Dreamer Easy

Conflagration

3.          Conflagration


        The room was dimly lit, the walls seemed pale, apparently somewhat of a motif. Jack peeked out through the door, saw nothing, then quickly moved his head back into the elevator, as if frightened or weary.

        “Damn it” he said under his breath. There really weren’t any buttons on this elevator. He waited a second to see if it would close and bring him back down to the first floor.  Nothing happened for a whole minute.

        Jack concluded that he was either unaware of being on a generous amount of drugs, or that this appointment, this building, this whole situation was purposeful. Considering that he didn’t have very many options, he slowly crept out of the elevator and into the eerie room.

        As Jack approached the middle of the floor, the lights suddenly flashed on, revealing the room’s layout. Jack’s initial analysis wasn’t very far off: the walls were very pale, and even in the bright fluorescent glow of the ceiling light it still seemed a little dark. Maybe it was all in his head. Maybe this was all some sort of strange, elaborate dream. Smiling, he reminded himself to write it down when he woke up, as if to ease some of his tension.

        There was one plain oak table situated in the direct center of the room. Ten steps in front of it was a large projection screen, and next to the elevator entrance was a tightly sealed wooden door: so tight that light neither escaped nor came through the edges.

        It was at this point that Jack noticed that the elevator has closed, as if sealing him in this room for an unforeseen amount of time. The door was locked too, quite tightly. But Jack wasn’t all that disappointed, because he had been expecting it.

        Jack quickly found and sat at the only seat available to him, furthest from the screen on the large oak table. It was quite comfortable, office-like in quality, and caused Jack to instantly breathe a sigh of relief after taking a seat.

        The projection screen turned on rather quickly causing Jack to jump, which ended his relaxed state almost before it began. The screen flickered blue to grey a couple times, then settled on a dark silver color. Jack imagined the circular “3, 2, 1” countdown come on, had himself a quick chuckle, and then recomposed himself in all seriousness.

        A static image finally materialized. It was an image of a house, rather large, burning. Maybe even a mansion. It didn’t move, wasn’t animated at all, and made Jack feel somewhat uneasy. But it was just a picture.

        At first Jack looked questionably at the picture. He wondered why he was being shown this (at this point he knew it was purposefully), and if there was any significance behind it. But it was just a picture.

        He sat and looked at it for a good minute. During this time, nothing happened. Nothing at all. Jack began to feel somewhat sickly. He realized that if it he was watching a video of a house burning it probably would have disturbed him less. This was a house mid-burn. There was no ending to it. It was frozen in time—or rather burned into time itself. Constantly in agony. He might as well be looking at a picture soldier shot and bleeding reaching for the sky as he draws his last breath, he thought to himself.

        Three minutes had passed now, and Jack continued to stare at the picture, becoming more and more uneasy by the second. He yearned for something else to happen. Deer, rabbits, cute little doggies, prancing around in a meadow. A six-year old’s birthday party. Anything.

        But nothing happened.

        Jack began to hallucinate. And this time he knew it. He began to hear eerie music coming from everywhere at once, perceived a strange purple haze engulfing the room, and then began to smell smoke and hear fire. He stood up from the chair and dropped to his knees. He began to crawl and cough of imaginary smoke. He looked back up at the picture; it was still.

        Jack was growing quite sick, and he could barely stand looking at the picture for a minute more. He crawled away from the screen, lifted himself off the ground, and put a hand over his mouth as if to cover it from smoke. He looked over to the entrance to the room.

        The elevator doors were wide open, and the “down” arrow above the doors was lit up. Directly to the right of the elevator was the large wooden door, now completely open, with some strange blue light coming through. Through the door, there appeared to be stairs. He unfortunately could not figure out where the blue light was coming from. He slowly walked over to the elevator and the door, turning around once to see the horrific image of the huge house burning again. It remained static.

        He stood between the two pathways—in doubt.

        “I have to get out of here…” he said to himself softly, with a hand over his stomach. “I’ve gotta get away.”

        There was something new Jack noticed to the right of the wooden door: a plastic square with the staircase symbol on it, common in large buildings. Under the plain picture the words “In case of fire, use staircase” were inscribed.

        Jack looked back at the screen, squinting his eyes and covering his mouth. The terrible image was still there. The fire was still burning—engulfing the house. He turned back to the blue doorway, and quietly stepped through.