Chapter 1
Finley
I watched the leaves drift through the air up above me, so high, with no worries or no troubles. Of course, I was thinking about leaves though. Why would leaves even have worries. I shifted my gaze to see Emi, my sister, laying beside me, the remains of the mouse we had shared completely gone. A scold was on the tip of my tongue, but I reminded myself that she was younger. If anyone should starve to death it should be me, being older. The sun beat down on us for so long, I thought my fur was going to burn.
I was grateful when Emi stood up and said, “I’m sorry but I’m not in the mood to get dehydrated right now.” She said with a hint of sarcasm.
“Yeah, me neither.” I replied, standing up.
I didn’t find it helpful that my fur was splattered with black spots, the sun seemed to heat me up more in those parts.
It seemed to be forever before we finally came to a small pond not far from where we had decided to rest. The hot sun reflected in the water, making it look as if the water were on fire. I had a quick flashback to when we were pups, the fire blazing all around us. I must have been staring off into space for some time, because Emi barreled into me causing me to splash in the water. I kicked my legs and surfaced to find her laughing.
“You were staring off into space for so long I thought the heat had fried your brain!” She said with a bit of worry in her tone, mostly humor though.
“Well you didn’t have to shove me into the water!” I snapped back with a playful growl, smiling.
“Well if you’re so lonely in there then-”
“Wait its not big enough!”
SPLASH! Emi’s head surfaced beside mine, and I rolled my eyes at her, splashing her face with water.
“At least we’re not burning up at that boring cave anymore.” She pointed out as she swam in circles around the pond.
“Yeah no kidding”, I agreed.
We swam around in the pond for awhile, even caught a few fish. Emi didn’t like fish, wouldn’t even touch one. But I did, not very much, but I would eat them if I had to. The sun was sinking behind the trees by the time we climbed out of the lake, our fur plastered to our bodies with the water. I wonder if this is how ducks feel when they get out of the water, their feathers all stuck to them and wet and stuff. Well not just ducks, geese too, and oh what are those other things.. With the bills.. They have fur like us and these weird fin like hands. Oh whatever, but they must feel it too.
I must have been staring off into space again, because I heard Emi’s voice beside me, “Maybe the heat did affect you.”
As I turned my head to her, I see that her fur is all fluffed up, from where she shook the water off of it.
“You look like a cottonwood seed, and you’re saying that I’m the one who got affected by the heat?”
Emi barked a laugh, and I shook the water from my fur as well, so we both looked like life sized cottonwood seeds. We made our way back to camp, and laid down, looking up at the stars that were starting to form in the sky.
“Finley,” Emi said.
“Yeah?” I replied.
“Do you think mom and dad could still be alive? Like, if they are, are they looking for us? Are they mad at us for running away? Or did they just forget about us?”
“We know for sure that Trygg died.. We saw his charred body.. And no heart rate when we checked if he was alive. But mom and dad? I don’t know, there was so much smoke and all I cared about was getting you and Trygg out of there… but I failed Trygg, and now he’s dead.” I felt my ears flatten against my head, and my head flowed with images of our dead brother, his soft brown fur, and kind green eyes. I let a sigh escape my jaws at the thought of him.
I looked back up to see Emi’s blue eyes stern. “It’s not your fault, Finley. It’s the humans, they caused the stupid fire in the first place.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
We sat there in silence for a little while longer, before I heard something off in the distance. “What was that?” I asked Emi.
“Probably just an owl.” She replied calmly.
There was a second sound just the same, but deeper. “I’m going to check it out, I should be back soon.”
Emi nodded, “Be careful, okay?”
“I will be”
I nudged her with my paw, and darted off towards the direction where the sound came from. Luckily I was equipped with great ears, able to pinpoint where a sound came from. There was another howl, like the first one. I changed directions towards it so fast I thought I had teleported. The sound of my paws thudding against the ground seemed quiet compared to my heartbeat. Thud. Thud. Thud. It went, speeding up as I did. Soon I heard rustling nearby, and stopped dead in my tracks, turning my head slowly towards the sound.
Soon I could make out the sound of two voices talking in a hushed way. I peeked through the leaves of a bush to see there was a clearing beyond the trees. I slowly crept out into the clearing, and looked around, until I caught sight of two pairs of eyes. And the eyes I caught didn’t belong to owls, they belonged to wolves.
