Spirit's Journey

CHAPTER 22- Spirit: Making An Escape

I did what I thought was the only thing I could do.

Racing to where the fight still continued on, I shoved Rack away, sending him skidding across the clearing, but didn't touch any flames- the heat just caused me to cringe.

It seemed that both the the weasel-brains had finally found out that we were surrounded by fire now, and I looked around for Slamble as Rack picked himself up off the ground, but the wolf was nowhere to be found.

He'd clearly been injured earlier, trying to drag himself away, and I then briefly wondered who would've tore him up so bad that he couldn't walk.

Yet, there was no time for wondering.

Dumbfounded, the black cheetah looked all around him with wide green eyes, turning in a circle and realizing that we were surrounded.

What a stupid cat! I could have saved him and the pitiful wolves by now, with still plenty of time to escape the forest before all of it was completely submerged in flames. A spark of anger rose up in me, and I felt the urge to say a snappy retort to him about all of this, but squashed it. Because right now we needed to save our lives, not argue.

"We have to leave, now!" I yowled even though I knew there wasn't a way out, but.. I couldn't give up.

Everyone else in my pride had made it to safety but me, and what would happen if they had no one to lead, unsure of the way to Cheetah Pride?

Thank the Skycat Hannah had managed to slither outside, and I hoped with all my heart Diamond, Midnight and Fallan had made it.

Their safety was more important than mine.

"Hey." A paw casually tapped me on the shoulder.

"We have to leave..." He said with tired but nervous eyes, his face now inches from mine. I backed up and felt heat on my legs, then turned around, bumping into his soaked flank.

The greedy orange tongues of heat had licked themselves closer, slowly devouring the soft grass we were standing on right now.

"Duh! That's what I had tried to tell you," I meowed frantically, and tried to come up with a solution out of this nightmare.

"How are we going to escape?"

I wanted to wail like a lost kit. We had done this for nothing!

Tried to escape, and this is what'd happened.

And whose fault was it? It wasn't Fallan's fault. It wasn't the kits' fault. It wasn't Hannah or the tom's fault or even the wolves' fault!

It was my fault, because I had come up with a stupid plan to escape. I should have predicted it. I should have known something would go wrong, should have paid attention to the Skycat to tell that storms were on the way.

And why did I listen to those stupid dreams? My destiny? Yeah, sure! Dreams were just dreams, and nothing more, and I had dragged two perfectly healthy kits into danger and it was All. My. Fault!

I crouched down and closed my eyes, feeling the heat starting to get too close. Soon I would be consumed by the flames, and it would all be over.

Once again I had failed. The wolves would die, my Pride would most likely die, I would die...

"We have to jump!" I stared with eyes as wide as the Great Paw at him, my head jerking sideways.

Of course, you could just always count on me to get lost in my thoughts in a moment of crisis.

I took his thought in for a second. Jump? There wasn't any way out that was possible for that!

"There's nowhere TO jump!" I yowled above the roar of the wind and rain, still going strong.