I woke up to the sound of crackling. It was low at first, but the sound grew steadily as I listened, half asleep, until I realized it came with a rising temperature.

Suddenly fully awake, I threw myself out of bed, only to start choking on the smoky air gathered near the low ceiling. My eyes began to sting, and I felt my breaths becoming unsteady with panic. There was a fire. The Rusty Spigot was on fire!

All right, get a hold of yourself, Evangeline. You know there's a fire, but not where. The room has no windows, and there is only one door... I needed to see if the fire was behind it.

In my tired state, I almost grabbed for the knob, when I drew my hand back. If it were hot, I couldn't afford to damage my hand. I would need that to escape. The smoke was getting thicker around me. If I was going to find out, it had to be soon. How to touch it without touching it. That is the question. The room around me was barely furnished, and there was only Oliver's bag of belongings... "Oh my goodness! Oliver!" I began to shake his sleeping figure wildly. "Oliver you have to wake up. The place is going up in flames!"

I had never seen a man rise faster in my life. His green eyes were so wide, glancing around the room. "A fire? Where?" It was then that he began to inhale the smoke. "We have to get out of here! Eva!" And with that he got up, running to the door.

"Don't! The fire could be outside it. You'll burn your hand," I warned him.

"Well then how are we supposed to find out?" he answered. He looked so ragged, so desperate. I had to think of something.

Finally, it hit me. My key. "Hold on." I tugged the chain off my neck, placing the metal of the key to the metal of the knob, leaving for only a second, before pulling it away and resting it on the back on my hand. It was warm, very much so for it having barely been making contact.

"The fire is outside the door," I informed him, putting my key back.

"Well then what are we supposed to do? Perish? We have to get out!" He turned in a full circle around the room. "There's no window! Do I break the wall?" It was more of a scream than a question, and I watched as he slammed his body against the wall, then begin to repeat this, over and over, in a frenzy. Tears were in his eyes.

"Oliver! You're not helping anyone! Calm down!" I tried to grab his shoulders, but I was thrown backwards.

"I'm not going to die here! I can't let it happen again!"

"What happen again? You're not making any-" It was then that a bit of the ceiling fell, and looking up I could see how much of the paper had wrinkled from heat. A shrill whistle, like a teapot on full boil, began to make its way to my ears, making it even harder to think. Another piece of wooden rafters fell down, and with that, I tugged Oliver's body as hard as I could until we were on the floor, knocking his suitcase to the floor as the hinges flung open.

"What did you do that for? You spilled my stuff everywhere! We don't have time for-"

"Stop and think for a moment, would you?" and I was surprised at how loud at assertive I sounded. "The walls are made of brick. Paper on brick, and the smoke is filling the top of the room. You're not going to be able to breathe standing up for much longer. It's better to lie on the floor."

"We're not going to get anywhere lying on the floor! All you did was spill my only belongings."

I looked at the bag I had knocked over in my fall. It really wasn't much. Some coins, the ring of children's keys, (smaller, with most having to be left behind), a seashell bracelet, the roll of bandages, his knife and...

"What is this?" I asked, picking up a small box. It had a bottle of strange liquid inside. Dr. Felis's Hair Tonic.

"It's just hair dye," he answered. "Why?"

My head perked up. It couldn't be. It was too good to be true.

"It's what?" I sat up, taking hold of his shoulders again. "It's what Oliver?"

"It's just hair dye. I got it cheap a long time ago. Figured it'd be helpful if the Mits were ever chasing me. Why do you care so much? It's not enough to put out a fire."

"No... but... it's enough to get us out of here." I was practically bouncing with my luck.

"What? Has the smoke made you mad? Hair dye doesn't create windows!"

With not enough time to stop to explain, I immediately put the bottle close to the wall between the two beds, saying, "Do you know what they put in those new guns that they have started developing? What makes them blast, what makes them burst?"

"Black... powder. They stuff it in there and it can shoot a bullet."

"It's called gunpowder. Do you know what gunpowder is made of?"

"Not hair dye." He was giving me this sideways glance, like I had gone mad, but I tried my best to ignore it.

"I remember, my father had to work with some. He was trying to get a Pulmonary Tube to be cut just a little shorter, and he had written a list of all the components."

He said the dye was sold to him cheap. I've never heard of any doctor by the name of Felis. A pseudonym, perhaps. That means that this was made in the cheapest of fashions, no doubt, and that means it contains sulfur. Next is charcoal... Charcoal- I mentally marked off the list, grabbing a piece of the burnt wood ceiling with the edge of my clothes, before breaking small pieces into the bottle.

"Uh- Eva..." I turned around, unnerved at the high pitch of his voice, and I saw it. The door being eaten away, the flames hungrily licking around the sides as ashes rained from above. I needed to be quick. Sweat poured down my brow, and I looked around frantically.

The shell bracelet! I grabbed it quickly, raising my key to strike down on their fragile husks when Oliver suddenly took hold of my hand.

"What do you think you're doing?" I had never heard him sound so angry.

"I have to break these! I need the dust!"

"Not over my dead body! This is the last thing I have of my-"

I interrupted him. We did not have time for a tragic story. "You are going to be a dead body if you don't stop!" With that I brought my key down, cracking the shells to a powder. Oliver screamed, making me feel horrible, but there was nothing I could do now. I added the powder to the hair dye bottle. Only one last thing to do. I flipped through the keys on the ring, one by one. Nickel, Copper, Aluminum, Iron...

"Iron!" I yelled. Taking the key, and one last look at the flames spreading across the floor, I smashed the key into the bottle, shattering it. One spark flew.

My eyes widened. For all the work, I forgot the main idea of gunpowder. "Back up. Back up!" I jumped back, throwing myself before Oliver as the concoction blew to bits. The noise thundered in my ears, and the awful stench filled what little air was left. Finally opening my eyes, I saw it. A hole in the wall. Barely enough for a child to crawl through, and one story too high, but a way to escape.

"Wha-what? That worked?" He seemed in a total stupor, for just one moment, before I moved away, to fit myself through the hole, feet first. Scratches tore through my arms and clothes, but I was making my way through. I turned my head back, seeing Oliver's terrified face. He looked like a child. I didn't understand, he had looked so brave before when killing the guards, running from the Mits. What was different now, I wondered.

"Let's go!" I called, and with that, I slipped completely through, tumbling through the air in fast descent before smashing into the ground. Oliver came only a second later, thankfully, but at the end of the fall I heard a second scream, much higher-pitched, and a crunch worse than the building falling apart at its seams behind me.

I turned back to find him lying on the ground, a puddle of red spreading beneath him like an ebbing tide.