Kitsune

• Layla Adams, Grade 11
• Short Story
• 2016

All my life I have been with a loving mother who lets me curl up against her soft orange loving fur, and my father who goes out hunting and brings back a nice small rabbit. Life was good. Everyone was happy. Until the hot orange flames of fire swirled into our little underground home, while dad was out hunting.
We couldn’t run. We couldn’t hide. All we could do was hope. Three loud bangs rung in our ears as the hunter fired bullets into our home. I was scared. I could tell my mother was too. Daddy was still out there somewhere hunting, unaware of what’s happening to us. Another gun shot rang in my ears followed by the yelping scream of my mother. The flames were licking the sides of my coat. The ends singing off in black clumps. The ground was turning dark red in the blinding light, as mother limped towards me. Her head loomed closer as she reached for my scruff. The familiar feel of my mother’s teeth holding firmly on my skin and the flames getting dangerously close to my skin, was all I felt as she carried me through the hazardous orange flames.
The opening was visible through the orange haze. Another yelp came as my mother fell to the ground, dropping me in the process. This time I didn’t hear the gun shots when she got hurt. I landed with legs a tangled mess and dirt all through my fur. I struggled to get up as the flames crawled closer to where my mother was lying on the ground covered in sticky blood. My legs wouldn’t move. Tears were welling up over the rim of my bright blue eyes. My mother lay motionless. The bullet wound gushing blood all over the ground creating a little pool. The flames started to creep up my tail. I didn’t care. My mother was gone and I wanted to be with her. The memories of her soft fur. Her gentle face. Her pretty eyes. Gone. Suddenly I was yanked off the ground and thrown through the air by an unknown force. The fire on my tail was smothered as I rolled on the ground coming to a painful stop, gulping the cool fresh air of the dark night. I stumbled to my feet and looked toward the home I one lived in seeing flames cast a sickening glow in the dark of night. The flame acted as a curtain to the entrance of my burning home.
What I saw past the deadly orange flames filled me with the burning rage of revenge. Bright familiar eyes stared back at me through the bright orange flames as the hole started to collapse. Blood running from her forehead down her face to a smile of gleaming sharp teeth covered in wet red liquid dribbling down her chin in a mixture blood and saliva.
I couldn’t take my eyes away. This was the side of my mother I never saw.