Into The Woods

Chapter 24

Content warning! One of the horses gets hurt :(

Chass stirred in his sleep, the edges of a deep unease tickling his senses, nudging him from unconsciousness. He couldn't place the source immediately, but something was off - something that gnawed at him, dragging him reluctantly from the pleasant fog of slumber. His body tensed instinctively, the coil of muscles beneath him shifting with a whisper of scales on scales.

A few things became clear as his semi-wakeful mind sharpened. The warm weight of Nash was nestled in his arms, the familiar rise and fall of his breath a comforting rhythm. They lay entangled in Chass's nest of coils with the hard, uneven floor of the wooden cabin beneath them, since they'd gone back to Nash's dwelling to sleep for the night.

The night had gotten chilly, so Nash had made a little fire in the fireplace, and Chass could hear the crackling of the flames and could scent the smoke when he flicked his tongue...

No, that was too much smoke.

His brow furrowed, eyes still closed as the first tendrils of worry slithered into his consciousness. Something wasn't right. He blinked groggily, forcing himself to shake off the heavy blanket of sleep. His tongue flicked again, and this time the air tasted thick, acrid.

Then, the frantic whinnying of horses erupted from the barn. Chass snapped his eyes open and lifted up to look around.

There was a flickering golden light in the grimy window that confused him for the briefest moment, because his instincts said it was still night. There shouldn't be any sunlight, yet, and certainly not enough to be that bright.

Then he realized it wasn't sunlight, it was fire.

When the horses started making more of a racket, braying in alarm and fear, Nash thrashed out of sleep and threw himself to his bare feet, awake but disoriented. The scent of smoke was growing and Chass could hear the crackling of flames eating wood.

"It's a fire!" Chass warned him. Hurriedly, Chass uncoiled his body from its nest position and rushed outside and around the house. When he saw the barn he was forced to stop and throw his hands up in surprise to ward off the light and heat.

The barn is on fire!

Onion and Kiki were in the barn! Chass gaped at the frightening sight, unable to understand how this had happened or how to stop it. He'd never gone close to a fire. His mind screamed for him to stop, to retreat from the deadly flames, but Onion and Kiki were trapped in the inferno. The thought of abandoning them twisted his gut. He couldn't leave Nash's pets to burn.

They whinnied and brayed in alarm and Chass slithered closer, only to hiss and retreat. Chass couldn't get nearer to the flames without being forced to shake his head violently from side to side. The heat, light, and smoke were overwhelming to his fine-tuned senses.

His eyes watered and burned, his vision grew hazy as his eyes instinctively tried to adjust between regular vision and heat vision, only to find both overwhelmed by the bright fire. The smoke clouded his nostrils and mouth, obscuring the scents around him and making everything reek of char. His tongue tasted nothing but ashes and soot.

Onion brayed urgently and Chass forced himself to squint through the sensory nightmare in an attempt to help. The barn was mostly still intact for now, with only one wall and part of the roof ablaze. The barn door yawned open as if willing someone to go inside and save the two trapped animals.

"Chass, be careful!" Nash stumbled to a stop at his side, half-dressed in pants and boots and nothing else, his silhouette outlined by the light. He pushed Chass away from the flames urgently. "Get some water! I'll start to try and get them out!"