Arthur Morgan did not intend to survive when he gave his hat to John Marston and stayed behind to gain his redemption. As he crawled towards his final resting place, he never intended to wake up again.
But he does wake up. Thanks to time travelers F...
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2021
Arthur wasn't quite sure what awoke him.
Some kind of sixth sense, perhaps, that came from years on the run. Or perhaps the kind that came from being in the embrace of the cruel mistress that was nature, with her harshness and unforgiving ways.
And lightning. Lightning that burnt everything it touched, as though a finger from hell had come down to damn everything in its grasp with brimstone. Wherever there was lightning, there was smoke.
As Arthur stirred from his peaceful twilight, he thought he faintly smelled smoke. But it made no sense. There had been no fire in Tori's fireplace for years. She preferred electric heating. It also appeared to be dawn, for there was a soft, faint glow in the windows of Tori's living room, where Arthur lay on her couch. It was the morning after Francis' arrival on the ranch, after all, and he was still currently using Arthur's bed for the next few nights.
Suddenly, Arthur thought he saw the dawn move. And not just any movement. It was flickering.
Instantly, Arthur was wide awake. He bolted to the window and stared in horror as flames licked at the dry grass of the valley below, inching closer and closer to the barn full of horses, including Cheyenne, not three hundred yards from the house.
In sheer terror, he sprinted for Tori's bedroom. "Tori! Tori, wake up!" he screamed, seizing her by the shoulders and shaking her violently.
Panicking at the rudeness of her awakening, Tori drew a hand back and slapped Arthur crisply across the cheek. "What the hell is your goddamn problem, Arthur Morgan?" she screamed, scrambling to get away from him.
"Tori, the valley is on fire!" Arthur yelled. "We have to get the horses out of the barn now!"
As Tori processed his words, her eyes flitted with terror towards her bedroom window. As soon as she saw the unnatural, orange glow through the grass, her face went white and she scrambled to get out from under her sheets. "I'll wake Francis and my brother. You get the hell down to that barn!"
Arthur nodded and ran from her room towards the back door. In his haste, he didn't put on his boots. All that mattered were the horses, trapped in a barn that was about to be burned to the ground by the largest brush fire he had ever seen.
As Arthur flung open the door, however, a loud bang echoed through the air, and something hit the door frame, inches from his head. It was a goddamn bullet. His heart dropped into his stomach as he realized the awful truth.
This fire was no accident.
Arthur slammed the door closed and turned to Tori, who had come up behind him. She hadn't bothered to dress herself against the cold either, wearing only a long, short-sleeved t-shirt and a pair of shorts. "Tori, someone nearly shot me!" Arthur screamed, beginning to panic himself. There was nothing good about this situation. Forget the barn. If they couldn't control the fire, the house was as good as gone as well, and they would both be burned to death.
