I woke to a gentle stir across my face, looking about I saw nothing. Trying to sit up and look around my strength failed me as I fell back down to the ground. There was neither cold or hot, nor dark or light. All I could now see was what the last days had been.

Slowly my thoughts stirred within me and I could remember the vast emptiness, the land left empty with an ashen dust. I had walked to the four corners and each lay in ruin. There was no water in streams or oceans, rivers or creeks. No trees lined mountain tops, no forest to be found. Hunger no longer an issue for thirst had gone with the hunger. My children were somewhere deep within my thoughts as I struggled each day to find them and keep them safe. I had walked the land as far as icebergs and oceans and desserts, still finding not one soul.

I was left alone here and in days past I had wondered why, now my strength would not even let me think of that. Was I the very last soul to be upon this land, would there be no one to carry on families and homes? I had no tears to shed, just emptiness deep down. Now I was at the brink of my last breath and I had no desires or wishes. I accepted without question my time was at an end and the world would be no more.

Closing my eyes and letting go of my being seemed so easy now, there was no struggle to survive, no will to force me onward. It was a relief to feel this way, never before with any great magnitude had these feelings surfaced in my life, now it was simply just to finish letting go and find what I did not know.

I felt a gentle touch on my arm and as I turned my head I saw him, a brilliant beautiful Red Cardinal. He forced me to look into his eyes and I felt them pierce the core of me, the essence of my soul as I struggled to touch him, he moved toward me and with his help, I touched his wings and with a quick lift I was in flight upon his wings.