Sorry (Except)

I stood in the early morning just outside the entrance of a large hotel in the city of my birth Fort Worth, Texas. The sky’s were still quite dark. The crickets sang a tranquil, soothing melody through the air and I inhaled deeply the calm of my surroundings.
As I reached for my phone to take a photograph of the unique and unusual sky, I was until that moment unaware that I had been joined by two other people: a mother and daughter, admiring the sights same as I. The camera flashed on as I stared through the screen at the sky before dawn. Curiously, the flash did not turn off. I took several photographs in this manner as I attempted to resolve the issue which seemed to irritate the family with me.
“Well,” the mother said discretely but clearly audible to the naked ear, “someone certainly has that memory enough for all of us.”
Feeling slightly embarrassed and wholly empathetic, I scrambled to put my device away so that the others could enjoy the view as well.
Then I saw it.
In the distance, just over a steep rise in the city streets, there was a flash of light. Then an explosion that shook the ground and set alarms into a frenzy around the neighborhood! A great fireball, a massive wave of death was coming toward us in the early morning hours in my home town.
I yelled to the woman and her child to run, but they were transfixed. They were uncertain where to go or how to initiate any type of ambulation perhaps. I ran in front of the pair and bodily shoved them towards the entrance of the building now, not enough to topple them, but to start the evacuation process that fear seemed to have snatched from them. They screamed as they ran into the hotel, bounding up the lobby staircase. I trailed mere steps behind, the rising heat and light of our demise breathed the stink of its breath upon my neck. The building began to shudder beneath us, the very stairs losing their integrity.
….and before my eyes, the mother and daughter sank into the ground in front of me.
I instinctively reached forward to assist, but only managed to burn my hand severely as the family was engulfed in flames beneath.
I could not move upward.
I could not move downward.
There was no escape for me either. My mouth formed the words I would not have chosen for myself to be my last and parted my lips.
“…sorry….”