by Ciara Jones
The pile of uniforms had caught fire. It was expanding quite rapidly.
Terror seized Molly. She froze. Beth was the next to notice. Her scream was loud enough to be heard over the alarms. The same panic reflex came from each of the other girls, who stumbled into each other as they tried to push away from the expanding blaze. If someone had been quick with a fire extinguisher, perhaps the fire could have been contained before it spread. But the moment passed. The fire licked at the fake stone wall, caught, and began to rapidly expand across it towards the terrified girls.
“Outside!” shouted Coach Stevens, heading with the photographer towards a door at the back of the room. “Everybody outside!”
The girls made a mad dash for the main door, crashing into each other as they went. Nothing else mattered except getting away from the growing blaze. Someone pushed the door open and the six girls scampered out into the hallway, bare feet padding on the linoleum floor. It wasn’t as loud in the hall. They could hear themselves think. They panted and gasped and murmured soft “oh fucks” and “oh gods” and eyed the door warily, as if the fire might suddenly burst back out at them.
It didn’t. For the time being, they were safe.
Then reality set in.
“Oh god, oh god, oh god…” whispered Joon, covering her breasts and crotch. “We’re naked in the hallway!”
Why? thought Molly. Why did you say it out loud?
Too late. It was real. Every girl froze and blushed bright red as the horror of what was happening crept over them. Jessica’s face went pale as chalk as she gingerly shifted her hair in front of her breasts. Beth still had the skull pasties on her nipples, so she dedicated both hands to covering her shaved mound. Kari was almost hysterical. She pranced from foot to foot, teary-eyed, covering herself and trying to look in every direction at once. Joon was babbling “oh god” over and over again, her hands shifting from place to place, bouncing up and down, caught between breathless giggles and sheer terror. Even brave Crissy had an angry scowl on her face. She pressed her ass against the wall opposite the door and hugged her breasts and seethed.
None of them were as bad off as Molly, though. She squirmed in panic, trying to bend down and cover herself. She pulled as hard as she could against the cords that bound her wrists. Nothing. She squealed in frustration. She wanted to die, to disappear, to wake up. She wanted to run, to strangle someone, to cry and laugh all at the same time. Crissy grabbed her and pulled her towards the wall.
“Shh, calm down,” she said, as she began pulling at the cords.
Molly obeyed. She cast her eyes nervously down each side of the hallway. No one to the left. No one to the right. But that could change at any moment.
“Do… do you guys think Coach Stevens is okay?” asked Jessica, squeezing herself tightly.
“She’s fine,” said Crissy, “I saw her get out through the door in the back.”
“Oh god, what are we gonna do? Oh god, someone could see us!” said Joon, once again helping exactly no one’s mood.
“Shut it,” said Crissy. “Coach Stevens will be along any moment. She just has to loop through the photography classroom.”
“That goes all the way around the building!” said Beth, a little too loud, pressing up against the wall next to Crissy to better cover her ass. “It’ll take forever to get back over here!”
“It won’t take that long. We just gotta sit tight and-“
“We’re naked!” said Joon again.
“Oh my god!” said Crissy, rounding on her, “You have got to calm the fuck down! I need to focus here.”
Kari, still on the verge of crying, tried to press herself in between Crissy and Beth in order to better hide herself. She knocked roughly into Molly, interrupting Crissy’s untying efforts. “Move!” barked Crissy, shouldering Kari away a bit too hard. Kari bumped into Beth who bumped into Jessica who was nervously staring down the hallway. Her head snapped back as she jerked forward. “OW!” she shouted, shoving back into Beth who shoved into Kari who shoved into Crissy, once again interrupting her efforts to untie.
“Bitch!” shouted Crissy. She turned towards Kari and gave her an even harder push with both hands. Kari fell backwards onto Beth, and Jessica stepped out of the way so both girls fell down into a pile.
“Cunt!” screamed Beth, pushing the terrified and confused Kari off of her.
“Girls, stop!” said Joon.
“Shut up!” said Crissy.
“This is your fault!” said Jessica, leering at Crissy.
“MY fault?!”
“You wanted to do this stupid photoshoot! None of us would have done it if it wasn’t for you!”
“It’s not my fault our clothes lit on fire!”
“Yes it is!” screamed Joon. “You put the clothes under the light! They wouldn’t have caught on fire if you hadn’t-“
“I didn’t know that would happen!” shouted Crissy, stepping away from the wall towards Joon.
Beth grabbed her legs and pulled her to the floor. The two girls began wrestling, scratching and pulling hair. Completely forgotten, Molly looked on helplessly as her only chance of getting free gave Beth two punches right in the chest. Kari was curled up into a ball next to them, trying to sink through the floor. Jessica began trying to pull them apart and Joon began babbling “oh god” again, now even more panicked than before.
Molly was the first to notice the smoke billowing out from under the photo lab doorway. She tried to say something but the only words she could muster were “mmm, mmMMM!” Without thinking she moved sideways along the wall away from the door. The Crissy/Beth fight rolled into her and collided with her knees. She fell down over them, and with no way to brace herself, she landed with a thud face down on the linoleum floor, feeling dust and grit on her arms, her side, her breasts.
Molly falling over brought the girls back to their senses. Beth and Crissy separated and rose to their feet.
“Molly!” said Crissy, hurriedly bending down to grab her by the arms and pull her back up.
“Smoke!” said Joon, seeing what Molly had seen a moment ago.
“FUCK!” said all the girls, as the sprinklers finally came on.
***
The water was frigid and tasted metallic. The shock of it was so sudden that Crissy dropped Molly, who fell helplessly back down onto the now both wet and dirty floor. She felt the water everywhere: on her hair, her back, pounding in sharp cold needles on her ass, pooling under her breasts and getting a little bit in her mouth and eyes. She sputtered and exhaled and droplets flew. She slid a little bit on the now slick floor. Naked feet stomped around her and she worried about being trampled. Then, Crissy grabbed her firmly and managed to pull her to her knees. The naked girls danced around her, crazy with cold and fear.
“OH GOD! OH GOD! OH GOD!” babbled Joon.
“We have to get moving!” said Crissy.
“Where?” shouted Beth.
“Just go!”
The six girls began scampering down the hallway, feet slapping on the hard, cold wet floor. Hair clung to faces and feet slipped as they ran. Unable to shield her eyes from the water, Molly held her face downward. She saw a skull pasty floating along on the ground.
She didn’t want to look forward. She knew what was coming. She had to. She looked up.
Four naked asses in front of her. Four silly-looking wet naked girls streaking down a hallway through artificial rain. Towards an intersecting hallway. That was now full of people.
This wasn’t some orderly fire drill where everyone lined up neatly and marched together single-file. It was anarchy. Word seemed to have spread that there was an actual fire in the building, and the students were reacting accordingly. Molly saw pushing, bumping, confused chatter, and a few lollygaggers standing around checking their phones and casting excited eyes down each hallway. Probably want a picture for Facebook, Molly thought dimly. Selfie with the Great School Fire! LOL #yolo.
Oh fuck. Selfies.
Molly felt a sudden white
***
Contrary to popular belief, sprinkler systems don’t activate in an entire building simultaneously. It takes a significant amount of heat and smoke to active a building’s fire suppression system, and even then they will only activate in a specific affected area. People on other floors, halls, or rooms will only hear the alarm, with no free shower accompanying it.
As such, no one else was wet like the six girls pushing their way into the center of the chaos in the hallway intersection. No one else was quite as terrified.
No one else was totally naked.
The alarms and the general madness actually proved to be a minor saving grace for the girls. Very little could be heard over the cacophony, so the hoots and laughs and wolf whistles couldn’t carry very far and attract more attention. The excited motion of the crowd meant even those who bumped right into the naked girls couldn’t stay in one place and gawk for very long. People barely five feet away might not even notice they were within hugging distance of the girls’ volleyball team, sans clothes.
But they were getting noticed. And bumped and grabbed as well. A few gawkers raised their phones into the air to try to get an aerial pic of the nudity on display but the jostling of the crowd made photography difficult. There was a real element of fear in the crowd too. Biannual fire drills had accomplished very little for fire discipline, it seemed. Most kids were eager to get outside as quickly as possible, even as they did double and triple takes to confirm that that girl on the volleyball team with the big chest was indeed standing in the middle of the hallway, completely topless.
The girls huddled together, trying to hide each other or warm each other. Safety in numbers. Momentary gratitude at being out of the frigid shower gave way to nightmarish humiliation. They were still wet, still naked, still stuck in the middle of a crowded school.
Molly, once again, was worst off of them all. She’d given up wasting energy by struggling. Her wrists hurt. The cord felt tighter now that it was wet, somehow. She couldn’t cover her breasts or mound, though she desperately wanted to. She couldn’t protect against the bumping, shuffling masses of students who scraped against her bare skin with their zippers and cloth. She couldn’t even wipe the wet hair from her face. She found herself bending at the knees, trying to sink down and hide. Then a stranger’s hand found her ass and give it a rough squeeze and she shot back up, mortified and scared.
“Go!” shouted Crissy, giving her a push. “GO!”
The other girls started moving, slowly, in a mass down the hallway. Molly could barely hear Crissy behind her, egging her onward and telling passersby to go fuck themselves. She tried not to make eye contact with the faces as they passed her but she could see them in her peripheral vision. Faces she recognized, faces she didn’t. Boys and girls from math class, history, biology, a few acquaintances and a few sworn enemies, all making the same three faces: first, confused, excited terror at the proceedings; then a dim, momentary recognition as they saw Molly passing by; and finally, a wide-eyed, open-mouthed, shocked, grinning or gaping face as they realized how little she was wearing and turned to take another look.
Why isn’t anybody helping?! she thought. Surely a teacher or a student or fucking someone would offer them a hoodie or a towel or a helicopter ride home? It wasn’t happening. People were either too scared to stop, or just got jostled away by crowd motion before they could process what they were seeing. And at least a few were being actively malicious. Molly felt hands on her shoulders, on her hips, on the side of her ass. One young gentleman made an unambiguous grab for her breasts but Crissy, god bless her, slapped his hand away in time.
It was a slow, humiliating push to the opposite side of the hallway. Molly had no idea where they were going, just let Crissy steer her where she would. The humiliation was unreal. Even in her naked-in-school nightmares she’d had her hands free to cover herself. There was no waking up from this. Every few moments a new jostle, a new gust of cool air or hand on her side would remind her this was stark reality. She felt Crissy’s hand on her hip. Those slender, warm fingers guiding her onward. It was the only point of stability in this whole mess. Without Crissy there, she might just lie down and die.
Gradually, the crowd stopped fighting them and started pushing them along. The girls found themselves borne towards the stairwell door, surrounded by a gaggle of students either viciously laughing or shyly looking away. There was nothing to do but go in. The main stairwell was packed railing to railing with anxious students, spiraling all the way down to the ground floor. It was a claustrophobe’s nightmare. To the poor, naked girls, it was even worse than the hall.
Molly felt herself crushed up by crowd action against the girls in front of her. She felt her exposed crotch press up against Kari’s slick backside, her breasts rub up against the girl’s shoulder blades. Crissy hugged her tightly from behind, trying to protect her. The other girls were next to them, packed shoulder to shoulder. In the hall there had been some chance of fighting the crowd, but in the stairs they were at its mercy. There was nothing to do but march, inch by inch, step by step as the students navigated their way down overcrowded stairs.
There was less alarm noise in the stairway. More room for voices to be heard. People around them were becoming more and more aware of the naked girls, tapping each other on the shoulders and talking into cupped ears, twisting their heads around to get better looks at the naked bodies pressed tight in between all the clothed ones. Surely most of them could only see them from the shoulders up, packed in like sardines as they were. But still…
A girl in front of Molly was complaining to her boyfriend. Molly could hear them over the din.
“Is there even a real fire?” she said. “I heard Coach Stevens screamed at the photography class about this not being a drill.”
“Uhh, I think so,” said the boy, gradually starting to notice the six naked girls being pressed up behind him.
“Fuck today!” the girl whined, “I hate crowds! I had a final! I can’t do this!”
“At least you’re not naked,” he said, tilting his head in Molly’s direction.
The girl’s eyes widened. She struggled to turn herself around fully. The boy continued staring forward, ever the gentleman, stealing only the occasional peak.
“What happened?!” said the girl, telegraphing the girls’ predicament to anyone on floors above or below who could hear.
Molly felt weirdly obligated to respond.
“We were… doing a photoshoot.”
The girl stared. Molly blushed so deeply she felt the water must be burning off of her face into steam.
“Oh god, the calendar shoot! Wow! Is this a prank or a stunt or…?”
“Keep moving, bitch,” said Crissy, poking her head over Molly’s shoulder.
“I’m just asking!” said the girl. “I mean, you guys will get in trouble. If a teacher sees you...”
“The fire…” said Molly.
“Oh. Oh god, did you see it!? There IS a real fire?! Oh god, you guys had to run out, didn’t you?”
“H-help?” said Molly.
“Yeah. Yeah! Here, oh god!” The girl began removing her pullover, elbowing her boyfriend as she did so.
“Take off your hoodie,” she commanded.
“What?”
“Give them your hoodie. Come on.”
“I, uh, I need it.”
“Give them your fucking hoodie, asshole!”
The guy began unzipping his jacket. Molly felt unfathomable gratitude as the girl gathered up both garments and handed them back towards Molly.
She wanted nothing more than to reach out and grab them. She couldn’t. Kari could. Molly could actually feel Kari’s ass jiggling when she jumped up to snatch both pieces of clothing out of the girl’s hand. Frantically, she pulled the pullover onto herself. Jessica was the first to reach for the hoodie, followed by Beth and Crissy and Joon. But it was gone. Kari had dropped it in her haste.
<br /> “Hey!” said the guy, “That’s my sweatshirt!”
Molly saw it on the stairs between legs and feet, this faded, tattered blue thing that looked like it smelled like weed. It was the most beautiful piece of clothing she’d ever seen. A moment later, it was snatched away by someone behind her.
“That’s mine!” said the guy again, turning around. He was slowing down traffic. The girls began to get squeezed again by the wall of people descending behind them. Molly felt Crissy pressed tight into her back. Tighter. Her breath was getting short.
“S’mine now,” said a male voice behind her. She turned her head and saw him, this popped collar-sporting asshole smiling at her through half-lidded eyes.
“OUCH! ASSHOLE!” screamed Crissy, right into Molly’s ear. Someone was probably spanking her or pinching her or something. They were pressed in so tightly Crissy couldn’t even turn around. Molly felt so sorry for her.
Wait, why? she thought to herself. Without Crissy I wouldn’t be tied up. Without Crissy I wouldn’t have done that stupid photoshoot in the first place.
Try as she might, Molly couldn’t summon any anger for Crissy. She just wanted to get her out of here. To hold her, maybe. Somewhere private…
“Fuck this!” shouted Crissy. Roughly, she moved Molly aside and began plowing her way forward, forcing people to the left and right. It was an impressive show of strength for such a slim girl. Molly followed behind, descending down the staircase behind her. Were the other girls following? Molly couldn’t tell. With Crissy, she had a chance to get out of this horrible mess. She was taking it.
***
By the time they got to the ground floor, the two girls were breathless and exhausted. The crowd was beginning to thin as more and more students got outside. There was freedom to move, freedom to breathe. Freedom to be seen. Crissy and Molly emerged onto the ground floor landing and took stock of the situation, panting and fidgeting in anticipation.
Molly wondered if the other girls had been able to follow. It looked like they hadn’t. Every girl for herself, Molly thought, setting aside concerns for the other girls in favor of getting a gameplan.
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