Alone Together

Okay, okay. No need to panic.

I'm just a phoenix.

In the middle of who knows where.

And no idea how to get home.

That's no reason to panic, right?

...

Right?

Okay. Calm down. Remember what the survival class told you.

S.T.O.P.

I forgot what s stood for. Okay, must not be important then, right?

T? Uh, terrain? Terabyte? Terminator? Terminator might be helpful here, but I doubt I can summon him.

O, observe. Okay. I'm a human who burned to death and now I'm a bird inside a large nest.

P.  P stand for... People? Are there any people here? A quick look over the nest to the quite large fall told me I might not find out for quite a while.

I mean, I've had some vivid dreams, but this takes the cake. And the rest of the dessert table.

Wait, dream? That's it! I'm still in bed, waiting for the day I get to spend hanging out with Cynthia.

So what? I close my eyes and wake up? Worth a try.

...

Well unless my room is now filled with giant twigs, it didn't work.

Crap.

The only other solution I could think of was hurtling myself off the nest to see if it could wake me up.

But... that didn't sound like such a great idea. Especially since I kinda couldn't fly onto the side of the nest. And I was too short to see over at what I would be falling at anyways. Oh god, it's fifth grade all over. All we need now are three guys to pants half the school.

Then again, I'm a freakin phoenix. I could live out this dream, and then wake up when everything was normal.

I hear a soft rustling of twigs as something large lands next to me. I turn around to view the mothership herself, holding a bundle of worms in her mouth. She proceeded to lean toward me, worms being turned into a pulp in her mouth. Feeding time.

I take it back, this isn't a dream, it's a nightmare.

**********

"Ryan?"

"Oh god, why did this happen?"

"This is all my fault..."

...

"Hey, wait a minute, the flames are dying down."

...

"Where is his body?"

Cynthia looked upon a strange scene. On the floor, where seconds ago lay her friend, was a burn mark where his body was. But he was gone. There weren't even ashes...

Why was she thinking about such trivial things? Her friend just burnt to death for Christ's sake!

Strangely though, the flames had not spread. In fact, all but one patch remained.

Wait, this wasn't a patch of flames, it was something solid.

Cynthia, still in a state of shock, hoping to find something to explain what had just happened.

What she found was a feather.

A fire-red feather.

**********

Well that was disgusting.

Let's not revisit that.

Anyways, back to the trying to figure out what the heck had just happened.

My previous statements still held true. I was a baby phoenix in a giant nest. The mother phoenix had proven it.

I had a red and yellow... broken thing laying near me. Upon closer inspection, it appeared to be an egg. Like what a baby bird would hatch out of. So does that mean- No, this is just a dream. a really vivid dream. I'm sticking to that story. Anyways. There were other red and yellow eggs in the nest, all jumbled together. I counted three. So, my dream self had siblings. That was... interesting. I had never had siblings in real life.

The nest was nestled snugly in the beginning of a fork a branch was making. I seemed to be pretty high up. Makes sense. Thank god I was not afraid of heights.

Well, not too afraid...

So, I'm stuck up here until I learn to fly.

Great.

Okay, think. You took biology, how long does it take for chicks to start? Okay, birds usually start flying when all their feathers come in, I think. No, that doesn't sound right. I think the larger the bird, the slower it takes. Well, I think I'm quite small for a baby bird, and I do have all my feat- wait a second, phoenixes don't exist, why would they go with the laws of nature? Hell, I'm in a dream! Time to take flight!

I clawed my way to the top of the nest.

I opened my wings.

I took a great leap.

And I plummeted like a rock.