A/N: Hi everyone! Welcome to Cleaved!

Two things before ya move on. First, it's a fanfiction. So there's going to be some differences from the actual film. In this case, Nick isn't poor, but he's not wealthy either. He's in the lower middle class so to speak.

Secondly, read and review! I love to hear feedback negative and bad!

Smoke.

It was all I could see, all I could smell...

I stumbled out my bed, hacking and coughing. The floor felt hot to the touch.

"Mom! Dad!" I screamed.

The was no reply. I rushed to my bedroom door and opened it, only to be met with a blazing heat that sent me barreling backward. Smoke rushed into my room and I started coughing. Tears stung my eyes, but whether that was from the smoke or my own fear I had no idea.

I stood up shakily and walked out, using my hand as a guide, running it along the wall. One end of the hallway was completely blocked off by fallen beams from the ceiling, engulfed in a bright orange inferno.

I made my way down the other end of the hallway towards my parents bedroom.

The door was blocked by something and I could feel the heat through the door. I felt sick to my stomach.

"Mom! Dad!"

They didn't answer.

I banged on the door to no avail, tears streaming down my face. Something exploded and I decided to run out of the house for help.

I raced down the hallway only to see the dining room completely engulfed in flames, blocking the front door. The rear door was too far, on the other side of the house. I was trapped.

The heat made the moisture in my eyes and mouth boil. I burst back into my bedroom, the only area barely harmed by the flames, and smiled. Some luck at last: the window!

I threw it open when suddenly there was another explosion, closer this time, and a deafening shockwave flooded my eardrums. Something smashed against one of my legs and snapped it like a twig. I fell to the ground and hit my head, hard. My head was spinning.

Ignoring the excruciating pain, I half jumped, half fell out the window and onto the cold grass, crawling as far as I could from the house. I watched as it began to implode, the roof caving in as the flames shot higher.

I heard the familiar wail of emergency sirens and saw red and blue lights dancing off of the column of smoke billowing into the night. Help was coming. Glancing once more at my home, now no more than a burn down heap, I felt myself slipping into unconsciousness.

Beep...

Beep...

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I cracked open my eyes slowly to see a barren, all-white room.

Was I in a hospital?

I grimaced. My head hurt. My eyes hurt. My leg hurt as well but not as much as I would have expected. Looking down, I saw that it was in a cast. In general, I felt awful.

Sitting up, I pulled various tubes and wires off and out of my body and looked around the room for a mirror or a bathroom. Finding the latter, I painfully hobbled over, threw open the door, and stared at my reflection.

A red fox stared back. Along with the cast on my left leg, there were various bandages around my body. It made my red fur stick up in awkward ways and the tip of my tail was singed. I was a total mess.

What happened?

I walked back shakily to the hospital bed and lay back down just as a pig in a nurse uniform walked in.

"Oh my gosh! Don't move too much!" Seeing that I wasn't going to be bouncing off the walls anytime soon, she smiled. "For such a small pup, you really took a beating."

"What do you mean?"

"Broken leg, mild burns, smoke poisoning, and a concussion. And you were unconscious for almost a full week."

"How did that happen?"

She opened her mouth to reply, but I cut her off. "Do you know where my parents are? Are they okay?"

Her expression dropped. "You don't remember?" I shook my head. She sighed and sat down on the bed next to me, placing a hoof on my shoulder. "Your house burned down. Your…you were the only one to make it out."

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. "You mean…my parents…?" I stammered, not able to actually say the words. The words that meant my life had changed. Forever.

She nodded slowly. "I'm so sorry."

I couldn't help it. The sobs wracked my body, making me ache all over. But I didn't care. I felt like I wouldn't care about anything else ever again.

My name is Ace.

I'm six years old.

My favorite color is blue…

And now... I'm an orphan.

A couple days later I was lying on the bed, looking at one of those kid magazines that hospitals always have.

I wasn't really reading it. Nothing really grabbed my attention anymore, not even the picture-search puzzles I loved so much.

Everything just seemed bland.

But then the door to my room opened and instead of the pig nurse (who's name I learned was Lucy), a police officer walked in. He was a red panda and he had a balloon in his paw.

"Hey there Ace," he said like we were friends. I didn't recognize him. "They told me you were awake and doing okay. I thought I'd come over and give you a little something to help you feel better." He tied the string of the balloon to the railing of my bed.

I looked up at it with its big GET WELL SOON! message and then back at the cop.

"Who are you?" I asked. And I actually was curious. This was the first thing that had really interested me since…

Well. It was the first thing that interested me in a while.

"I'm Officer Fulgen. I was the one who found you outside your house and brought you here."

"Outside my house?" I repeated, confused.

The officer's brow furrowed. "How much do you remember of that night?"

Too much. Some of my memories had come back from when I first woke up. I remembered the heat and the smoke and the way my parents didn't respond when I called out to them. But I didn't say any of that. Instead, all I said was, "Not much."

The red panda sighed and sat down on the edge of my bed.

"When we got to your house, it was already too late. I was going around to the back, making sure the fire hadn't spread to any other houses, when I saw you lying on the grass. I scooped you up and brought you to the paramedics, but you wouldn't let go of me. So I came along with you to the hospital. I asked them to tell me when you woke up to see if you were okay for myself. I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner."

He didn't talk to me like the other doctors and nurses did.

They kept calling me "champ" and saying that it would all be okay. But it wasn't going to be okay. I wasn't stupid. And Officer Fulgen understood that. He was honest and straight forward, but still kind.

Just then, Nurse Lucy came in with a tray of food.

"Oh!" she said as she saw the red panda, who stood when she entered. "I didn't know you had a visitor. It's lunchtime, champ!" She placed the tray on the table by my bed before leaving. I watched her close the door and then turned my attention to the food she had brought me. It was typical hospital food: bland and boring.

Maybe it was the hospital that was bland and boring.

Officer Fulgen turned and rested a paw on my cast before taking out a sharpie from his pocket. He wrote something I couldn't see and then tussled the fur between my ears.

"You're a fighter, Ace. Never forget that. I'll see you around." He winked, and then left.

I craned my neck to see what he had written on my cast and for the first time since the fire, I smiled. He had drawn a quick sketch of a fox with a cape, standing with its fists at its waist.

Later that day I took a small blanket from the cabinet on the other side of the room and tied it around my neck. If I could have jumped off my bed and have my new cape flutter behind me, I would have.

But… that wouldn't have worked out with the current state of my leg and all.

The last thing I saw before going to sleep that night was the balloon floating high above me, and I dreamed of flying.

In the month I'd been here not one item on the menu tasted good. I took a bite of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich they had given me for breakfast, grimacing at the terrible taste.

How do you mess up a PB&J sandwich? It's so simple.

I quickly ate the rest of it, not wanting to prolong my torture, before drinking the cup of water that had gone along with the sandwich. Nurse Lucy walked into the room with a small bag not long after that.

"The CPA will be here soon, so I'll give your clothes to you now," she said, smiling as she placed the bag next to me on the bed.

"CPA?" I asked, looking inside the bag to find a blue hoodie, a white tee, and some black sweatpants. They smelled like fruits.

"Child Protection Association. They'll bring you to a foster home where you'll live until someone decides to adopt you."

I felt my eyes water. "A-adopt?" I almost whispered.

She placed a hoof on my shoulder in an attempt to console me. It didn't work. Realizing this, she removed her hoof and walked towards the door. "I'll leave you to change. I'll be here if you have any questions. You just need to call, alright?"

Any questions? Of course I had questions! Yet…I couldn't bring myself to say a word. I just looked at her and nodded.

She sighed, waving as she left, and I put on my clothes. Everything fit almost flawlessly. The exception being the huge hood on my hoodie.

I sat on the bed again, trying to remember my life before the fire.

I had a family, a home. And now…

My head pounded.

"This really sucks," I said to no one in particular.

When the CPA arrived, they drove me down to some rural area.

I didn't really care where they took me.

The car slowed to a stop, and we were outside a huge house. The driver, a panther, who had mentioned his name before but I hadn't cared to remember, opened the door for me.

"Welcome to Cruz's Foster Home."

My ears drooped. "Yay..."

The panther seemed like he would sympathize with me, but he just rang the doorbell, handed over some papers, and left me there.

An old Cheetah answered the door in a weird pink and white dress. She had large glasses, wrinkles all over her face, and a stern to boot.

"You're Ace, huh?" she said.

"Yeah."

She eyed me shrewdly. "Dinner's at six, the kids are in the back. Your room will be set up later." She turned tail and left me there, feeling just a little neglected.

"Could've at least given me a tour," I muttered as I stepped through the door and into the house.

It was simple. The entire first floor was open concept, with each room flowing into one another. The living room had a large TV and toys scattered everywhere. The dining room had a huge table that was filled with chairs, and the kitchen was your normal kitchen.

I decided to go out back to look at the other foster children before I explored the upstairs. I stood behind the back door and it swung open with a loud screech, alerting everyone to my presence.

There were several bunnies, a sheep, a cat, a duck, a badger, and a wolf.

"Who are you?" the duck asked. He was wearing a blue t-shirt and brown shorts.

"My name's Ace," I said.

He smiled. "Nice to meet you. My name's Dylan. The sheep is Mari, the cat is Gus, the badger is Jasper, and the wolf is-"

"None of his business," the wolf interrupted him.

He was grey with dark yellow eyes and wore a white tank top with green shorts. He walked over and leered at me. "You'd better watch your back, newbie."

I glared at him. "What am I, an owl?"

He just rolled his eyes and shoved me out the way.

Dylan shook his head. "That's Chet. He's a bit of a bully. Rumor has it, he's been through six foster homes." He said whispering the last part.

I raised my eyebrows. Definitely not the type to make enemies with the first day. So far things were going great. "So you wanna play tag?" Dylan asked.

I rubbed the back of my head. "Uh, I can't really..." I lifted up a sweatpant leg to show my cast.

Dylan nodded. "We could just play catch then."

I nodded, and he went to grab a ball.

Before we knew it, the sun was setting and the air was getting a little colder.

A bell chimed. Dylan grabbed my hand. "That's the dinner bell. We'd better get inside."

They all rushed forward and I followed.

The food was... unique.

Mashed potatoes that hadn't been mashed all the way and some sort of weird block-like thing. And drizzled on top of everything was a thin and tasteless gravy.

This is gross.

I forced myself to eat it, though. This was no better than the hospital. If anything, it was worse.

When everyone was done, Ms. Cruz told us it was bedtime and everyone walked upstairs mechanically.

There were four rooms in total: three for us and one for Ms. Cruz. We all took turns showering and I couldn't help but gag at buildup of fur near the drain.

When I was done, I went to the last room in the hallway which had a two bunk beds in it. I went to the first bed and sat down on the bottom bunk. Jasper followed me into the room, claiming the top bunk…of the other bed.

Ms. Cruz clapped and cut off the lights.

I sighed, laying down, and closed my eyes, hoping sleep would bring happier thoughts.