The forest fire

They had accidentally started a forestfire. Or someone had, someone in the camping site. Millie was sleeping soundly when she woke up to the smoke burning in her lungs. She opened her eyes and crawled to the mouth of her and her brother’s tent. She opened the zipper ever so slightly before the flames caught her eyes.

”Jonh,” she said with a raspy voice from the smoke. She cleared her throat and this time shouted as loud as she could: ”Jonathan McClain, wake up!” She watched her brother jump and wake up just before coughing like his lungs were the ones on fire.

”Millie!” he shouted, but it wasn’t from annoyance, it was the fact that he saw the golden glow of the flames come through their tent and the gap of the zipper. ”We need to go, come on!” he grabbed her wrist and ripped his way outside, coughing with every breath he inhaled and every step he took with his sister.
”MOM! DAD! EVERYONE, THE FOREST IS ON FIRE!” he shouted and Millie started crying besides him, screaming from the heat on her skin.

Their parents came out of their tent and started running to them, but were caught off by a burning tree falling between them and their children. Their dad shouted their names and tried to get thhrough the hastily spreading fire, but it was impossible.

John felt more lonely than he ever had before. He saw it in his sisters eyes too; they were scared to death. But he had to put his own fears aside, so he kneeled down and took his sister’s shoulders. He looked her straight in the eye and said: ”We’re gonna make it out, so you need your courage.” Millie’s words were now just a mumble through her fear, and John shook her. ”Hey, do you trust me?” he asked, and Millie nodded shakily.

That was his que, and he grabbed her forcifully by her wrist again before running off away from the fire, to the lit up forest, which usual darkness was replaced with the soft hue of fire.
They kept running and running until they found a cliff; bare rock and no plants or trees to catch fire in the immediate area around them, and they sat down near the edge.
John held his sister close as the sun came up behind the trees, and they watched helicopters dump water over the woods.

Millie was too tired to cry, but too scared to sleep. She shuddered and John heard a little squeak before she coughed and cleared her voice. ”Do you think mom and dad made it? And uncle and auntie?” he heard her small voice ask. He didn’t want to lie to her. Their parents seemed to have been trapped at their camp, but he still tried to keep up hope.
”I don’t know,” he said.

They waited, and waited some more, and eventually, a firefighter found them and told them their parents were safe. The fire had started from a faulty campfire by their uncle, but nobody was killed and the fire was put out relatively easily.

Their parents embraced them and held them tightly, telling them how worried they had been and how they loved them, and likewise. Their dad laughed how all of the equipment had burned down, but he’d pick his children over a couple of tents anyday.