En Fuego
Who: Brian What: Dreaming When: Present, Late Afternoon Where: Searchlight Warnings: A Cuss Word
He was scheduled for the night shift.
4:00PM found Brian still passed out on his mattress. Because Weres tended to run warm, he slept in a pair of boxer briefs, and most of the time he still kicked his covers on the floor when he started to sweat. This time he was dreaming, his right arm hanging off the bed, his respiration fast and shallow as his brain drummed up some stress, which it liked to do even when he was unconscious. It wasn’t about running in a forest, which was his usual fare before a full moon, nor was it about finding himself on stage without a clue how to play his instrument, his other go-to. He was dreaming of fire.
It started in a trash can, a smoldering cigarette his dad hadn’t double checked before dumping his ashtray in the can. The heat melted the cheap plastic before the flames climbed up the dated wallpaper of their house and lit the kitchen curtains on fire. At some point, his parents' home transformed into his trailer in Searchlight, a trick of dream logic. A wolf’s nose would pick up the caustic combination of smoke and airborne chemicals the minute fire crossed over from sleep into reality, but a human was capable of sleeping right through it, until a smoke detector above his bed shrieked plaintively.
Brian’s eyelids lifted. The air was cloudy. It took a second to process that a thick sheaf of papers and a paperback next to his bed had gone up in flames and taken some of the carpet with them. As he watched, he realized his hand was on fire. “Shit!” He was awake now. Brian jumped back and shook his limb out, as if that would extinguish it. He threw his blanket on the fire; honestly he wasn’t sure if the fabric would smother the flames or go up like the Hindenburg, but it was worth a shot.
He sprinted to the kitchen, grabbed a fire extinguisher from the top of the fridge, and returned to his bedroom, prepared to hold the canister and sweep the hose one-armed without his right hand. A cloud of yellow-white powder erupted from the tank and put out the blaze on his floor. When he was sure it was out, Brian dragged himself out of the trailer and sat, half-naked, on the cold stoop to get some fresh air and try to figure out what the hell just happened.
It took him a minute to realize his hand was fine.