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Porter

Aloud voice yelledin my ear, familiar and firm; it was my father. “Porter, wake up!” Slowly, my eyes began to open, but I couldn't see his face.

Where is he? I know I heard him.

He wasn't there, it wasn't even possible for him to actually have been there in the first place. That's happened to me a few times over the years, where I thought I saw him in a crowd or heard his voice in my head.

When it happened the first time, I was four years old and it was a year after he had passed. My mother and I were at the St. Patrick's Day parade and I thought I had seen him walking past us. I called out to him, abandoning my mother to chase him down.

It wasn't him.

I remember crying, I remember feeling like all my hope had been crushed and I had lost him all over again. My mother swept me in her arms, hugging me tightly and brushing her hand down over my hair.

That was the last memory I had of crying, I hadn't shed a tear in sadness since.

Shaking my head, I grabbed my temples and groaned. The worst headache I had ever felt was hitting me right then and I couldn't understand where the hell it came from.

My lungs burned as I tried to breathe in air that was hot as fire. Coughing hard, I rolled onto my back, swallowing the taste of ash and metal. Touching the back of my head, I pulled my fingers away to find them covered in blood.

What the hell happened?

An intense pinging pierced my ears as I pushed myself up off the floor and sucked in another wave of burning oxygen. Blinking rapidly, the air was smokey and gray. A thick haze blanketed the kitchen, so I rubbed my eyes to try and make it go away.

I wanted to make sense of what was happening. My thoughts were a mess of past and present, hidden memories and lost images.

Emery. . . Where's Emery?

Is she still here?

I could picture Dean's face, another soldier just like me, sent here by the boss to remove a problem. His eyes, his gun, the fear in Emery's stare, it all glowed bright inside my mind.

How the fuck did he find me? How did they know we were here?

Crackling and snapping filtered into my ears, forcing my brain to wake up and see what was going on around me.

There's a fire! The house is on fire!

Flipping onto my hands and knees, I could see the blaze as it crawled across the ceiling and down the walls. Scrambling on all fours, I started to yell.

“Emery! Emery!”

There was no answer. I wanted to hear her voice so bad, to have her call for me so I knew she was alright. But the house was silent except for the voice of living flames as they cackled with delight. Walls screamed as they turned black, paint melted as it was eaten away from the heat.

Where is she?! I have to find her!

I tried to crawl into the living room, but the fire was too much. I couldn't make it, not if I wanted to live and find my girl. I had no choice but to try and get outside.

Feeling the floor, I used the tiles to guide me to the back door. Yanking the handle down hard, the door swung open, exposing the fire to hoards of fresh air. A loud whoosh whisked past my ears, and I looked up to the see the fire snaking out the door and up the side of the house.

“Fuck!” I yelled, tumbling out the doorway and onto the patio. “Emery!” Turning over, I looked up at the house, screaming at the top of my lungs. “Emery!”

The squeal of brakes made me jerk my head towards the driveway. My stepfather's car slammed to a halt, and my mother jumped out to run to my side.

“Porter! Oh my God, Porter are you okay!?” Dropping to my side, she hoisted me to my feet and helped carry me away from the house. Positioning me against the hood of the car, she asked, “Where's Emery? Is she still inside?”

“I. . . I don't know.” My voice was harsh and scratchy as I tried to breathe. “She didn't answer me when I called for her, I'm not sure where she is.” Sucking in huge gulps of air, I tried to catch my breath.

The pressure on my chest was insane. I could barely breathe, it felt like I had just drank an entire glass of hot powder. My throat was dry as fuck, my lungs felt like they had shriveled up into nothing. It didn't matter how much I breathed in, I was struggling to find the strength I needed to go back inside.