Remember-ring Death (Part 1)

For my family, the New Year started off with a screeching buzz instead of a bang.

"What's that sound?" I asked my husband after being startled awake in a hotel room just past midnight.

"Your alarm," he answered, ever-ready to slam my alarm clock, which he claims emits noises all night.

I sat up to listen more closely. 

The wailing drone continued. Outside our room, I heard much commotion and a repeated thud that sounded like feet pounding stairs. 

"It's the fire alarm!" I cried, jumping out of bed.

Quickly, we scurried around the room waking the kids, stuffing them into their shoes and jackets and collecting this, that and the other. Only after I announced, "I smell smoke," did we finally book it to the door.

That's when we realized our ten-year-old was missing. 

We found her standing in front of the bathroom sink, dazed and thoroughly confused. "Isn't it Fajr time (daily prayer before sunrise)?" she asked.

Leading her out the door, we fled down the hall and took the now empty stairway down four flights. We must be the last people evacuating, I thought anxiously as images of the collapsing World Trade Center towers kept playing in my head (despite having read a million times that it wasn't the fires that did them in).

When we reached the lobby level, my husband cracked the door ajar but then shut it back immediately and said:

To be continued....