The alarms blared, in the grating, intrusive way that they do, and I could tell without turning around that the wall behind me was going up in flames. One grenade too many, I suppose. The firemen were already here, and I could hear their sirens joining enthusiastically with the cacophony.

They might save me from the fire, but nobody on earth could save me from what would come next. Trials, interrogations, prison. All punishment, and all justified, if I were to be honest. But I haven’t been, not for a long while, and I’d gotten away with it enough times that I’d begun to take it as a right. No longer was I relieved that I’d flouted the law once again; lately, I’d been almost indignant that the law dared try to stop me. I’d stopped feeling the guilty pleasure that used to go in tandem with each bundle of cash, a healthy weight to go along with the one in my arms. Instead focusing on how I could make the next heist more spectacular than the last. The money I used to spend just piled up in the trunk of my car, and I would note with a smile that nobody would ever think to look.

The room was growing hotter. Those firemen; I’d watched them before trying to clear up my mess. Donuts were a fireman thing, right? Well, I think these had had enough, and it was slowing them down. They were entirely inefficient, and it rubbed me the wrong way. Especially now, while they were struggling to save me. They’d never seemed to creep along more slowly than when I was the one shriveling to a crisp in here. Not that it mattered much.

I looked at the bags of money in my arms, and sighed, then regretted it immediately as I coughed on the smoke. I wondered how much work had gone into this. Each bag held $25,000.00. How many years would it take me at my real job to earn this much? Far too long, but it would do me no good now. I could be safe behind a cash register, poor and miserable, but I’d need to go back years for that. I’d have to stop myself from realizing how easy it was to get myself into a safe and out again, and how damned incompetent the forces against me really were.

There was one more bag at the bottom of the vault. I could grab it quickly, and complete the job for real, finish it off right. I’d roast alive in here anyway, so why leave it? One bag left isn’t worth hundreds taken. The charges won’t change, and neither will my chances. But why take it? Why take any of it?

I gagged, my eyes streaming and burning against the smoke. I thought back to the old me, the pathetic bastard who wouldn’t steal as a last resort, let alone every time he got bored. The one who would call the police, not run from them. He wouldn’t take the last bag. And I knew he was better off then me, in so many more ways then one. I whispered his name, and grieved. Whether out of vanity, or nostalgia, or this smoke inhalation roasting my brain and driving me to senility, I don’t know. In his memory, I wouldn’t take the last bag.

I closed my eyes. The firemen weren’t coming. I hope they enjoyed their donuts tonight, and I hope they could sleep well knowing they’d done an honest day’s work and let a man slip into hell without granting him however many years left to change. I can’t lie to myself at a time like this, so I’ll be honest; I wouldn’t give a damn. Not if I had ten years left, or twenty, or a hundred. I’d never go back to the way I was before. But I’d always had the chance, if I wanted it. I’d had my whole life left to donate all my money to a children’s hospital somewhere and become a monk, or buy a thousand Ferraris, 0r go skydiving, or call my mother, or meet a girl, or paint a mural, or compose an opera, or kill the president, or say a prayer...
Now that security is gone, and there’s no time to decide to be good again. If this was regret… well, then nobody would ever know, would they?

I grabbed the last bag. It wouldn’t make a cent of difference.