As rain poured down over a city, the water made contact with roofs, the sidewalks and the grass as it fell from the sky, and as the rain poured down, the flames of a house fire were rising high into the sky as a lightning bolt struck a tree near a power line, bringing the tree down onto the line and destroying the entire line.
Smoke was coming out of every open hole in the building as a group of six dalmatian's tried to escape. This building was once their home, but their owners had already fled the house fire, leaving the dalmatian's to fend for themselves, putting a lot of pressure on the two parents of the family.
"Mommy, I'm scared!" The dalmatian pup with light blue eyes cried out as the family kept trying to find a way out of the burning building.
"I- I know little Marshy, we're all getting out of here, I promise." Smoke, the mother of the family said as the heat continued to rise, putting a lot of pressure on her and Blaze to help the two of them and their four pups to get out of here, but she had no intention to leave anyone behind.
"Listen everyone, I know this is scary, but we're all getting out of here. O-" Blaze, the father of the family was cut off as a flaming piece of wood fell out of the attic space and landed on an exposed gas canister in a nearby room, causing an explosion that tore through nearby walls.
"Shit! Is everyone okay?" Smoke called out as she and Blaze shielded the four pups of the family from the blast of the explosion, causing the two adult dalmatian's to bleed up and down their entire body.
The four pups nervously nodded as they folded their ears down and looked up to their parents, who had saved their lives.
"We aren't safe in this building, pups. We need to get a move on," Blaze said as he brought one of the pups, a dalmatian with green eyes onto his back, due to the pup limping around and struggling to keep up.
Outside of the building, the two owners of the six dalmatian's had been frantically calling firefighters to come to the building that was on fire, but due to the storm, no calls were going through.
"Shit! I can't get in contact with any firefighters, our house, lifestyle and those poor dogs are in danger, Molly. I wish we could do something," the other owner of the dogs said after the most recent failed call.
"I'm sure they'll be okay, Bob. Our dogs are smart, and the pup's parents are former firefighter dogs from the local fire station, they'll know what to do." Martha said as she hoped for everyone to turn out okay from this tragic house fire.
"You may be right, Molly, but I'm still scared." Bob confessed as smoke rose into the air.
As the six dogs continued moving, Smoke and Blaze knew they had to lead the pups down from the second floor. This was so that the six dogs could escape the burning house.
"Let's head for the stairs, Blaze. We have to move fast," Smoke said as they approached the stairs.
Blaze tackled the pup out of the way and into the safety of the hallway. This was as another burning log fell from the roof, about to fall on one of the pups despite the fire still burning.
T-thanks, daddy," the pup with light blue eyes replied as he stood up.
As the other dogs began running down the stairs, Blaze gently said, "It's what I do. Now come on, we've got to keep moving."
Marshall nodded as he followed the six dogs down the stairs. The front door and exit were right there! The six dogs were obviously in worse shape than they had been, they were bleeding and had scorched fur, and they were generally exhausted.
Having reached the ground floor, Smoke and Blaze jumped off the stairs and allowed their pups to land safely on their backs.
It sounded like a small hissing sound filled each dog's ears as Blaze heard a hissing noise. Blaze immediately knew what it was, as the house was heated by natural gas. "Shit! There's a gas leak, brace yourselves and get out, on the double." He said as the dogs ran and didn't look back, hoping to reach safety before an unfortunate explosion took place.
As Marshall's family turned a corner and entered the room where the front door was, a hissing sound echoed throughout the house even louder.
Marshall knew that he would be unable to escape the building before the explosion, given how far away he was from the front door. Once he turned to his loved ones, he hid behind a couch, hoping to survive the explosion.
Marshall was about to cry for his family, but an explosion filled the room he was in, causing him to black out.
The rest of Marshall's family was outside of the house at this point with Bob and Martha, but a look of horror filled everyone's faces as they didn't see Marshall, the youngest pup out of them all. An explosion had just happened inside of the place they called home.
"MARSHALL!" Each and every pup yelled as they stared towards the house as its roof came crashing down.
"Everyone, stay here. I'm going in to find Marshall," Blaze said as he ran into the destroyed and burnt house.
Meanwhile, the pup with black spots and light blue eyes found himself getting back onto his feet in the living room. The couch he had hid behind was burnt to ashes, and there was a large open wound on his left hind leg, making the young pup have a bad limp as he began to move out of the living room.
"M-Mommy, daddy?" Marshall cried out as he stepped outside through one of the destroyed doors, the entire door was scorched and on the grass that the house was built on, and the fire and smoke on the roof of the house continued to burn, slowly but surely destroying the entire house.
But unfortunately for the young dalmatian, none of his family answered his cry for help as he continued slowly moving away from the house, despite his limb, even though he had no idea where he was going.
Eventually, the young pup got near a small hill in the nearby forest. He had no idea how long he had been walking, but he decided to lay down to try and put as little pressure on his limp as possible.
Marshall was about to explore what his mind was thinking about his current situation, but the dirt beneath him shifted due to how wet it was, sending the dalmatian tumbling down the hill hard and fast.
After a few minutes of tumbling down the hill, the young pup landed in a muddy puddle as he continued to bleed out of his open wound.
"M-Mommy, daddy? I-Is anyone out there?" Marshall cried out as he tried to get up and collapsed again, the blood that spilled out of his wound staining the grass as Marshall's body began to seal the wound shut with scabs on the skin itself.
"I was l-left behind, wasn't I?" Marshall began to tear up at this thought, surely that wasn't the truth, right? His family loved him, they all loved each other. Why would they leave him behind to die in a burning building if that was the case?
Meanwhile, Marshall's father Blaze had already entered the destroyed home that the entire family once called home, his family and owners watching him nervously, prepared to help him if things went awry. Because with a fire, nothing can be left to chance and nothing is predictable. Fire is erratic, destructive and beautiful all at the same time in its own way.
"Little Marshy? Are you here?" Blaze asked as he entered the destroyed living room. One of the walls closest to the front door was blown to pieces, anything that was left of the house was scorched or purely destroyed, if Marshall was even still in the building, was there any chance he was still alive?Blaze tried to shake these thoughts off as he continued to check each and every bit of the house, so that he could hold out for Marshall's survival, but with the present circumstances, it was undeniably difficult.
As the dalmatian continued to walk through the house, memories of the six dogs and their two owners living in this house flashed through his head, making him wonder what could've been if this fire hadn't erupted, or if it was dealt with in the first place.
"Damnit Blaze, that's just a big what if. Focus on finding little Marshall," Blaze said out loud as he ignored the pain in his paws from stepping on the recently burning floor, it was still extremely hot, but he was going to persevere, he had to.
"W-Where would Marshall have hidden to stay safe? I remember helping the rest of my family out of the house, but I failed regardless! We failed little Marshall, and I just hope he's either still in this house and okay, or just okay somewhere out there. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself, and I wouldn't want to be forgiven if he isn't okay." Blaze continued out loud as he sniffed the rooms around home, trying to filter out the smells of smoke and fire to pick up little Marshall's scent.
"Little Marshy! Where are you?" Blaze began to tear up as he picked up Marshall's scent. Why was it leading him to the knocked over couch in the living room?
Blaze knocked the small couch upright, hoping to find little Marshall underneath it, but he only found a small pool of blood that had stained the back part of the couch, and a small piece of Marshall's red, black and white collar, leading Blaze to only one conclusion, one that he didn't want to accept, but had to.
I-I have to tell the others this news, I failed little Marshall. We all did. Blaze thought to himself, with the circumstances of the situation and his experience as a firefighter, there was unfortunately no part of his brain that believed little Marshall was still alive."I-I have to grieve later. I have to tell everyone else the news and get out of this house," Blaze said out loud to himself as he wiped some tears out of his eyes with one of his paws and began to move out of the house.
Meanwhile, Marshall was still slowly but surely making his way forward with an injured leg, to the young pup, if his family had truly left him to die, there was nothing he could do about it anymore.
I-I was left behind, there's no denying it. I'm not that far away from where the house is, they would've found me by now. Marshall thought to himself as he exited the forest, feeling extremely exhausted as what little strength he had left slowly depleted. "M-My favorite collar is missing too. Even if I-I'm taken to an animal shelter, there's no way to identify my owners or family." Marshall cried out, feeling his tears hit the asphalt on the side of the small town road as he laid down, and looked up to the sky as he cried once more.
"I-If anyone is out there, please help me. I don't want to die like this." Marshall cried out as the last of his energy ran out, feeling his tears dry up on his fur as he laid down.
But as his eyes began to close and he found himself struggling to stay awake due to exhaustion and the pain in his leg, no one answered his call for help, life isn't like a fairy tale, after all. It's a lot more grim and hopeless than the tales that children are told, which is all the tales will ever be. Tales. Tales to distract from the horrors of reality that Marshall and so many others are shoved into.
Two employees of the animal shelter ran out as Marshall whimpered, seeing the badly injured Dalmatian quickly as they spoke to someone inside the building. "We found a pup on the side of the road near our shelter! One or two years old, badly injured and tired. Dalmatian. We're bringing them in now, let's help this poor pup."
With that, Marshall felt himself getting carefully picked up and carried into a building as the automatic doors in front of him opened, and his vision began to fade to black.
Meanwhile, Blaze came out of the burned house, his fur scorched, his head held low and concerned looks from the family on him as a looming feeling of dread hung over the once happy family while the storm that had caused all of this raged on.
"S-So Blaze, what's the news?" Smoke asked her mate, desperately hoping for good news as the Dalmatian held his head low. That couldn't be a good sign, could it?
Blaze took a deep breath as he thought about everything he had seen in the families old house, the destroyed walls and furniture, the scorched floors, and the pool of blood that had gathered underneath the living room couch.
Just like the conclusion that Blaze had reached inside of the burning house, in his mind there was only possible conclusion here regarding what happened to little Marshall.
And as Blaze exhaled his deep breath, he finally let the bad news out. "I went into the house, and I can say with almost utmost certainty that little Marshall is d-dead. I didn't find a body, but that may be for the best, knowing what happened to our house. I did find a piece of his favorite collar. We all know he wouldn't take it off willingly, right? I failed him, we all did." Blaze said as he let out a deep sigh, remembering everything he could have and should've done differently while in the burning house.
There was a heaviness in the air as the family processed this new information, all of the memories that they had with Marshall in his presumably short life flashing through their heads as tears came to all of their eyes, falling onto the ground as everyone cried, wondering what they could've done differently to save little Marshall's life.
But no matter how much they didn't want to accept any of this, with everything they knew, little Marshall was dead, and the family now had to solemnly leave the burning house that they once called home behind. Even if Marshall came back out with Blaze, or with the entire family in the first place, the entire day would still be extremely solemn, but there was now an extra bit of sadness piled onto one of the most traumatic days that each member of the family will ever have to live through, and one that would scar all of them for the rest of their lives, physically and mentally.
At the same time, the two employees of the animal shelter that had found Marshall rushed the Dalmatian into the emergency room of the building, the other animals that the shelter had lovingly taken care of watching the situation unfold with pure horror in their faces as they saw the burn marks that went through all of Marshall's body while the employees rushed him into the emergency room, determined to save his life from whatever he had lived through.
One specific Cockapoo had locked her pink eyes on the Dalmatian's, their eyes briefly meeting before the door to the emergency room closed behind Marshall, a few other employees of the animal shelter running into the room as well while the Cockapoo laid back down in the main area of the animal shelter, still waiting for someone to adopt her.
And there's chapter one of Burning Flashpoint! I'm very excited for this story, and I hope all of you are too.
Question of the chapter: Do you think Marshall getting left in the house is Blaze's fault?
But for now, until next time! See you all around wherever our paths cross again! This is Storm signing off.
Disclaimer for those of you reading on FFN, ADR is not over and will be updated alongside Burning Flashpoint. Frozen Fire will be ported over to this account at a later date.