The suffocating heat of mid-Summer fell upon the forest without even a whisper of a cooling breeze.

Cicadas sizzled up in the canopy amongst the tangles of dried kudzu that strangled every tree. And below, while every other creature dozed in the shade, a skulk of fox kits wrestled with each other in front of their den.

The squeal of a kit rang out as the smallest of the litter was pinned to the ground by her much larger brother. "I give up!" she said, wriggling underneath her brother's paws. "Get off me already!"

But the larger kit didn't budge and laughed instead, tail wagging.

His laughter abruptly ceased when the young she-fox reared her head up and chomped hard on his ear.

The rest of the siblings rolled around in the dirt, howling with laughter at their brother as he released the runt with a pained yipe. He scurried a few paces away and hid underneath a fern to nurse his tender ear and his sore pride. "That was a dirty trick, Kip," he said to the runt, pawing at his ear with his face all sour and pouty.

Kip just giggled and bared her fangs at him in the smuggest of grins. Then her ears pricked upright when a scent caught her attention. She turned to the thicket of kudzu that surrounded their little home. "Mother and father are back!" she announced to the rest of the litter.

Sure enough, a proud dog-fox and a slender vixen padded forth from the vines. Their fiery red coats were ablaze in the midday sunlight as they chortled for their children.

The cubs all surged as one to greet their parents. Still grinning, Kip bounded for them. But her siblings trampled over their smallest sister without a care and left her in their dust. The runt of the litter blew a stray leaf out of her face from where she sulked flat on the ground. The cubs mobbed their parents, tails wagging and licking at their mother's muzzle. In response, the vixen dropped a single vole at their paws—a meager morsel.

The cubs didn't yet have the vibrant pelts of adult foxes, their coats were still sand-colored with bright red guard hairs only just beginning to grow in. The biggest and strongest of the kits all tore into the carcass. The smaller ones went without, as was the way of growing foxes.

Kip's stomach gurgled, which only made her frown deepen. Her parents had been returning to the den with less and less food each day. She sat up and looked to her parents who were now resting at the mouth of their den; a humble tunnel dug into a vine-covered knoll. Her father panted happily with his eyes shut, enjoying the shade. Her mother, meanwhile, fixed her amber eyes on Kip.

The vixen flashed a sly smile and rose to her paws. She left her dozing mate and slunk off toward the trees. She paused and looked back over her shoulder at Kip, then flicked an ear, beckoning the kit to follow.

Kip looked from the squabbling kits to her mother, considering taking her chances against her siblings for a scrap of meat. But with her stomach empty and her curiosity piqued, she scampered off into the undergrowth, following her mother's white-tipped tail. Together, they traipsed into the forest through the green sea of kudzu that had killed off most other plants and covered every tree.

Her tiny tail wouldn't stop thrashing about in excitement. Kip had never been allowed to stray this far from the den before. Her parents had always been quick to snap at any wandering kit and carry them back home. Yet, this time, her mother didn't seem bothered by her tagging along. She panted, both from the heat and from the effort of keeping up with the larger long-legged fox. "Mother?" she asked between pants. "Where are we going?"

Her mother looked back at her kit, whose tongue lolled from her maw, and offered a smile. "I'm going to show you our territory."

Kip thrashed her tail some more and asked her favorite question. "Why?"

"Because it's time for you kits to learn how to fend for yourselves," her mother answered. "For when you leave and claim your own territory."

Kip stopped in her tracks and scratched at her ear with a hind leg. "Why would I do that?"

Her mother, a veteran of many litters, fixed her with an amber stare. "Because that's how it's meant to be."

The cub's ears drooped. "But...won't you be sad if I leave?"

The vixen smiled and gave the fur on Kip's forehead a lick. "Yes. Very much so, little one."

Kip shut her eyes for a moment and leaned into her mother's fur, savoring her mother's familiar warm and earthy scent. But—much too soon, she thought—her mother padded off again. And so Kip followed.

Their territory offered many new sights for the kit to marvel at. The forest was alive with birdsong, cicadas, the skittering sounds of insects and other tiny creatures. A herd of deer paused to observe the pair of foxes between the trees before counting on their way, and Kip almost took off after them. Kip's mother had to pause every few strides to wrangle her easily distracted cub, who pounced at every sunbeam and flinched at every new sound. When a cloud of songbirds, almost huge enough to black out the entire blue sky, flew past, the kit excitedly leaped into the air as if to snatch a bird in her jaws. Her mother watched, amused, when her kit crash-landed to the ground, empty-jawed.

The vixen shook her pointed head with a breathy laugh. The kit giggled, too, even though her ears and cheeks were burning with a twinge of embarrassment. Then she watched as her mother went stock-still and pivoted her black ears in search of sounds. When her mother crouched low in the vines, Kip copied her pose. She observed, fascinated, as the vixen pounced. Her mother presented the cricket she caught in her jaws.

The kit's mouth gaped open in amazement. She mimicked her mother's movements and, with a happy squeak, pounced at the sound of something crawling under the blanket of vines.

But she resurfaced from the undergrowth with only a leaf in her mouth that she gifted to her mother.

And so their journey continued. Her mother would show her kit the ways of the fox—lessons taught in silence—like renewing the scent markers that marked their territory's borders, and how to cache prey for later, and Kip would copy her mother. Gradually, the shadows shortened. The sun rose, nearly mounting the center of the sky, and so did the temperature. Even the air danced from the heat.

"Time for rest," the mother fox finally said when she looked behind her to find her little cub a panting mess. "There is a stream not too far away."

Kip would've skipped for joy if she hadn't currently been melting into a puddle of sandy-colored fur. A short trek away, the pair came upon the largest animal den Kip had ever seen. The kit cocked her head to either side at the strange thing cobbled together with flat pieces of wood. It was a conundrum of sharp angles and straight lines, and it stood out from anything else in the woods, almost like it didn't belong there at all. "What's that?"

"It's alright, Kipling," her mother reassured from further up ahead. "Just an empty den. "Come. The stream is close."

Kip sniffed the air. Sure enough, she couldn't scent any recent animals. But, as much as the promise of a cool, refreshing stream appealed to her, Kip's curiosity demanded her attention even more.

The cub snuck away from her mother and scampered toward the old den. She pushed the door with her nose. It creaked open, letting in a single beam of sunlight that crept across the kudzu-covered floorboards and illuminated a grinning skull at the far back of the room like a spotlight. From the threshold, Kip growled and bristled at the empty orbits staring at her. The skeleton remained slumped against the back wall amongst dusty cobwebs and paid her no mind. Kudzu billowed from its rib-cage and ensnared its limbs. The kit relaxed the fur along her spine and squinted at the remains, trying to determine what kind of animal it used to be. Clearly, it wasn't anything she'd ever encountered before with its enormous front-facing eyes positioned above a pitifully flat muzzle lined with the dull teeth of a herbivore. Its dry finger bones curled around the rifle across its lap. The lens of the scope's rifle glinted curiously in the light.

The fox cub took a single pawstep toward the skeleton.

"Leave it, Kip."

The kit nearly jumped out of her fur. "But what is it, Mother?" she asked the fox who had appeared behind her.

"An animal whose kind no longer exists." Her mother gestured with her pointed head for Kip to follow as she turned back to the forest outside. "Come."

Kip gave one last look over her shoulder at the strange creature. She swished her tail in farewell to it and left the strange dead creature to rest, bounding off after her mother. The door remained open, leaving the sun beam striking the skeleton and catching on the gun's scope.

And, caught in the light reflecting from the scope's lens, a single kudzu leaf began to smolder.

🦋🦋🦋

The pair of foxes found the stream after only a short walk. And Kip was pleased to find it teeming with all kinds of creatures. The kit let out a cackle as she clapped her paws together, trapping a monarch butterfly between them—her first successful hunt! "Mother, look!" she called, presenting the butterfly. Her furry chest puffed out with pride. "I caught it!"

But to Kip's surprise, her mother raised a paw to stop her. "Let it go, Kipling. We don't harm those."

Kip pouted. "Why?"

Her mother laid a gentle paw atop Kip's. "Butterflies carry important burdens. They hold on to the souls of the dead, and they escort them to their next body."

The kit's tail fell. With a gasp, she released her butterfly. It now sported a crumpled antenna, but it flitted away, mostly unscathed. "Sorry," Kip whispered with a wince to the soul onboard. When the butterfly vanished in the leafy tree-tops, she turned to her mother. "We can still eat crickets, right? I like those."

"Of course."

Her mother lapped at the crystal clear water, and Kip amused herself by skipping along the flat stones jutting from the water, humming happily. She lifted her head to the blue, cloudless sky and shut her eyes, savoring the lulling babble of the water and the warm sunlight kissing her fur; at peace in this moment with her mother.

The piercing alarm calls of birds made her eyes shoot open. Kip saw her mother look to the sky. The vixen's eyes had gone wide and her pupils were thin as razors.

An acrid scent stung the roof of Kip's mouth, one that she didn't recognize. She, too, turned to the sky. A billowing black cloud rose from the forest, and it grew bigger by the second.

Kip, with ears askew, tilted her head at the strange sight. "Mother? What's tha—?"

No sooner had her words left her maw, her mother picked her up by the scruff of her neck. And before the cub could indignantly yell that she wasn't a baby anymore, the vixen took off running.

Small creatures scurried with them. Birds took to the air. The forest grew darker by the heartbeat. The gaps between trees filled up with thick, swirling smoke that made the kit cough. From the smoke, the kit caught glimpses of tongues of flames that fed on the dried kudzu vines like a fuse.

The scent of her mother's fear overpowered the stench of smoke.

Even with the smoke, Kip knew where they were. Their den wasn't too far away ahead. But the flames became a wall of fire that sputtered to life before them, forcing the vixen to a sliding stop.

Her heart plummeted in her chest when her mother turned tail and ran the opposite way.

"Mother!" the kit squealed. Her mouth filled with smoke as she did. "Home's back there! You're going the wrong way!"

But her mother kept running, taking her further and further away from her father and her siblings, who were surely waiting for them.

Kip squirmed in her mother's jaws. Tears brimmed in her stinging eyes. "Mother, stop! We're leaving the others!" Smoke choked her words. She yelped and swatted at the scattering embers singing her fur. They ran through the maze of burning trees, searching for a way out of the forest of fiery death.

Over the roaring of the forest fire, there came a sharp crack from above. Her mother slid to a stop just as the fiery corpse of a felled tree hurtled towards them.

All breath left Kip's small body as she was tossed from her mother's jaws. She landed hard. An excruciating pain bit at her face and Kip swatted away the embers eating at her fur.

"Kipling," she heard her mother say.

Kip could no longer open her singed eye and one of her forelegs seemed to bend painfully at an odd angle from when she hit the ground. But she tried to ignore the famished sound of flames devouring the fallen tree and the stench of smoke as she trembled against her mother.

They were both trapped, surrounded by fire. The trees that used to be their home now became the bars of a cage. The vixen dug into the soil. Then she gingerly lifted her terrified baby and placed her inside the shallow hole. She gave the kit's brow a single lick and whispered, "Keep running, Kip. Never stop running."

Kip wanted to ask just where she was meant to run to, being trapped in a hole. But her mother lay over her and covered her kit with her body, blocking out the red flames and leaving the kit in darkness.

🦋🦋🦋

Everything had gone silent long before Kip finally dug herself free. She shook her dingy coat free of ashes. "Mother?" she called out, her voice barely more than a weak rasp.

But there wasn't a single other living creature around to answer her.

The kit quivered with a wide eye and her tail wrapped around herself. Even with half her vision gone, the tiny kit could tell that she was in an unfamiliar world. No longer was she in her lush green forest. Now, her home had been reduced to a silent gray wasteland. Ashes covered everything. Any trees that remained standing were reduced to black, charred skeletons. The cub ignored her pained body and desperately scanned her surroundings for any trace of her mother's bright red pelt.

A flash of color fluttered in her peripheral vision and made her heart flutter. But her stomach sank when, instead of her mother, a bright orange monarch butterfly flitted down from the trees, like an ember in the ashes.

The frail creature alighted on her nose. "Is that you, Mother?" the kit repeated. But, like before, there was no answer. The butterfly left her then and followed the rising ashes up into the colorless sky.

And Kip was alone.

2546 words

https://youtu.be/KXt4MGCgGrU