Olivia

The heat was all I could feel as I regained consciousness. I was confused for a moment, but the crackling of the fire around me quickly jogged my memory. The sound of glass shattering and debris falling was terrifying.

Pain shot down all the limbs in my body, it was enough to make me want to scream, but my throat was too dry for even an ounce of sound to come out. The bathroom walls surrounding me had now pretty much been engulfed in flames. They danced above me as I lay helplessly on the floor.

I shut my eyes as the toxins filled in the air, making them sting and water. The black smoke was potent, giving me the urge to cough, but for some reason, my body wouldn't allow me to. I felt like I was drowning on land. The pain in my chest and back was like nothing I'd ever felt in my life, and with every breath, I took the worse it got. Simply being alive was getting too hard at this point. I was ready to give myself to the smoke and flames and end the misery—all of it.

Parts of the ceiling began crashing down on the floor, burning the skin on my arms. As I tried my hardest to slide away from the chunks of scalding debris, a hiss resounded within me. The tile floor burned my palms as I tried to escape. My entire body was burning against its hot surface.

"Hey!" A male voice shouted from a distance. At least I think that I heard a voice. For all I knew, my mind could have been playing tricks on me. Maybe I was dying and imagining things.

"Anyone in here?" the voice called out again, and this time I definitely heard it. I knew it was real. There was suddenly a glimpse of hope that maybe I would make it out of here, but when I opened my mouth to yell out to him and let him know that I was here and needed help, nothing came out. My heart raced with anxiety as I thought of almost being rescued, only to end up charred to death in the end.

"Anybody?!" He yelled louder, but all I could do was lay where I was and pray that he would find me in this smoggy darkness and save me.

The smoldering door flung open, and in walked two firefighters who instantly brought a sense of relief to mind, but it was short-lived when the rest of the ceiling above completely collapsed right on top of us. I gasped as one of the firefighters leaped over my frail body and held me tightly underneath him, protecting me from anything that might fall. I grasped tightly onto his rugged jacket and let out a soft weep as the terrible sound of it all filled my ears. I was terrified for my life.

He tightened his hold around me protectively and put his head down to my ear before speaking. "I've got you, I promise," He assured me confidently.

I could hardly hear him between the disaster that the fire caused around us and the mask that he wore, but nonetheless, I heard his voice, and I needed to hear those words so badly.

As soon as the aftershock from the collapsed ceiling passed, he scooped me up into his arms carefully and maneuvered as best he could around the flames and over to an open window. He and his partner exchanged a few words before heading a room down and over to a window. Through the smoke, I could see a Ladder with a basket at the end of it connected to one of the big fire trucks.

I held onto the firman tightly as his partner stepped out of the window and into the basket, he then tried to pass me on to him, but I caught a glimpse of how far down the ground was and panicked, gripping onto his bunker jacket in terror.

"Hey, it's okay. We won't let you fall, okay?"

"No," I croaked out, shaking my head slowly.

"We have to get out of here, and this is the only way..." He trailed off. "I'm not leaving this building without you safely in that basket."

I bit down on my lip and nodded my head, realizing that there was no other choice. He whispered to me to shut my eyes, so I did, and before I knew it, he had passed me over to his friend in the basket. As promised, they did not let me fall to my death. Soon after, the firefighter who carried me hopped into the basket himself and helped ease me onto the floor with the help of his partner since I was just a pile of dead weight.

"Told you we'd make it. You have to trust me."

He removed his mask and smiled softly at me. He had the most electric blue eyes I'd ever seen in my life. They distracted me for just a moment from the chaos surrounding me. I smiled back at him weakly, unable to respond with anything more. I was just too weak.

The ladder jerked a bit before starting to lower to the ground, scaring me.

"You're okay," He promised, squeezing my hand. "We're going to get you some help, okay?"

I nodded my head and relaxed as we reached the ground. Almost immediately, I was swarmed by EMTs and gently but quickly placed onto a gurney. My eyes searched frantically for the fireman who just rescued me. I didn't want him to leave me, I was just so scared, and he helped me relax a bit.

"Hey," His voice rang from beside me. I looked up and sighed in relief, knowing he was near. He was a complete, nameless stranger but something about him made me feel calm amid this chaos. Maybe it was the fact that he'd just carried me out of a burning building, literally guarding my life with his own?

"These guys are going to take great care of you," He promised me, holding my hand and giving it a tight squeeze. "You'll be okay."

"T-thank y-you," I croaked out, squeezing his hand lightly. I hardly had any strength left in my body.

"Of course," He nodded once, stroking the back of my hand with his thumb. "It's what I do."

With that, he disappeared back into the crowd of first responders, and I was rushed off into the back of an ambulance. People were doing all sorts of things to me and hooking me up to all types of equipment.

One of the paramedics placed a Breathing mask over my face and an IV into my arm. So much was going on all at once that it made me dizzy. My eyelids became heavy once more, and I could feel myself losing the battle to unconsciousness once more.

A strong smell of disinfectant overwhelmed me, waking me from asleep that I don't remember falling into. I blinked rapidly to clear my blurry vision and get a good look around the environment that I was in. White walls, white bed, a hundred and one monitors, and IV's hooked up to me, this was definitely a hospital. I remember being in the house fire then being carried out by the blue-eyed fireman and everything that led up to all that, but I had no memory of anything after.

"Olivia?" I heard a soft voice call from across the room. I turned my head slowly and smiled once I saw Cassie sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. Her brown eyes were red and puffy from crying, I could tell. She rushed over to my bedside and went in to hug me but retreated and frowned as she looked over my body. She looked terrified to touch me.

I looked down at myself to see that I had wraps across both my arms and legs. I couldn't feel any pain, but I guess they had me drugged up due to the cloudiness in the head I was experiencing.

"Cassie," I whispered, clearing my throat and cringing at the severe pain it caused me. It felt like someone had taken a knife and peeled it raw of all the flesh.

"You scared the hell out of me!" She stammered, taking my hand into hers. "When I heard you were still in that room, I thought you were dead, Olivia Owens."

"I thought I was dead too." I croaked out. "Did someone call my parents?" I asked almost desperately. I wanted them here with me right now.

Cassie nodded her head and squeezed my hand. "They're on their way from Oswego right now, babes."

I nodded and swallowed hard before looking up into Cassie's eyes for a moment. "D-do like...do people know what happened?" I asked out of concern. It was already humiliating enough, and to have this go public would be devastating.

A deep frown pulled at Cassie's lips as she proceeded to take a seat on the edge of the hospital bed. Her curly red hair was slipping out of the bun she'd tied it up in. I could tell she'd been stressed. It was my fault. This entire disaster could have been avoided had I just pressed charges as I should have from the start. Or maybe if I had enough self-esteem to never get with Daniel in the first place, none of this would have happened altogether.

"Daniel," she spat, almost as if she was allergic to the name. "He's in jail."

"So that's a yes..." I trailed off, looking down into my lap. She nodded as tears filled my eyes. They stung as they fell onto my cheeks which I could tell must have scratches on them from the debris flying in the fire.

"They're calling it an attempted murder as of right now, which is what it was," She explained firmly. "He's going to go away for a long time liv."

"This is all my fault," I cried, feeling sick to my stomach. "I should have listened to you and just pressed charges because now it's just blown all out of proportion which is what I didn't want in the first place." I sobbed out in one breath.

Cassie shook her head vigorously. "Don't you dare say that Olivia."

I looked away from her and down into my lap.

"Olivia, this was not your fault. Do you hear me?" She asked assertively. "You don't get to do that to yourself. You don't get to blame yourself for his fuck-up's anymore."

"But-"

"No, no but's, you don't need to get worked up. Doc said you're pretty weak," She pressed her lips into a thin line before parting them to speak again. "You have 2nd degree burns pretty much everywhere." I let my head fall back against the fluffy white pillow as she spoke.

"You got pretty lucky though because they could have been much worse, plus you inhaled a lot of smoke, causing its own list of issues and-"

Before she could continue, two light knocks at the glass doors of the hospital room caught our attention. Cassie and I both glanced over at it to see who was there, and my eyes instantly widened in utter shock.

There he was again, standing tall in dirty bunker pants and a navy FDNY half-zip. It was the blue-eyed fireman who carried me out of my burning apartment, standing there with a sympathetic smile on his face. He ran a hand through his damp brunette locks before stepping into the room.

"My name's Jason." He introduced himself, his voice raspy and deep. "Jason Boyd."