Zull was bent on his knees with his hands clamped firmly over his ears. The shaking of the ground got more and more violent around him. A panicked deer came crashing out of the brush and fell straight down to a firey death as a crack in the earth opened up ahead of it

 

The fires rose out from the Earth's cracked wounds causing the ground to heat and tremor and it threatened to all life down to it's super heated bowls.

 

Zull clung to an ancient red juniper tree as the soil beneath his bare feet fell away and the tree toppled and finished up across the other side of the crack that formed around him. He clung on for dear life from where he hung, his legs dangling down into the firey abyss. He could feel himself starting to roast, so he acted quickly and managed to raise his legs up and wrap them around the trunk, until he could manage to shuffle himself along to the waiting ledge and roll himself to safety.

 

After rolling away from the ledge, he stood up and made his way back to the stream, the shaking around him was all the more evident. Fallen trees blocked his path so he had to climb over or go around them, either way it hampered his journey back to his lair.

 

Tsa laid back along the riverbank and looked up to the clear azore skies, not noting to herself the reason why she could now see them because usually the forest canopy blotted it out from view. The trees were down around her, but eerily, the forbidden fruit tree stood still and defiant.

 

Zull crashed out of the brush and instantly saw his mate lying near the red hot stream, the waterfall was no more but hot steam. the pool's waters reaching boiling point. Tsa was in a state of a trance, Zull noted the peel from the forbidden fruit still lying next to her, the skin turning a deathly black, like it was rotten.

 

He managed to lift her slender body into his strong arms and they were forced to escape their former home. Zull clung onto Tsa trying to stay erect on his feet, he stared ahead as the shaking continued, to see the high jagged cliffs raise up over the ruined forests edge, rocks and boulders came crashing down to the base...and then the shaking ceased.

 

Zull placed Tsa to the ground gently and then turned around to look upon the devastation that was once their paradise garden. It was no more than a graveyard of fallen trees and raging fires.

 

After the fires had done their worst, he knew that nothing was left of their once haven.

 

Zull found a vacant cave at the top of the cliffs surrounding the crater that confined the catastrophy.

 

The dusk cycle had come, and Tsa laid in the dark cave breaking out into a red hot fever. Zull feared the fever, what curse was set upon his mate? She had eaten the forbidden fruit, was this linked...had she been poisoned by it's deadly magic.

 

Thinking back, when he looked down into the crater, he remembered seeing the forbidden tree. It stood out like a beacon among the devastation around it.

 

And then the darkness came forth from the west, everything faded and disappeared into the pitch black as Earth's moonless night took hold.

 

Zull worried about Tsa, but in his tiredness he quickly feel to slumber beside her in the cave, the fire burning bright outside to ward off any monstrous beast that would attack them.

 

As dawn broke, Tsa's fever started to subside and she was well enough to stand up and go forth out of the cave. The ledge outside the cave faced the crater and she stared down to the ruins of a once beautiful paradise.

 

The morning breeze was gentle on her face and silently moved her hair into her eyes and she swept it back. She dared to look down and focused on the distant glow of the tree. The forbidden tree, it still stood and flourished even after being scorched by hells fires.

 

Zull was then behind her. He was relieved that she had recovered from the fever. He took her arm and pulled her in an upward direction over the ledge, Tsa screamed out and was pointed back into the direction they had come from. A snaking river of hot and steamy substance was crawling out from the crater. Hells blood runs thick and was determined to end their futile existance.

 

He grabbed hold of her hand tightly and pulled her towards his chest, then he turned her and helped her up onto the chipping ledge that overhung above them. He took one final look down into the crater and followed her, leaving their once sanctuary behind for good.

 

Zull and Tsa laid upon the cliff top and stared up to the blue azore skies, the breeze had picked up. Zull sat himself up and pulled his hair out of his face, the grit in the breeze getting into his eyes.

 

The land past the ridge was barren. it was like a neverending wilderness that went to the horizon in all directions. He sighed and held out his hand to Tsa and pulled her to her feet, her long blonde hair swept back in the stiff hot breeze.

 

Tsa wondered where they would go and Zull pointed to the south from the direction the breeze came from. She nodded.

 

Hand in hand they strode on away from the ridge and into the wilderness and into the unknown world that awaited them