The flames made it hard to see inside the twenty story building engulfed in flames. There were five fire trucks outside the front of the building, sending the water to try and slow the flames down enough so that they could evacuate all the people possible. Especially considering that they couldn't help the building itself and so had to consider the building a lost cause.
Patrick carefully made his way deeper into the building. He was on the tenth floor, having climbed up the stairs after having climbed a ladder to get inside the building from a window. He was trying to differentiate the sounds around him, though the heat of the fire made that difficult. Especially as time moved on while he was inside the fire, it left a roar in his ears that drowned out any sounds a person trapped in these flames might make.
Part of his mind wondered what could have happened to the fire suppression system in this building. Was it damaged? Was it sabotaged? Or maybe was it poorly maintained? He could see the fixtures in the ceiling that indicated one had been installed once upon a time, but that didn't help anyone if it didn't work.
Despite that and the noise from the fire, Patrick wasn't going to give up. Especially since he had to consider that just because someone was still alive, that didn't mean they were conscious. Therefore, he still had to check every part of the floor that he could reach. Others were already searching floors above him and he had to trust that they would do what all of them were trained to do.
As he was nearing his circuit of the floor and heading back towards the stairway that he knew was secure, he paused as a sound caught his ear. Up to this point, the only people he'd encountered inside the building had already been killed. Either by the fire itself or from other means, possibly caused by other people panicking.
The sound he heard was faint and as he followed it, it led him to a room he hadn't realized he'd missed. If he had left and later found out that he had missed it, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to have forgiven himself about it. At least not if someone was found dead in there. He hadn't had that happen to him yet, but he was afraid of what it would do to him if it did.
As he entered the room, he was surprised to find that it had largely been untouched by the flames, although, it was clear that it was merely a matter of time before the flames started to eat up this room. Inside he found five children, the oldest maybe eight, huddled around a table in the center of the room. A table that was low enough for small children to sit at and have at their level.
It was clear the room was set up as a day care area for those who worked on this floor, or maybe the company even, if the company had offices on more than just this floor. The children looked at him, fear evident in their eyes. Though, it was clear to Patrick that their fear was more because of the fire and the fact they didn't know what to do rather than of him.
If it was one or two kids, he was sure he'd be able to help them get out of here quickly, but with five, he wasn't sure what to do. He didn't want to leave any of them behind, just in case he was ordered to not go back for them. He'd heard of cases where that happened and he wasn't sure he could live with himself if he found himself in that position.
Fortunately as he thought about it, he recalled the stairwell that had led him to this floor was close by this room. So, as he looked around for something to work with, his mind raced to think of a way that he could safely get all the kids at once.
He noticed some washcloths nearby, probably to help clean any messes the children made, or even to clean the children themselves. Though, unless he had some water to wet the cloths down, they'd be next to useless. If he tried to take the children out as they were right now, he doubted that they'd survive. Even if he took off his SCBA, or Self Contained Breathing Apparatus, and let the children use that, he doubted they'd survive, even if they managed to share it equally. That was also assuming they'd be able to carry it with them.
Patrick felt a sense of panic overtaking him as his mind fumbled on what to do. He was about to try to take the children out anyway, hoping that a miracle would occur in preserving the children when he noticed a faucet in the back corner of the room.
This faucet wasn't at the children's level, so he figured it had a better chance of being fully operational, though with the fire, there was still a chance it wouldn't have any pressure to it. Regardless, he grabbed a handful of the washcloths and took them to the faucet and turned it on.
Much to his relief, water came out. Though, shortly after the cloths started to get damp, the water cut off. However, he'd gotten what he needed. The cloth was damp enough that he hoped it would last until the children were able to get down to where he'd entered the building. If not, well there wasn't anything else he could do and there likely wasn't enough time for him to try anything else. After all, one trick he'd learned, from somewhere before his training to be a fire fighter, was that if you get cloth wet, then you can breath through it in a fire or other smoky conditions. As the water in the cloth will allow air to pass through, but will catch the smoke. Or at least, that's what he remembers about it.
For one thing, even if he could come back for the children, say taking even one at a time, he wouldn't know where to begin on which one to take first, and he didn't like the idea of what the ones being left behind would feel as they would have to wait for him to return before the next could be saved.
No, it was all at once or none at all, he told himself as he passed the washcloths to the children and motioning for them to hold it over their mouths and noses with one hand while holding onto one of the other children as he led them through the fire.
Either they were really well behaved children who listened to adults very well, which Patrick found unlikely, given his own experience with little children, or they were scared by the fire all around them into submission. Patrick wasn't going to complain if it was the second reason, he just carefully led them along, hoping the washcloths wouldn't dry out before they reached safety.
He led them slowly along the hallway, but tried to get them going as fast as he could. Part of what kept them from going fast was the fact that they were small children. The couldn't move as fast as an adult with the significant difference in height. Though, the other reason was the fact that the fire didn't exactly create the safest conditions to travel in, in the first place.
However, they made it to the stairs and Patrick felt good about that. Especially since it was made of mostly concrete steps and the flames hadn't started eating away at the integrity of the concrete.
Despite that, there was still a lot of smoke in the stairwell, so he made sure the children kept the washcloth over their mouths and noses. Though, he couldn't be sure how well they were doing that, since he remembered when he was a child trying to focus on something he knew he should do, but not doing the best he could, since as a child, his mind wasn't that good on focusing as intently as his mind was now. In the end, all he could hope for was that they weren't breathing in too much of the smoke.
As they reach the floor that he knew the ladder would be on, he couldn't help but feel relieved. They were almost all there and so far there hadn't been any serious complications. He was starting to feel good about their chances.
As he led them back into an area with the flames, he kept them moving at the same pace. Mostly so they wouldn't stumble and possibly fall as a result.
It wasn't until he could see the window with the ladder still outside of it that the child in the middle of the line collapsed, causing the other children to panic. Patrick could only feel relief that it happened with them so close to the exit, so he picked up the child and handed the child to the fire fighter on the ladder before going back the few steps to pick up the next child, placing them near the window and motioning for them to stay put and only to breathe through the washcloth that, he hoped, was still at least a little damp. Before going to do the same to another child.
In the end, all five children were saved and as Patrick waited to be cleared by one of the EMTs, he closed his eyes briefly, wanting to take a nap. Being in the fire was exhausting enough, but dealing with the children certainly had frayed his nerves to the point where he wasn't sure how long his nap would take.
Yet, somewhere from the time he closed his eyes to when he opened them, he had been taken to be a participant in the competition that he didn't want any part in.