Mara Engulfed

This is the same Mara from the other story. This is part of a prelude when Mara is still a child.

Flames engulfed the hallway, boiling up the walls and across the ceiling.

“Mara! Answer me, where are you?”

Phillip held his hand over his mouth, calling down the hallway and up the stairs.

“Mara! Daddy can’t find you! Call to me baby!”

She wasn’t in her bedroom. Phillip flipped her bed upright and shoved her dresser to the side, frantically tearing apart her room, hoping he had overlooked something. The smoke was overpowering, and Phillip bent over coughing and wiping wet soot from under his eyes.
Wait. Was that her? The flames drowned out the other sounds.

“Daddy!”

That was her! But it was useless, her voice seemed to come from all around him.

“Mr. Burgess!” A voice called from below. “Lie close to the ground, we are coming for you.”

“No!” He ran out of her room and darted into a guest room, keeping low. “Baby!” He was dizzy and gasping.

“Daddy!” The scream was piercing. Don’t let my baby burn, he thought to himself.

He heard stomping of feet and looked around frantically. “Mara? Please honey. God, please baby, tell me where you are.”

Two firemen were walking up the stairs on hands and knees, testing the floors, making their way to him. “Mr. Burgess?” One man put his hand on his boot while the other threw a fire blanket over his head. “We got you. We have to move, now!”

“No! My daughter!”

“We’ll get her sir. Stay close to the ground. “ He called into a microphone, “We have the father. Daughter still unaccounted for.”

“Don’t let go of Cappy’s boot. The floors could give out.“

He was marched down the stairs and escorted out the front door. Now he could hear sirens and horns that were so muffled by the inferno behind him.

“Phillip!” His neighbor Amelia and her husband ran to his side, helping him out of his blanket. “Where is Mara?”

Phillip, having regained some sense, looked at the house. It was enormous. A house several sizes too large for just the two of them. “She’s still in there!” He fell to his knees and forward onto his hands, coughing. One of the firemen standing near him helped him back to his feet and leaned him against the rescue vehicle, slipping a mask over his face. “You’re gonna be fine.”
A voice crackled on a walkie talkie. “I can’t see anything in this shit storm!”

“She’s not in her bedroom.” Phillip coughed out to them.

A fireman shouted into his walkie talkie, “You boys are going to have to hurry. The south side is done for.”

“Oh god.” Amelia’s face was twisted and she was gasping in panic.

Mara was in her mother’s craft room. She could hear the fire right outside the door and knew enough not to open it So she grabbed the little cloth bear her mom had been sewing for her, and nestled in the closet. She could feel the smoke when she breathed. She was scared, but she knew that she would get to see mommy. She cried and held her bear close as the smoke filled her lungs.

Phillip watched helplessly from the ambulance, oxygen in hand. Amelia and Doug were close, and all of the other neighbors were coming out to the streets to watch the commotion. Another fire truck had arrived and was currently spraying large jets of water into the fire. Pin pricks of sensation spread through his legs and up his body. “What–“.

“No luck yet.” A voice spoke.

Phillip rose to his feet and looked at his hands, turning them over and back again. He looked at Amelia and spoke, “Mommy’s room.”

He swatted away the paramedics’ hands and ran right through the entrance which had been torn open with axes.

“Where the hell is he going?”

Without a word, he went up the stairs and took the first left, keeping low but moving swiftly. Two rooms down and on the right. Look at all this fire. Phillip pulled the blanket close and charged down the hall and with a grunt, threw himself through the door. Flame blasted into the room, greedily sucking down this new source of oxygen. He went directly to the closet and opened it, looking down at little Mara. She looked asleep except that she was completely the wrong color. He picked her up and cradled her under the blanket with him.

The heat and fire had now spread throughout this room. “Mr. Burgess!”

The tip of a pick broke through one of the walls. Then a larger hole. A dark face peeked in at them, “Some folks just can’t get enough. Let’s get you two out of there.”

Cappy had finally made the hole large enough for Mara. Phillip lifted her through and then stepped through himself, squeezing as best he could while the fire overtook the room he had just left.

Sampson smashed the rear window with an axe. “Don’t worry sir. I’ll take good care of your little girl here.”

Sampson nodded to Phillip as cupped the unconscious body of his daughter. He called some order into his intercom. The top rung of a ladder appeared in the window. Cappy tied Sampson’s rescue rope to the top of the ladder and Sampson spun around and descended. When they were safely on the ground, Cappy tied himself to the top of the ladder and went through the window.

“You’re next.” Called Cappy. “Second time is the charm. Stay close.”

Phillip dutifully crawled out the window onto the ladder and worked his way down, with Cappy just below him. Cappy untied himself, “You’re a lucky man. “ He shook his head, “Let’s check on your daughter.”

They made their way back to the vehicles out front. Paramedics already had Mara on a stretcher, administering oxygen. He coughed hard and walked over next to his daughter, grabbing her fingers and looking at them.

Doug was looking over at Phillip. “She’ll be ok.”

“I know. “ He turned her hands over and looked at her fingertips, and then studied his own fingers.

Phillip kneeled down and smiled. His face then changed into a gasp, as if he had been holding his breath for some time.

“What just happened?” He coughed and searched his surroundings. “My baby!” He turned back to the house.

“She’s here, she’s right here!” Amelia called, looking over at Doug.
Doug knelt beside Phillip. “Are you ok?”

“Where is Mara?”

“Right here, right in front of you!” He stood his friend up.

“Oh Mara!” He fell across his little girl. Her eyes fluttered open and she looked at her father from under her oxygen mask.

“Daddy!”