There was a sweet, gentle voice.
"Sharp, wake up" it whispered to him.
"What?" he asked. He couldn't understand it.
"Wake up" she said again, her voice echoing into the distance.
"Wake up, now!! " Sharp's eyes flung opened. At that moment he peered out and saw Cheesy a few inches above the can, holding on dearly to a limb that was perched over the stemming smoke.
"Grab my hand, Sharp!!!" Chessy held out his paw to a burnt out, dazed Sharp, who hadn't fully realized exactly was going on. Sharp sat there in the border of the jagged door can, blinkingly lifelessly, sweat crawling down his face.
"Chessy?'' he asked, not certain if this was a crazed fever dream or reality.
"Yes, yes Sharp, it's me!!! Now get out of the can and let's lift you out here!! We don't have much time buddy!!!" he shouted, waving for Sharp to come.
"Okay! okay I'm..coming. Right now!!" Sharp staggered onto his feet. As soon as his feet touched the hot ground, he jumped back off of it.
"Ow!! hot hot hot !!!" Sharp danced around o somehow quail the sweltering heat that was cooking his foot bottoms and his tail. He leaped up to Cheesy but realized that he was still too high off the ground. Sharp stopped, his eyes searching around for a solution. There must be a way I can reach Cheesy, he thought.
His eyes rested on the metal can that was in front of him. He ran to it and brought it forth, the heat from it scalding his hands. He shifted the hot on its mouth horizontally, placing the part where it was opened to the ground and climbing up on top of it.
Cheesy shifted on the edge of the branch, holding on to it for with one hand outstretched.
"I'm coming!!" Sharp heisted on his toes, he jumped up to grab Chessy's hand, who was hanging from the thin branch like low fruit. The thin branch waved from side-to-side swaying in the heated wind.
Their fingertips touched for a moment then the wind howled, their hands sliding over each other as the branch Chessy sat on moved to and fro.
"Thiis makes no sense. Just leave me Cheesy. I don't want both of us to die here'' Sharp swung his hand down to his side, bending and coughing, covering his burning eyes from the smoke.
"Don't talk nonsense you idiot!! Big Sharpo would never say something like that. Now, grab my hand!!" Sharp gazed at Chessy's tiny pink paw opening out to him, questioning whether he should grab it or not. With one firm affirmation on Chessy's claim that it was strange of him to give up, he jumped up, putting his hand out and reaching for Cheesy.
Their hands clasped together in a firm grip as they finally reached each other, Chessy holding onto to Sharp with everything he had in him.
"You've got it Brother!!" Chessy encouraged.
Sharp brought himself up, holding onto the thin branch, his feet lifting off of the hot can as it went up for a brief moment. The branch came down a little because of the wind, Sharp's feet having to touch the can again, it sizzled into his flesh and burnt his feet, and he screamed out in pain, wiggling his body up the limb more and coming off of the ground.
"Keep your eyes on me Sharp. We've got this, just follow me" Chessy comforted, seeing that Sharp was still faint from inhaling all the smoke and dealing with the heat. Chessy began easing up and walking backwards up the wood, his claws sinking into it, keeping him hooked on the ledge. Sharp climbed on top of the branch and went up slowly, following Cheesy as he inched back further onto the stem, holding his brother's hand.
They took their time and walked backwards, Sharp being guided up the ledge by Cheesy, they both got further and further up on the branch, gradually getting way from the fire.
At that moment Burrow ran around the fire, shooting the bend of the tree as the vicious bird flew inches above him. Out of the corner of his eyes the bird stopped, seeing the two loosely hanging rodents from the branch.
''Why keep running one silly mice down when I can have two??" The bird took off in the direction of Sharp and Cheesy, forgetting Burrow.
After running for a while, Burrow stopped.
He looked up to see bird lunching off the ground, heading towards the tree.
"Oh thank heavens he's tired of me" Burrow relieved, arching over to his knees for a breath.
Rising up he looked to see Sharp and Cheesy hanging from the branch, and the bird going towards it.
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....Drats!!!" Burrow turned, sprinting after the bird. The determined rodent ran as fast as he could, galloping after the bird as it quickly flew up in the air; Burrow jumped off with it, holding on to the black talons of its toes as it flew into the air with him.
''Come on Sharpo we're almost out of the fire. Almost, keep climbing" Chessy kept encouraging, pulling himself back as Sharp made his way off of the thin part of the branch that hung over the fire. They were almost at the thick part of the limb, going to the beginning of it where it sprouted from the tree.
They arrived at the fuller side of the limb, Sharp and Cheesy exhaling their anxiety, finally getting out of the danger zone. Slumping down on the limb, they laid there, exhausted. Sharp looked up at Cheesy with an inept sense of gratitude in his eyes.
''Thank you Cheesy" Sharp mustered between gasps.
"Y-you saved my life. "He finished.
Cheesy struggled to bring his gaze up. His gave Sharp a low, tired gaze between wheezing. Waving his hand and patting Sharp on the shoulder, he gestured that it wasn't a big deal, not having the strength to use his words. Chessy nodded in acknowledgment, glad that he was finally able to save Sharp, and for once not being the one that needed saving.
"But don't you..... dare.... call me.... an idiot.... again" he jeered in rugged breathes, Cheesy and him sharing a quick giggle. Cheesy swallowed, finally feeling a bit of energy to speak.
"It helped you snap out of it... so it worked" Cheesy answered.
"It did, it did" Sharp agreed.
"Now, let's get out of here"
Gradually they rose to their feet, helping each other they turned to walk up to the tree trunk to climb down and descend out of this fired nightmare, then, they heard a peculiar sound right above them.
Sharp pulled out his hand, stopping Cheesy from moving further.
"Wait...do you hear that???" He asked, Cheesy blinking his eyes and sighing tirelessly.
"Yeah. I was hoping it was the breeze?"
"Now you and I both know, that isn't what a breeze sounds like..."
Both of them turned to each other slowly, the expressions on their faces reminiscent of
"What could it possibly be this time?"
The branch vibrated underneath their feet as they looked up to see an enormous, brown bird with eyes as black as the night, sitting on the start of the wood and impeding their path.
"Oh my heavens..." Cheesy mouthed, him and Sharp frozen in fear. Its eyes had a sort of rage, an insane anger that was able to freeze its prey in their steps with just a glance. Cheesy and Sharp could feel a cold chill going down their spines.
It made a great cry that vibrated through the sky, flapping its wings and swooping down with a speed that they had never seen before, like a flash of lighting.
''Caawwwwww..." the Falcon let out a howling, haunting cry, it's enlarged wings swallowing the both of them in its shadow. The creature snapped its head forward, the rodents stepping back, Cheesy and Sharp holding each other as they backed out, further onto the branch that they just escaped from.
"Just when we thought the coast was clear...'' Sharp gently pushed Chessy behind him to keep him safe.
The creature got on its legs and kicked its wings out to lunch forward but stopped, jumping up and flailing about. The wosh of wind from its brown feathers whipped Sharp and Chessy as they held on dearly. There was something on its ankle that it kept pecking at, annoyed by its presence. The bird flew up again, off the branch; Sharp and Chessy's eyes followed on what it was pecking at, something hanging from its ankle.
It was Burrow, biting and nipping at the bird's leg while it struggled to shake him off.
"Burrow!!" Sharp and Cheesy shouted, happy and frightened to see him.
The Falcon flapped its wings, spinning around in the air, going up and swooping down, shaking its leg to get Burrow off, but he held on tightly, refusing to allow the creature to attack. It got fed up and flew into the air, over to the thin branch that the two were previously stuck to, flapping its wings and twisting its body from side to side. Burrow lost his grip and flipped through the air, falling past the branch and heading straight into the fire.
"Burrrooooowww!!!" Sharp ran back out and dived off of the branch, grabbing Burrow by his ankles just before he plunged to his death. Cheesy followed after and caught Sharp by his tail, one hand firmly clawed into the wood while the other held him from falling into the fire.
Three rodent bodies waved loosely in the wind from the tree branch now, swinging over a raging fire that was desperately dancing up to meet them. Waves of heat and smoke blasted them in their faces, Burrow's eyes burning intensely as he coughed. The seas of flaming yellow orange pranced in its varied abstract shapes of destruction underneath them, a hungry fire waiting to devour anything in its path. The frustrated Falcon had flown away and went back to the hills, deciding that a catch so early in the day wasn't worth struggling for.
"Ahhhhh!!Pull me up, please!!" Burrow pleaded, his arms waving about in the air, the heat touching his fingertips.
"Hold on Burrs!" Sharp shouted, holding Burrow's feet with as much grip as he could.
Cheesy bit his lip straining to hold the weight of both Burrow and Sharp, his claw slowly unhooking from the grip he tried his best to hold onto.
To-mas was no longer laying down in the garden, resting. He was up on all fours watching eagerly to see how this would end. This was much too exciting, he thought.
"Oh my gosh...three rats about to be toasted into the fire!! I'd save them because that's my dinner, but this is thrilling!!" he cackled, his yellow eyes watching keenly to see what would happen.
"Cheesy!!!Sharp!!!! Swiiingg!!! Swing my body to the tree trunk, now!!! I'll hook on to it" Burrow shouted up to them.
"That's too risky!!!" Sharp called back.
"You may fall!!!" Sharp groaned in his throat as he felt the sweat coming out of his palms, Burrow's ankles slipping slightly from him.
"Just do it!!!" he ordered.
Chessy's eyes were shut, focusing on keeping his grip held, ignoring the throbbing pain of his shoulder that was about to pop out of its socket. Only two unsheathed claws he hooked into the branch held his brothers from not falling into the pits of hell, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold on for.
"Chessy, swing now!!!" Chessy nodded, beginning to sway his arm from left to right, Sharp doing the same.
The motion moved down the line with them, the three rodents swinging back and forth, left to right, building momentum, going closer and closer to the tree trunk.
"Sharp, Burrow, I can't hold on anymore!!!" Chessy begged. Suddenly, the strength in his hand went out; releasing Sharp's tail as it slid through his hand.
"Now Sharp!!" Sharp released Burrow's ankles, the rodent swinging over to the tree trunk.
Burrow flew through the air over the fire, his tail gliding through the flames, the white underbelly of his torso exposed. He latched onto the tree trunk like a magnet, sinking his claws into the wooden surface.
Sharp swung his body and hooked it to the underside of the same thick branch, securing himself. Cheesy was still on the thin branch, exhausted, his arm flapping about like a piece of string.
"Shit!! " To-mas roared. He rose up, the furs on his body acute with deep infuriation.
"Those scum sucking adaptable rat bastards...How do they even??You know what, I don't care" To-mas squirmed in extreme distaste of the rodent's fortune, wondering what sorcery had allowed them to be so lucky. The cat rose up, completely disinterested in what was going to happen next, walking away and going into the house.
Burrow leaned his head against the trunk, kissing it over and over again, thankful for his timely landing. The adrenaline pumped through his veins, and with his heart sounding in his ears he took his time and descended down the tree. Sharp brought himself right side up, going back for Cheesy and helping him climb down the limb while he complained about not feeling his arm.
Off the tree the rodents scampered across the open field, injured and exhausting they held each other; zooming up the wooden stairs of the patio and leaving behind that life threatening experience. They made their way through the cat door and swiftly walked back into the entrance of the house; the cat sat there calmly on the couch, watching the three running behind each other down the living/kitchen room floor. Seeing them scurry back to their homes, safe and unharmed brought a bitterness in him. He despised them. He growled lowly, his tail swinging furiously.
"I'll make sure those rats don't come out of here alive" he promised himself.
............................................................................
Outside
"Ahhhh damn wish I was there Fred. Hey did you see that football game last week? It was miserable" Perkins was still talking to his friend by the jeep, unaware of everything that had happened.
Suddenly, he heard a bird making noises behind him. He turned his head to see a great Falcon, flying into the sun and circling around in the air. He watched the bird go back into the oak tree that was right in front of his yard, the man stood there staring at it intently, going off into space and not paying attention to his friend as he talked.
"Perkins, are ya hearin me?" his friend asked, the man snapping out of it.
"Yeah yeah I heard ya. The football game?" he asked, the friend continuing to talk.
..........................................................................
THE PEEPHOLE
Sharp, Burrow and Cheesy sat in their holdings propped up against each other, extremely exhausted, downtrodden, and defeated.
Cheesy's head dipped as he fell in and out of sleep, a piece of aloes in his hand as he rubbed down the slight burns he got from the fire. Sharp stood over him, massaging his shoulder and arm.
Burrow was completely whipped and burnt to a crisp, his energy snagged running up and down and around that giant bird. He took the aloes and rubbed it all over his burns, doing the same for Sharp while he helped Cheesy.
They sat there dressing each other's wounds in silence, too tired to even talk and reflect on what just occurred. All they had the energy to do was nurse themselves and that was it.
"Ahhhh that feels so good Burrs. I was a roasted rodent in that fire" Sharp sighed, the cool aloe gel easing the pain from his tail, giving him relief from the burn.
"Burrow. How are we supposed to leave and.."be in the wild" with huge creatures like that trying to snatch us on a daily?" Sharp asked.
"Its not gonna be like that everyday Sharp. Our plan was to get in the garbage bag and escape when he carried it outside. I've never seen the Giant burn his garbage, ever, like a maniac. And the bird...well that was just a coincidence too. But it won't be like that, we just got unlucky today." Burrow informed him, Sharp nodding his head, his eyes almost shut from being so tired. Chessy head slumped over, fast asleep.
"I hope that's true Burrow. I really hope it is"