Our Planet has Crashed [COMPLETE]

thirty one - Wings of Fire

Qibli POV:

Qibli was in a semi-conscious state.

He tried to be awake, but his eyelids felt heavy and he was tired and his head was throbbing and in general, it didn't seem like the best idea.

Sure, he heard the murmurings around him, some of them sounding like his name but otherwise . . . just background noise.

Until he heard one voice. The one he couldn't ignore.

"Qibli? Are you awake?" Moon asked, shaking him slightly.

Qibli groaned. "Yeah," he tried to say, but he guessed he hadn't used his voice in a while, since it was rough and scratchy. What he said sounded like "Bah" even to his own ears. But Moon was overjoyed and threw her wings around him, crying.

"Whoa, hold on, Moon, be careful. He's not even up yet." Another voice said. Qibli thought it sounded a lot like Jerboa, the SandWing who was an animus.

Was it though?

Qibli couldn't even remember anything. His last memory was launching himself at the scavenger who's burned Winter, then seeing his friend disappear under the waves. The scavenger burned him, too.

Then he had been thrown into the ocean, and he saw the most bizarre thing.

Winter's tail was slipping into the scavenger planet.

The rest of his body was already through.

Then Qibli had passed out.

"Qibli?" Moon asked again, waving a talon in front of his face. Qibli shook his head, clearing his vision. 

He was on a palm bed, maybe the exact same one Luna had been on when he and Moon had first met her. Moon was by his side, looking at him worriedly. Jerboa was at the far side of the hut, with Sundew, Kinkajou, Turtle and another LeafWing Qibli didn't know.

"Oh, uh, hi," Qibli said. "What happened?"

Moon's eyes welled up again, and but he didn't think he said anything wrong, did he?

Sundew spoke up. "You were drowning."

"What?" Qibli asked. "How?"

Sundew rolled her eyes. "You know, when you're underwater and can't get back up to the surface? You start to—"

"Yeah, I know what drowning means." Qibli said, rolling his eyes despite the headache it gave him. "What my question was, how did I drown? And yay, I'm glad I'm alive, but . . . how?"

He slowly began to sit up but was hit by a bout of coughs.

"Rest," Moon told him, pushing him back down gently, blinking back tears Qibli still wasn't sure why they were there.

"But no one answered my question!" he protested. "What happened?

Moon and Kinkajou exchanged a look. ". . . We'll . . . tell you when you're better." Kinkajou told him.

"Rest," Moon repeated.

But Qibli had to ask, "Where's Winter?"

Turns out, that was not the best idea.

Moon burst into tears, and Kinkajou looked like she was trying to not-cry.

She ended up crying.

Turtle led Kinkajou and Moon out of the hut, while Jerboa sighed.

"Maybe we should tell him what happened." the unknown LeafWing said.

"Sure," Sundew agreed.

"I'm Willow, by the way," Willow said.

So Willow, Sundew and Jerboa took turns recounting the story, beginning with the last thing he remembered until just this morning, when he woke up, which was actually already a few days after he had been "rescued" by Turtle and Anemone.

". . . So Winter may be . . ." Sundew paused, looking at Qibli.

". . . dead." he finished.

But Qibli's mind kept replaying that moment Winter's tail vanished. It was as if . . .

"What if he slipped into the other world?" he asked the others excitedly. "I saw Winter's tail vanish into what seems like a border between our planets. Maybe he's still alive!" he added. Then Qibli told them more about his memories and his theory of how he might have just fallen into another world.

"But his burns . . ." Willow said.

"Oh."

And then came the guilt.

He hadn't been able to save Winter. Hadn't been able to find him. Still hadn't been able to locate or save him.

But maybe it didn't have to be him.

He apparently needed to "rest" but . . .

Everyone else?

They could go find Winter.