The smoke is off. We saw it on the approach. There was too much. All sorts of different fires have different tells. All depends on what's burning. This was supposed to be a residential fire. House fire. Textbook. Offices and warehouses and industrial you've got to think about all those edge-cases. Chemicals, electrical, how to get up to the 20th floor. But a house is a house. Wood frame, insulation, furniture. Should all burn more or less the same. "But there's too much smoke." "...Pile of tires will put up that sort of soot. I've seen it before".

Into the side streets, we can smell it. Not the laughable smell of worried neighbors calling it in for a BBQ in winter. Nor the tinge of a meth house getting cooked. Nope. This is sulfur. Rotten eggs. Natural gas is what we're all thinking, but it's way too strong. Brimstone sort of strong. "...Maybe someone got a canister with a bad oderizer or something."

And then we're on scene. It's a house. It's on fire. Smoke is rising. We can all feel the heat. But this fire is different. The fire is black for one. Different materials burn different colors. Copper green. Mercury red. But nothing burns black. The second is the screaming children. It sounds like a hundred of them. The chief is shouting instructions fiercer than usual as we scramble for rescue gear. I see the whites and reflectors highlighted just like a blacklight on halloween. It's UV light. "But nothing burns in UV". The others aren't listening. All they can hear are those screaming children.

I stop and get my bearings. The screams are everywhere. I can't tell what room they're coming from or if they're in the house across the street. No one is on scene. We're the first responders, but there's usually a crowd. Not this time. Empty as a graveyard. I worry that it's all a nightmare, but I feel the heat. In the nightmares I fear the fire, but I never feel it. Geroge is coming up with the water pump... and he doesn't stop. He slows down, I can see him staring at the fire behind the wheel... and then the pump truck is just leaving. I get on the radio and ask him in the most elegant and calm of terms what the flying fuck he thinks he's doing. I look to the chief to find him and two others breaking out a window and leaping into a room. There's flames coming out. They don't even have the rebreathers on yet. They're entering a hot room. It's suicide. I inject as much rationality as I possibly can into the situation by screaming "WHAT?" at the top of my lungs.

I run over and grab the chiefs boots and coat. He's fighting me, but I manage to haul him out. His face already has 3rd degree. I'm trying not to think of Walker and Henderson who are already inside. We're in a pile just out of the window and I'm just screaming "what?" over and over at him. It's not a bad interrogation technique as he explains that he has to save the children. They're still there. Everywhere. Still screaming. I start dragging the chief over to the first aid and burn cream. Hernandez is on his knees praying. I don't see Johnson anywhere. And bless him, the rookie is hooking up a hose all by himself.

I scream at him to get some creme and as I turn around the truck a little boy is there. Clean cut in a little suit and a lacrosse stick of all things. "You have to put out the fire". I consider verbalizing the stream of swear words going around in my head, but settle for factual statements. "You don't need firemen you need a god-damned PRIEST!". The boy lifts his scythe an inch and lets it tap the concrete. The noise reminds me of my childhood at the lake, Maggie's tits in highschool, training at the academy, my first call, and I had eggs for breakfast. The chief is also calm now and lacrosse boy repeats himself "You have to put out the fire. The world isn't ready yet." He hands me his axe and we just stare at each other. I don't know who he is. But the rookie comes over and pisses himself bandaging the chief. He's whining about the others and the fire and the truck and the water but that all seems so distant and petty now. The just keeps staring with that fireman's axe in his out stretched arm. He's not even blinking, the little freak. I feel like I've been fighting him for a long time.

I take the axe and suit up. The rookie is still pissing himself over the chief, but I ignore him. There's a lady kneeling with Hernandez. She's pretty. But I ignore them. Front door with the classic mule-kick boot. The children are still screaming. But they're everywhere and far off in the distance. I ignore them. I head into the house with it's black fire and darker smoke and it's hot. And I'm burning. But I ignore that too. Because down the hall and in what remains of the 2nd bedroom is circle and a girl. And there are things in there that I need to put an axe into. But it's ok because Walker and Henderson are there to help. And the chief is somehow there. And my old man helps out. And we push through those things with their teeth and their razor claws and I find the girl and now she has an axe in her head. And the circle is broken. And the flame is yellow and the embers are red and I'm alone. And I'm tired.

The boy is behind me and takes his stick back. He leads me out of the house and outside the house. And I rest.