Ending: Chapter Three

Holding my last breath
Safe inside myself
Are all my thoughts of you
Sweet raptured light, it ends here tonight...
- My Last Breath by Evanescence

They had been here for the entire day, and were nearly ready to turn in for the night, according to a female.  She was tall, fair-skinned, and pretty, and she was used to directing those around her nearly all the time.  "Let's go to bed now," she called out our the sound of the laughing people surrounding her, trying to make herself heard amongst the noise.  They were surrounding a campfire, and it was late that night, much later than the children were used to going to bed on weeknights.  But Fridays had their advantages, and they assumed that camping had its exceptions as well.  As the flames flickered, no one payed attention to her, and she sighed again.  "Everyone listen."  Pleased when they looked up, she continued.  "I know we've had fun today, but I'm sure you're all tired, so I think we should turn in for the night!"

Seconds later, everyone began to protest.  "But Mom!  We're not ready to go to bed yet!" one of them, a young and short boy, cried out. 

"Yeah, please?  Can we stay out here for a little while longer?" her slightly older daughter asked.

The mother sighed, not wanting to deal with anything from her children this morning.  "No.  We've been out here hiking, fishing, and at the campfire since ten in the morning.  It's time to go to bed, and I promise we can take a small walk early in the morning if you get up early enough..."

This wasn't enough to fool her children.  "But Mom!" the two shouted.

The mother glared at them.  "That's enough," she said sternly.  "If we get to sleep earlier, we can have more time to explore tomorrow."  This was the last time she was taking anyone related to her on a camping trip for a LONG time, she told herself.  Her children acted like this every time that they ever went somewhere, no matter if it was the beach or the wilderness of British Columbia.  But it was always the same... they never wanted to go to bed when they had to.

The older daughter sighed finally, picking up her phone in hopes that it would now have a signal.  It didn't.  Sighing loudly again in frustration, she fought the urge to throw it at a nearby tree.  "We're all alone out here - there are kind of BEARS!  You're crazy if you think I'm sleeping out here..."

Her mom sighed again.  "There's nothing to worry about - we have a safe, dry tent, and it does have a zipper.  Now, just come on in and get ready for bed - you're lucky that you got the chance to stay up this late anyway!  That's all that I want to hear.  Now, I'm going to put the fire out, and you two go to bed."

Her children didn't protest, knowing that their mother would be seriously ticked off at them if they didn't follow her directions.  Sighing impatiently, they got up from around the campfire and ducked into the tent, a scream of "GET OUT!  I'm changing first!" from her older daughter.  The young boy exited in frustration.

The mother couldn't help but smile a bit, bending over to get the pail of water that her husband had laid out to put the fire out hours before, before they toasted marshmallows and talked with each other.  Her husband was getting the rest of his fishing equipment from a nearby lake (Author's Note: No, this is not the North Lake.  It's just a random lake, 'kay?), which they'd left for good not long ago.  Wondering where he could be, she sighed impatiently and reached for the water bucket. 

It was empty.

She groaned out loud, noticing her daughter leave the tent and her son go inside of it.  There was no point in putting the fire out, anyway - it wasn't going to set the forest on fire or whatever.

Sighing, she tossed the bucket into the bushes a few feet away and stood up, going into the tent moments after her son came out.  It's not going to set the forest on fire, she told herself again. 

There's no way it could spread.

~ ~ ~

Sparrow woke up in the middle of the night, at around three-thirty in the morning or so, the humans would say.  The first thing that he noticed after waking up, was the fact that he had woken up in the middle of the night.  Frowning and letting out a groan, he was tired and wanted no more interruptions like randomly waking up for no reason.  There wasn't a reason for him waking up, or so he thought in the first few moments.

That's when he smelled something odd.  The air had a strange, smoky smell, like something was burning.  Thinking for a moment that he was imagining things, Sparrow chose to ignore the scent for a few seconds.  But it became overpowering moments later, and that caused him to get up and walk out of his den, curious. 

And then he saw the flames.

Orange flames spreading quickly over the ground.

Sparrow's throat tightened with pure and utter fear as he saw the flames grow larger and larger by the second.  This... this couldn't be real.  The forest, the place that they called home, was on fire.  Realizing that if he hadn't woken up, they would all be dead, Sparrow jumped up and hurried over to the other dens of the wolves. 

Sunset, Ridge, Moon, Topaz, and Opaque had already noticed the fire by the time he got over there, panting furiously.  "What do we do?!" he screamed at Moon, and she bit her lip quickly.

"I - I don't know!" she yelled back, coughing as the smoke began to take effect on her.  "We have to get out of here!"

Following her orders no less than two seconds after she finished speaking, Sparrow tore his way through the crowd of the five in front of him and made his way to the nursery, the others running close behind.  "Sunset," Sparrow choked out through the smoke.  "Get the pups out as fast as you can.  Keep them close by you.  If we lose them..." He cut off.  "There's not a high chance of survival, but... we'll try.  Opaque, help her with the pups.  Moon, try to come up with another plan of how to get us out of here!  The other two... just... follow me."  He finished, coughing as the smoke continued to grow thicker and thicker by the second.

Unsure of how anyone could still be sleeping, Sparrow first entered the den beside the nursery, which was on the far left.  All the wolves inside of it had woken up - Oak, Storm, Blaze, and Fire.  They were standing there inside of the den with pure terror on their faces, wondering what to do in this horrible situation. 

"Well?" Sparrow shouted.  "Are you coming, or do you want to burn to death?"

They didn't respond, but ran out of the cave like it was heartbeats from exploding, staring at the flames with great fear. 

"What's going to happen?" Blaze asked quickly, not taking his eyes of of the still-growing flames building up and getting closer to the dens.  "Where will we go?!"

"Away from here," Sparrow said firmly, as he made his way to the second den, his eyes burning from the smoke.  "Get - the - others.  Now.  Help Sunset and Opaque get the pups."

Following his orders, the four took off somewhere towards either the nursery or stayed with Sparrow, close behind him.  Soon after they began to look for the others, Sparrow began to count off the wolves slowly in his head.  Icicle, Oak, Ridge, Storm, Topaz, Opaque, Sunset, Moon, Blaze, Fire, King, Amethyst, Jewel... Going through the others quickly, Sparrow was determined to get out of here as soon as possible, thinking that he had counted them all off and that they were all here. 

He didn't know that someone was missing.

"We need to get out of here... now," Sparrow said, the flames and smoke beginning to make him slightly drowsy.  "Let's go."

Obediently, all the wolves began to follow him.

Sparrow wasn't sure where he was going, but then it hit him: the strange path he had found some point the year before had to work.  It was away from the forest, somewhat across the valley and not well-populated by trees.  They were few trees there, which was what the fire was spreading from every moment.  If they could get away from the trees, Sparrow assumed, they would most likely be safe from the fire.

"We're going to go... down to the path I found last year," he said, ignoring the wolves' confused stares.  "If we cross that, we should be... safe."  He coughed.

"But... what?" Sunset asked more calmly than she should have at this moment. 

"I was bored at some point last year, so I left and found this path," Sparrow told her quickly.  "If we cross it, there aren't many trees over there, but it's risky to.  Those things that hit Moon cross it every now and then, so... we have to... be careful."  He finished abruptly, looking towards the right of him to see if he remembered well enough where it was.

They got to the path quicker than Sparrow remembered, surprised that he still knew where it was after all these months.  It still seemed odd to him how a fire would start just hours after the rain began to die down completely.  It was pouring in the early morning, then began to stop a bit towards the afternoon, and ended as the sun set.  But it was still odd that a fire started when everything was wet no more than twelve hours before.

Then, he noticed that something was missing.

"Sapphire!"

Sparrow didn't bother to even tell the other wolves that he was leaving.  They could figure it out on their own if they looked around and saw that he suddenly had disappeared, but Sparrow knew this was too urgent to tell everyone about.  Every second was precious time, he knew.  Sapphire could be dead.

Racing back to the territory as fast as he could, Sparrow ignored the thick smoke that had covered the clearing.  The fire was many yards away from the actual clearing, where the dens were.  If Sapphire was still in one... she could suffocate from the smoke.

She wasn't in any of the dens, and was gone, Sparrow realized seconds later.  Looking around frantically for her, he thought of going up to the meeting cliff to see if he could spot her somewhere, but it was no use.  She wasn't at their territory.

Sparrow saw several dead animals as he continued to search the forest for Sapphire.  They were horribly burned, all of them, and bleeding, from either injuries while trying to escape, or from the fire itself.  Horrified at what he saw, Sparrow's eyes darted from tree to tree and hill to hill, hoping that he would at some point find Sapphire.  If he was going to find her alive, he had to find her as soon as possible.

And then... he saw her.

Running to her side immediately, Sparrow took a good look at her.  She appeared to be unconscious, and was simply lying there among the smoke and flames.  Flames began to ominously seem to circle the two, rising higher and higher into the air as Sparrow stood there in confusion and horror. 

He dragged Sapphire to the valley, where the cliff was where he had fallen and injured himself while attempting to escape from Isis.  Hoping she was still alive, Sparrow laid her down on the ground, coughing from the thick smoke.  He collapsed on the ground, looking up at the bright orange and smoky sky.  He looked at the damage the fire had already done - trees were burnt and falling, animals were running around terrified or lying dead, and plants were shriveled up and still. 

Closing his eyes as it became harder and harder to breathe, Sparrow coughed again.  The fire had begun to cease, but it was still smoky and the world around him was hazy and unfocused.  One word was heard as they both lay in silence.

"Sapphire..."

Author's Note

THAT WAS FUN. :D And yesssss, Sapphy and Sparrow are still unconscious AS WE SPEAK. Just in case you were wondering, those asshole people got what they deserved and burned to death in the fire. ;) Tips/comments and suggestions!

Reviews

[halflives]

Well, that's kind of sad that they died. But d'oh well. THE WHOLE CHAPTER I WAS LIKE: "WHERE'SSAPPHIREWHERE'SSAPPHIRE" and he finially noticed she was missing! I was like: "THANKTHEGOODHEAVENLYLORD!"
Goodness, Sparry can be ignorant.

[נнα&p..]

AH HOLY S**T I HATE THAT LADY. x.x I'M GOING TO KILL HER. AGAIN. XD But OMGOMGOMGOMG THAT WAS EPICNESS. I HATE YOU FOR MAKING SPARROW AND SAPPHY LOSE CONSCIOUSNESS THOUGH... HATE YOU... D: Joking.... but YEAH. THOSE B*****S DESERVED TO BUUUUURN. XDDD I loved this chapter. And Sparrow's such a DUMBASS how could he forget about Sapphy??! D: Loved it though...

[r]

I WAS SCARED THE MOMENT I SAW THAT THE B***H DIDN'T PUT OUT THE F*****G FIRE. T^T OMGOMGOMGOMG SOMETIMES I F*****G HATE YOU!! [not really, couldnt ever hate you] BUT OMGOMGOMG I HAVE SO MANY GOOD THINGS TO SAY ABOUT THIS CHAPTER AND HOW FUCKIGN AWESOME IT IZ AND HOW AWESOME CHU ARE AT MAKING ME BE IN SUSPENSE. BUT I'M GUNNA GO ON AND READ CHAPTER 4. so yeah I LURVED IT. KYTHXBYE

[Rayne~Drop.]

YEASH!!!! YOU WROTE THE FIRE SCENE! And YAY! THE PEOPLE DIED! XD ...But Sapphy and Sparrow are still...WRITE THE NEXT CHAPTER! ...Now I'm all freaking out over Sparrow and Sapphire...Ugh...You are just so awesome. lolz XD ...And if you don't write faster you're dead in school tomarrow...Anyway... I LUFFLED IT. XD