Humankind has long since perished.
But life goes on.
Nature is slowly reclaiming the planet. A fire forces a young red fox named Kip to flee her den for the first time. Now alone and left half-blind, Kip must struggle to find refuge for herself and...
Through a half-shut eye, the unmoving fox stared without really seeing into the air that wavered from the heat. And, in between the flames, one last shape materialized before the dying vixen. A silver muzzle prodded at Kip, trying to coax her to her paws. Kip slowly blinked her eye, though it did little to clear her vision. "Fell...?" she whispered up at the figure, raising her head.
"Mom, it's me," said Neer. "Get up, we have to run!"
Neer.
Another little fox pressed herself against Kip on her other side, helping her brother lift her to her paws.
Vin.
"I...told you to run..." Kip uttered to her children.
"We are running," Vin insisted in between coughs. "With you."
Kip, too, coughed profusely. She was near blind in the smoke and her legs trembled beneath her. Where was the exit? Her kits scanned the flames, just as lost as she was.
All three foxes cried out in shock when one of the skeletons fell from its perch and clattered into pieces on the floor in front of them—its torn and tattered clothes aflame. Kip locked eyes with the grinning skull as firelight reflected on its shiny cranium. Her hackles rose.
Movement off to the side where the eagle's body lay caught Kip's attention. She flinched, believing at first that the eagle was stirring and all the dead in the building were coming alive. But instead, that monarch butterfly from before fluttered from the bird's body and hovered around the foxes. It brushed its wings lightly against each of them before flying off navigating between tongues of fire with ease, and the cubs hobbled after it, keeping their mother between them. They stepped around the body of the eagle and shambled past the skeletons left to rest. And just ahead of them, beyond the butterfly that guided them...Yes! There was the the doorway of the cathedral! Their escape!
Neer and Vin adjusted their mother's weight between them, and together they made for the exit. And Kip realized, then—limping in between her son and her daughter—just how big her children had grown.
The cathedral collapsed behind them just as the trio shoved through the doorway and escaped the flames. The kiss of clean fresh air was a welcome relief to Kip's nose and it soothed her lungs. Immediately, the pack of dogs set upon the foxes and pulled them away from the inferno that continued to rage. Kip smiled to herself, seeing her kits safely in the jaws of two mutts, being carried to safety into the night.
And then everything went dark.
🦋🦋🦋
"Goodbye!" a happy Vin yipped to her canine friends outside of the alleyway that was their den. Puppies circled her, wagging their tails and barking excitedly in response.
Neer sat by his lonesome, speaking quietly to butterflies and things no one else could see again.
Kip's patchy tail wouldn't stop wagging at the sight of her kits. It had been days since they escaped the fire and the eagle's reign of terror had come to a brutal end. Kip's patchy fur was only just beginning to sprout back, and puckered burns marred any exposed patches of skin. Nearly every breath she took was interrupted by a hoarse cough that made her entire body ache, but Kip had never felt more elated. She rubbed the length of her body against the new leader of the pack in gratitude for all he and his family had done for her family. The dog licked her, which made both her kits roll around, laughing at the sight of the line of sticky mohawk of fur standing on end on Kip's head.
Kip's face heated underneath her red fur and she ran a paw over her pelt, smoothing it back down. "Well then," the sheepish one-eyed fox said to her kits. "Are we ready to go?"
Both kits responded with an enthusiastic, "Yes!"
Kip grinned at them. It was time to finally end their journey.
There was a rustling sound above them, like the flapping of millions of tiny, fragile wings. All the flightless animals on the ground looked up and gasped in wonder and awe.
A cloud of monarchs nearly blocked out the blue sky. It was a writhing tongue that danced like an aurora across the heavens from horizon to horizon, as if leading the way to the end of the fox family's journey.
Neer and Vin nipped at their mother, then. Now it was their turn to coax her onward. The vixen laughed and licked each of her kits, ignoring their complaints that they weren't babies anymore. The three foxes turned away from the howling dog pack, ready to leave the city behind.
They only made one last stop before reaching the city's limits. Beneath the canopy of butterflies, all three foxes dipped their heads in respect at a green, flowering heap. Already, new green growth began to sprout in the blackened rubble that used to be a cathedral. The ruins had now become a burial site—a resting place for humans and animals alike.
Kip wondered how much longer until the rest of the city looked like this too.
Neer stood up on his hind legs and raised a forepaw high into the air. A single butterfly broke free from the cloud and landed on his paw. The young tod showed the insect to his sister. "Look," he told her. "It's Mountain."
Vin giggled as the butterfly hovered around her ears before taking off to rejoin its kind on their migration.
Kip smiled softly after it and whispered, "Thank you."
A shadow fell over them as something big flew by overhead.
Just as the foxes' journey drew to an end, another creature's began. The last of the harpy eagles, the eagle's remaining kin, let out a screech at the passersby below, but she continued on her own path, traveling in the opposite direction of the butterflies. Then, tails raised high, the foxes left the city behind.
The laughing family, still side by side as always, followed the orange cloud that snaked across the sky. Together, they trekked into the unclaimed wilderness.
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