Burning Questions: Push harder on the hot pushbar

Author: AdventuresAndSearches

This is "slapdashmonuments" creating a new Ficlatte account for the purpose of trying to write some Choose Your Own Adventure stories using Ficlatte's sequeling features. I'll tag work-in-progress parts WIP until the whole story is ready to play.

The first full story, "Burning Questions," is available now:

https://ficlatte.com/stories/41125

The door opens a couple of inches, then stops. A motion detector must have noticed your efforts, because a light comes on in the doorway outside.

To your shock, there is someone's body blocking the exit from outside! You could not see them before.

Well, it's too much for you to handle, picturing yourself shoving an inert body with all your might. Even if the door were cool, it would still be rather horrible.

You look at the body again. The person is facing away from you, half lying on the cement. As the flames reach higher from inside, you can see that there is a wound on his head, visible through the person's short hair. You can't tell if they're dead or alive.

The fire's getting closer. Better not stick around, since there's no way you can see to get out from here. Maybe you should try the side corridor again.

You know there is an open-air square inside the outer four walls of the building, with a koi pond and benches. But it's not clear if you can reach it.

Or you could head back upstairs.