CHARACTERS:
Bryant
Emma

SCENE:
At a Café

TIME:
3:30 pm in the afternoon

[Fire department reaches the burning Café, on Oak Knoll Ave. Bryant and a few other firemen promptly assess and respond to the situation that is present to them. Bryant notices a young women screaming outside of the building and quickly approaches her.]

Bryant: Miss, you need to get as far away from the building as possible.

Emma: [yelling, as tears drizzle down her cheeks.] My families in there! Please save my family!

Bryant: [As the rest of the firemen proceed with trying to get control of the fire, Bryant tries to calm down the young woman.] Well miss, we are going to do everything we can to get your family safely out of the building, but we need you to cooperate because it is not safe for you to be near this building. What is your name miss?

Emma: [She follows him a few feet away from the building.] My name is Emma! Please, please save my family!
Bryant: Alright Emma, I am just going to ask you some questions that will help us to locate your family, once the fire has been restrained.

Emma: [she wipes tears from her face and tries to calm down to answer the questions.] Go ahead!

Bryant: What do they look like?

Emma: [takes a deep breath.] My husband John is tall, has dark brown hair, brown eyes, he is wearing a blue t-shirt with a leather black jacket. Aaliyah and Alex are twins they have long blonde hair like mine and brown eyes like their fathers, and they are both wearing a peach colored dress.
Bryant: Approximately how many people were in the building?

Emma: [impatiently] I don’t know! I left the café for about fifteen minutes just to go check out MapQuest down the street because my husband and I were bringing our children with us on vacation and we were trying to find directions because we are new to this area.

Bryant: Do you remember where your family was sitting in the café?

Emma: [sobbing and trembling as she begins to explain] John and my two daughters were sitting in the back of the café near the restrooms. As soon as I heard a loud explosion, I rushed back over and I saw the building burning.

[One of the Firemen pulled Bryant away from the woman to tell him what caused the fire. Bryant approaches Emma, with an expression of shock on his face.]

Bryant: According to two of the staff members that escaped from the kitchen entrance, the café was bombed by a terrorist. At this moment we are unsure if anyone has survived.
Emma: [sorrowfully wails.] OH GOD! WHY? Why would someone do something like this?

Bryant: [He examines the building and sees that the fire has been moderately contained] It is hard to explain why someone would do something like this, but two of my firemen just walked into the building and they are going to be checking for anyone that may be alive.

Emma: [furiously] Why haven’t they gone in sooner? My family may be dead in there because of the delay.

Bryant: [sincere and calm] Sorry Emma, but there was nothing we could do until the fire was fairly controlled enough to where we could enter the building. It was too much of a risk to put more lives in danger.

Emma: [Crying harder] Well wasn’t there anything you could do?

Bryant: The only thing that was appropriate was to hose down the building until it was safe to enter the building.

[The two firemen came out with a child in each of their arms]

Emma: [slightly relieved.] My daughters!

Bryant: They are going to need to get examined by the ambulance to see if there were any major injuries and then you will be reunited with them right away. If it is necessary that they go to the hospital then you can ride in the ambulance with them.

Emma: What about my..my Husband? [Trembling as she wipes her tears]

Bryant: [putting his hand on her shoulder] Well I am unsure at this point, but they will be checking every part of the building for any bodies.

Emma: [tears once again rising in her eyes.] Promise me that they will find him. He and my children are all I have as family. I don’t know if I can raise two children on my own.

Bryant: [His eyes start to water and looks away for a moment over at the building trying to think of what to say, rather than to lie and say that he will be fine.] I could promise you that they will find him, but I don’t think that I can promise you that he will be alive when they find him. There have been situations like this before and they didn’t turn out the way we hoped.

[Emma was just standing in place bawling her eyes out; Bryant moves in and hugs her for comfort. All of a sudden the same two firemen come out of the building with a tall guy that was placed on a gurney. Followed by the last two survivors, that was uninjured because they took cover in the girl’s restroom.]

Emma: [Amazed! She lifts her head up staring at the man on the gurney] Oh my God that is my husband!

Bryant: [He watches her run over to her husband, and then he walks toward the fire truck and opens a bag filled of stuffed animals, picks out two stuffed teddy bears and approaches the twin girls.] Here you go young ladies, I would like for you both to have these for being tough in there.

[The two little girls that surprisingly looked unscathed looked up and smiled at him. Emma walks over to Bryant and the other firemen behind him.]

Emma: I want to thank you all for everything you did. Without your help, my family wouldn’t be here. You all truly are heroes!
Bryant: [speaking for the whole fire department.] You’re welcome and if it wasn’t for your husband’s quick thinking, your daughters wouldn’t be alive. He ducked them both under the table and used his body to shield theirs. He is the real hero!

[Emma smiles, shakes Bryant’s and the other firemen’s hands, then walks over to her daughters, hugging them and kissing them on the forehead].
The End

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