Firestorm

Caspar can’t tell if it’s the right building. It looks right. If it’s the right one, he might be able to stop the explosives. If it's not, he doesn't have time to find the correct building. He has to try. But how is he going to get down in time.

Jump. Caspar has thirty seconds to get into the building, and the only way is straight down.

        He shouts to the helicopter pilot, “Can you get me right over that large gray building building there?” Without a word, the man slows the helicopter down and hovers above the building. Caspar looks down. The fall will be a good twenty metres at least. There’s a yell from the cockpit.

       “You’ll need a parachute.”

       “I don’t have time,” replies Caspar.

       “But you can’t-” Caspar doesn’t ever hear what he can’t do, because before the pilot has finished his sentence, he’s out in the air, falling, falling, falling. For a brief moment he gets that horrible roller-coaster-ride feeling in his stomach, a fish of nausea swimming through him.

       Then his boots hit a surface. It breaks like a thin layer of ice under his weight. The roof slows him down somewhat, but not much. He crashes through the roof, bringing some of it with him. Very fortunately, he lands on a soft couch. But it’s not altogether a soft landing. Some fragments of the roof fall down on top of him and he’s suddenly surrounded by dust. He coughs a few times.

       As the dust clears he quickly takes in his surroundings. Opposite the couch, three or four metres away, there’s a white desk, and a tall woman with long, elegantly-curving, very dark-brown hair sits behind the desk. A golden name plate sits on top of the desk. On it, in black letters, is written “Miss Georgina Klinkfelder.” She stares at Caspar, both eyebrows raised high above her big brown eyes. Slowly, and in a soft and cautious voice, she says “Do you have an appointment?”

       Caspar looks at his watch. Eleven seconds.

He stands up and looks wildly around the room. Seven seconds. He runs to the desk, looks it over, looks behind the desk. Two seconds. Caspar looks up at a window at the far end of the room. Through the window he catches a split-second glimpse of the blinding light of the sun. And then the world explodes into a firestorm. In one long second, the beautiful wooden floorboards are ripped from their place, the walls are blown out as if made of a billion carefully placed dice, and Caspar is swept of his feet and into the air. For a few strange moments he floats through a roaring ocean of fire, as the world collapses around him. Then he hits the ground, and his eyes are instantly robbed of life.