A Rose so Deadly

Chapter one.
I woke to the sound of my mother screaming. A piercing cry that stole the night, she was screaming, yelling “Jonathan where are you, where are you?” over and over. Sitting up quickly I fell into a frantic cough, my lungs were on fire, contracting slowly, burning from the insides. My eyes were stinging, puffy and swollen; I couldn’t see anything. Thick black smoke filled my room like a demonic cloud feeding on the air that gave me life.
    I was terrified, in pain and all alone behind my closed, bedroom door. Not knowing what to do and hardly being able to breath, I tried to climb out of my bed but caught my right leg in one of the side rails. I fell forwards onto the floor whilst my leg stayed stuck in place. I heard the snap before I felt the pain but once I did feel it I instantly cried out in pain “Ahhhhh Mummy.” I shrieked in agony, thrashing at the floor, trying to hold my weight with my arms that barely reached the floor. My leg throbbed and ached, my arms shock under the pressure, my eyes burned, my lungs tightened and my head pounded.
  I was sobbing, sniffling, suffocating and just as I began to feel as though giving up to the pain would be easier I heard my bedroom door slam open and through the thick, heavy, black smoke saw a tall but petite figure running towards me. The figure came to a crashing halt and fell to the ground. Immediately I was hoisted into the air where my leg was twisted and pulled free and then I was in the arms of my mother in a tight embrace.
  Not five seconds had passed before my mother had gotten me swiftly swaddled inside my bed sheets and back into her arms with a firm grip. Steadily she approached my bedroom doorway, where for a few seconds she paused to assess the situation. I tried to see what had stopped her but through the smoke my vision was impaired, the only thing I could see through the smoke was a continuous flashing of colorful lights, yellow, orange, red and blue. The hallway leading to the staircase was ablaze with huge, horrific flames that licked the walls, the ceiling, the carpet and the hallway dresser.
  My mother coughed and choked leaning forward, between each desperate gasp she made; she pleaded for help “Jonathan help us! Where are you?” But after a few more seconds of blistering heat, griping black smoke and no reply my mother made a leap of faith across the hallway and into the flames, where she gripped the bathroom door handle, wailed in agony whilst twisting the round knob and pushing the door open. She then jumped into the bathroom slamming the door shut behind us.
  Once into the darkness of the windowless bathroom my mother fumbled around while still carrying me, she reached up, pulled on the light switch’s dangling rope and brought us suddenly into the light. My eyes where sore and irritated but I could faintly see my mother’s blackened face and bleeding chin, she looked shockingly awful which only terrified me all the more.
  For the first time since my mother had entered my room she loosened her grip and put me down, she sat me on the toilet seat, where she then leaned down to my level for a split second and kissed my forehead. Promptly turning her back on me she gripped the cold tap at the end of the bathtub, turning the showerhead on full blast, she then abruptly picked me up and sat me and all my bed sheets into the bath tub under the gushing ice cold water.
  I yelped in shock and gasped for air, my lungs still burning struggled to cooperate and so I began to hyperventilate. My mother not seeming to be too worried about that jumped in right next to me, raised her burnt hand to hold under the shower head, waited a few more seconds until we were both drenched in freezing clothes and sheets and then as, as abruptly as we were in, we were out.
  For the second time since my mother found me she knelt down to my height but for the first time in what seemed like hours of agony she looked me in the eyes; her expression was stern when she informed me of her plan “Chloe I’m going to run us through the fire, stay hidden honey, underneath your sheets. It will be over before you know it.” And just as I was about to say ok my sheets were thrown over my head and once again I was in a vice like grip, being held tightly to my mother’s chest.
  I felt my mother’s shuddering body next to mine, her vibrating caused my leg to shake with pain. I heard the bathroom door crack open and with it the gushing, sizzle of air escaping into the hallway, feeding the fire. I began to whimper, silently sobbing underneath my wet sheets and then my mother put her plan into action; she ran and leapt, ran and ducked. The sound of wood splintering and glass shattering filled the hallway. The heat was unbearable, through all the swift, quick and rushed movements I wriggled in pain, squirming as slowly my body filled with mouthful after mouthful of smoke.
  When I heard my mother’s voice again I tried to break free from the sheets that were concealing me from the angry flames. I was desperate to see my mother’s face but at once my mother gripped my hands stopping me, she then bounced me in her arms, running roughly all the way down the flaming, creaking stairs like she had just warned me she would. With each jerking, vibrating movement my leg pounded and my chest stiffened. I panted through the pain, crying the entire time.
  Once at the bottom of the stairs my mother resumed her calling to my father “Jonathan where are you? Can you hear me?” Whilst she was distracted with finding my father through the fire I pulled my sheets away from my head. I should never have done it. Surrounding us in all directions, at every doorway, at every window were climbing waves of flames, radiating deadly heat and creating the thickest, fatal smoke yet.
  Still hyperventilating and still full of fear my mind suddenly started working in gear realizing then that we were trapped and somewhere in the house so too was my father and possibly trapped like we was. I stated to bellow and roar “Daddy, Daddy where are you?”
“Jonathan speak to me?” My mother panted.
“Daddy!” I bawled
“John,” My mother wheezed “John.” Her voice began to falter as did her breathing. Then came a tremendous groan from behind us, the sound of the stairs giving way, screeching, sizzling and whining. “Daddy!” I squawked until I could make no sound any longer.
  When I had finished screaming, I realized so had my mother, it was then, surrounded by demon arms that tried desperately to reach and burn us to cinders with every movement they made, did my mother pull me around to face her and only then did she admit the truth “Chloe I’m so, so sorry. God I love you. We are trapped, the doors won’t open, the windows won’t open, and any exit from the house is under chough, chough, a spe-chough, chough.” She stopped then, refrained from talking, she was struggling to hold on to me, her grip was weakening along with her breathing; she fell to the ground pulling me on to her lap.
  We sat on the ground clinging together in a sphere shaped untouched part of the hallway, right next to the front door, both chocking, gasping, gagging for fresh air. We wept together and whilst doing so the flames engulfed anything and everything that surrounded us, eating away at our home. I understood that soon the flames would take us too, like it had everything else, like it had my father’s hand carved, rose wooden staircase, his pride and joy after me and my mother.
  After waiting some minutes lying on the ground, I realized something; the smoke, the flames, they were both surrounding us in a perfect sphere shape but without actually coming closer enough to touch us, it had been that way for some minutes. We were in the center of a fiery tornado and yet I noticed that the air was thinner, I could breathe easier.
  I looked up at the great, tall ceiling of our front landing of which we were sitting in the middle of and what I saw astonished me. We were sitting in some sort of invisible two meter wide tube, shielding us from the disaster around us. I could see the swaying gold, rose shaped chandelier swinging up above our heads.
  I looked to my mother for some kind of explanation, some sort of words to explain how, what I was seeing was possible and what I saw in her eyes was hope. Tears dropped from her lids, ran down her blackened checks and landed on her smiling black lips “Daddy’s coming, look.” She whispered to me and pointed towards the grand living room entrance.