I sighed, the long journey had wiped all of us out. Despair and home sickness took us all out. Though that wasn't the worse part. Worse was yet to come. Up and down hills. Climbing mountain sides, slipping and falling down rock slides. Not even knowing if we're going the right way. Pouring rain and harsh thunder storms rattling the ground like a small earthquake. Wanting to stop and quit only to be told to keep moving. Jake was hard on all of us. For I think this journey had almost killed him, we could hear him cry every night that he missed Mimi. His younger sister. Though we never mentioned her. We knew it would only make him give all he had to make it through the trip. We didn't even know we all wouldn't come back alive. Natural disaster and murder. That's what killed us, that's what's killing all of us. "Rose,"
A small voice echoed. "That's the girl, the girl the bird is after, the girl that caused my parents to be dead!" We heard metallic clinking noises behind the trees. Confused we all stopped and changed into our animals. I flickered my ear saying to slowly make contact with whatever was talking. Though it didn't sound human. It sounded the exact opposite. Almost robotic. We heard it. We all did. We weren't going crazy. We all know we weren't. Closing in on it we heard it squeal. We heard it clinking trying to get away. Jake reached down and grabbed the scruff of which looked like a mammal of some sort. Though it didn't look anything like a regular animal. "Don't hurt me, my parents are dead, the flaming bird killed them, and now he's planning to kill a rose!" My ears flickered, "what did this bird look like, sweetheart?" I asked crouching down and staring him in the eyes. Jake didn't let go of his scruff "He was covered in flames, and he said it was his quest called the attack of the flaming Phoenix," Phoenix. The quest of the flaming Phoenix. It was her brother. I was almost certain, but what did my brother need with me? It certainly couldn't have been another person. No. Too coincidental. "Darling, oh my precious little thang, come here." Alyssa was taking a personal favorite to him. Jake let go of his scruff, nervously he crouched and shuffled his way towards Alyssa. She was laying down and cuddling with the creature. "What's  your name darling?" Alyssa asked in a soft tender voice. "Vixen, vixen the fox." Alyssa nodded. She herself had been through tough times, but I had sat far away. I knew too much. He was too much like me. Catches on quickly, no parents, just us now, just our clack. "Your taking us back, vixen, taking us back to the grave of your parents. Where the flaming bird killed them." Vixen squealed and scrambled in between the gap where Alyssa's chest was. "No, no!" He wailed. "Rose!" Alyssa yelled, but I was too determined. "We leave at dawn. Vixen is taking us." I declared and head headed into a near by cave. A light flickered in my eye. A light that had not gone off ever since I prayed my parents were still alive and well. That light is hope.