Burning Questions: You enter the hallway with Burton

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

From inside the back hall on the first floor, you can tell that the firefighters have done most of the necessary work. The front of the building is dripping wet. However, the trail of fire still leads down the hall towards the stairwell in the back right corner of the building, the one that was blocked on the third floor by a pile of burning textbooks. It appears that that fire has spread farther down as books have fallen down the stairs. You move closer and see that the line of gasoline leads up the stairs to the first landing in between the first and second stories.

You lead the way, Burton alert and ready for action. You can see a burning book just above, on the stairs above the landing. Looking up, you can see more of the books.

You can also see a pair of cardboard boxes resting by the railing just at the top of the staircase. Gazing upwards, you can see that there are more burning books just above the boxes, as if poised to drop down upon them.

And something else...