I am basing this off of the book UPRISING by Margaret Peterson Haddix. In the book there is going to be a fire at the factory. I am going to write this as if I were there too, at that shirtwaist factory in 1911.

 

            Work is almost over, and I can’t wait to get paid. I have saved just enough money to buy myself a good meal. The bells ring signaling that my work is done. Everyone is rushing to put things away. As I am picking up pieces of yarn, I hear someone yell.

I stand up quickly and look around and see… A FIRE! Quickly I grab a bucket of water on the shelf and rush to the flames to throw the water in that direction. It doesn’t work. Other people throw water, but it all ends in flame. The fire is spreading faster than you can move.  We rush to a door, but it’s locked. On to the next door and it’s locked too. 

People are climbing out windows and jumping to the emergency stairs that are two floors below. I look out the window and watch as they miss and fall down, down, down they go. Oh no! The next door better work! It leads to a stairwell. I start to rush down, but stop and think about the people on the floors above unaware of the fire. I started rushing upstream, which is very hard with the flow of people. I rush to the next floor, open the door and at the top of my lungs yell “FIRE! There is a fire on the floor below. RUN!” The other workers scatter like bees, running around frantically. Just then the fire comes through the floor.

 I look behind at the stairs I just climbed, and there is light. The fire is as red as the brightest red and yellow like the sun. The orange is a frightening mixture of the two. I have no choice but to run to the next door. Door after door, all ending in failure.

I run to the elevator and wait as the fire gets closer and closer. I wait and wait. Finally when I am about to pass out, I hear a small ding-ding over the roaring flames. It’s the elevator man with the most surprised look on his face. We all climb in and pray to get to the bottom. Then there is a ding-ding-dong.

We start falling floor after floor, I have never been so scared in my life. But wait, there is more. The elevator crashes at the bottom, but I’m alive, everyone is. The door opens and reveals a tunnel. We look at the operator and he looks at us, each with the same confused expression. We run through the tunnel as close together as we can. Faster and faster, longer and longer, it gets blacker and blacker. Is there no end to this darkness and fear?

It seems to get darker with each given step. If only there was light! Light? Is that what it is up ahead? My heart skips as I run a bit faster. Then I feel the warmth of this light. It is the fire; it is engulfing the whole building. Inch by inch, foot by foot, the fire is winning. This is it, my life is over. The smoke is growing thick.

Everyone stops.  Slowly I grow drowsy from the smoke and fall down. We all fall and form a great pile of poor immigrants thinking that life was good. Then I drop my head. There is no more.