I was dead. Right? That thing I'd seen, that was the face of death, wasn't it?
Maybe not.
I opened one eye and cringed as I quickly shut it- the light of the fire was tearing into my eyeball and ricocheting around my skull a few times for good measure. It took some time before I could attempt it again and this time I did it slowly, trying to shield my aching head with an arm, trying to get used to the light.
Once I could open them enough to see I found myself lying on the bathroom floor, tiles cracked under me from the heaviness of the fall, and more or less intact. There was a fucking awful pain in the back of my head, another in a shoulder and the broken door of the cabinet was now lying on its side beside me, so I could guess what I'd crashed into . Just finished the job. From the feeling of the hot tiles, the fire was really raging now, but something seemed odd. Something, besides the fact that I'd just seen an 'alien' face peering at me through a window.
Not the fire. The feet. Feet rushing around the bedroom and downstairs. Splashes of water. A loud 'hisss' of a fire extinguisher right underneath me in the garage. The bathroom door had fallen open again and I saw people, at least six of them, with a hose. Fire fighters? I might have thought so except that they weren't wearing anything protective, just wandering around with a hose, spraying water all over the place. They had long dark hair, tanned skin, and I recognised them as Native Americans. Indians? I wasn't sure what was politically correct any more. But that was who they were, it was impossible to ignore it and it confirmed that I'd officially caused myself brain damage somehow because this was completely impossible.
Had someone built this place on a native burial ground or was I going stark raving mad? Did we even see ghosts? I caught sight of a sneaker, groggy, head lifting, and decided that it probably wasn't supernatural. Unexplained, sure, but not a bunch of helpful ghosts. Were these neighbours of mine? Newcomers to town? It was a big town, by country standards, but not so big as to hide such an obvious group of people. Hell, even Clay was well known, and he rarely bothered going near humans unless necessary.
One of them caught sight of me and said something to one of the others trying to get the fire out. Woops. Was I supposed to be unconscious and not staring at them like a stunned chicken? I made my eyes flutter shut, but felt someone lifting me up and carrying me down the stairs. It went a bit blurry again, as pain rocked through my body and head, tunnel vision returning big time. It was when they froze, as they passed a window, and nearly dropped me that I managed to re-focus. I opened an eye a fraction and startled badly as I found myself eye to eye with that same monster alien face at the window, hand against the glass, trying to get in. It literally banged its head against the window, making the entire window frame rattle. Or maybe that was the fire- it was really going for it, I saw it crawling along the hallway.
A shout, I was dropped as the person carrying me freaked out a bit too, and I skidded to my feet and backed up, or tried to, but my injured foot was not really letting this happen. I slid backwards, as I was ignored now, the face the main focus of their interest now. They saw it too? That was a relief. My weird ghost or maybe neighbours or maybe hallucinations were also catching sight of this other hallucination. I was collectively mad with them.
