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.

Fire was a few paw steps away now, and he spoke urgently and lowly which made me feel calmer, my sides heaving less despite the pitiful amount of air in my body due to the smoke.

I needed to calm down.

"We have to try. If we don't, we'll die."

I turned and looked at him. The black cat had a small smile at the corners of his mouth, but he couldn't be smiling because he thought this was funny.

Honestly, who could?

His head titled at an angle, I peered into his green eyes for only a moment, and the expression on his face caused me to have the tiniest bit more of courage.

"Right, lets do it."

My face hardened and I turned to see that the flames had moved a lot closer, licking at my paws now. My tail was burning now, and I could feel the heat pressing around me all over.

I coiled my back legs and shifted so that all of my weight now laid in my powerful haunches, poised deep into a crouch.

Glancing over at him, he was ready too, only my courage had faded because I saw the reflection of the flames in his eyes, right behind me. Huge, soaring, and deadly.

Just a few more seconds and we would both be overcome by the tongues of death, or if not the smoke would have suffocated us.

I took a deep breath and pushed off with my back legs, springing into the air.

From the corner of my eye I saw a blur of yellow-ish grey dissapear among the flames, and realized I'd completely forgotten about Rack.

I felt the scorching heat of the crackling fire on my belly as I soared over the flames, and then landed with a painful thud.

Yes! I had made it over! Fortunately my landing wasn't so well, but who cared? And my belly, tail and paws were a bit singed and Burt, but who cared?

I could now return to my pride! Never had I felt so happy to be able to see Hannah and Fallan again.

After scrambling to my paws, weariness settled over me. I was exhausted, and hadn't slept since last night.

I looked around. There was flames scattered everywhere, but a clear opening that showed a stretch of less dense Forrest that wasn't covered in fire.

Smoke still clouded my vision, though, and my stinging eyes were watering, which made everything a bit of a blur.

I tried to wait until my vision came into better view, and collected myself.

There was the circle of flame was had just escaped from. There was the part of the forest where Fallan and hopefully everyone else had ran to.

And, yes... There was... Him. He was coughing, just about two tail-lengths away, and I didn't know how I hadn't seen him before anything else. But, his pelt was black and the driving rain as well as glowing fire around me probably illuminated some things.

Coughing; he just kept coughing, even as I walked up and looked down at him, slightly concerned.

He was trying to get smoke out of his lungs but wasn't succeed.

He looked like he had taken a nasty fall and endured a few bad burns by the missing hair and open wound on his flank. He must've been exhausted, I realized- He'd been with the wolves longer than us, probably with less sleep. And he'd faught hard, and waited for me to jump to safety first.

I nudged his shoulder with a paw as his coughs got weaker.

No response; he curled up in a ball and gave a few more weak coughs.

My throat closed up as he closed his eyes and stretched out on the ground.

"Come on, get up. We have to go. The fire is still spreading!"

No response; he looked peaceful now, like an innocent kit that was sleeping in the middle of chaos, unaware of the dangers of the world.

So what was I supposed to do now? I couldn't just leave him there, could I?

I glanced back in the direction where the greenery was still fresh, where no flames had yet greedily turned them to black.

The fire still was spreading, but not as bad here, and I again wondered why the rain hadn't put it out by now.

Yet it would still reach the tom if he stayed here.

"Come on. Get up!"

It looked like he had fainted in exhaustion or something, maybe breathed in too much ash and smoke, or the heat had just been too much for him.

Well, what was I supposed to do now? I'd have to choose to go on my way to be sure that my pride was safe, or repay him by saving his life.

That is, if I even could.

I had come to a decision, after pacing and panicking and worrying and thinking.

I had to try to save him, right?

The dreams. The dreams told me what I needed to do, and I didn't know how it could have been any clearer: I had to at least try to save him.

I mean, he was supposed to journey with us to Cheetah Pride, but he would not be my mate, because I didn't need one, and that's what mattered. And yeah, yeah, I know what I said last time; but I hadn't figured out the dreams yet, so I had to start somewhere with potentially doing what they said until I knew they meant something.

Dreams weren't just dream; they were clues to what had happened, what was happening now, and what was to be.

Right?

Wither way, whatever my destiny was, and what the Skycat wanted for me, I hoped I was following it.

I tried to slide my body underneath his and carry him on my back.

No use, he was too heavy.

I tried to nudge him awake once again, even yowled in his ear and jumped on his back.

No use.

I tried to shove myself up against him to actually push him along.

Care to guess? No use, because his body was like a dead weight.

The flames had crawled closer now, and I had no choice but to sink my teeth into his scruff and drag him like a kit.

That is, a huge, muscled, overweight kit.

I didn't move very far... only a few pawsteps until I was out of breath and had to drop his scruff to breathe.

I rocked my weight back and forth on my front and back paws as I once again prepared to drag him along. This time it was easier because I dug my claws into the ground and pulled hard, but I could still feel the energy draining out of my body. Not that there was much left...

Too much had happened today- It was almost too much to take in over a full turn of the Great Spot, which was not visible in the black sky because of the intense light and heat, and now-calmer rain.

I shuffled backwards more and more but the fire followed me, slowly, creeping.

I started feeling as lonely and fear-struck as ever, and wondered whether this would end up just all being for nothing.

Maybe I would pass out and be put out of this misery- The misery if not wanting to go on but forcing myself to because I knew the Skycat would want me to.

Looking up with a mouthful of scruff, I tried to stretch the achiness out of my neck. Cold rain immediantly fell into my eyes, so looked down remorsefully, seized the black cat's scruff and pulled as hard as I could again.

The Skycat's form had still been dark, only now the Great Spot was getting closer to dissapearing. Dawn would be nearing in a few hours, and where would I be?

Safe with my pride?

Lost, trying to find them?

Dead, or passed out while fire consumed me? Or perhaps I'd be in a other dream, who knew.

I suddenly felt like spitting in anger on the ground, disrespectful as it was to what the Skycat had made for me to set my paws on.

If it wasn't for the dreams, I wouldn't be in this whole mess in the first place, I muttered through a mouthful of fur, and it was true.

If it weren't for the dreams, it'd be just me, Hannah and Fallan, still traveling, perhaps without the interception of the wolves yet. Because if it we're just us, we wouldn't have stopped for a whole day, we wouldn't have been hunting and resting more because of the kits.

And I wouldn't be dragging some stranger along the ground, trying to save the life of a cheetah I didn't even know the name of.

But, if I hadn't had the dreams, we never would have me Midnight... And little Diamond, who meant so much to Hannah now.

But complaining did no good, did it?

Well then, I'd just have to keep this up and hope the rain would put out the fire in time, although it had done nothing to help yet, and I wondered why the water had done nothing to extinguish the flames.

The storm had eased a bit, to which I was thankful for, but my legs had begun to shake. Everything ached and burned, and I just wanted the pain and tiredness to go away now.

It felt as if I wasn't inhaling enough air, and wheezed often, my chest rising and falling heavily.

How long could I keep this up?

I'm not sure how I did it, but the minutes passed, with me feeling on the verge of my strength. I went on, the fire steadily creeping towards us as I dragged his body.

When the sky was turning back light orange, I knew my legs were about to give out so I dropped down on my haunches, sucking in air.

But it didn't feel like the air was even there; my chest now burned, and felt clouded with smoke.

Before I could wonder what to do, or pick myself up off the ground, the world blurred and spun.

Then I realized I was falling, and the next second I was collapsed on the dusty ground beside him, just managing to crack open an eye and see blurry orange shapes moving about.

I sighed; no doubt it was the fire, which would now take me. But I welcomed it; because death would be better than the misery I felt now.

My eyes closed on their own, and I welcomed the sense of sinking into the darkness.