The firefighters' movements grew markedly more frantic.
Several of them crowded around a floor plan handed over by a security guard, exchanging brief, urgent words while pointing out routes leading to the second-floor west wing.
They would be heading in to search any second now.
If that was the case, everything was going to be fine.
Trained professionals with the proper gear were going in. There was nothing left for me to do, and nothing I should be doing.
Just as that thought crossed my mind, a narrow road stretching toward the western edge of the parking lot caught my eye.
It wasn't an entrance meant for customers, but an access lane used by delivery trucks to unload stock. At the end of it sat a large gray shutter, with a small door beside it on the wall that looked like an employee entrance.
While evacuating, swept along by the surge of people around a corner in the corridor, I had seen a sign pointing toward that loading dock.
The clothing store in the second-floor west wing, and the loading dock on the building's west side.
I didn't know the exact layout, but there might be a service corridor behind the storefronts leading straight up to the second floor.
Before I realized it, I had started walking toward the firefighters.
"Excuse me!"
A security guard stationed in front of the cordon spread his arms to block my way.
"It's dangerous. Please step back."
"There's a loading dock on the west side, right? I saw a sign for it while evacuating. Can't you get up to the second-floor west wing from there?"
The guard's expression shifted slightly.
"The west loading dock?"
"Yes. Right next to the big shutter, there's an employee door. If the missing girl was last seen at that clothing store on the west side, wouldn't going through there be faster than circling around from the front—"
"Hold on a second."
Cutting me off, the guard raised his radio to his mouth.
"Information from an evacuee regarding the west loading dock. Reporting that the service door beside the shutter is open."
Moments later, one of the firefighters came jogging over.
"When did you see the door?"
"Just a minute ago. You can see it from outside the building, too."
"What did it look like inside?"
"I couldn't tell that much. But it wasn't shut all the way."
The firefighter glanced toward where I was pointing and gave a curt nod.
"Understood. We'll take it from here. Head back to the evacuation area."
"Aren't you going to go in through there?"
"We'll assess the situation first and decide. Fall back for now."
There was no room left to argue.
The firefighter immediately returned to his crew and radioed orders to check the west side. Two men dispatched by the call headed around the side of the building, while the others continued clustering around the floor plan, debating entry routes.
A moment later, an urgent voice crackled over the radio.
West loading dock: heavy smoke and extreme heat confirmed. Securing an entry route is untenable.
Upon hearing the report, the firefighter tracing a finger along the west side of the floor plan stopped in his tracks.
"Scrap the west side. The search team will enter through the north employee stairs."
Hearing that order, I blurted out before I could stop myself.
"Wait! The door is open, isn't it?!"
The firefighter from before looked back at me.
"Just because a door is open doesn't mean it's viable for a rescue team. We can't enter anywhere we can't guarantee an escape route."
"But the girl who's trapped might be right near there!"
"I know that. That's why we're taking another way in."
Giving a terse reply, the firefighter turned away from me.
"From here on out, it's our job. Please stay back."
I couldn't say a single word in response.
Reaching for his radio, the firefighter relayed the order to send the search team in through the north. In response, the crew checked their equipment and began jogging toward the opposite side of the building.
They were going in to save Mikage right now.
I understood that, yet watching their retreating backs, a suffocating panic rose inside me.
How long would it take them to climb the north employee stairs to the second floor and fight their way all the way to the west sector on the far side of the building?
Mikage was waiting all alone that entire time.
She might be calling for help through the smoke. She might have hurt her leg, unable to move, slowly losing consciousness without anyone ever realizing she was there.
Right then, a heavy roar resonated deep from the pit of the building, vibrating straight into my stomach.
The parking lot beneath our feet trembled faintly.
Plumes of thick black smoke erupted all at once from the upper-floor windows, drawing terrified screams from the crowd of evacuees. The firefighters who had been about to enter froze in their tracks, looking up to assess the building's structural integrity.
"Secondary internal collapse! Search team, hold position! Reconfirm the entry route!"
A sharp command cut through the noise.
Even if it meant a delay, to the firefighters, it was a necessary decision to make sure every single one of them made it back alive.
I understood that.
Even so, the time Mikage had left wouldn't wait around for safety checks.
A cold chill spread through my chest.
"Just leave it to them," I muttered, trying to force myself to believe it. "The fire department will save her. Even if I went in, there's nothing I could do."
Every single word was undeniably true.
I had no rescue training, and no protective gear against the blaze. Even if I went in, I didn't even know where Mikage was; it was far more likely that I'd just get trapped and die alongside her.
Yet, a voice deep inside me refused to be silenced.
Will they really make it in time?
If I found out later that Mikage didn't make it, would I ever be able to live with myself?
I had realized she was missing.
I knew she was still inside.
I had watched with my own eyes as the firefighters were forced to hold back.
Could I really just look away, pretend it had nothing to do with me, and walk home as if nothing had happened?
I didn't even have to think about the answer.
In my pocket, my phone buzzed again.
Let me know if you're going to be late. No need to rush.
It was a text from Mom.
The moment I read those few words, an image of home flashed across my mind.
Mom, finishing up work and starting dinner like she did every evening. Koharu, complaining about the notebook she'd asked for, yet inevitably sitting down right next to me the second I walked through the door to tell me about her day.
If I didn't come home, people would be devastated.
My life didn't belong to me alone.
I knew that. I knew that better than anyone.
And that was precisely why my legs were shaking.
I was terrified.
There was no way in hell I wanted to walk back into a burning building. Just minutes ago, I had fought tooth and nail through a panicked crowd just to make it outside.
If I stayed right here, I was safe.
No one would blame me.
I could tell myself I was just following the firefighters' orders.
Even so, an old memory flashed into my head—a lost child I'd seen at the station back in middle school.
In front of the busy ticket gates where countless adults hurried past, a little boy had been crying all alone. Assuming someone else would help him, I had walked past at first. But when I looked back, no one had stopped. He was still entirely on his own.
In the end, I had turned around and sat by his side until the station staff took over.
I still remembered the feeling I had back then.
If it turned out to be nothing, the worst that happened was a little embarrassment.
But when someone was truly in trouble, walking away meant losing the chance to fix it forever.
The danger here was on a completely different scale. It was probably insane to even compare the two.
Yet once I knew, I couldn't pretend I didn't.
I pulled up the reply field on my phone.
I typed out a few words, deleted them, typed again, and deleted them again. In the end, all I left was a single, terribly brief line.
I'll be a little late.
My thumb trembled faintly as I hit send.
This wasn't right.
There were so many things I should have said. If I told her the truth—that I was caught in a fire, and what I was about to do—Mom would do everything in her power to stop me.
Yet I felt like the moment I put it into words, my legs would freeze completely.
I shoved the phone back into my pocket and lifted my head.
My eyes locked onto the west loading dock I had pointed out to the firefighter.
The heavy shutter was halfway down, and from the narrow gap of the service door beside it, a thread-thin ribbon of gray smoke spilled out.
It couldn't be used as an official rescue route.
Looking passable and being able to make it back alive are two entirely different things.
The firefighter's words echoed over and over in my ears.
I wasn't better than them.
I didn't think the fire department had made the wrong call, either.
In fact, hearing why they rejected it made me realize just how lethal it was past that door.
I might be able to get in, but I might never come back out.
Even so, that loading dock was the closest possible path to where Mikage was waiting to be saved.
The firefighters were busy checking the structure and preparing to advance the search team. Their attention was locked on the front of the mall after the secondary collapse, and the evacuees were all staring up at the upper floors where the black smoke was churning into the sky.
No one was looking toward the western edge of the lot.
No one was watching me.
My heart hammered violently against my ribs.
Stop, the voice in my head screamed.
You can still turn back.
Staying here is the right choice. An amateur jumping in will only make things worse.
My feet nearly ground to a halt a dozen times.
Even so, skirting the edge of the parking lot where the cordon ended, I broke away from the crowd and moved toward the west loading dock.
With every step closer, the firefighter's words weighed heavier on my soul.
Looking passable and being able to make it back alive are two entirely different things.
Mom's face flashed in my mind.
I could almost hear Koharu's voice.
Yet right alongside them, I couldn't stop picturing Mikage, trapped and waiting for help in the suffocating smoke.
The moment I slipped into the building's shadow, the noise of the parking lot abruptly faded. The sirens, the screams of the evacuees—separated by a single thick concrete wall, they suddenly sounded like echoes from an entirely different world.
In their place, an ominous groaning from deep within the building reached my ears.
The screech of twisting metal.
The dull thud of internal debris collapsing.
The endless, maddening drone of the fire alarm.
Standing in front of the west loading dock, I saw that the service door was slightly ajar. A thin haze of gray smoke leaked through the narrow gap, dispersing the instant it touched the cold outside air.
I could still turn back.
I hadn't set foot inside yet.
I could walk back to the firefighters and leave everything in their hands.
I knew that was the sensible, logical thing to do.
Standing frozen before the door, I clenched my trembling fists until my knuckles turned white.
"Please..."
Toward the girl who might be on the other side of that door, I let out a hoarse, desperate whisper.
"Just... please be outside already..."
Even as I prepared to go in after her, a part of me prayed she wasn't there.
I wanted her to have found another exit, to be standing safely outside, reunited with her friends right this second. If this whole thing was just me jumping to conclusions, if it ended with me getting chewed out by the firefighters and yelled at by Mom, that would be the best possible outcome.
But if she really was still in there...
If she was all alone in the dark, desperately holding on until someone reached her...
The one thing I couldn't do was turn around and walk away.
I closed my eyes, took one last deep breath of fresh air into my smoke-scratched throat, and pulled the service door open just wide enough to slip through.
A wave of blistering heat reeking of scorched ash surged out from the darkness.
I was terrified.
Even so, my feet didn't stop.
—And all on my own, I stepped back into the raging fire I had just escaped.