The fire alarm went off at 5:30am, yanking me from my sleep. I got out of bed and stumbled around dazedly for a few minutes before I understood what I was trying to do. There’s a button I can press that turns off the alarm in my unit (specifically in the bedroom), although it still comes blaring in from the hallway. I turned it off and looked around, thought about what I would need to take with me if I had to leave the building. I made a mental note of things and then went right back to bed. I lay there unable to sleep, but with my brain not fully awake. I wondered if the building really was on fire, were other people getting out of bed and going outside? Would I die in here? After what felt like 20 minutes, but was probably more like 5 or 10, the alarm stopped. There was no announcement over the PA system and I fell back asleep.
In my dream I opened the door to peek into the hallway. It was filled with smoke.