BeepBeepBeepBEEP! I come to the realization of the ear-piercing alarm echoing through the house. Dogs barking, heart-pounding, and my nerves are on edge. I get up from my seat and scream through the thick air, “What’s going on!?”, even though I was almost sure of what was. My mom and sister both burst through their bedroom doors, but in different states of mind. Mom yells, “Everybody out!”, so I and my sister both instinctively grab each a dog and run out of the house. As we exit through the back door, I can smell it. Smoke. I run out into the backyard and see the dark grey smoke seeping through the cracks of the shingles. I alert mom of it and she immediately tells me to call 911. At this point, I can feel my heart beating up in my throat. I want to throw up. There is a tornado in my stomach whirling around ripping up everything in its path. I have no choice but to get out my phone and dial the police. As I do we sprint into the car and speed out of the driveway. They finally pick up, “911 what’s your emergency” I hear the dispatcher say. “My house, um, my house is on fire.” We go on for about five minutes but it feels like hours. I feel like time has slowed down as the car pulls out of the driveway. We pull onto the street at the front of our house. At this point, mom is sobbing and trying to tell the neighbors to get out of their houses in case theirs catches fire as well. We’re all scared, both sides of neighbors and us; but we all show it in different ways whether we cry, scream, or just freeze. But, I couldn’t tell what I was. When I saw my mom cry, that's when I felt almost like the day had just kept on moving normally. It happened so fast it just took me some time to catch up. The dispatcher responds to me after a long silence and says, “Make sure no one is in the road, so the firetrucks have enough room.” I knew to listen to her, so I tell mom that we need to get into someone's driveway. We pull into the neighbor's driveway, and the nice lady opens the door and leashes our dogs so we can put them somewhere else. My sister leads them to the backyard while I stay behind and talk to the neighbors. I walk into a conversation between my mom and one of my other neighbors and she notices. The neighbor grabs me by my shoulders, looked me straight into the eyes, and says, “Listen, everything is going to be okay, I've been through this before.” And that's when my emotions finally catch up. I can feel her empathy deep down and that just triggered something in me. I let out tears, being wary not to completely break down, and thank her. I don’t know why I thanked her, though. I just felt the need to appreciate her for feeling sad I guess. I wipe my tears, and not even thinking of my own house, run into the neighbors' backyard to catch up with my sister. I open the gate and walk straight over to her. Were both talking about what is going to happen, and whether or not the house will still be habitable after. I get lost in our conversation when she points out something behind me. Fire. The brightest, largest, hottest flame I have ever seen. And it’s coming from the roof of my house. My house isn’t engulfed in a dark, thick smoke anymore. There is a glowing flame bursting out from every window and every door, melting the roof into a gooey liquid. I can feel the heat it's emitting from over 30 feet away. Another neighbor from my street comes out of his house and asks who lives there. We explain to him that we do, and he tells us it’s not safe to be outside and so close to the fire. So I run back out of the gate and ask if I can we into the neighbor's house, and she says that we can. I run back, grab the dogs, and rip open their sliding glass door as if it's the gates to heaven. I, my sister, and my neighbor walked into her house and sat in the living room. She told us to sit in the living room and that we could watch the tv if we wanted. We turned on our favorite show and joked about how we weren’t even reacting to the horrible things happened right outside. As the days passed we stayed in multiple hotel rooms and had to buy all new clothes and shoes. But, all throughout those days, I was trying to hide my emotions. Not once did my family see me cry after the day the house caught on fire. Up until we actually moved into a small townhome did I cry. All that stress and emotion that I had packed away, just burst out at once. Mom just told me that we had got a townhome and I lost it. I started balling for about an hour straight. I hate showing my emotions but sometimes you have to let it out or it will catch up to you. Don’t let your emotions catch up.