HAVE YOU EVER LOVED SOMETHING SO MUCH YOU'D DIE FOR IT?

He woke up to find himself and the bed completely drenched in sweat. It was swelteringly hot. His bedsheet was lying on the floor beside his bed. The ceiling fan had stopped working, and so had his night light. His digital watch said it was 1.25 in the morning. What a time for a power cut! He tried closing his eyes and going back to sleep, but soon found that it was futile. His modest hostel room offered no way for any hint of breeze to get in, barring the tiny varendah which opened out onto the street below. Resigning himself to another sleepless night, he went out onto the varendah and felt gratified to feel the coolness of the night on his body. He drew in a deep breath of the fresh air and closed his eyes to listen to the stillness of the night. That was when something struck him as amiss. There was way too much noise in the street below. He opened his eyes to find that there were a lot of people out there, most of them still in their pajamas, and many of them were gesticulating towards the building and talking in an animated manner. He could also see fear on many people’s faces. Bewildered, he looked on, trying to make sense of what was happening, when a voice shrieked out “Oh my God! Someone is still in there!” A sudden outburst of noise assaulted his ears, with people looking up at him and screaming, frantically gesticulating something he could not make out.

Suddenly, he smelt something strange, something very much similar to what the kitchen usually smelt like when he was in there. “Who the hell could be cooking at this godforsaken hour?” he thought as he turned round, intending to check out the hostel kitchen which was only two doors down from his. A sudden heat wave pushed him back into the varendah. His door was on fire! And so was his wardrobe! Flames were licking their way into the room, making it unbearably hot. He stood rooted to the spot, not comprehending that all his belongings were being burnt to ashes right in front of his eyes. Most of his clothes were gone, and so were his books. His eyes were the only things that could move, and that in an increasingly frantic manner, resting for not more than a few seconds on every inch of his room. But when they came to rest on his bedside drawer, they widened in horror. He felt a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach. The searing heat which relentlessly attacked him was nothing compared to the cold, clammy hand which took a hold over his body. All his dearest possessions were in there. His iPad, his Samsung smart phone, his HP Ultrabook and his most prized possession, his brand new Alienware M15x, something which he always kept under lock and key for fear of its getting stolen. This was the thought which propelled him into action. He leapt towards the drawer and opened the topmost draw. He grabbed his iPad, phone and the notebook. But the most important thing was in the bottom draw, which was locked. He knelt on the floor and lifted the mattress of his bed, which was already partially burning, trying to avoid putting his fingers into the flames and snatched the keys. He fumbled with them, trying to put the right key properly into the keyhole, something which the inferno above and his sweaty, shaking hands did not make any easier. Finally, after a few failed attempts, he managed to insert the key into the slot and turned it. He caught the handle and pulled, but it refused to come out. It was stuck! Screaming out every profanity he knew, he pulled once more, but it just didn’t budge. He tried taking a deep breath, but the smoke caused him to collapse in a fit of coughing. After a few seconds of gasping for air, he managed to pull himself up and tried to open the draw one more time. It opened just enough for him to see the shiny red piece of technology glinting in the flames, and the Alienware logo looking back at him with the orange flames reflected in its eyes. He could feel his hair getting singed as he tried to squeeze his hand into the opening to get it out…

The next day’s paper had a piece somewhere in the middle on how a short circuit led to a hostel building somewhere in the middle of the city going up in flames. Thankfully, there was only one casualty. Though there were no pictures accompanying the article, some obscure online news site managed to get hold of a grainy, black-and-white picture of a room on the second floor. If you looked hard enough, you could just make out the body on the floor, next to what might once have been a bed, looking almost as if it was reaching out to the barely-distinguishable bedside drawer.