When the fire department responded to the call, the Brooklyn apartment building was engulfed in smoke. A gruff male voice, with a rare tremor, uttered on the other end of the line: "Please, my cat's still in there... Her name is Linda."  

As firefighter Mark rushed into the hallway, he could still hear screams coming from the third floor. It was Tom, a construction worker living alone. A sturdy 6-foot-5 man with a skull tattoo on his arm, he was being held down by a neighbor. "Let me go! Linda's still in there!" His overalls were stained with soot, his forehead oozing with blood, but he desperately struggled toward the flames. Half an hour earlier, when he discovered the kitchen frying pan on fire, Linda had been dozing in the cat's nest in the bedroom. By the time he was choked out by the smoke, the door had been sucked shut by the heat.

Condensation formed on the firefighter's mask, and the hot air burned his exposed skin. According to Tom, Linda's favorite hiding place was on the top cushion of the closet. He kicked open the warped bedroom door. Flames licked at the wooden furniture, and pieces of ceiling fell. Where the powerful flashlight swept, an orange and white figure suddenly shot out from the gap in the closet, only to be forced back by the burning carpet at the doorway, letting out a shrill scream.

"Don't be afraid, little one," Firefighter Mark said, slowing his movements. Just as Mark reached out, a piece of burning drywall crashed down beside him, and Linda leaped into his arms, her claws digging deep into her firefighter suit.

As Mark rushed out of the fire, carrying Linda, wrapped in an insulating blanket, Tom suddenly fell silent. The man, who had just been like a raging bull, carefully took the cat, his fingers trembling as he stroked her soot-stained fur. Linda purred faintly and rubbed her head against the back of his scarred hand. Someone in the crowd took a picture, and the picture showed a muscular man holding a kitten, his face stained with soot and tears.

Mark later learned that Tom had lost his job three years earlier due to a work-related injury, and his wife and children had left. It was homeless Linda who had snuck into his home one rainy night and had since become his only family. He had planned to have Linda spayed that day and had even bought her favorite canned tuna, but he hadn't anticipated this would almost be their final farewell.

A week later, Tom brought the recovered Linda to the fire station and presented her with a banner with the words "Saving a cat is like saving a life" scrawled across it. In the sunshine, Linda rested on Tom's shoulder, her tail wagging leisurely, occasionally patting the medal on his chest with her paw. Watching this scene, Mark suddenly understood: what was saved in the fire wasn't just a life, but also the sheer courage of a tough man fighting loneliness.

Written by：Luna

2025.7.29