Brooklyn

It was october 1997 I was about 18 years old. i was coming home from work that day i was  worked in coney island and we lived in East new York so i came home we lived on fulton and we lived right underneath the subway, the j train, and we lived on top of an electronics store it was a second floor it  was the only apartment there and it was above the electronics store and we got thome like any other day and that apartment like i said we had to go tup the stairs to get to the apartment my bedroom was separate from teh apartment i had  a small separte room right outside the apartment right on the topc of the stairs to th e left and  all the rest of the apartment the bathroom the kicthen the ebdroom was in separate from my bed room got comofrable and in oticed they were giving twister it was about 9 or 10 and they were giving twister so i laid on the couch and i fell asleep watching th e movie it wa sme my mom and my stepdad home and i would say about 2 something we woke up because we kept haring this banging and yelling  and at the time my mom eorke dfor the post office  and shewas gonna get up  around 3 to go to work but we kept hearing commotion we went to look out the window  my mom went to look out the windwo the window faced the front of the buisness and she saw people downstairs baning  on the door, and then we heard someone yell fire so we all jumped up and thrw on jackets and slippers and me and my mom went. to open the door to the apartment to go down the satirs and leave and we noticed as soon  as we opened the door, a gush of smoke , comin into the aprtment nd the whole ahllway stairwell. was fullof smoke and we realized werent going to be able to make it down the stairs so we hasd to  close the door to prevent the smoke from coming in and that was basically. the only exit  to the apartment so we were we started to get frnativc and  me and my mom stood in the front of the lviing room and we just didnt know what. to do and the windows had barsand we looked at theback window to the. back of the apartment. and we noticed like a trail of fire leading up. we were stunned like we didnt know what to do and my stepfather he w as about 6 feet he just became. frustarted and kicked the window on the side of the aprtment the living room window and they say in times  like tht, people get this superhuman adrenline rush and when he kicked that window, the whole frame of the window came out and the window fell and there was aledge down there and he tooke  me out first  and then he took my mom out and then he got out and then we managed to climb out to the builsing next doorsomeones fire escape and they let us in and we got downstairs and we looked up at the building and saw the  first floor was one fire, the buisness underneath  our apartment was on fire the firement  dindt come until maybe about 15 minutes ater and they put out the fire andi noticed. i thought about it the next day that had i not fell asleep in the living room watching that movie. i wouldve died of smoke inhalataion because my room was outside of the apartment in that stairwell and i wouldve died of smoke ihalation and there was some investigating and i never really remmebered what happened but it was belived to be arson i think the buisness owners from downstairs had set fire to the buisness so they could claim insurance money because it was really suspicuious how the fire started and um we never we got a report but we never followed up on what happened  of course we had to move and a lot of our stuff ws destroyed and thank god again no one was hurt.