Hesitation would have killed me. I see that now. The place went up fast like it was built from old newspaper and pure oxygen but I couldn’t have known that by seeing it for the first time in the dim ambient light of that September afternoon.

I had made it in through a window at the rear of the building off the fire escape. Easy enough to do in these older places. They’re not designed with the airless efficiency of newer condo towers where every surface is slippery smooth. In those newer places you need to be pretty inventive to get access. You gotta dress the part, catch a trainee during the manager’s smoke break, work that charisma, or get lucky when you recognize the sallow twitch of need around the eyes of the doorman. I’m not saying that it can’t be done I’m just saying that you really got to do your homework for those situations. You gotta know your target and you gotta know the behaviours of the NPC’s that protect them.

These old buildings aren’t like that at all. They may possess a bolt lock on the front door and an old timey bell that rings whenever someone enters the place. Residents rest assured by the predictable sounds of the click of the key in the lock, the chime of the bell, the scuffle of boots, rustle of shopping bags as a neighbour enters the foyer on their way up to their apartment.

Only fools and citizens use the front door. That sort of access is too obvious for projects like this. Too many eyes, too much opportunity for things to go wrong.

The old building that I burned down tonight is in the midtown neighbourhoods just off Main Street. Probably from the middle part of the last century. Tall ceilings, wide staircases with thick wood bannisters, and the exterior window frames painted in thick white strokes that conveniently help to insulate the place from the mild temperature swings in this coastal city.

Getting in through a back window was little trouble and any evidence of my incision will be long gone by the time they put the fire out.