I was living in a place that had mountains. I was living in a communal kind of group home, with others, but I was bitter about it, and wished that I could live on my own. There was a great fire coming, and we were preparing for it. The fire would come and wipe away everything that existed in the valley, because of the grass, and how flammable it was, so we needed to make our way up into the mountain, where there wasn’t grass, only rocks, and shelter in our bunker when it came. I was trying to find my cats, to bring them with me, but was having a lot of trouble. They would change, or slip out of my hands. I was gathering all of the cats I could, and I was late, because I was staying behind in the house in the valley trying to find the cats to bring them so they wouldn’t perish in the fire. I found three, one which was a calico with a tortoise pattern, one which was orange and seemed to also be a chihuahua, and one which was long and perhaps yellow. There were cars that were supposed to bring the group to the bunker in the mountain, but they left without me. So I started walking. I went into a store where I was looked down on by the employees, who seemed to be friends, and they were females, and were gently mocking me, but mostly they didn’t care about me, and thought I was awkward. I left and found someone who would bring me and my cats to the mountain, they were taking a shower in a glass corner of a large skyscraper building and had two heads, and were distracted and wouldn’t come with me, but then I found someone who would take me in their car, and we drove up into the mountain and met up with the rest of the group.

We were all divided into two rooms, with a passage between, and everyone started to prepare for the fire to come through, and I put on a podcast, and I was trying to look for my cats, the ones I couldn’t find, in hopes that someone else had grabbed them and brought them along, and I was grieving because I couldn’t find them. I needed to brush my teeth but the fire was getting closer, and I asked the person who was managing the room I was in if I could dart out to the bathroom for just a moment to grab my toothbrush. They were reluctant but said yes, but if I wasn’t quick enough they’d shut the door. I darted out, grabbed my toothbrush, ran it under the water in the bathroom sink for just a moment, and while I was out I looked down the hallway into the valley and saw the terrible fire coming at such speeds, on a vision of the city, dark, with purple haze of smoke rising from it, like it’d been razed, and I found myself curious, but also in awe and terrified. I could see the glow of the fire approaching and knew it was here imminently. I went back in the room, quickly, and tried to help prepare for the fire to come through by barricading the door, sealing the cracks around the edges, locking it, but my exit had left us unprepared and the fire arrived, and so we had to hold it shut and withstand the heat as it seared through the edges of the door while continuing to try and shield ourselves and barricade against it flying open. Then it passed, and I exited the room, and I had disdain for the people I was with, but grateful that I had made it, and I was also struck with curiosity that the fire would come in such a methodological manner, in a line, and then once passed through be gone, and wondered how many people lived or if they died without the bunkers, and I knew that we would have to do this again next year. I looked out over the city and it looked exhausted. I looked the other way and saw the other side of the mountain, and thought about the people that still had to endure the fire.