Humankind has long since perished.
But life goes on.
Nature is slowly reclaiming the planet. A fire forces a young red fox named Kip to flee her den for the first time. Now alone and left half-blind, Kip must struggle to find refuge for herself and...
The fox and the eagle, both mothers fighting to keep their young alive, battled to the death amongst smoke and flame. The eagle slashed at Kip's face, coming from her blind side. The fox snarled at the fresh pain searing her brow. Seeing red, the fox snapped back, but the eagle beat her wings and flew backward, escaping Kip's fangs.
Somewhere below them, Kip's children lay trapped in the flames, waiting for their mother to save them. The terrified whines of fox kits fueled the adrenaline in Kip's veins.
Mother's coming, she promised them in her head. Just hold on!
Blood dribbled into her good eye. Kip winced and pawed at her face, struggling to clear her vision. A blurry shape came for her again. She bit at where she thought the eagle was, but her jaws clacked together, catching only embers. Talons sank into her shoulder, and Kip found herself tossed against the organ pipes. The winded fox balanced atop the towering pipes. The hot metal scalded her already abused paw pads. The scorching air made the organ sing a low funeral dirge. The flames surrounding Kip flared, fueled by the wind of the eagle's beating wings as the bird dove for the fox. Kip leaped to the neighboring set of pipes, barely avoiding the eagle's claws.
The fox panted. Her breaths were short and labored, and the air thin. The flames swelled higher by the second, making the organ wail louder. Glowing embers danced around her like fireflies. Kip's bloodied fangs craved the soft give of flesh. Her parched throat desired the quench of her enemy's blood. Her feud with the eagle would end here and now.
She caught her reflection in the dingy brass pipes. A terrible, disfigured monster glared back at her—a monster born from fire long ago; a monster who killed everyone she loved.
A muscle in Kip's bleeding face twitched and she shuddered.
A fire didn't kill her family long ago. A fire wasn't what was killing her cubs now.
Kip was the fire all along.
And her murder spree wasn't over yet.
The fox slowly drew her lips back in a toothy snarl. Just behind her doppelganger mirrored in the pipes, Kip's one eye saw the reflection of the eagle soaring at her again, coming at her left side as usual, and growing closer by the heartbeat. Kip waited, watching the two monsters about to collide. At the very last second—just before the eagle was about to impale her with her outstretched talons—Kip twisted to the left and caught one of the eagle's wings in her maw.
She clamped down hard and shook her prey voraciously from side to side, and this time she was rewarded by the snap of breaking bones. The eagle screamed.
And the lamed fox just opened her jaws and let the flightless eagle fall into the flames below.
Embers exploded below her as the fire graciously accepted her offering. Slowly, the eagle's enraged screams faded into silence. The fox exhaled, long and slow, stirring the surrounding smoke. Her weak legs trembled beneath her, unable to support her weight any longer. Her weak body gave out on her, and Kip tumbled from the pipes and followed the eagle into the flames.
The suffocating heat of the burning church fell upon her when she hit the floor, without even a hope of an escape.
She couldn't hear her babies cry anymore. She'd wasted too much time and had lost them both. So that was why, so long ago in a burning forest, her mother had turned and ran, leaving her other kits behind in the fire and taking only Kip with her. The vixen whined to herself. Though Kip willed her body to get up from the floor and run, her broken body wouldn't obey her. There was nothing she could do but wait for the fire she'd run from her entire life to finally take her, too.
All that remained of the broken fox and the motionless eagle lay together, with an audience of the dead watching over them.
Strange. It seemed that even more dead things filled the church than before. Through Kip's hazy and rapidly fading vision, she saw silhouettes step forth from the flames to gather around her. A skulk of sand-colored fox kits giggled amongst themselves as they play-fought together, completely oblivious to the inferno. They prodded Kip and asked their sister to play with them, too, but their father ushered them back from the listless vixen on the floor. Another vixen detached from the inferno and shook her flame-colored pelt. She walked over to lay beside Kip, and murmured small comforts to her kit.
Kip let her eyes shut.
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