Fiery.

Hot.
 
Flickering of shadows against the walls.
 
Bright.

Fire.
 
The fire consumed everything in it's path. The roaring blazes were more deafening than the singsong wails of the fire engines' sirens.   She watched as it encircled her. She was fascinated by it. Fascinated by the intensity of the heat. Of the color. Of the bright red-orange coloring that danced across her room, up the walls, darting down the middle of her floor.

Faintly, she heard cries for her name. Cries from the brave souls, the firefighters, searching through the extreme heat and light to find her.  To save her. But, she didn't want to be found. She wanted to watch. To watch as the light, heat, the power of the fire intensified. She was as giddy as a toddler receiving a lollipop for good behavior.

Her fun, her fascination soon began to diminish as she found it more and more difficult to breathe.

Black.

Cloudy.

Thick.

Her eyes were burning.

Air: None to be found.

Coughing.

Gagging.

She was suffocating.

Her lungs were being filled with the thick, clouds of smoke that had become the sidekick to the dancing blazes. No clean air. Nothing left pure and clean to let her breathe.  "Allison!" The cries for her name. The cries from her saviors were getting louder, closer, as they approached her room. Calling hoarsely, through her burning throat, a single word was barely audible, "Help."

Then, total blackness consumed her. She fell. But, she wasn't down long. She felt two strong arms grabbing her, lifting her from the blazing inferno that used to be her home. He carried her out into the cold, January air.

She could faintly hear him. Calling her. Calling her name. Desperately calling to her to breathe, to open her eyes, to smile...  to live. She heard him swearing as he begged with the police to let him be released from their arms. She heard as he struggled, squirmed, to get out of their clutches to race over to her.

She did this to him. She scared him. She wanted to call out to him. But, she couldn't. She couldn't see him. She couldn't talk to him.  And, his cries quickly faded away completely, as the noise from the oxygen mask, covering her nose and mouth, drowned every sound out. Her arms and legs soon became trapped, as they strapped her to the stretcher. She was moving with the motions as they picked her up, and roughly placed her in the ambulance. Her eyes opened briefly, as her head turned to left to see a paramedic place a needle in her arm. Blackness came to her shortly after.

The wails of the ambulance as it yelled at all passer bys, at all innocent bystanders, to move away-to clear a path for it to get through faded out of her hearing.
 

That was five years ago. She is now twenty years old. She had finally found the time to drive back up to Michigan to visit her old home. Visit her home? It was no longer a home. But, ashes and dust. And, the remains were still there. Still laying on the ground, next to the perfect home of her lost, childhood friend. No longer there. He moved shortly after she was released from the hospital. He moved down south. Far south. They lost touch, eventually, like most friends do. However, they didn't loose contact by choice.

She parked her car in front of the driveway to the ashes that she used to call home. She just sat there, and looked out the window.  Remembering of what used to be. Remembering the good times, the bad times, and the funny times. She remembered the way he used to climb through her window at night. They would fall asleep watching late, night movies. Weekend or school night, whenever he felt like he needed company, or when he felt like she needed company, he would show up. Show up through her bedroom window. Her parents would walk in and see him there, holding her in his arms as they slept. It came as no surprise to them.  When they came to wake her and he wasn't there, they would worry. When his parents walked into his room, and found a bed that hadn't been slept in that night, there was no worry to them. They knew where he was. He was with her.

She was a depressed child. She hadn't had many friends, but she had him. She scared him a lot. She used to think of suicide often. She'd tell him her plans, and when she did, no matter how much begging she did for him to leave her alone, he stayed on her heels. Not allowing her to touch or do anything that could bring harm to her. She never understood why. That's why that fire five years ago had scared him so much.

"Lance, I want to die. I think I'll do it tonight. I have no one. No talent. My grades aren't high enough to get into Yale.  I'm a no body. I have to do this. No one will ever notice I'm gone."

"Allison, please. Don't talk like that! You're too beautiful! You have loads of talent! You're grades might not be high enough for Yale, but they're higher than average, too! You're are somebody. You're Allison Gates! You're my best friend! The smartest person I know. You can't do this! Please? Don't. Don't think of it any further."

They were sitting in the clubhouse his parents had made for him when he was three. They would always climb up there to talk.

"Lance! Come in the house, now!" His mother was calling him, for it was dinner time.

"I can't, Mom! Not now! I'm busy!"

"Lance! Now! Don't talk back to me!"

Lance, you had better go. You'll get into trouble," she told him.

"I can't go. If I go, you'll do something stupid. Allison, I can't leave you when you get like this."

"Lance!"

"Go. You're mother's really getting angry."

"Promise me, you won't do anything stupid," he begged her.

"I promise.

The two of them climbed down the wooden ladder to the ground, and Lance was walking towards his back door.

"Lance!" Allison called to him suddenly.

"Yes?" He asked, turning around.

She ran to him; wrapped her arms around his neck. She kissed him on the cheek, and walked away. She never did that. She didn't feel any real emotion towards him.  She loved him, sure.  But, she loved him as a brother.

He called to her, as she ran next door, "Allison, please?! You promised me! You said you wouldn't do anything stupid!"

"I know," she called back. "I'm doing something smart!"

That night, she stole her father's lighter, and lit her candle. Placing the burning candle on a pile of papers, she set her house ablaze. She set to kill herself.

As she sat in her car now, she laughed slightly. Laughing at her adolescent stupidity, and her friend's , of the same age, genius. He looked out his bedroom window, and could see directly into that of Allison's.  He saw the fire encircling her, her white grown rimmed with soot, he ran down the stairs and told his parents to call 911.

Then, she cried. She cried, because she had hurt Lance so much. She cried, because she had been the one to cause his parents to move away. To move further away from her. They thought she was a bad influence on him. Now, she didn't even know where he lived.  What he had done with his life. She cried, because she realized, she loved him.
 
 

Step, step, step, turn, slide, slide, step... He kept reminding himself in his head.

Then, above all the music, above all the noise and insanity of the hustle in the auditorium for the last minute preparations, a fire engine's wails were heard. Lance turned his head, his friends had ignored the distant cries, and kept dancing. They had learned the show must go on, get use to the distractions. They had enough during a concert, keep moving. Now, even in practice, they had kept moving.

The fire engine's cries came close, then again, faded out, just as quickly as it came. It wasn't for this building, but somewhere else.  Somewhere beyond there.

 Step, step, step, turn, slide, slide, step... His mind was telling him, yet, his body froze. He was motionless, his eyes blank.

Frozen. Completely.

The familiar words to the all too familiar music rang out from his friends' mouths. It was Lance's solo. Just one line, four words, in a single stanza. But, the music, the words, his cue, it all went unheard. His friends looked to the right of the stage when Lance's bass voice never boomed from the amps, where his voice stayed mute.

"Lance," Chris said, trying to get his attention.

Silence.

"Lance," he repeated louder.

Silence.

JC walked over to where his band mate stood, to where his friend was frozen and deaf to the world.

"Lance?" He asked, worriedly.

Silence.

"Lance?"

After JC called his name for the second time, and no response came from the twenty year old blonde, the three other band mates joined JC and Lance on stage right.

Lance's friends' worried glances went unseen by him. Their voices-unheard. Just the wail of the fire engines' ringing in his ears.  Flickering of six and seven foot flames flashing before his eyes.
 

Fifteen year old Lance saw the flickering of light through his bedroom window. He looked out the window, and could see directly into Allison Gates', his best friend. Her room was ablaze, she was standing in the middle of her room, in her white nightgown now, with soot trimming the bottom. She was standing there, unmoving, with a smirk creeping along her face.

"Allison!" He screamed. He ran out of his room, and down the stairs.

"Mom! Dad!"

"Honey, what is it?" His mother asked.

"Allison! Her house! It's on fire!"

"What!?" His father asked. He quickly stood from the chair, where he had been reading his newspaper, and opened the door, where he was immediately greeted by intense light. He could hear the cries of Mr. and Mrs. Gates begging their daughter to come out of the house.

"Diane! Call 911! Now!"

Lance watched as his mother raced to the phone. He tried to run out the front door, but his father held him back.

"Lance, no. Stay in the house!"

"But, Dad! Allison! She did it! I'm the only one she'll listen to! If I go over there and talk to her, she'll come out. Please?!" Lance pleaded in tears with his father.

"No! You aren't going over there," his father told him as he held Lance more firmly.

"Lance?" Diane asked, "Did you say Allison did this?" She had just gotten off the phone.

He never answered his mother. He had finally gotten out of his father's grip, as the first of the cops, ambulances, and fire engines arrived. He darted next door, screaming, "Allison!"

Two police officers caught him, and held him back. "Son, you're going to have to stay back," one of them told him.

"You don't understand! My best friend is still in there! She only listens to me! I can get her to come out of the house!"

"I'm sorry, Son. It's too dangerous."

"Don't call me 'Son'! Let me go! I have to talk to her!"

"No!" The other said more firmly. "You could kill yourself! What do you have?  A death wish?"

Lance began to squirm and fight with the officers holding him back. "Allison!" He screamed, "Allison!"  He turned to officers, "Damnit!  Let me go!  I have to get to her!"

His face drained free of color, as he watched a fireman carry Allison's limp, lifeless body out of the blazing inferno.

"Allison! Allison, please! Open your eyes! Breathe, Allison!" He begged her, as he watched the paramedics cover her face with an oxygen mask. "Let me go! You son of a-" he screamed at the policemen. "Allison!"
 

"Allison," Lance muttered.

"Lance?" Justin asked.

"Allison," he repeated.

"Lance," Joey said firmly. "Lance. Come on, Buddy. Snap out of it."

"Umm, uh, oh. Hi, guys. Were you talking to me?" Lance finally asked.  The fire engines' noise had long ago disappeared down the street, but the memories of his past were back and fresh in his mind.

"Where were you, Man?" Chris asked.

"What?"

"Yeah. You were gone. Long gone. You were starting to scare us," Justin added.

"Sorry," he apologized, still in a dazed state.

"Maybe, you should sit down," JC suggested, ushering him backstage to the dressing room.

"Get him some water, Justin," Joey instructed.

Joey did as he was told.Lance took the water, mumbled a thanks, and stared off again.
 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
 
 

"But, Allison's coming out of the hospital today!" Lance tried to reason.

"You are not to talk to her again," his father told him.

"Why?"

"She's a bad influence, Lance. If she did that to her house, she could easily talk you into something," Diane answered.

"Mom! That's not fair! Give me more credit than this! She can't talk me into anything! Do you know how many times I've talked her out of something, or into something? Do you know how many times I've talked her out of doing something she did last week? But, you interrupted me the day she burned her house. I was trying, trying to reason with her, but you wouldn't let me!"

"What are you talking about?"

"That day, she and I were in the tree house. She had told me, again, she wanted to kill herself. I started to talk to her, like I always do. But, you kept calling me! Kept yelling for me to come in. So, I couldn't. I couldn't talk her out of it this time."

"Lance, it was never you're place to do that! The only job you had was to be a friend," his father said.

"What do you think I was doing, Dad? I was trying to be a friend! I was trying to save her life! It was my job to talk her out of it! It was my job. It still is my job! I'm the only she thinks she can talk to! And, I want to be there for her when she needs me!"

"You are not to see her again. No, contact! That's why we're moving to Mississippi. To keep you safe. Now, come on, or we'll be late for our flight."
 

"Lance."

Silence.

"Lance," Joey repeated.

"What?" He finally answered.

"Come on. You've had enough practice. Let's get you home," JC said, helping Lance off the couch.
 

Allison started her car, and drove. Where am I going? Where am I driving to? I'm going home, aren't I? She thought.