False Alarm
I had a traumatic experience at a hotel in Texas a few years ago. I was with my son, who was 9 at the time. First night there and all of a sudden, the fire alarm goes off. My son freaks out, and I try to calm him down, saying someone probably pulled the alarm by accident.
As I’m putting on my shoes, he opens the door. Thick, white smoke barrels into the room. He is terrified and so am I. We are on the 5th floor. I know we have to get out, so I grab his hand, tell him we’re going for the stairs at the end of the hallway and to take a deep breath.
We get into the hallway, and the smoke is so thick we can’t see 2 inches in front of our faces. Breathing in means instant choking. Running on pure adrenaline, I run to the end of the hallway and start pounding on the wall to find the door to the stairwell. I find it, throw it open, and down the stairs we fly.
We burst outside, exhaling white puffs while we cough and choke. Fire trucks show up, we are stuck outside with nothing but our pajamas. Finally, at 2 a.m., a fireman calls everyone over for an announcement. It wasn’t a fire, some jerks set off all of the fire extinguishers in the hallways and pulled the alarm.
Story credit: Reddit / pop_skittles