Last week on Thursday morning at 12:30 am, there was a fire in my dorm. I was awaken from a light stupor from the sound of the fire door opening. Between the hours of 9pm-9am, the fire door will emit an alarm if opened. I was about to go back to bed when I heard screaming and banging from the hallway. Then the fire alarm started to go off. At first I was going to ignore it because I was annoyed by a fire drill at 1am. I ended up deciding to investigate though after I heard a lot of commotion from the hallway. I grabbed my phone, which I was about to leave and went into the hallway. When I walked into the hallway, only me and one other kid were still there. Someone from the staircase yelled at us to get outside. With that I went to the staircase. As I opened the door to the stairwell, the smell of smoke hit me. I thought someone must have burned food in the microwave and the fire alarm went off. The further down the stairs I went, the thicker the smoke got. By the time I hit the lobby, there was flames and smoke so thick I could barely see in front of me. I ran to the door as fast as I could and when I looked back, it looked as if the building was in a giant bonfire. The smoke smelt like burning plastic and the windows shattering sounded like bullets. The first thing I did was text my friend who lived in the building. Once I found her outside, the second thing I thought was "shit, my stuff". As an international student, my whole life was in my room. My laptop, visa, passport, cash, debit card, and more. I am ashamed that I didn't instantly worry that everyone was okay. Luckily, everyone made it out of the building alive and safe. Our home did not fare so well. Most of the building was burnt or the air was contaminated. My room was one of the lucky rooms that was only damaged by smoke. As of now, everyone in the building is homeless. I am also pretty sure everyone is in complete shock. No one ever thinks their home would burn down. As of now I am sleeping on a friends floor and the University is working hard to place us all in different accommodation. My brain isn't working. It is completely consumed by the fire and after math. I can't do homework, I can't pay attention in class, I feel like a robot. I have even had weird dreams about fire. Writing this post even feels weird. Hopefully by next week, things will be better.
