Blackness. Whatever all the different religions had said happened after death must be false, there were no angels or Nirvana. Or maybe there is, Carl thought deeply to himself, maybe he was still alive. He had tried to open the box when in a sudden flash everything had gone dark and his ears weren't hearing anything.

'Status check.' he joked to himself, good, that part's still there. He tried to wiggle his toe, somewhere in that dark void he was floating he could sense something, it felt like a part of him. 'Toe one is operational.'

That's when he felt something warm on his chest, he couldn't figure out what, but suddenly the dark void felt much warmer than before. He tried to open his eyes, but they were either glued shut or not responding. He was about to try and speak when the dark void suddenly felt a lot darker, he slipped into unconsciousness once more.

oooooo

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

"Emergency, Explosion, possible fire, rescue required, Savannah Central, calling engine zero-one…" The station announcement system spouted on and on, but everyone already knew the drill. The second they heard the numbers they were already getting dressed.

"Saved by the bell." Houston quipped at Kenneth, who was about to lose the game of pool when he was in fact saved by the 'bell'.

"I try." He replied with a smirk, pretending to polish his claws.

The two of them dropped their cues and sprinted towards the slide bar, they were lucky that they weren't doing anything else, like getting lunch or showering, a secret paranoia Houston had.

"Hey, i've been wondering." Houston asked the hyena while simultaneously getting his gear on.

"Yeah?" Kenneth replied with curiosity, not taking his eyes of his current task of buttoning up his pants.

"What do you do if you're showering or on the toilet and the alarm goes?" Houston asked, his tone that of a curious child.

Kenneth simply grinned at him before answering in a playful tone, "Catch up." And with that he was done and heading towards Fire engine one. Houston snorted and rolled his eyes before slapping on his helmet and catching up to the rest of the crew.

Sitting up into the back seat of the fire truck Houston turned to Will who was currently trying to tie his boots. Although it was entertaining Houston tried to start a conversation.

"I wish Carl was here, he's missing out." He sighed, it had only been one day, but it still felt like an eternity. He missed him and his banter.

"Yeh, he got one day in before getting a babysitting job." Will agreed while getting his head stuck in the nomex hood, Houston shared his pain, while the hoods did protect them from heat they were a pain in the behind to put on.

The garage doors opened slowly, and with them came the sound of the mighty diesel engine sparking to life, shaking the ground with it, no matter how many times, it still felt amazing.

Flashing lights dominated the engine hall as engines one and two rolled out. That's when they saw Bosede and Carla in their own "small" car, the command car. Bosede had an expression that Houston and Will had never seen before, that being a face of fear. They had theorised that either he didn't have a soul and could only express anger or the more logical theory, he didn't want to appear weak in front of everyone.

"Kenneth, this is Station manager Carla, i'll be your commanding officer on this mission. I'm sending the address now." Carla's voice rung out over the radio followed by a burst of beeps and boops.

Kenneth keyed the mic, "Understood, I'm en route."

Will huffed, "So much for those radio classes."

"What do you mean?" Both Houston and Kenneth asked, luckily the latter did not take his eyes of the road.

"We went through all these classes learning different codes, response codes, command cues and all that, but ya never use em'." Will directed mainly towards the hyena in the front.

"To be honest with you, I don't remember any of them, but the good new is that no one else does either," he stifled a laugh and continued, "let's be honest, only the cops are that serious, that's the only time you've got to act like you know what you're doing."

This earned him a laugh from everyone in the vehicle and even got Adrian to happily mumble "good one". It was not often he spoke, but when he did it was for a good reason.

oooooo

"Ugh," Carl mumbled while slowly moving his paw to feel his head, he could barely lift it, it felt like someone had strapped a ten kilo dumbbell to each of his paws. He tried to open his eyes once more, they slowly lifted themselves up, what he saw was a gray haze. Only now could he smell burnt wood and plastic swirling through the air. When it found it's way down to his lungs it felt like a thousand needles cutting into him, the pain numbed after a short while but he could still feel it.

He was low to the ground where the smoke hadn't fully engulfed everything, he looked over to the other side of the room and saw Wolford laying strewn out in the corner, he slowly and painfully crawled over to him and put his ear to his chest, he couldn't hear anything. He was starting to panic, tugging at his ears and flailing his arms around when he realized he couldn't hear anything.

He then put two digits on the wolf's throat and felt for a pulse, ah, there it is. He sighed in relief, well, it came out more as a pathetic wheeze. Memories came flooding back, he was in a school, there was smoke, 'oh god, the kits!' He let go of Wolford and made his way down to the benches, squinting to make out anything, it seemed they'd all run out, the explosion must not have been that big. The heat of the room was steadily rising, within a few minutes he'd be lynx lynx á la carte along with his friend.

He whimpered as he once again turned to crawl back to his canine companion, every muscle in his body was sore even though he'd not done anything physical, that's when he noticed the small red trail he'd left behind, he was bleeding. Suddenly the muscle ache didn't feel as bad.

oooooo

"That's a fire all right." Will deadpanned at the sight of the massive smoke column rising from the roof.

"Gear up, we're the ones going in risking our tails this time." Kenneth announced while speeding through an intersection at dangerously high speeds, strap some wings onto the truck and it might have taken off.

"Figured," Houston shrugged, "makes sense to only send the best of the best." He finished with a smirk, which earned him a chuckle from Will.

The truck stopped with a screech that could be heard over the screaming sirens, pulling the handbrake the team wasted no time. All doors popped open in a timed unison, out stepped the ZPFD's best rookies, ready to take on anything.

"Houston and Will, get ready for a quick rescue, the fire may spread before we get these hoses ready." Kenneth then ordered them to only take what they'd need.

Houston being the bigger one of them decided to pick a suitable sledgehammer, flathead axe and crowbar, while Will picked a fire extinguisher, crowbar and a shoulder mounted high power floodlight.

Houston keyed the microphone, "PASS device armed, air tanks are full, we are moving in." A few seconds passed before a voice came back, "Be careful, the building could collapse at anytime." The voice belonged to Station manager Carla.

And with that they set off towards the main entrance, they would enter there and make their way towards the fire, sweeping the rooms to make sure no one remained. 'Just like in training' Houston reassured himself. Even though he knew that he was prepared for anything he were still afraid each time the alarm rung out, as any sane mammal would be.

'This could be the night' he reluctantly thought, 'damn, I haven't even wrote my will yet' he chuckled inwardly.

After a few minutes they had searched all the classrooms and found no one, as they made their way down the hallway towards the fire they could see it, smoke, like reverse water it flowed above them. Their visibility would only become worse from here on out.

"Good thing I brought this," Will flicked a switch and the massive flood light awoke, it's white beam cutting through the smoke a good few metres before dissipating into the toxic fog.

They continued walking until they noticed a door from which the smoke seeped out from every nook and cranny. Opening the door they were greeted to a big classroom, at least they thought it was a classroom, a good portion of it was a horrible and mangled mess, and the rest of it was currently on fire, the orange flames hard to see through the black haze.

Houston took a step forward when his boot touched something hard and plastic, he bent down to pick it up, it was a ZPFD helmet, he dropped it in shock, it was Carl's helmet. He was pulled out of his trance when Will asked him something, "How much can you carry?"

Houston was thrown off by the question but answered it nonetheless, "A lot," It wasn't the best of answers but he didn't even know himself how much he could carry.

Will asked a follow up question, "like, can you carry a Wolf and a Lynx at the same time?"

Houston didn't answer, instead he dropped his tools and got over to where Will was situated. There right next to him laid a heap of gray, black and white fur, the smoke making it difficult to make out any distinguishing features.

He picked up the mass of fur and saw that there were a second one, effortlessly and without a word he slung the other mass of fur over his second shoulder before heading towards the exit, motioning for Will to follow.

On his radio he could hear Will's voice, "we found two mammals at the epicentre of the fire, were heading out now, weight class…" he scanned the two bodies that were slung over his friend's shoulders, estimating their weight he continued, "weight class no less than thirty kilos and no more than, uh, sixty, I think, don't quote me on that."

Thanks to them sprinting the way back they made it back in one minute flat, outside the main entrance two medium-sized stretchers awaited them, the ambulances had not yet arrived.

From behind one of the firetrucks a certain polar bear stepped out, her face was that of extreme concentration. She turned to face Will and Houston. "Any injuries besides from smoke inhalation, I swear to-" she paused for a second when she saw what was apparently the lynx. She keyed her satellite radio, "We have a code red, come as quickly as you can, THAT IS AN ORDER!" She roared out the last part, both Will and Houston backed away slightly at that, they'd never seen her so angry.

Only now did Houston have time to process what was in front of him, he dropped to his knees, it was Carl he was seeing, his chest was completely red, his right arm was bent backwards with his elbow facing the wrong way, the fingers were all splayed out in different angles that fingers shouldn't be. His face had luckily not been to badly damaged, except for his left ear, that now had a huge dent in the middle section.

Will had taken one glance at Carl and was now behind one of the trucks, either his eyes or his nose couldn't take it anymore, there went his lunch.

Bosede went over to Houston and put his trunk on his shoulder, he sighed before he began talking. "Do you know why i'm always so hard on you all?" His tone was sincere, it felt like it had been damaged.

Houston didn't answer, he just shrugged his shoulders, Bosede continued, "It's because i've been through this, more than once, losing someone from the station is like losing a family member. And no matter how much I try and prepare and train all of you, nothing can prepare one for this, it's the inevitable."

"So it's true." Houston mumbled softly.

"What is?" Bosede inquired.

"You really are just a big softie on the inside." A hint of a smile could be seen on Houston's muzzle.

Bosede smiled back, "I guess I am." He cleared his throat before getting back into his usual mood. "No one else will know of this or you're dead." he said with a wink.

"Sure." Houston stood up as well.

"We still have a fire to put out, ON THE DOUBLE!" Bosede bellowed.

oooooo

A/N: NOOOOOOOoooooooooOOOOOOOOoooooo, You can't just end it there!

Well, yes, es I can. Also I'm sorry for missing my upload schedule, I have no real excuse except I'm a lazy bum.

It's now the story is going to pick up a bit. Don't worry, there's still plenty of chapters left, I think, and even if there weren't i'd just make a season 2 or something.

*Scribbles down 'sequel' in imaginary notepad*