The C-Files
Episode 3-10
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ACT 10: Family Reunion

For the next two years, Melissa and Abigail continued to live their lives as they as best they could.  By this time, Melissa and her husband created a second litter of 6 children, and Abigail was working for both the strip club and a sex education institution in Victoria (see SEFS).  Although Melissa and Abigail were happy with their lives, they still missed their parents as well as there other brothers and sisters who were killed ruthlessly by the Troublemaker several years earlier.  However, as they would soon discover, not all of their siblings were killed after all.

One day, at the Vulpine army base in south Minneapolis, a young male red fox had been in New Orleans on a business trip when Hurricane Katrina made her presence known.  After spending 5 days stuck in New Orleans, he along with about 30 other evacuees (in just that trip*) were picked up by the Vulpine army that had been called into action by their home government on Vulpes after hearing about the devastation that had occured in New Orleans.  The evacuees were put on one of several turbo jets, which would bring all survivors of Katrina rescued to various Vulpine Army bases in the U.S. as well as even a few on Mason Island.  The fox along with 20 other evacuees had been brought to Minneapolis to have a fresh start after their lives had been wrecked by the storm.  Luckily for the fox, since he lived on Mason Island, all he would have to do would be to go to the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport and take a flight home.  At the time the evacuees arrived, Gen. Sherman was helping several other soldiers find out the identities of the evacuees as well as help them get whatever they needed to get their lives back on track (Mike and Michelle Mason had donated over $1 billion to go directly to evacuees who were picked up by the Vulpine army).  When Gen. Sherman asked the fox for his I.D., he took it out of his wallet.  Gen. Sherman looked at it and saw a familiar last name...Johannsen.  Since that was Melissa's maiden name, he couldn't help to ask him if he had a relative named Melissa.  Brian told Gen. Sherman that he had a sister named Melissa who was a mousette that was his age and he hadn't seen in years since his family was attacked by the Troublemaker, for years he had feared that his entire family was killed.  When Gen. Sherman heard that he was probably Melissa's brother, he told him that Melissa was not only alive, but he had married her.  He also told Brian that his little sister Abigail was also alive.  When he heard that two of his sisters survived, Brian immediately wanted to see them.  Abigail lived in Mason City and he would have to wait to see her...However, Gen. Sherman did offer to take him home to see Melissa as soon as his shift was over.  In the meantime, Gen. Sherman asked Brian if he could help out the other evacuees for a few hours while he waited.  Brian saw first-hand what Katrina had done to New Orleans and was more than happy to help out.

Later that evening, Gen. Sherman brought Brian to his house near the base where Melissa had just gotten home from shopping for a local supply drive to help hurricane victims.  She had donated several cart fulls of bottled water and non-perishable foods and had gone upstairs to take a shower.  When Gen. Sherman and Brain arrived, the General noticed that all 12 of his and Melissa's children were already sleeping and she was in the bathroom.  Meanwhile, Gen. Sherman told Brian how he had rescued Melissa and Abigail, brought them to his cousin (who happened to be Michael A. Mason) who gave the two mousettes a second chance at living.  Later, he married Melissa after she had come looking for him.  About 20 minutes after they had arrived, Melissa had gotten out of the shower and came downstairs.  When she got downstairs, she was going to snuggle with her mate, until she saw a familiar face from her past.  Naturally, the two siblings recognized each other and were surprised to see that they were alive.  Brian and Melissa hugged each other tightly and nuzzled warmly, they were quite happy to see each other after all these years.  After they had finished nuzzling, Melissa asked her brother how he managed to survive, she knew that he had ran out, but the rats let him get away, thinking that he wouldn't survive.

After escaping from their childhood home several years earlier, Brian ran for 2 miles to a neighborhood that had escaped the terror unleashed by the rats.  Before he could reach one of the residences, Brian collapsed about ten feet from a nearby house.  At that time, a young vixen named Celeste came out of that very same house and saw Brian on the sidewalk, badly injured, but still alive.  Celeste ran back into the house and called for her mother, who happened to be an E.R. nurse on her day off.  Celeste's mom checked Brian and found out that he was still alive and needed medical attention quickly.  She and Celeste carried him into her car and raced to Mason City Medical Center.

Six hours later, after a blood transfusion, and re-constructive surgery to repair his arm and a collapsed lung, Brian woke up in a hospital bed where he saw two vixens that he had never seen before.  One of them was around his age (Celeste) who was holding his hand, trying to comfort him; while the other vixen (her mother) was running tests on him.  When she noticed that Brian was awake, Celeste's mom told him that the surgeons repaired his arm and lung and that he would be fully healed in a few days.  Then the nurse left the room and let him rest, she asked Celeste to let Brian rest, but she didn't want to leave him.  After Celeste pleaded with her mom to stay with him, she decided to let her daughter stay with him for a little while longer.  Celeste nuzzled Brian softly and purred warmly for him, knowing that her love would help him heal faster.  Although he didn't seem to mind her being so friendly with him, Brian didn't know Celeste and asked the young vixen why she was so attached to him.  First of all, Celeste thought that Brian was cute and she wanted to date him as soon as he was well enough to get out of the hospital.  But more importantly, when he needed a blood transfusion, the hospital didn't have enough of Brian's blood type on hand.  If he didn't receive a full blood transfusion, he would surely die.  However, Celeste's mom remembered that her daughter was the same blood type as he did and Celeste agreed to donate a pint of her blood to complete the transfusion.  Celeste showed the band-aid covering the part where they took the blood from on her arm.  When he heard that Celeste helped save his life, Brian figured that he at least owed her a date.

During the next few years after that, Brian lived his life as best as he could.  After the rats and the Troublemaker had been killed, Brian rebuilt a home where he and his siblings grew up.  Both of his parents and most of his siblings were dead and buried.  For years, he had believed that Melissa and Abigail were also dead, even though all he heard from the places he asked is that they were "missing".  Time helped Brian heal some of his emotional wounds, he and Celeste eventually married and had 10 fox pups together, Celeste and Brian agreed to name their first litter after his siblings and parents, including Melissa and Abigail.  Towards the end of August 2005, Brian and several of his other co-workers were called on a business trip to New Orleans about a week before Katrina struck the region.

Now that Melissa knew that Brian was alive and well (and vice-versa), the two siblings were eager to get back together for a family reunion.  A few days later, the two siblings, Gen. Sherman, and all the children hopped on an Island Airlines flight to Mason City where Abigail and Brian's family were located.

End of Act 10 

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*: The Vulpine Army rescued about 2,000 people in all.
 
NOTE 1: Although the disaster associated w/Katrina is very much real...the lion's share of this story isn't.  To those of you who happened to live through the storm (if you are reading this), this story is not meant to make anyone feel bad about what they had gone through.  I tried to be extremely careful when I wrote this story.
 
NOTE 2: Even though I live in Minnesota (well away from New Orleans), it doesn't mean I don't care about what happened there.  I will be creating a memorial-type image which will go on the home page to this site and the main site soon.
 
NOTE 3: Ever since I was about 5 years old, I have been interested in meteorology.  Over the past 20 years or so, I have heard about and read about disasterous hurricanes such as Camille, Andrew, the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane, the 1900 Galveston Hurricane, etc.  Whenever I hear about a significant weather-related disaster (especially tornadoes and hurricanes) I try to incorporate them into my stories, trying to educate people as well as maybe offer them a little bit of hope at the same time.