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It had been a peaceful reunion of the family at their Pop’s home. Many spending the whole weekend in their old family home. Simply to catch up and see how everyone was doing. It was something they tried to do at least a few time a year.
Everything had been going as normal until… the fire… It had gone so fast. One moment they were all going in and out of the house. The adults carrying out tables and chairs to prep the garden for dinner, while the children were scattered in the garden and in the house playing with those around their age. And then, just seconds later… flames already had seemed to have engulfed the whole home.
“Papa!”
“Oh Shelly! Thank god!” Namur held open his arms as his son ran to him. He hugged him tightly and looked up to the fire fighter, “Thank you, thank you.”
The man just nodded and looked over the family of parents and their children and even a grandparent, “Is this everyone? Is anyone missing?”
“Phoenix-yoi, my-“
“Marco,” Kingdew all but hissed as he held his wife close, “who cares about that.” He turned to the firefighter doing the check-in, “Yes, sir, that’s everyone.”
“No.” Marco paled and tried to run back into the burning house.
“Woah! Marco! What are you doing?!” Thatch grabbed Marco’s arm, stopping him from running in.
“Phoenix, my baby, he’s still in there! You- I had the sticker, that I had him inside. The city-hall said they would search for him too!”
“Is someone still in there?” A firefighter nearby heard them and ran over, “Where are they? Do you know? What’s their name?”
“It’s a stupid bird!” Kingdew yelled, “Don’t worry about that! Everyone is safe and sound outside!”
Thatch, who was still holding Marco back didn’t know what to say. Yes, Phoenix was a bird. Could you justify sending someone inside a burning building for a bird? But he meant everything to Marco…
“Where is he? What’s his name?”
Marco looked to the firefighter, determined eyes meeting his own, “Phoenix, his name is Phoenix. He’s in my room. Second floor, third door on the left.”
The man nodded, “I’ll get him out, you get back to your family, stand back.” The firefighter checked his gear and put on the oxygen mask as smoke was pouring out of the building. “Lieutenant! I’m going in!”
With that call, the firefighter ran inside the burning building. Marco held his heart as Thatch pulled him away from the building, closer to Pops and the others. Ignoring Kingdew’s yells of him risking lives for a stupid ass bird.
Inside the building, the young firefighter found his way up the steps more so by feeling then by sight. The whole downstairs was engulfed in dark smoke, you barely even saw the flickering of flames through them. Thank god he had entered the house before to get the others out and thus knew the staircase was on the right from the front door or he wouldn’t have known where to start searching.
He wanted to barrel up the steps but knew better, if fire had reached parts, he may as well step into a void and fall down. So slowly he put a foot up a step, swiped it over the step to ensure there was still a step before tapping it twice. Feeling the spot secure he took a step up. One by one he made it up the step until there wasn’t another one to take.
“Now, third door on the left.” He murmured to himself as he put a hand on the left wall and took careful steps.
There was still smoke on this floor, but it didn’t reach the ceiling yet, god he hoped the bird had a big cage, or else…
No use in thinking about that now, even a lifeless body could bring more solace to that blond man than not having anything. Atleast if this turned out bad, he could feel a form of relieve that the bird most likely first fainted from the carbon dioxide and then died, rather than dying painfully in flames.
“Aha!” He found a door and pushed it open, “Phoenix! Phoenix! Are you-“
PHOENIX! MARCO!
“Oh my god, the bird can talk! That’s so cool!”
MARCO! MARCO! POLO!
Shaking himself out of it, he tried to pinpoint the location of the bird. His visor was covered in sooth, and wiping it with his dirty gloves didn’t help a lot. Wait- did the bird know the game Marco – Polo???? Only one way to know.
“MARCO!”
POLO!!
“That’s fucking amazing. MARCO!”
POLO MARCO POLO PHOENIX!!!
Thanks to the bird that kept calling back, he found a cage, a floor to ceiling cage right next to a busted window.
“You’re one lucky bird!” The firefighter called out as he opened the cage. Thanks to the ceiling height cage, the bird could- and was- sitting at the highest point, barely above the smoke. The busted window probably the only reason why this room wasn’t covered floor to ceiling yet in the smoke either. Also lucky the fire wasn’t in this room or the busted window would have made it even bigger.
“There we go, nice and snug.” He smiled at the bird in his hand. There had been a soft bed, a nest? Something soft for the bird to craw into. He was able to use it to wrap around the bird. “Menace, biting me while I’m saving you.” But he didn’t mind, he didn’t feel the beak biting into his gloves.
He held the bird as high as he could to keep it out of the smoke, he would need to hurry back, he had to run through some smoke. And he knew even a second to much would be deadly to the bird.
“Alright, let’s g-“
BOOM!
“Oh shit- that didn’t sound-“
CRACK!
Now, he liked heroic exits, they were cool. Firemen jumping out of the flames, carrying a crying baby. Doing a summersault out of a huge building and being caught in a solid net-like construction made at the bottom. People gathering to hold fabric open for them to land in. Yea, that was all really cool. In a movie that is.
What was not cool however…. Was needing to jump out of a second story building in real life. Without any movie magic to have a group of people appear to catch you. Without those nice stunt doubles to ensure the main character wouldn’t get hurt.
But… with the ceiling collapsing in the hallway, he really hadn’t had a choice.
With a yell off, “Hold tight, Phoenix!” A command a bird couldn’t even follow. He ran to the window and crashed through it. He had wanted to jump, try to somehow land in a roll when he got down to minimize the damage. But all that also flew out the window when his foot had busted through the planks and thus, instead of a heroic jump, he tumbled face first into the window and made a flip as he fell down.
The only thing he could do in the little time he had, was hold the bird close to his chest and pray for the best.
These situations felt weird. Time went fast, this whole scenario from going back into the building to falling out of only took him under 5 minutes, yet… here… falling with a screeching bird in his arms, it felt like hours.
Until he fell on his back. He screamed and it took everything in him to not squeeze the bird in his arms. He heard the bird screeching. He was alive. He did it.
‘Ace, come in. Ace-‘
Vaguely he heard his walkie-talkie, he had no idea what they where saying or if it was even for him. But he let go of the bird with one hand to grab it and press the button on the side.
“This is- Ace.” He panted, speaking through the pain, he felt his own foot press into his back. The only way his foot could press into his back was if his leg was making moves that it shouldn’t be able to make. “The back- had to- jump out-. Stretcher.”
At the front of the house, those that had been hurt in the flames had been brought to the hospital, while the others were watching the flames eat away the building. Getting first aid from the different first responders as needed.
They had had to move back when an explosion took place inside the house and more flames engulfed the place. While the firefighters were doing their best to put out the flames, Pop’s house had been very old. Back in the days when it was build, there were no rules for how fire-resistant materials needed to be. And even if there had been, it never would have been up to par to things existing today.
Part of the roof caved in and Marco screamed, the others did too in shock, but for Marco it was something else. That was the left side of the house, that was- that was where his room was. His baby, his Phoenix! Tears were streaming down his face as he fell to his knees. His brother holding him doing nothing to sooth him.
Numb to the world around him he didn’t register as there were more cracks and screams from the house and people around him. The only thing he could picture was his sweet blue baby burning inside the house. He should have run in. He should have run in and up to his baby the moment he could. He knew his brothers and the first responders would have held him back, but he should have tried, he should have tried!
MARCO! MARCO! TREAT!
He could still hear his Phoenix calling out for him. Even asking for a treat. Silly bird. Always asking for treats. He sobbed loudly as his mind showed him his silly bird, holding a peanut in his claw and praying it open. He would eat it and then call out for a treat again, acting like he hasn’t had one the whole week.
“Marco. Marco, look, c’mon brother. He needs help, but you need to take Phoenix from him.”
He felt Thatch nudge him and he tried to pull away, he didn’t want comfort. Just as he looked up to yell at him to quit it, did his eyes meet those beady eyes he loved.
“P-Phoenix-yoi!”
YOI YOI MARCO!
“T-this is him, right? Phoenix?”
Marco’s mouth opened and closed, nodding as fresh tears sprung in his eyes.
“I got him. Like- like I said.”
The blond hurried to take the wrapped up bird when he was held out. He quickly took him out to inspect him, knowing Phoenix wouldn’t fly away from him.
“Is- is he okay?”
Marco didn’t answer yet as he checked his baby. His long tail was shorter, burn marks at the bottom. His blue feathers were covered with black spots, sooth, but- “He’s okay. He’s okay. Thank you. Thank y- o-oh-“ Words caught in his throat as he really looked at the firefighter that had gone in for his baby.
He now saw that the other was laying on a stretcher, blood pooling in one closed eyes from a gash through his eyebrow. The man was obviously in a lot of pain.
“I- I- you-“ Marco stammered, the fire fighter hurt himself for him, to save Phoenix.
“I’m glad.”
The firefighter flashed him a smile through the pain before his colleagues carried him away to an ambulance. He could only watch as they loaded the man in, seeing him grit his teeth and hiss as the stretcher moved to get him inside.
TREAT!
The yell pulled his attention back to his baby. Eyes moist he rubbed his cheek to the bird before gently scratching the bird’s head. “Everything will be okay, Phoenix-yoi. I’ll get you a new cage, lots of treats-“
TREAT! YOI! MARCO!
“Yes.” he laughed a little, “Lots of treats for you. And we’ll work on growing out those damaged feathers again, won’t we? Yea.”
He heard the siren go on and was just in time to see the ambulance drive around the corner and disappear from sight. He had to thank him. That firefighter. He risked his life for his baby, his feathery baby that many others would have left to burn. He owed him everything.