Love Between the Living and Dead

Wildfire

Last chapter was some fun and cute fluff, but now we get into some drama and hopefully suspense (did I make it suspenseful?) Enjoy~

It was night time, close to sunrise, when Luffy was watching all the bears. It was an area very far from the entrance. The park was huge, and this area was quite far away from the town. It had taken hours for him and Zoro to get up here, but it didn't take that long when it was just Luffy. There was still more of the park beyond this, but it was mostly rocks, mountains and cliffs that he knew of since he'd never been up there.

There was orange on the horizon, lighting up the sky, behind Luffy. He assumed it was the sun coming up and continued to watch the bears play and try to catch fish. Then he smelled smoke. Strongly. He looked back behind him and heard a roaring sound. A sound he'd heard once before, over two decades ago. He got up and started to panic. It was a fire. And it was windy today. He started screaming at the bears to run, but they didn't hear him. What got them to run was the smell of the smoke like Luffy.

Luffy ran down the steep rocks that he had climbed up, followed by the hoard of bears. He kept running, tripping over logs and roots in his panic stricken fleeing. Soon he saw deer run ahead of him, with a ton of birds flying away from the fire above him and the animals. Squirrels made noises as they jumped through the branches past Luffy, who was slow in comparison to the animals. Soon there was even a mountain lion running alongside Luffy.

Luffy was only afraid of the fire because, even though he didn't catch on fire and leave permanent damage, he'd learned the hard way that it hurt in the same way going through people felt, only instead of the feeling of ice, it was hot and much more painful.

The fire was following behind them fast, the wind speeding it up. Luffy couldn't think about the fact his precious home was burning. He could hear sirens in the distance, but the fire was fast and big.

He only started to cry when he passed the huge trees he played and relaxed on. They were going to burn. They had been around a long time. It would take thousands of years for any tree in this park to grow that large.

Luffy continued to sprint as tears streamed down his face. There was still a long way to go before he could get out of the park. His park was going to burn behind him as he ran. His home was going to be decimated, and he'd not have anywhere else to go.

Zoro was just waking up when he saw the light in the sky. Just as Luffy had, he thought it was sunrise, until he noticed the pillars of smoke rise in the sky. He gasped and threw clothes on, taking a scarf with him to wrap around his face. He ran in the direction of the fire, positive it was coming from the park, where Luffy was. Luffy, please be okay!

He sprinted down the street and ignored the sirens and wrapped the scarf around his nose and mouth once the smell of smoke got stronger. The wind was insane. He was having trouble just walking straight it was so strong. He got to the park entrance and was almost blinded by the smoke. He knew this was a bad place to stay, but if Luffy was trying to get out of the smoke and fire, he'd run here.

Luffy continued to trip over everything stationary in his way. The smoke wasn't helping him see where he was going. It was being blown downhill from the wind and the fire wasn't too far behind. Most of the park's wildlife had passed him, but every now and again, he'd see a bunny, terrified and jumping as fast as it could. If Luffy could touch it, he'd have picked it up and ran with it. He even saw a house cat running ahead of him.

His tears were stinging his eyes, but the smoke couldn't bother them or make it hard for him to breathe, thank goodness for that. Luffy finally made it down the trail and stumbled out onto the paved road. It was easier to run on a flat surface, but he still couldn't see from the thick smoke so had trouble even finding out the direction he was supposed to go. The only thing Luffy could do to run straight was listen to the roar of the fire behind him. It was soon behind him on to the left, still in the natural trails and plant life, and then passed him. He had to stop once it began to jump across to the other side. He was now surrounded on all sides.