Why Are You Talking in the Second Person?

THERE’S A LINGUISTIC HABIT I’M HEARING a dozen times a day, and now so will you. Someone is telling a first-person story, talking about something that’s happened to them or they’ve witnessed. The action begins: I opened the door; I picked up the phone; I turned right. But then, when the story gets dramatic, the narrator is no longer the protagonist.

You are.

I opened the door, and could see everyone running. I picked up the phone, and could hear him laughing. I turned right, and saw smoke