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to call my parents for a ride and wasn’t paying attention to where I was standing,” I said, although he made that turn at a pretty high speed.
    “Well, I didn’t see you until the last second. You were right in the middle of the...” He didn’t finish. His eyes went wide.  
    A gush of hot air blasted me into Blake, followed by a sonic boom so loud my ears rang in pain. Subsequent explosions sent us flying alongside missiles of glass from his truck and a fiery rain of shrapnel. We both turned towards the house to see the source of the explosion, but where the house once stood looked like an apocalyptic graveyard, with walls of fire descending the hills in every direction. Panic paralyzed me.  
    I could see their faces. Tristan. Bri. Lucas. Ethan. What happened? Were they still alive? I wanted to help but my muscles failed me. Moments passed before my brain registered physical pain radiating throughout my body. Glass fragments embedded in my arms and legs, burns from flying debris, my dress shredded, blood everywhere. How could we help our friends escape as the fires of hell bore down upon us with no visible path through?
    Blake scooped me up and shoved me into the truck, ratcheting it into reverse and accelerating to beat the fire. I choked on smoke that smelled of burning oranges, while trying to stop the worst of my bleeds without driving the glass further beneath my skin.
    One forty-three a.m. Fire fighters had surrounded the scene in attempt to battle the blaze. They evacuated Blake and me by force to a ‘safe’ zone—a neighborhood grocery store parking lot a couple miles from the Goodington estate. Paramedics patched our cuts and burns while police officers tried to take a statement. I nearly passed out when they removed a chunk of shrapnel from Blake’s wrist. I stared at the swirling lights of the police cars, and growing fire in the background with periodic bouts of fireworks-like displays. “How many kids were in that house?”, I heard the police officer ask. “A lot,” I’d eked out before my sobbing preventing me from further communication. In an attempt to calm me, the paramedic drew a needle, the second I’d seen in twenty-four hours. I became hysterical and it took three people to hold me down.
    The bottom line—Tristan never showed. Nor did Bri or Lucas or Blake’s sister. And the other fifty? Seventy-five? One hundred? More? I struggled to get a handle on the magnitude of the tragedy. The firefighters confirmed our worst fears. No one survived other than Blake and me. Every one of my friends died in an instant. And I couldn’t bear the thought of life without them.
    The only mystery that remains is the fate of Ethan. He wasn’t on the list of ‘confirmed deceased,’ but then again, there were dozens at the party who never showed up back home and whose remains were never found. In my fantasies, I imagine he’s still alive and we meet again. I remember him stuffing his hands in his pockets and rocking on his feet, running his fingers across his thumbs, taking deep breaths before answering my questions, and nervously laughing. And his smile that spread from right to left. Sometimes I think I see him and my stomach flutters as it did the first time I met him, but then the image disappears. The glimmer of hope’s too minuscule to compete against the mass of loss and despair. And guilt. Tristan and Bri, my two best friends in the world died and I still can’t get Ethan out of my mind. No wonder the universe hates me.

    My eyes and limbs feel like concrete as I feel myself being gently set onto a soft surface. “Where am I?” I mumble. I vaguely remember trying to leave SCI’s Unit 27 and being knocked to the floor.
    “Shhh, Kira,” I hear. The voice sounds eerily familiar and I swear I smell a hint of cinnamon. “You were given a sedative to allow you to adjust to the schedule here. But you’re in your room.”
    I try to open my eyes. My vision is hazy and the room is dark, and the