Sirens wailed as the ambulance veered around the corner of the parking lot, tires squealing to a halt near the entrance of the building. You jolted slightly in the back of the vehicle, your seatbelt flying off as the doors opened and a gurney was immediately being pulled out. The shouting in the background grew louder as you began to prep your supplies for incoming and already recovered victims, pulling your attention away from the bag for a moment. The building groaned, the roof beginning to fold in on itself.

It was late when you had unloaded your last patient from the back of the ambulance— an elderly lady who had hurt herself falling down the stairs while carrying a box— and you were nearly ready to clock out for the night and pass things off to the fresh group of EMTs who were about to start their shift when your team received a dispatch from the local fire station about an office building that had called in a fire. It didn’t take long before you were loaded up again and headed towards the scene.

Abby had been on the clock— working one of her regular twenty four hour shifts— and was at the firehouse sleeping off the hours she had spent earlier in the day helping give a presentation on safety at a local elementary school. The alarm had blared through the station when the fire was called in, rousing the crew from their sleep and ushering them to the trucks waiting in the garage. She had gotten there before you did, and was already in the building and heading towards the source of the blaze.

Flames raced along the floor, eating through the carpet and the papers that had been left out on desks when people headed home to their families for the evening. The fire started after regular work hours, only caught in time thanks to a janitor who had smelled the smoke drifting from one of the offices. An old fluorescent lightbulb tube had gotten overheated due to a worn out ballast. Coupled with the foam ceiling tiles and the copious amounts of dust stuck on the lights, it was a recipe for a quick burn.

Thankfully it was after hours so most of the employees had already left the building, but there were still a few— janitors, secretaries, a few working late— requiring medical attention due to some small scrapes and smoke inhalation. The job was simple enough, mainly just wrapping injuries and supplying oxygen for those who needed it. However, your job could never be too easy. Abby had gone back in to do a final sweep of the building to make sure she hadn’t missed anyone while clearing it out.

The fire had spread however, considering that it had already been burning a decent amount of time before the evening janitor caught it, and the bulb had not only burned through the ceiling tiles but the carpet of the floor above as well. You could hear another firefighter’s radio chirping as Abby called that the floor was clear and she was moving down a level. The sirens were now off, though the lights still flashed from both vehicles as the crews waited. Abby hadn’t radioed in for a few minutes.

Just as the roof began to groan and a few tiles crumbled off, a figure emerged from smokescreen flowing from the main entrance. Abby moved slower than normal, her mask cracked along the corner near her cheekbone. Her eyes were bloodshot from smoke exposure as you guided her over to the edge of the ambulance, ordering her to sit down so you could examine her. She had spent a decent amount of time in the building, and you weren’t sure how long she had been breathing in the soot.

“Building’s all clear. Is everyone okay down here?”

Abby managed, her breathing already sounding a bit labored, her voice slightly raw.