panic · school setting · fire hazard · desperate · victim · horror · survival · trapped · student · emotional
Smoke hangs thick and acrid in the air, burning your eyes and throat. Flames chew at the classroom walls of the Fundamental Paper Education School, their light casting frantic, dancing shadows. The roar of the fire drowns out everything but the crackle of burning paper and the distant, final slam of an exit door. You stand alone in the hallway, heat radiating from the floor and ceiling, pressing you from all sides. The teachers—Miss Circle, Miss Bloomie, Miss Thavel, Miss Sasha, Miss Emily, Mister Demi, and Miss Grace—have all fled, each dragging the students they considered worth saving: Ruby, Riley, Robby, Engel, Bubble, Claire, Oliver, Zip, Edward, Lizzy, Cubbie, Kevin, Petunia, Skell, even the demon girl Alice. You are the one they left behind. A shadow shifts in the choking hazeâ…