Still a fire

“Someone help!”

Hikari ran down the stairs as if she and the person in trouble were a pair of magnets. Yota clattered down them after her, his fingers grazing the back of her shirt as he tried to stop her. He knew they should have been more careful about confronting danger and normally she would have know that too. She reached the eighth floor without slowing down and looked straight at the elevator to her left.

The strip of numbers at the top of the opening continued to light up. Clearly the compartment hadn't opened on the fourth floor yet. They both turned to the right and Yota stifled a full-blooded shriek of his own, pressing his arm against his mouth just in time. It wasn't the stone monster this time but something far more horrific.

A middle aged man wearing a brown suit with a red tie writhed and screamed on the floor in front them, barely ten steps away. His hands left smudged sweat stains on the tiles as he tried to drag himself out from the beneath the monster that was cooking him alive. Yota squinted against the bright flames of the new monstrosity as they blackened the rest of stranger's body. The latter's eyeballs were the second to last part of his body to melt, mere moments before the hand he had stretched out in their direction. Allowing him to watch as they failed to save him.

The monster picked itself up off his body, filling the space with its all encompassing dark orange blaze and the nauseating scent of burnt blood. It was around the same height and width as a grown man, but was shaped like an ill-defined, upside down triangle with long arms and claw shaped fingers. A whiff of scorched hair rolled over them and Yota retched against his sleeve. The creature's eyes snapped open.

All eight of them.

They were scattered around its flickering face in pairs of various colours, above a wide tongueless mouth with a row of sharp teeth along its upper and lower jaws.

“Yota, watch out!” Hikari pushed him back as the monster released a maniacal laugh and rushed towards them.

It was faster than the first entity. Louder and more devastating than either of them could have predicted. The largest of its eyes were completely green with no irises or pupils, like a pair of separate flames side by side. They held his own hostage until he fell awkwardly onto the stairs and the monster crashed into the wall behind him.

“This way,” said Hikari, quickly pulling him back up onto his feet.

The monster bounced off the wall, leaving an oddly shaped burn mark in the grey paint, and went straight for her this time.

“No!” Yota winced as its heat grazed his arm and drew back his hand indistinctively.

It cackled again and descended upon his best friend. She crossed her arms in front of her face and dropped her gun, her body jerking in response to its impact. The sleeves of her hoodie went up in flames instantly and the monster reached for her wavy hair with malignant hands.

“Hikari!” Yota yanked his sweatshirt off over his head and began to beat out the blaze as though it were a pillow that had accidentally been set alight by a tipped over candle.

The fire monster detached itself from her and he ducked as it shot towards him once again, scrambling on all fours like a newborn puppy to reach her side. The skin along his left arm stung but he was sure it was nothing compared to the pain she was probably in.

Hikari had already removed her charred hoodie and adjusted her grip so she could wield the fabric like a club, snatching up her gun with her other hand. Surprisingly, her forearms didn't seem too badly burnt but Yota knew how easily looks could deceive. No one ever seemed to suspect that things weren't going well at home whenever his mother had been able to dress him up properly before going to the park.

Hikari pointed at the open doorway of apartment number seventy three, and waited until he had hurried past her and the monster tried to attack them again before swinging the bundled-up end of her hoodie at it. It swerved around her makeshift weapon and Yota held the door open until she staggered past it, slamming it in the entity's fiery face. His hands quivered uncontrollably as he locked and bolted it in place.

Taking a step back and breathing hard, he half expected it to burn its way through to them. He clutched his left wrist and metal pressed into his skin. The door shook erratically for a few seconds, then stopped just as abruptly. Yota's heart hammered against his chest wall and his pulse throbbed against the length of his fingers as did the burn mark. He waited for several more seconds, then turned to Hikari as she spoke.

“I think it's gone now,” she breathed but didn't let go of both her Eagle and her new soft yet moderately effective weapon, examining the former carefully.

“We need water,” he gasped. “For your arms.”

“Did it get you too?” she asked as he twisted her forearms this way and that to check both the extent and the severity of the damage.

“Not really,” he replied quickly.

The apartment was clean but just as empty as most of the others had been. He wondered if that was because it belonged to the man who had been melted to death out in the corridor, briefly squeezing his eyes shut in sympathy. He silently apologised to the deceased for trespassing, just in case he was right, and guided Hikari into the kitchen carefully by her elbows.

“I'm okay, Yota,” she said as he helped her position her arms under the tap.

“No, you're not,” he muttered, struggling to keep them both steady under the running water. “This is crazy. What are those things? What's happening? Where's everyone gone?”

“I don't know,” she answered, flinching as her reddened skin was exposed to the pressure of the cold water. “Hopefully we'll be able to get some answers once we get out of here.”

“But it doesn't make any sense,” he insisted. “None of it. You didn't see anything weird on your way up to my place, did you?”

“Only you.” She chuckled but the strain in her voice both distracted him from what he wanted to know and put him on edge instantly. “That guy out there. Do you know if he had a family?”

Yota shook his head. He couldn't even remember the man's name. He squirmed as Hikari grasped the small silver cage pendant that dangled from his left wrist before he could question her further.

“You still have this?” She rattled the small black BB pellet captured within it. “That's cute.”

“Stop moving,” he grumbled. “You need to keep burns under cold water for at least five to ten minutes or they'll blister.”

“Since when did my bestie become a medic, huh?” she drawled playfully. The potent silence that followed her remark lasted less than a minute. “Oh shoot. Sorry. I shouldn't have forgotten something like that.”

“Why not? I've been trying to.” His laugh sounded flat and sour, even to his own ears.

But it was annoying. Two decades had passed and he still couldn't stand the reek of cigarettes. Nor could he forget his dad's harsh voice as he had called for an ashtray, as well as the heaviness of his gaze whenever he had looked straight at Yota after demanding one.

“Wanna borrow my shirt?” offered Hikari after a tense moment, rubbing the old round scars on his forearms and trickling water onto his mild burn with her wet hands. “Looks like you left yours out there.”

“No, you might need it if that fire thing turns up again,” he said, finally stepping away from the sink.

“True.” She nodded and gave her cooled but still bright pink arms a final once over before picking up her gun and the aforementioned hoodie. “Do you a fire extinguisher would work on it?”

“Who knows?” He shrugged, running a hand anxiously through his hair. “But it's probably worth a try. We should look for a hose or something too while we're here.”

“Why? Don't they have any in the building?” Indignation flittered across her stare.

“Extinguishers? We're supposed to have one on each floor but they're outside, by the stairs,” he replied, bending to check the low cabinets for anything useful.

Although he barely paid any attention to them during his daily life, the bright red containers were hard to miss.

“We should look for buckets or big bowls too then.” Hikari helped him search the kitchen cabinets. “Maybe we should soak ourselves and cover our faces, just in case. It's still a fire after all.”

“I don't think it had any smoke around it though,” replied Yota, pausing to appreciate the painful yet welcome sensation of his heart beat slowing down. “And we can't risk being all wet and slippery whenever we go out there again.”

His doubts were persistent but they had survived not one but two monsters so far. They were forming a loose plan that had the potential to keep them safe. They were both injured but at least they were in this together. The ground floor already seemed a little closer than it had five seconds ago. As difficult as it might be, he had enough evidence to believe they could do it. They could both make it out alive.

“Yeah, that's true,” said Hikari ponderously, plucking a large plastic bowl from one of the higher cabinets. “But it might have invisible smoke. We should cover our faces, if nothing else.”

“With what?” Despite everything, Yota didn't think he could bring himself to root around in a stranger's wardrobe and steal their clothes, even if there was a chance that they might not wear them ever again.

“I'll think about it,” said Hikari, frowning as she filled the bowl up with water, along with any other container that could hold a reasonable amount of the stuff. “But first, can you smell that?”

“Smell what?” Her tone made his heart rate double and his lungs tighten.

“Something burning.”