Soar, Part 18 - Blaze

"Where are we going to go?" Roxie asked as the five of them hurried to the hallway.

"Where did you get in? Not the front door, I assume?" Vanilla asked.

"We flew in," Skye said. "We came in through a door on the roof."

"Then I suggest we go out the same way," Vanilla said. They all started hurrying down the hall, Alex in the lead, trying to remember the way they'd come.

"What did you say about the mob being here for you?" she shouted back to Vanilla as they ran.

"Does it seem like a good moment to explain things right now?" Vanilla plainly answered. And she was right. Time for talking was later. Now they needed to get out, if they didn't want to get squished by the mob.

"Wait," Olivia stopped. The others stopped too, looking at her like she'd gone insane. She turned to look at the others. "Are we really going to leave Annalise and all the rest of the petrified people here? What is the mob finds it's way up here and hurts them?"

"It won't," came a voice behind them. They all turned. It was Roxie's mom, with a gun drawn. "The mob did get in, and they're coming up as we speak. You need to get... Is that one of the victims?" she asked as she noticed Vanilla.

"Uh..." Roxie said, "Yes."

Her mom spent a moment thinking clearly very hard, and then she nodded to herself.

"Roxie, I need you to get out, all of you, and take the girl with you. Do not let the girl out of your sight. I need to talk to her after we get the situation under control, but right now I need you safe, and I need to know the only person that could help solve this won't get hurt before I have the time to talk to her."

Roxie nodded.

"I won't let her out of my sight," Roxie promised. Her mom nodded at them and hurried in the other direction. "Don't get hurt, mom!" she shouted after her, but her voice was probably drowned in the noise coming from somewhere way too close down stairs.

"Ok, let's keep moving," Alex said, and they all started down the hall again.

They ran fast, Skye and Roxie practically gliding along the hallways in pace with the rest. Impossibly Vanilla didn't get left behind even though she was way smaller than any of them.

"In here," Olivia motioned to her friends as they came to a stairwell that probably led to the roof. She opened the door for the others.

They hadn't even had time to get through the door when they realised something was wrong. They stopped at the door, cautious. The whole stairwell smelled of smoke. Not only that, there was enough smoke in the many-stories high stairwell that it was clearly visible. It wasn't thick, at least not yet, but there was obviously a fire somewhere lower in the stairwell. A big fire. Otherwise there wouldn't be this much smoke.

"We can't go up here," Alex said after she recovered from the shock.

"We have to," Skye said.

"We can't go into the smoke," Alex said again, "We wouldn't make it all the way up to the roof before passing out."

"She's right," Roxie said, "There's no way we can run up a few flights of stairs in smoke like that. We have to find another way up."

Skye sighed.

"Alex, you lead the way."

And they were running again. They knew there had to be another stairway somewhere, it was a hospital, after all. If only they knew where. They ran around corner after corner, and finally came to a bigger stairway, one that wasn't behind a door.

"I think I'm beginning to smell smoke here in the hallways too," Alex said as they started up the big stairs.

"Me, too," Roxie said, "I hope they're just burning something that gives out a lot of smoke instead of a hell lot of something."

The others nodded, breathing hard from all the running. They got up three flights, but then the stairs ended. They were on the highest floor now, but they still had to find a way to get to the roof if they wanted out. It didn't take long for them to find another stairway, but it was just as filled with smoke as the first one, if not more.

"Is this the same stairway?" Alex asked, coughing.

"I don't think so," Skye said.

"Have they lit fires in all of them?" Roxie asked.

"We need to keep moving," Vanilla reminded them. Olivia closed the door to the smoky stairway and hugged Alex, who was still coughing from the heavy breathing and smoke. Then they ran again.

They found two more stairways, but they were filled with smoke too.

"Ok," Olivia said as they closed the door to the last stairwell, "No more running. Alex can't run with having breathed in the smoke."

"We need to get out somehow," Skye said. "Maybe we could go through the smoke anyway? Roxie and I can blow the smoke away from a small area."

"I don't think that'd work," Roxie said, catching her breath. "I think all we'd end up doing is blowing the smoke around."

"They're trying to keep us in the building. The crowd at the door. That's why they smoked up the stairs," Olivia said quietly. They all turned to look at her. No one said anything for a while.

"Well, we need to get out somehow," Alex said finally.

"We can go through a window," Skye said, "Olivia? Could you go and break us a window? I know it's bad and we're not supposed to break stuff, but I think in this situation it'd be fine."

Olivia stood up and disappeared into the nearest room. After a few seconds there was a clear crash from the room as the window in the room broke. The others followed her in.

"Thanks," Skye said, patting Olivia on the head, "Well done."

"Do we go up or down?" Roxie asked, looking out the window. This was a window at the back of the hospital. It was dark since there weren't any lamps, but the noise was still easily audible from the other side of the building. The autumn air was cool and fresh, and only now she noticed how smoky the air inside truly was.

"Up, I think," Alex said, "I bet some of the crowd is still down in the ground."

"So up it is," Skye said.

"I'll take Vanilla first, since I promised mom I wouldn't let her out of my sight," Roxie said, "And you take Alex, we need to get her out of the smoke. She's coughing again. Olivia, can you wait here? Me or Skye will be back to get you in just a moment."

Olivia nodded, and the rest of the girls disappeared out of the window. They were on the top floor, so it only took them a moment to get up onto the roof. As soon as they were up there, Skye returned for Olivia.

While she was gone, the others started towards the edge of the wall on the front side of the building. There was a weird light coming up from somewhere down they couldn't see. As they reached the edge, they saw why and froze.

"What is it?" Olivia asked from behind them, having been brought up. She was too far away to see down to the ground. The girls on the edge turned to look at the other two, and just stared at them for a while.

"The whole yard is on fire," Alex said.
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I was supposed to start wrapping this up, wasn't I? But what can I do, with a topic like that? Hope you can do a better job with trying to make this end. Here, let me help you with just the topic to do that: Answers.

Ok. Bye.

~matu