“Get off me!” I yell, stumbling backward.
Blisters rise instantly under its grip. I crash into the kitchen table, dragging the vine with me, my glasses sliding off my face and clattering somewhere out of sight. The world blurs. Flames chase me now, racing along the fumes like they’ve been waiting for permission.
The vine finally slackens as the fire eats into its core.
I rip free and drop to my knees, blind and hacking, my good hand scraping across the floor as heat roars at my back. Smoke thickens fast, heavy and oily, burning my throat with every breath. The kitchen is a furnace now. The air feels sharp enough to cut.
“Shit. Shit. Shit,” I rasp, pawing at the floor.
My fingers smack plastic. I almost sob. I shove my glasses onto my face and wince. The right lens is gone, the world fractured and warped. Good enough.
I squeeze one eye shut and twist toward the living room. The heat slams into me like a wall. Roots explode from the plaster, tearing through drywall, hammering the floorboards as they surge toward the door. One coils around my waist and tugs.
I slam down hard on my broken arm.
Pain detonates through me, bright and nauseating. My vision spots. I gag.
“Fuck off already!” I scream, clawing at the vine.
It tightens, crushing my ribs, stealing air. My chest screams. The house groans around us, beams popping as fire eats deeper.
I flail, desperate, fingers scraping over junk and debris until I find iron.
A skillet.
I swing it like my life depends on it. Because it does. I bring it down again and again, smashing the vine. The metal bites, tearing grooves through its blistering flesh. Black sap sprays my face. The vine shrieks, a high, burning hiss.
I drop the skillet and fumble for a flare. My hands shake so hard I nearly lose it. I flip the kitchen table over, blocking me from the stove. Screw it. If I die, at least they die with me. I bite down and strike it with my teeth and toss it over the side to the leaking stove.
The spark hits the fumes.
BOOM.
The blast throws me backward like a rag doll. My spine slams into the wall. All the air punches out of my lungs in one useless gasp. My ears scream. My skull cracks against wood and stars detonate behind my eyes. The vine around my waist snaps loose, blackened and twitching like a severed nerve.
Fire takes the house and the vine wall blocking my exit.
Hollow, furious screaming crawls through the walls and ceiling. A chorus of burning things that never had mouths but somehow found voices anyway. It sounds like crabs boiling alive.
I one-arm crawl toward my only chance.
The floor scorches my palm. Smoke claws down my throat. My lungs beg and I give them nothing useful. I drag myself forward, ribs aching as coughs shake my body, tears pouring down my face whether I want them to or not. My broken arm dragging through mutated, dead flesh.
The door swims into view through heat shimmer and smoke.
I shove it open and tumble down the basement steps, shoulder first. My vision wobbles. My stomach flips, threatening to come up and join the madness. The basement yawns below me, dark and damp and beautiful.
Escape.
The roots burst from the walls in blackened whips, charred but alive, slithering faster than anything burned has a right to move. I drop and scramble, nails ripping through dirt, breath coming out in broken wheezes.
They reach me.
Cold brushes my heel. Then pressure.
Something curls around my ankle.
“Not today,” I gasp, kicking hard, twisting, skin scraping raw as the house groans behind me. The fire roars louder now, the floor trembling as beams collapse upstairs.