect him from the smoke filtering out the window, carried me down. It was only then that I realized how absolutely exhausted I was. I drifted to sleep before he even placed me on the grass.

Hey guys, soooo...

What do y'all think?

Do you think these are suicides?

If so, why are they doing this?

Do you think the population of the town is being murdered?

If so, who's the killer????

Do you think its to scary...

Or not scary enough?

Who's your favorite character?

And witch characters do you hate so much, you want to kill them?

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