Bright red lightning consumed the sky in a fantastic dance choreographed by mother nature herself. The six children shuddered in fear as the wind began to pick up rapidly and the rain poured down in thick mats. Another bolt slashed the sky in half and then let out such an incredible roar that the children believed the whole world might be ending tonight. Mother put herself between the monsters and the children.

The twelve creatures, moving in a pack, resembled wolves, except their fur was shorter and they had sharp horns running along their spines. Mother had never seen them before, but indeed she had never been this deep in the jungle. She looked back at her children who cowered as they backed up into a small cave.

There were three boys: Charlie, Kilo and Mike. There were three girls: Delta, Foxtrot and Juliett. All of them were exactly the same age: Five years old.

Charlie had fiery red hair and cute freckles all over his face, especially on the bridge of his nose. He was always kind, and always listened to Mother. Kilo had the start of dreadlocks and darkly pigmented skin. He was a little more rebellious than his brothers but he respected and loved Mother with all his heart. Mike, or “Mikey” as Mother called him, had straight black hair and small eyes, he was incredibly tan because he liked helping Mother farm more than any of his brothers or sisters.

Delta had yellow hair and soft blue eyes. She was smaller than the other children and for that she was always picked on, but the love she had for nature and Mother made all the solitude worth it. Foxtrot, or “Fox” as Mother called her, had long curly black hair and olive skin. She lived up to her name, she was devious and sly, and liked to argue but never with Mother. Juliett had beautifully brown eyes, her skin was pale and her hair fell on her shoulders in thick dark curls. She was able to find the fun and adventure in anything, just like Mother.

But nothing was fun about their current situation. The wolves slowly crept forwards, rainwater sliding from their shallow coats. “Stay behind me, little ones,” Mother told her precious children. “Do not be afraid.” Her voice had a calming effect that made the worst situations bearable.

The snarls and howls were interrupted by another flash of lightning. Mother lowered herself, picked up a small rock from the mouth of the cave, and flung it at the alpha. Smashing into the wolf’s paw, the stone splashed into the mud. The alpha bared its teeth at Mother and she tried to make herself bigger by standing tall and shouting. “Get out of here! Get!” she screamed.

Mother and the six children were inside the cave now, out of the rain and cornered from what they could tell. The wolves closed in on them, making a small radius around the mouth of the cave. As Mother stepped back she could feel loose sticks under her feet, but when she looked down she saw hundreds of little animal bones. This was their den. Mother’s heart sunk with fear.

All of a sudden one of the children crept outside of the cave. “Fox!” Mother whispered. “Fox, get back here!”

Fox was holding her arm out to the wolves and they seemed to be frightened by her tenacity. As she approached the alpha it backed away two or three steps. The growling stopped and it became eerily silent, only the pitter-patter of the rain could be heard now.

“Mother!” the children cried behind her as they grabbed her legs to keep her with them.

Fox held out a small dead creature in her hand that she must have found in the cave. Sniffing into the air, the alpha watched the little girl come closer and closer. Then she stopped, the rain pouring down her face, little droplets dripping from the small dead animal. Mother could only look on in horror, and she was sure this would be the last time she saw Fox.

But the wolf lowered its ears and stepped in closer, trying to get a good whiff of the creature in the girl’s hand. Fox held it by the tail and let it swing slightly toward the alpha. The wolf crept in, its nose just touching the dead animal, and then the jaws opened wide.

Mother knew the girl’s arm could be ripped clean off by these creatures, and once that happened, the entire pack would start feeding on the flesh of her daughter, but this is not what happened. To Mother’s surprise and relief, the wolf bit down on the dead animal and swallowed it whole. It then came forward and sniffed around Fox’s arms and hips, seeing if she had any other food on her person. Mother held her breath again. If the wolf might decide that Fox is what he is truly after, but alas, it finished its sniffing and sneezed, startling Fox.

The alpha then howled into the night with the rest of the pack echoing, and then turned around and trotted back into the jungle.

That was two years ago, and Mother had never gone back to that part of the jungle. That was also the last time the children had seen lightning, but they only shared the memory of the wolves. Tonight the children were in a small clearing, playing hide-and-seek, when rumbling could be heard in the distance.

“What is that?” Charlie asked the group, compromising his hiding spot.

“I found you! I found you!” Juliett chanted.

“I don’t wanna play anymore. What’s that sound?” Charlie repeated.

The children sat for a moment, and in that instant an incredible flash of light filled the sky with a blood red hue. “Woah!” Fox said in awe.

Then the loud noise erupted like an explosion! The children screamed and ducked their heads. “The sky wants to eat us!” Kilo yelled.

“Come, little ones!” The children heard from a distance. It was Mother, thank goodness! She would know what to do with this strange light in the sky! The children ran out of the clearing and through a strip of jungle until they reached Mother, standing near their tent next to a flickering fire.

“Mother, the sky is mad at us!” said Juliett.

“Yes, Mother, I think it’s breaking,” Charlie echoed. And the other children all agreed and nodded their heads and wished for their mother to make the loud sounds go away. But she only smiled at them and brought them all in for a big hug.

Mother smiled. “My dears, you are all so very smart, let’s figure this out together, shall we?” She always talked to them in such loving and tender tones. “Fox, what do you think is happening right now?”

Fox looked up as droplets tickled her nose. “I think it’s raining, Mother.”

Mother laughed and nodded her head, gathering the children into the tent. The rain began to come down in heavy sheets and the fire beside them smoked until there were only faint orange embers. Every time the sky would light up with red streaks of lightning the children would cover their ears but no thunder would come. Then when they thought the coast was clear they would take their hands from their ears and that’s exactly when the clap of thunder would arrive. The children would all scream.

“What is happening my dear Delta?” Mother asked when the thunder had faded.

Delta shook her head and put her hands on her ears again. She had outsmarted the sky; she would keep her ears covered the whole night if she had to!

“Mikey? Kilo? Does anyone want to guess what is happening?” Mother always made things into a game. “I assure you the sky is not mad, little ones. Anyone have a guess?”

Mikey began to speak, “Maybe it has something to do with the rain.”

“That is absolutely right, Mikey!” Mother praised him.

Mikey smiled and the other kids wanted Mother to praise them too, so they all began to guess.

“Maybe the sky is on fire?” Kilo suggested.

“That’s impossible!” said Fox.

“Mother!” Kilo yelled as he felt Fox might attack him with her words as she often did.

“I’m staying out of this one, my dears. Why don’t you discuss it amongst yourselves and get back to me when you have a hypothesis of why this is happening.”

Another flash lit up the inside of the tent as the rain drummed on the drapings overhead. The children began to assess the situation, as Mother often had them do. Each one would bring forth an idea and no one was allowed to make fun of a serious guess. When they were just four years old they had all used this same process to correctly explain why things burn. Mother liked when they could use logic to explain things they didn’t understand. Mother knew that thunderstorms were hard to explain, even if one already knew the science behind them, so she wasn’t looking for the right answer, she just liked to get them to think for themselves.

Charlie came forward, his freckled face very serious and pensive. “Mother,” he said, “we think we have solved this conundrum.”

Mother raised an eyebrow and smiled, “Conundrum, very good word, Charlie.”

He smiled a moment and then went back to being serious. “First we decided that the sky was not breaking or falling apart. We thought that if that was true then the whole sky would be gone by now. So Delta thought that the loud sound could be coming from the bright flashes, but Kilo said that they didn’t happen at the same time so that couldn’t be true. Then I said that it was red like fire, so it must be fire. But Fox said that fire can only come when something is burning, and she said that you told her clouds are made of water and that water can’t burn. But Mikey said that clouds could be smoke and smoke comes from fire. But Juliett said that smoke is not the same as cloud water, and that if there was a fire in the sky right now then the rain would surely put it out like it put out our campfire. So Fox said that the light must be hot because it makes a crackle sound like the campfire does when you put the right wood on it. And we all agreed to that, so we decided that right now the sky is really hot and it doesn’t know what to do with all of the heat so it shoots the ground with light to make itself not so hot anymore.”

Mother clapped and gave them all kisses on the forehead. Their explanation was definitely much better than what she expected. She was genuinely impressed with their reasoning skills. “That is a very good theory, little ones.”

“But how do we test if it’s true?” Charlie asked, knowing that when she called something a “theory” it most likely was the wrong answer.

“Well,” Mother started, as she put her finger to her chin, “that’s a tough one for you six to test out yourselves. I would suggest more observations and more discussions amongst each other.”

“Do you know, Mother?” Juliett asked.

“Do I know what?

“Do you know why this is happening?”

Mother smiled, “I do, Juliett.”

All of the children bunched up together begging Mother to tell them everything. And it was at that moment that they all heard a very different roar in the distance and the smell of rotting corpses filled the air.

Next Chapter: Chapter 4