I just got into a lot of stupid fights when I was younger, and my early 20s were bad. Lots of dead friends and disappointment in life led to some pretty ugly times. Things were kind of on an upswing I guess, or if nothing else I had stopped caring about shit so much. About 6 years ago now, we had an electrical fire while we were sleeping. When I woke up, my first thought was I finally stroked out because I couldn't see shit. Eventually I realized it was smoke. I found the fire but by that time the extinguisher wasn't doing shit. My sister and niece were living with me at the time along with a few cats, a dog, and my sister's dumbass lizard. I got my sister up but she was so out of it she didn't really grasp what was going on. I had to hurry her out of there because we were going to end up getting cut off from the rest of the house. Went back in and grabbed my niece and ran her out too. The entire house was filling with smoke at that point. The dog at some point had started doing his job and was barking in one of the rooms that had caught. I went in there to grab him but when I did there was this huge fireball billowing in the corner of the room. I remember I just stopped and stared at it. I was stunned by it. It was huge, and bright, and something about the way it moved seemed so unreal. My mind sort of shut off and I remember a distinct feeling of nothing and wondering why I didn't feel stressed when I knew I should. Something caught me on the top of my head and that snapped me back out of it. Got the dog out of there and managed to grab a cat on the way. Went back in again and heard the other cats panicking, but shit was starting to get really bad. I could feel my feet cooking from the floor, and everywhere I looked was just glowing blackness and indistinct motion. Breathing was becoming a problem so I hit the deck and started dragging myself across the floor. Pretty sure that's when I was burning my face but it's hard to tell. Heard one of the cats start screaming through it all. Tried to call him but he either couldn't get to me or likely didn't hear me. I had no idea where the other one was so I started getting out of there. I tried to get up which turned out to be a huge mistake. The heat and the smoke pretty much immediately made me fall. I eventually managed to drag myself back out. Didn't notice how insanely hot it was until I was back outside again. My sister was trying to get to me but anytime she got remotely close she had to turn back. I just kept pulling myself through the dirt until she could reach me. Fire department showed up but by the time they got there, they weren't trying to put the fire out as much as keep it from spreading. It was so hot a playset I had in the backyard had started burning too. Eventually they got everything put out but the entire house was pretty much gone. I managed to save a laptop with pictures of my dad on it and a couple other things at some point, but that was it really. We found one cat burned and charred to shit. The other had crawled under a bed and was dead but nearly perfect on this one little circle of floor that never burned for some reason. Never found the stupid ass lizard. Spent a few days in the hospital. Feet and hands were pretty tender, but my face and head definitely hurt. Got bullshitted by the insurance company and the Red Cross gave us a whole $900. Other than that got some clothes and whatnot from random people. Made a minor story on the local news and that was that. I dreamed of fire after that for a while. If I wasn't dreaming, sometimes I'd wake up and smell smoke, have to run through wherever I was to make sure everything was OK. That faded after a while but my mood was shot. Eventually just kind of numbed out. Went through a bunch of prescriptions but none of that shit worked. Ended up becoming an alcoholic for a few years instead. That worked out as well as you would imagine. Went through a lot of unemployment and being alone. Eventually I managed to get my shit back together again though. Not really sure how. Nothing had really changed. I guess I just got tired of feeling like shit all the time. Doing pretty well now, but I still feel different. I still drink sometimes but not how it was.