flames of time

chapter one "the spark to light the flame"

It was nighttime, 9:50pm to be exact.

A male fox is standing still at the registers to a retail store called ‘Tails’, they sell clothes and everyday needs.

He stands there looking bored while staring at the clock waiting for time to pass.

The fox has light gray fur with dark gray fur covering his lower face and continuing to the start of his legs, white fur in between the light and dark gray separating the two colours. His paws and foot paws where orange with white pads. White fur again separated the two colours from meeting. On his arms he had three orange triangles on each arm that made his gray fur look like it has a zigzag pattern with white in between the colours. His ears are gray with white on the tip of each of them. His eyes are a light green and his nose is orange.

The phone rings and the fox picks it up.

“Hi, thank you for calling Tails, this is Azer speaking.” He waits for an answer as he hears a masculine voice on the other side that seems far away from the phone, and doesn't seem to be talking to him.

“I told you to get the goddamn supplies ready, it's being done in the morning.” The person on the other end of the phone picks it up and a sound that pierces through Azer's ears comes through the phone. The fox pulls the phone away from his head then quickly putting it back as he hears the voice talk again, “Um, hi do you guys sell any sort of cooking oil?”

Azer replies in a confident tone, “No we don't sorry, but you could try one of the stores that sell food. They should have it.” The phone then hangs up and Azer puts the his phone back and sighs.

“Not even a thank you,” Azer thinks as he looks to the clock on the phone that reads 9:57. He makes sure no one is in the store before closing up and heading home.

He doesn't own a car and doesn't live to far from work so he walks home. He's walking on the sidewalk as a car hummes past every couple of minutes.

“If only I had a better life than me working almost every day,” he says out loud since no one is around. As he gets close to his apartment building, he looks at the dark sky filled with stars that light up the sky and smiles.

He gets to his building and takes the elevator to level 7 and head for the room 702. Azer reaches into his front pocket to get his keys out to unlock the door. He gets them out and struggles to find the right key as he flicks through them one by one. He finds the gey and unlocks the door. The door slowly opens as the fox enters the room and the keys jingle as he takes them out of the door. After locking it and shutting it behind him and turning on the lights, Azer tosses his keys away and heads straight for his room not worried about having dinner since he is so tired. He turns his bedroom light on and every other light in his house off. He then gets undressed, turns his bedroom light off and gets in his bed with just underwear on.

Azer wakes up and it's still dark outside. He decides to get up to look out the window. He fumbles out of bed getting the blanket off and start to tiredly walk to the window. He opens the curtains and sees lights from the different houses and cars. He stands there for a moment tapping on the glass to create some sort of beat watching all the cars go past. He sniffs the air to the smell of wood burning. Concerned about the smell he turns around to face the direction of his closed door to his bedroom. an orange light can be seen from under the door. The next second, smoke starts to pour through the gap in the door and Azer begins to go in a state of panic. He runs to the bedroom door and swings it open. Azer looks around seeing nothing but flames trying to find a path through it. He starts to cough and lets tears fall down his face as he stumbles and is engulfed in flames.