Zack Dial is GVMS' 7th & 8th Grade Young Writers Winner!

                                     No Way Out

Zack Dial is a 7th grade student and 7th/8th
"Young Writers" winner

     As the sun sets over the horizon, peace fills the air.  All is calm and quiet, but this peace is short lived, for somewhere in the dark of the night, horror and fury is just waiting to be unleashed. 

     As I lie still in my bed, staring into the darkness of my room, I hear a crackling noise.  Unsure of what it is, I ignore it.  A few minutes go by, and I notice it has gotten extremely hot and arid.  Now I begin to worry, so I go downstairs to check it out.  The heat intensifies significantly, and I begin having trouble breathing.  At that moment, I smell smoke, then I see smoke, billowing out of the garage door.  I frantically run back upstairs to my parent’s room and burst through the door, “Mom, Dad, come quick!” I yell, “There’s a fire downstairs!”

     “Oh my goodness!” my mom shrieks.  “Honey, hurry downstairs and get the fire extinguisher.”  As my dad heads downstairs into the perilous unknown, I decide to follow him.  As we reach the bottom of the stairs, our eyes widen and our pupils shrink, because the nightmare before us is a fierce fire ravaging in the kitchen.

     “It was just smoke coming from the garage when I left,” I inform my dad.  The fire had spread at an alarming rate.  It had only been about a minute since I first went downstairs, and the fire had already spread from the garage to the kitchen, and it was continuing to spread rapidly.  Both my dad and I know the fire is too big to control ourselves, so my dad races to the phone to call 911.  His hands are shaking with fear, so it takes him a few tries to dial the number correctly.

     “911, what’s your emergency?” the voice says.

     “Our house is on fire!” My dad screams, “My family and I are all here, and we need help!”

     “Sir, please calm down and give us your address,” the voice says calmly.

     “Calm down?!”  My dad says frustrated, “My family is inside a burning building, and you want me to calm down?!”

     “Sir, just give us your address, and then get out of the house immediately,” the voice instructs.  My dad gives them our address and hangs up.

     “It’s going to be alright, son,” my dad tells me convincingly.  We both rush back upstairs to get mom and Samuel, my baby brother.  My family and I run downstairs and head for the door.  The fire had spread and grown even faster.  Most of downstairs is already engulfed in flames, and the smoke is so thick I can’t even see two feet in front of me.  I hold on to my mom’s arm so I don’t get lost.  Just then, as I am about to make it out the door, a fiery wooden beam falls on me, separating me from my mom and the rest of my family. 

     I am now trapped inside this terrifying nightmare alone, and my breathable air is running out second by second.  I can barely see.  I can barely breathe, and the only thing I can hear is the fire crackling and pieces of the house falling and smashing onto the ground.  The ominous glow of the fire through the smoke is all I can see.  My heart is pounding and my mind is racing, trying to think of what to do.  I am too scared to think, and I am still pinned under the wooden beam, thus preventing me from even attempting to escape.  I push with all of my remaining strength and free myself from the wretched beam.  I look for any possible exit, but the smoke blinds my sight, and begins to make me dizzy and disoriented as well.  I collapse back to the floor and wait for my obvious death.

     As I lie on the floor motionless, a blinding light appears out of the darkness.  Assuming it is a sign that my time has come, I close my eyes and think of my happiest memories.  I then suddenly feel myself being lifted from the ground and into the air.  I slowly open my eyes to the unexpected sight of…