Turns out it was our house smoldering.
Of course, we theorized every other possible rationale that you could possibly think of other than-hey, maybe your house is on fire? Looking back, we should have seen the signs, but that's the LAST thing you think could be happening. Before this happened, I thought the only people who actually had their house catch on fire were: people in apartment complexes, low-income housing, those who smoked in bed, and those who did other really stupid things that pretty much "had it coming". I honestly never really had much sympathy for them when I saw it on the news.
The thing that still bothers me to this day is that I went to bed smelling my house smoldering and didn't realize it. Like I said, someone had talked about doing a campfire/cook out thing that night and we assumed that's what it was. I woke up at about 1:30am to Shannon yelling "fire" and when I opened the door I was greeted by a wall of smoke. Confused, I wandered out to the front lawn where I saw flames coming out of the bottom of our house. Still in a daze, all I could manage to do was go back inside and get my purse and my phone. I don't know why, but I decided if our house burns down, I really need my credit card.
In hindsight, I wish I had grabbed: my glasses, flip flops, my LAPTOP, and shut my door (all the smoke got into my room and if I had just thought to shut my door the smoke damage would have been far less).
Ashley-Lauren had run from across the street with a fire extinguisher and put out the flames temporarily before the fire trucks got there. It was at about this moment that our smoke detectors finally went offf. Thanks Sweet Briar.
As we watched our house burning, our lovely dean came up and asked us which one of us started the fire (his idea of a joke that turned out to be a pretty serious question from him).
We were forced to stay away while they fought the flames, and listened from the end of the street and the took a chainsaw to the front of our house (the fire was inside the wall and went into the basement and the attic).
The firefighters that showed up were great! Not only did they do their usual job, but they were kind enough to hastily throw all of Shannon and Laura's clothes from their closet (where the fire was originating) onto the bed and cover them with huge tarps to protect them somewhat from the water and fire. The girl from SBC who volunteered on the FD also had the knowledge to quickly remove Laura's bum bells and her LV bag from the closet and bring them to her. She knows what's important in life.
We were allowed back into the house to get a few things at about 5am. I started filling random tote bags with stuff and fit as much as the trunk of my car would hold. The smell was horrible and our entire living room was soaked from where they brought in the hoses. Shannon and Laura's room was pretty much irreparably damaged and looked like a tornado hit it (literally).
The FD initially told us that it had all the signs of an electrical fire, but the story miraculously changed once it was just our dean and the fire chief talking for a few hours. It suddenly became most certainly caused by a cigarette.
The next day was a blur of pure exhaustion, mentally and physically, as we were placed in a large room that used to be a parlor that we dubbed "the orphanage" since they just put a bunch of beds in it for us. For some reason, all of us were intent on getting all of our stuff out of there as quickly as possible. Every time I walked in, I had an underlying fear of some sort of spontaneous combustion that was going to kill all of us. A lot of our friends, along with our bum babies, were really helpful with helping us move and doing our crucial laundry. My hair smelled like smoke for almost a week, even though I had washed it several times. None of us wanted to be alone for several days afterward, and were very on edge.
It was certainly not the way any of us wanted to spend our last few weeks of college, and it unfortunately left us leaving Sweet Briar with a pretty big chip on our shoulder.
Looking back a year from now, I just feel grateful that we all made it out, that it wasn't any worse than it was, and that I was able to learn a lot from the experience.
A year later, I can also be thankful for how much I do have now.
REST IN PIECES MUSIC BOX.
PS-It's called music box cause I guess it used to house the music department, or music majors or something-I dunno. It's a pretty dumb name though. Don't judge it for it. It didn't get to pick it's name.
