Into The Fire

People called me Christopher Tam, and I always thought of myself as an ordinary guy. If you asked me, I’d tell you I wasn’t much to look at—plain, unremarkable—a face easily lost among the crowd. My features rarely attracted attention, and the mirror often reflected someone so nondescript that I sometimes wished it didn’t reflect anything at all. I buried myself in routine: chasing quotas as a salesman for semi-manufactured computer chips. Numbers were safer than emotions. The back-to-back schedule of work comforted me—not because I loved it, but because time marched predictably forward, every second accounted for, a ticking clock where I knew what to do and where to be next. Each tick drowned out thoughts I didn't want to face.

But the safety of my job came with its own brand of misery. The fluorescent white hum of office lighting and drab gray partitions suffocated me. Office politics gnawed at the edges of my patience; cross-border meetings with Mainland Chinese clients drained me in ways I couldn’t consistently articulate. The cultural difference between Hong Kong’s transactional efficiency and China’s relationship-centered guanxi networks demanded constant readjustments. It left me feeling like a solitary, alien figure navigating a labyrinth. Though I performed well enough to meet expectations and quotas, the ticking clock of deadlines only made each passing day feel heavier, its rhythm pounding like a reminder of a life slipping away.

Hiking—oh, hiking—it became my lifeline, a refuge from the relentless grind. If there’s anything magical about Hong Kong, it’s how nearly two-thirds of its land is wrapped in emerald forests, beaches, and hill slopes. Here was a city where chaos lived side by side with calm: one minute, tying a tie in Central’s corporate jungle, the next stumbling upon stretches of serene greenery or shimmering waves. I could go straight from the stuffy suits and conference rooms to breathing in nature’s symphony. Time behaved differently in nature. The pressing minutes of office work melted into rustling leaves and birdsong. I never failed to highlight this dichotomy whenever chasing rapport over after-work drinks at Lan Kwai Fong. "Hong Kong is unique," I’d tell clients. "You can escape the madness within minutes—a perfect balance of worlds." Their polite nods may not have captured understanding, but I meant every word—those fleeting escapes into greenery were my salvation.

That Saturday in February 1996 shouldn’t have been any different. Armed with my scuffed hiking Nikes, ready for an earthy palette of browns and greens, I ascended the Mountain of the Pearl under an azure sky. The trail welcomed me into its rhythm—dim rustling leaves, birds playing their notes, and rocks crunching rhythmically beneath me. Each step smoothed the chaotic jangling of time in my mind, slowing my internal clock to nature's steady pulse. Cool air, sharp with oxygen, greeted me as the sun filtered through loose canopies; the boulders beneath radiated gentle warmth. For a moment, the ticking clock of routine and regret paused, and serenity washed over me.

Then, the peace cracked like splintered glass. A black helicopter tore through the pale blue above, its rotors roaring jaggedly, disrupting the calm overhead. My steps faltered; instinct froze me mid-motion. My mind raced to interpret what I was seeing—and hearing. Smoke unfurled in the distance, thick and black, smearing the delicate colors of the landscape. I stood transfixed, watching the plumes rise like sinister clock hands sweeping across the horizon. Time ticked louder in my ears. Faint cries scratched at the edges of my awareness, distant and disjointed, breaking the barrier of stillness with their jagged urgency.

Heart pounding, I forced myself forward. Time seemed to both stretch and contract, warping under the weight of urgency as adrenaline surged through my veins. Each second felt elongated, as though the clock mocked me by dripping moments into an ocean of dread. The cries grew louder, the acrid bite of smoke stinging my nose. And then I saw it—a single stretcher, jarringly out of place against the natural serenity, like a period punctuating chaos into an otherwise calm sentence.

The world around me sharpened and darkened, seconds stretching infinitely. More stretchers came into view, dotting the trail like grim markers of despair. My pulse pounded with the rhythm of time itself, every beat urging me to move—but to where? To what? I didn’t yet know, but the clock ticked relentlessly beneath every sound, every cry, every inhalation of smoke-filled air.

As I climbed forth, a nightmare unfolded, drenched in the fiery shades of chaos. It was a wildfire. A wild one that consumed everything in its merciless path. First aiders moved deftly amidst scarlet-stained clothing and raw, mottled skin. These weren’t nameless victims—they were schoolchildren. Students, barely older than kids. Their bodies were a quilt of horror: torn fabric charred into grooved edges, faces streaked in ashes, anguish painted on every brow. The air thinned as dread thickened in my chest. Sound amplified unnaturally, as if the ticking clock of life itself clamored louder against the roaring inferno.

Then came the pull: the battle of angels and demons. "Christopher, are you going into the fire?" hissed the demon, dark and sharp. "This isn’t your fight. You’re plain. Shy. Not made for necessity or heroism. Leave. There’s nothing here for you but trouble. You’ve got quotas to chase. A job to keep—move and save yourself." Its voice was a cold whisper, snapping through the greens and browns of the forest, mingling with the crackling fires gnawing at the edges of my courage.

But the angel pushed back, steady and warm, speaking over the suffocating smoke and feverish cries. "Christopher, can you turn away? Look at their faces. They’re children—a world suddenly merciless. You chase quotas for chips, but today, chase something greater. If you walk away now, you walk into regret—a flame that will scorch you more than these trees. You’ll burn with memory in every second of every day ahead. Now! Go into the fire." The cries climbed louder; the smoke clawed at my throat. There was no time to debate, no chance to pause. Each second roared its demand: Act now or forever carry the weight.

Images locked me in: a girl, hazy with embers clinging to her uniform, her eyes luminous with fear against the choking doom of curling smoke. Golden desperation burned amidst black ruin. My body moved before my mind could catch up, every second an urgent shove forward.

I faltered—I was no hero—but I didn’t retreat. One trembling step plunged forward, sweat slicking my face; adrenaline drowned my skin. Another step sank my Nikes into charred earth, the words "Just do it" echoing ironically in my mind. And so, alongside first aiders and firemen, I go into the fire. I hacked escape routes through roaring heat, wrestled ash-covered bodies from nature’s smoldering wrath, becoming fleeting hope amidst fiery despair. Time melted, urgency and devastation blending into one.

It was the sounds that etched themselves deepest—the splitting, cracking, tearing sounds that made my stomach heave. Carrying a small boy on my back, his fragile body curled against me, I heard his skin crackle. Crack. Snap. It echoed sickeningly—the sound of pork belly sizzling over charcoal at a nighttime BBQ. But this wasn’t dinner; it was flesh, burned and brutalized. Each step weighed as though the flames dragged me down, every second churned in horror as despair clawed at my heart.

By the time the flames relented, tragedy had already painted itself across the landscape. It was a school event. Three teachers led a group of thirty secondary school students on a hiking trip, an extracurricular day. The wildfire consumed five lives: Teachers Vincent Chow, Melody Wong and three students—an irreversible toll etched in permanence. Thirteen others bore injuries, their bodies and futures fragile and uncertain. The helicopter blades spun threads of salvation, carrying survivors into shaky tomorrows. Yet those lost remained—etched as shadows in my mind, each tick of the clock reminding me of their absence.

Their faces would not leave me. Each memory cut deeper, time stretching like a cruel eternity over and over again. Every tick of the clock reminded me of those five lives I couldn’t save; the stretchers paraded before me like grim announcements of failure.

The forest’s golden hues muted; the greens turned hollow and gray in my mind. Where I once sought solace amid nature’s serenity, shadows now clung to every branch, trapping cries long extinguished. Still, the smells lingered—the acrid stench of burned flesh. Or was that just memory’s cruelty mocking me?

People placed labels on me: "post-traumatic stress disorder." Even as they spoke, their words felt hollow. They didn’t know about the cracking sound, the ticking seconds, or the texture of burned faces. They didn’t know how every tick pulsed sharper and sharper, carving through my soul.

By July 13th, 1996, the flames reignited—not in the forest, but within me. The weight of five lives lost, the failure to save them. The clock didn’t stop ticking; its rhythm grew heavier with each passing moment. It reminded me of everything I didn’t do, no matter how many paths I cleared or bodies I carried. And in that grief, I burned, too.

Alone, surrounded by silence, I was again, into the fire. I enveloped myself in diesel fuel. I lit the matches. Time—the cruel arbiter—continued its relentless ticking as I lay down, letting the fire consume me. This time, no angels or demons pulled my strings—just the roaring clock of regret and the quiet void that followed.