Ashes

The snow began to fall. It was heavy, coming down in sheets. Petra could barely see the red lights coming from the fire trucks at Forever 21. She slowly sipped on a bowl of soup at Isabella's cafe, unable to concentrate on the burning sensation on her tongue. All of her energy was focused on the life she had. The clothes she folded. Her employees. Petra didn't know what to do next. Her brain was running at a mile a minute.


It was getting dark outside, and Petra knew that she had to check on the now burnt down Forever 21. Petra took one last sip of her soup, put on her jacket and opened the door to the sheets of snow. People on the streets seemed happy. It was the holidays, but Petra wasn't feeling the holiday spirit. Next to the door, the blind man was dressed as a salvation army volunteer. He was shouting quotes from movies as people placed money in his bucket.


"Well in my book, my father died a much richer man than you'll ever be!" He screamed to a man who placed a crumbled dollar bill in the bucket. 


Petra was not in the mood for people like this. She walked as fast as she could to the store. When she arrived a fire man greeted her.


"Ma'am, I am very sorry for your loss. But you are very lucky to be alive," He said with an emotionless glare.


"Thank you. Would you mind if I had a look around?" Petra replied, pointing towards the black smoke rising from the building.


"Go ahead, but be careful of any debris that fell," He warned Petra.


Petra slowly walked to the front of the store, which now consisted of broken windows and black ashes. She stepped over the window ledge and entered the building. Everything was covered in dust. But, you could still tell that it was a clothing store, from the glossy photographs of models that hung from the walls. 


Petra was in shock. She didn't know what to do with her life now. She began to pick up pace as she made her way to the second level. As she climbed the broken escalator, something made her fall. She blacked out.... 


"Can you hear me? Petra, can you hear me?" A woman in scrubs was holding her head. 


Petra was confused. The last thing she remembered was climbing the escalator. She began to panic. Petra screamed, and then she said nothing. 

Her life in ruins

A piercing buzz woke Petra up. It wasn’t the usual city noises, it was something else. As Petra dragged herself out of bed, something awoke her senses too. The smell of fire. It engulfed her nostrils. At first, Petra though the smell was coming from outside, until she connected the dots that the buzzing was a fire alarm and that the fire was coming from downstairs.

Petra had a panic attack. She didn’t know what to do. She grabbed a pair of patent leather ballet flats and a few clothing items, and made her way through the smoke. Petra got on her hands and knees and began crawling through the smoke. She made her way to the stairs, frantically running down two steps at a time. When she made it outside she saw what was happening. The Forever 21 was ablaze. All 20,000 square feet of it.
Petra began to shake and fell to the ground. Her life was in that store, it was everything to her. It was hard to process what was happening, but then she felt a man grab her shoulder. 
“Don’t worry, everything will be all right.” The man said.
“Who are you?!” Petra replied, crying hysterically.
“Oh, I’m Lucas. Lucas Shaffer. Nice to meet you.” Lucas said as he extended his hand to help Petra off the concrete.
“Hi...I..I..I’m so scared. How did this happen?”
“I’m not quite sure, but from the looks of it, it appears to be arson. Maybe it has something to do with Occupy up the street.”
“Oh no. My whole life is in this building! How will I move on?”
“Well for now, you could take a walk. I’m heading to the Theater if you’d care to walk in that direction.”
“Yes, that would be nice.”
Petra pulled herself together, took one last glance at Forever 21 and walked away. As she crossed the street with Lucas, it dawned on her that the might never be able to get her old life back. Her routine was broken. Destroyed into a million little scraps of burning fabric.