𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙡𝙤𝙜𝙪𝙚.

𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗩𝗢𝗜𝗖𝗘𝗦 𝗘𝗖𝗛𝗢𝗘𝗗 into Naiara's small dorm bedroom causing her to sigh into her biology textbook. Pushing her glasses higher up her nose, Naiara stood, preparing to face the fire waiting outside her thin door. The voices outside got louder as she opened the door, flames of anger erupting in her face as she walked into the small living room of her shared dorm.

"I seriously can't believe you sometimes!" Nora's voice boomed, catching Naiara slightly off guard, finally reaching the cause of the fire, a mixture of two accelerants by the names of Nora O'Sullivan and Will Mercer. "You lied to me, William! You lied!"

Despite the living room being engulfed in metaphorical flames, the room smelled of herbs and spices, a delicious aroma somehow distracting Naiara from the fire behind her. Walking past the fighting couple, she entered the kitchen, greeting her ex-girlfriend and bestfriend, cooking dinner for the four roommates. "Any idea what they're fighting about? Or what your brother lied about?" Naiara asked Tessa as the blonde continued cooking.

Tessa shook her head and turned towards Naiara. "All I gathered is that he was absolutely hammered last night and came home a bit too late. Apparently your brother knows something too, so maybe you should interrogate him." Naiara nodded and stole a taste of the pasta Tessa was cooking, once again nodding, this time to approve the blondes cooking.

"God, Nora, I didn't cheat on you! Ask Theo, ask Dustin! They'll both back me up, I was with them all night!" Will yelled back, flailing his arms and turning his back to his angered girlfriend. "Naiara back me up here, Theo must've talked to you." He took a few steps towards her, an expression on his face that could only be read as desperation.

Naiara shook her head, putting her hands up defensively, "I'm not sure that kid has ever told me anything that doesn't involve wasting money and getting drunk. I haven't talked to him since him and Dusty picked you up yesterday, Will." She half-admitted, half-quipped.

Will scoffed, throwing his hands in the air and turning back to Nora. "So any other defenses, William?" She questioned, her voice now at a normal volume, yet still threatening. "Nothing else to say?"

Will shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You are absolutely useless, Nai. Useless." He scoffs, again, turning to glare at his aforementioned roommate.

"Hey, I'm not the one causing your relationship problems. Nora's been sleeping on the couch for the past week because you're a dumbass, so maybe you should get your shit together and take responsibility for your actions." Naiara retorted before stealing another taste of the pasta.

Nora let out an exaggerated laugh, clapping alongside it for dramatic effect, "Finally, someone who fucking agrees with me. Stop being a dumbass, William."

"Stop fucking calling me William!"

"It's your name, dumbass." Tessa called out from behind the island counter, taking the pasta off the stove and cleaning up the mess she made, then throwing the cloth over her shoulder. "And also, listen to Naiara. You haven't told Nora where you were last night and you've been arguing for like two hours. It's exhausting. No one cares if you were out doing some embarrassing shit, just own up to it."

Naiara snapped and pointed at Tessa, an unspoken expression of agreement.

As the room went eerily silent, Tessa prepared four bowls of pasta, setting out two empty bowls in case their two missing members decided to show up. Nora and Will took their bowls and sat at opposite ends of the table, glaring at each other through bites of homemade pasta.

Tessa picked up one of the leftover bowls and passed it to Naiara, then picking up the last bowl for herself, taking the cloth off her shoulder and throwing it into the kitchen.

The two girls sat in two of the empty chairs at the table, leaving two empty as the four of them ate in silence.

"Okay, I'm sick of this." Tessa was the one to break the silence, pushing her mainly empty bowl away from her. "Where were you, Will?" She asked, staring daggers at her brother.

His breath hitched in his throat, as he started picking at his pasta with his fork. "I know it doesn't help my case to not say, but you guys should seriously ask Theo. It was his idea anyway."

Nora rolled her eyes and scoffed, "You're right. It doesn't help your case, at all." She pushed her bowl away from her in a more aggressive way then Tessa did moments before. "Save yourself the embarrassment, William, tell me the truth."

The older blonde at the table sighed and dropped his head, "Okay." He looked back up, looking directly at Nora. "Theo thought it would be an amazing idea to go bar hopping. He wanted to test out his new fake ID."

The three others at the table gestured for him to continue and he did, not disappointing any of them. "At one of the bars we went to, there was a karaoke contest. Obviously, Theo had to sign us up for it, and we lost, horrifically. Which meant we had to not only pay for drinks for everyone, but we also had to have ten shots each. I ended up asleep in Dustin's bathtub, covered in glitter with 'loser' written on my chest in glitter pen."

Nora's face remained expressionless as Tessa and Naiara broke out into a fit of laughter. "You're a fucking dumbass." Nora sighed, standing up and bringing her bowl to the sink, finally putting out the last embers of the fire they had started.

𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗗𝗢𝗥𝗠 𝗪𝗔𝗦 now quiet, some might say peaceful, although, if they had any idea what the household normally sounded like, they would call this silence the calm before the storm.

Naiara was back in her room, her biology textbook in the same place as she left it earlier, the center of her bed, open and taunting her. A picture of a sophisticated looking scientist staring at her, as if daring her to start studying again. After all, her board exams started in a week and she had only studied the first chapter of biology.

She reached over to her nightstand and grabbed the stack of que cards, specifically the ones on the first chapter of her biology class. Absentmindedly flipping through the cards, Naiara decided to give up on studying entirely, putting the cards back and throwing her textbook on her floor.

She leaned back against the headboard of her bed, pushing her glasses down her nose a small bit in order to rub her eyes. A sigh released from Naiara's mouth as she stood from her bed and over to the textbook she had just thrown. The book had landed in front of her bedroom door, and as she bent over to pick it up, she noticed smoke wafting through the crack underneath her door.

Kicking the textbook away, Naiara grabbed the door handle, regretting it almost immediately as her hand burned the second it hit the metal handle. Despite the burn, she still opened the door.

Dark grey smoke quickly travelled into the now open bedroom. The smoke covered the roof of the dorm, piling out from the kitchen, where bright orange flames were quickly spreading.

The sight of the flames sent Naiara into action, quickly running to the closest door near her. Grabbing the near scolding handle of Nora and Will's bedroom door, Naiara ran inside, screaming at her two friends to wake up.

"What's going on?" Nora asked groggily, sitting up in bed and watching as her friend frantically ran around her room, tearing it apart seemingly looking for something.

"The dorm is on fire." Naiara spoke, as calmly as she could as she pulled four face cloths out of a drawer and poured water from Will's water bottle onto each one. "Put these over your mouth and nose and get out of the dorm. Stay low and stick to the wall, I'm gonna go get Tessa."

Will and Nora followed the instructions given to them, covering their mouths and crouching out of the apartment, passing the growing fire in the kitchen. As they left, Naiara crossed the hall into Tessas room, where she was lying face down in front of her bed.

Dropping beside her, Naiara flipped the blonde over and checked her pulse, feeling a faint beat against her fingers. "C'mon Tess. Wake the fuck up." Nai groaned, beginning compressions against Tessa's chest.

Growing tired and feeling helpless, Naiara placed one of the wet cloths over Tessa mouth and nose and grabbed her arms, dragging her out of the room and into the dorms hallway, smoke already wafting out of the burning dorm.

𝗜𝗧 𝗧𝗢𝗢𝗞 𝗧𝗛𝗘 first responders about 20 minutes to show up after Naiara called. By the time they arrived, the brunette was back inside the building, pulling her classmates and nameless faces out to safety.

A number of the dorm dwellers were now being loaded up into numerous ambulances, the rest all sat off to the side, leaving the firefighters room to work. Naiara on the other hand, was stood in front of the building, surveying those she had pulled out while fidgeting with her phone.

"Miss? I need you to go get checked out." A fireman said, stepping up beside Naiara. She promptly shushed him and restarted her head count. "Don't shush me, you have to get checked out." He said again, more irritated as he stepped in front of Naiara.

"There's someone missing." Was all she said before shoving her phone in the gloved hands of the fireman and running back inside the building.

The dorm was now engulfed in the flames. Not a single floor was safe from the blaze. Naiara may not have known everyone who lived in the dorms, but she knew how many did. Meticulous and cautious. That was Naiara.

Her visibility was extremely low, the walls were her guide, leading her towards a room on the second floor. Climbing the stairs, she began to hear a low banging. Following the sound, Naiara found the source. A locked room on the far end of the hall, away from the stairs.

Naiara rose from off her knees, preparing to force the door open. She covered her mouth with her left hand, turning her body to the right and throwing herself against the door. When it didn't work the first time, she kept throwing herself against the door, again and again until she felt her shoulder blade snap under her skin.

Falling against the wall opposite the dorm, she held her shoulder, pain shooting through her arm and her chest. She let out a low growl through gritted teeth, catching her breath before she lost it due to the smoke.

A last ditch effort, Naiara stepped forward and kicked the door, breaking the lock and pushing the door wide open. On the floor, a few metres away from the door, lied a man with hair as dark as Naiara's, face down with soot covering his back.

"No time to wake you up, buddy." She muttered to the unconscious man before grabbing his arms and dragging him out the door, her shoulder aching as she did so.

Pulling the man down the stairs, Naiara began to pick up her pace, struggling to get him and herself out of the building fast enough. Naiara's shoulder set her back quite a bit, as every time she pulled the man harder, it would send an aching pain through her right arm.

Finally reaching the door, Naiara faced yet another set back, as the exit was now blocked by flames and downed support beams. Unable to think of another way out, Naiara lifted the man by his shoulders, draping him over her non-injured one and dragging him over to the door.

The heat from the flames was all Naiara could feel, but it didn't stop her from dragging herself and the man closer to them. Hoping to emerge from the flames unscathed and unphased, Naiara held her breath and ran as fast as she could past them, over the downed supports, and out the door.

Falling to the concrete walkway, she felt the breeze on her face and the heat behind her. "Homefree." She thought, pushing the soot covered man away from her body and sitting up. Her shoulder was still aching with the pain from her break, but that didn't stop her from standing up and pulling the man further away from the building.

Firefighters instantly surrounded the two, flipping the unconscious man over and doing all they could to make sure he stayed alive. The firefighter who spoke to Naiara before pulled her to her feet and brought her away from the fire, leaving the others to fight the fire.

"You may just be one of the stupidest people i've ever had to deal with." He said, walking her over to an empty ambulance.

"That's pretty damn rude." She spoke, grabbing her injured shoulder with her opposite hand, wincing as she made contact. "I couldn't leave anyone to die," Dropping her head, Naiara sighed. "I don't even know the guy. I just, I mean, how could I leave him?" The firefighter in front of her took his helmet off and placed it beside Naiara on the ambulance.

"How'd you know he was still in there?" He asked, taking a seat right next to her. "I saw you right before you ran in. You were staring at the crowd, like you knew someone was missing. How'd you know?"

Naiara shrugged, wincing as she did so. "I have a habit of assuming the worst, so when my friends and I moved in, I made sure I knew how many people lived here. I made sure that I noticed when guests came and went, just so I knew how many people needed to be saved, if they needed to be saved." She finished, looking over at the soot covered man, who was now sat at the triage area holding an oxygen mask over his face.

"I sound paranoid, I know." She sighed again, looking over to the firefighter.

He shook his head, "No, no you're not paranoid. Your system worked today. You saved everyone. Everyone's out." Looking over at Naiara, the firefighter puts his hand on her non injured shoulder. "Ever thought about becoming a firefighter?"

Naiara turned to face the firefighter, a smile on her face, "Wanna be my reference for the academy?"

The firefighter then stood, grabbing his helmet, "Of course. Captain Bobby Nash, station 118." He spoke before turning and walking back to his team.

"I'm Naiara. Gallagher, just in case you get a call about me." She called to him, watching as the team of firefighters continued to put the fire out.