Page 3 of Imprisoned Obsession

“Water didn’t work well on the fire, and they’re going to have to wait it out. So this is arson, and I have a suspect to interrogate.”

The paramedic shields me with her body. “You’re not going to question her until a doctor examines her first.”

I didn’t start the fire.

I’m terrified of fire. It’s impossible for me to even cook food on the stove without having an internal struggle about it.

It’s a phobia I need to control, but I can’t. Therapy has not worked, at least not yet. I stopped going merely because of the price; it was depleting my bank account.

I tried exposure therapy on my own, but it didn’t turn out great.

Janice knows about my pyrophobia, so she cooks in exchange for me cleaning the apartment. Our agreement works wonderfully.

The shakiness in my hands brings me back to the arguing first responders and the screeching siren. I force my eyes open and stare at the blurry medical supplies in front of me.

Black smudges cover everything as the haziness worsens. The dizziness comes back, and I’m helpless against losing consciousness when the bright lights fall into darkness.

It’s a feeling of paralyzing distress that compels my dry eyes to open again later.

It’s dark, cold, and silent.

A series of beeping sounds cut into the quiet when I shift to my side. It isn’t a revelation to find I’m in the hospital. I just want the pressure on my spine to go away; it is more painful than the throbbing sensation in my lungs.

Is this the result of smoke inhalation?

Another noise catches my attention. I can just make out the silhouette of someone standing by my bed.

I blink again and discover I’m wrong. His icy amber eyes are watching the patient in the next bed as he hovers without moving a muscle.

It’s him, the man I thought I had imagined at the scene of the fire.

He shifts his attention to me. I lay on the bed like a deer in the headlights as the menacing amber stare churns the depths of my soul.

The man brings a finger to his lips, gesturing for silence. Terror crushes my voice as I sink deeper into the bed, the blanket wrapped around my body.

He presses a button on the heart monitor, and the beeping stops.

Then I notice he is wearing gloves.

The tight long-sleeve shirt clings to the thick muscles of his arms. The fabric stretches, exposing part of a black tattoo that leads to a mesmerizing piece of art under his clothes.

The sharp line on the monitor rises and falls with the patient’s heartbeat.

A desire to run enters my mind, begging me to escape from him.

I am frozen with paralyzing fear. I don’t understand it, but my body has gone into survival mode. It is ignoring the instinctive warning to run away from this active threat.

This man isn't a doctor. He’s not a nurse. He’s not a police officer, either.

Is he the fireman who saved me?

The man reaches out towards the sleeping patient. I watch his gloved hand as he unhooks the safety device holding the breathing tube.

Janice.

I jerk myself up, elbows digging into the firm bedding as I lean over to prove that what I saw was wrong. It can’t be Janice. It wouldn’t make sense for a burn patient to be here instead of in an isolation room.

Each breath she takes is a torturous effort for Janice as her body seizes with pain.

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