Bubblegum Smoothie by Ryan Casey

the handle again. Turned, and pulled the door with all I had.
    And still, no movement.
    I turned around. Looked around my apartment, as the television burned, as my iPad screen cracked with the heat, as my expensive-as-shit kitchen work surface went up in smoke and flames.
    My smoke alarm started to beep.
    “Nice of you to let me know,” I muttered, as my breathing got heavier, my eyes stinging with the burning and the toxic fumes.
    Somebody really didn’t want me to eat pizza tonight.

EIGHTEEN
    The thing they don’t tell you about fires on television and the Internet is just how damned quickly they actually spread.
    I stood back against my door. Watched as the flames engulfed my living area, my kitchen, spreading across expensive item after expensive item. A part of me died inside with every iPad, every iPod, every eReader that fell victim to the inferno. I watched, but I knew I had to move.
    The smoke was getting thicker. My eyes burned and my head spun. The smoke would knock me out soon. It knocked anyone out in a matter of seconds. Turned them into sitting ducks for the flames to sweep in on and gobble up. The truth about burning was that, yes, it was one of the most painful deaths imaginable.
    But most fire victims had already choked on smoke by the time the flames arrived.
    And no, that didn’t reassure me in any bloody way.
    I yanked at the handle of my door again. Tugged at it, smacked on it, called out for help. There was something at the other side of it. Something stopping me from pulling it open. Something, or someone.
    But I had to keep on trying. As the flames crackled behind me, as an orange glow danced on the cream walls, I pulled even harder at the door handle. I hadn’t even had time to think about the explosive in the Look Inside! envelope, or the finger.
    The evidence, incinerated.
    Shit. No time to think about that now. No time at all.
    I held my breath. Felt tears drip down my cheeks from my hot, stinging eyes. Grabbed hold of the handle and readied myself for one final, huge pull, my right shoulder still aching like mad.
    Come on, Blake. You can do this. Get the hell out of here. You’ve got yourself out of worse.
    I counted down from three.
    Got to two, then pulled.
    I flew back. Flew back into my room, flew back towards the heat, towards the crackling.
    For a split second, I thought I’d fallen back and opened the door.
    And then I realised I was several metres away from the door with the bronze handle still in my hand.
    “Fuck,” I muttered. The handle had come off. The pissing handle had come off. I turned around. Turned and looked for another escape route. The flames crept up the bedroom door. Surrounded the bathroom.
    I was fucked. Completely fucked.
    I started to move to the left, stopped when the smoke got thicker there. I grew lightheaded. More and more lightheaded, and even though I was shitting myself, the lightheadedness made me calmer in a weird way. More prepared for what was about to happen to me.
    Don’t worry, Blake. Let yourself pass out. Then you can burn to a crisp in peace. No pain, none at all…
    I squeezed my eyes together. Coughed up a huge bout of phlegm. Screw that. No way was I passing out here. The smoke wasn’t taking me. The fire might be stripping away all my collectibles, all my beautiful prized possessions, but it wasn’t taking me.
    I covered my mouth and yanked open the kitchen counter nearest to the lounge. Pulled out a miniature fire extinguisher I’d had in there for donkey’s years. Fuck, it looked like something Fireman bloody Sam might reject. A discontinued extinguisher toy, tossed aside by a retailer for not being “authentic enough.”
    But it was going to work. It had to work.
    I pointed the nozzle and squeezed the trigger.
    It farted out a drizzle of foam then died on me.
    Okay. Maybe it didn’t have to work.
    I tossed it aside. Tossed it aside, my heart pounding, my mind clouding up again. No door. No fire extinguisher. First floor flat.