Eighty feet ahead of the girls, a tree erupted in a fireball.  Its main trunk snapped in half from the heat, and clusters of fruit burst along its branches in a machine gun chain of smaller explosions.  The tree itself seemed to shriek as a pillar of greasy smoke rose from its husk.

            Doria charged forward.  “They started already?” she cried.  “But they can’t!  We don't have a Cade!”  She rushed towards the inferno, wrenching her feet free from the sludge with each step.  She lost a shoe about five feet in. She kept moving without it.

            “Doria!” Melisma shouted, struggling to sprint after her sister.  It was like running with anchors tied to her feet.  She lunged with all her strength, but could barely match pace.

            “Stop purging!” Doria screamed into the smog.  “You’re gonna kill him!”  A thick, orange Cadezu vine blocked her path.  When she climbed onto it, it recoiled violently, almost throwing her back into the mud.

            “Doria, come back!” Melisma yelled.  Doria kept racing forward, oblivious.

            A tree to the left burst into flames.  Molten fruit flew in all directions.  Melisma inhaled and caught a lungful of smog.  She began to cough uncontrollably.  Tears streamed down her face as smoke stung at her eyes.

            “Melisma, help!” a small voice called out behind her.  Lyddie!  She’d forgotten about one sister in her haste to rescue the other.

            The smoke wore on Doria, too.  She threw an arm across her face and shielded her eyes in the crook of her elbow as she ran.  “I said STOP!”

            “Melisma?” Lyddie called out nervously.  She stood statue-still in a mud pit, engulfed up to her bellybutton.  She raised her hands above her head, clutching her shape toy in one of them.  “I can’t move.”

            “I’m coming, Lyddie,”  Melisma slogged back to her sister, legs still burning with every step.  Her chest muscles tightened with fear.  She hated the feeling.  She reached the mud pit and wrapped her arms around Lyddie.  “I’ve got you,” she said.  She heaved and huffed and strained against the swamp.  Eventually, Lyddie came free.

            Lyddie sat down heavily.  “Carry me,” she said.

            “I can’t, Lyddie.  We’ve got to catch up to Doria.  She’s already way ahead of us.”

            Lyddie set her face in a pout.  “Carry me,” she insisted.

            “No,” Melisma exclaimed, exasperated.  “Doria’s in danger!  Come on!”  She began walking toward the burning trees.

            Lyddie sat in the mud, frightened, stubborn, and motionless.

            “I’m going to leave you here!”  Melisma took another heavy step forward.

            “I mean it!” She called, prying a foot from the ooze.

            “Lyddie, I’m not joking!”  She turned to glare over her shoulder.

            Lyddie sat hunched where she’d been plopped, her mud and tear-stained face set in an angry scowl.  “Carry,” she demanded.

            Two minutes later, Melisma set off back across the swamp with Lyddie’s mud-soaked butt on her shoulders.

***