She stayed next to the water clearing for a long while. She wasn’t thirsty… she just wasn’t interested in leaving just yet.

The moment she sees the fire on its way to her, she’ll leave but until then she just wanted to rest for a while.

And rest she did. She stayed vigilant for awhile but she eventually fell asleep and this time there wasn’t something poking her or a horrible stench to chase her away. She was dead to the world and she felt somewhat at peace.

Some time later she woke up in a rush thinking the fire would surely be upon her but once again something weird was happening. While her time running away from the fire was pretty much all a blur she does remember that the fire was spreading quickly behind her. So why wasn’t it here already?

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Never in her life had she encountered something like this; multiple strange things happening one after the other with no reasonable explanation.

Whatever was happening she first needed to get her bearings.

How far away was the fire?

She needed somewhere high to check. She looked around her for a hill or a big rock, but none she found peaked above the trees.

Which just left the trees themselves.

She hadn’t climbed a tree since she was a fledgling playing around with her litter mates.

She was out of practice but she made the attempt anyway. Once she reached the top she looked for a branch that could hold her height, she found one and quickly moved the leaves out of the way. She sat there dumbfounded for a long while.

The fire was gone.