Fire and Ice

Part 1. Fire

So while my Wednesday was being wasted by my cheating boss, a fire broke out in the office next to us. Since my boss hyperventilates at the smallest reason, he made us get out of the office as well. He completely believes in the idea of "you can never be too careful". Given that we have regular fire drills and now that we had a real fire next door, my boss got the perfect opportunity to give us all the "I told you so."

Fire drills are like crying wolf. People never take them seriously and I've always wondered what would happen if there was ever a real fire and people thought it was only a fire drill... I got my answer on Wednesday. Even as the fire alarm shrieked in the other building, people were coming out of it laughing. One man even stopped at the entrace, effectively blocking others, to light his cigarette.

All was calm till one of the women saw smoke billowing out of the 13th floor and started screaming. It's amazing how humans can go from complete calm to sheer panic in a matter of minutes. Even when they have not seen the cause of panic. So minutes after this woman screamed, pandemonium broke out. Everyone screamed, ran and elbowed each other without making any real progress. A couple of people even ran back into the building.

I stood aside and watched the flushed faces. There is something very exciting about humans in panic. Their faces go red, their breathing accelerates, I can hear their hearts thumping wildly in their chests and they give off the most delicious aroma. The scent of fear. It's almost like the scent of arousal. I had to smoke three cigarettes in quick succession to avoid catching one of them panicked people and sinking my fangs into their jugular... Their veins were standing out in their necks deliciously.

Thankfully, my murderous musing was interrupted with the arrival of the keening fire trucks. As I watched, keeping my instincts under a tight rein, the firemen in their orange and blue overalls got out and began pulling out the hoses. Despite the human tendency to panic and save its own skin, I admire the way humans in emergency services work. You can still smell their fear, but it's mixed with adrenalin coursing through their systems.

As I watched, I heard a scream from inside the building. My hearing is inhumanly sharp and I could hear real fear in that scream. Someone was trapped inside the building. From the look on everyone else's face, no one else had heard it.

Now generally I don't like to interfere in human dramas. But there was something about this scream. She did not want to die. While I do kill humans for my own sustenance, I enjoy saving lives, if and when the opportunity presents itself. Call it a perverse pleasure.

As I looked around to see if anyone had heard, she screamed again. Fear mixed with pain this time. I chucked my cigarette and ran inside the building. I heard someone call out after me, I couldn't care less, I knew I could get out of the building in a jiffy. Jumping six-steps-at-a-time, I reached the 7th floor; the scream had come from there.

To be continued...