Okay so I've had this idea for a while…here it is. R&R

~moonshadow

"I'm bored." Alvin Seville sighed dramatically and leaned back against the wall, furry hands stuffed into the front pocket of his bright red hoodie.

His younger brother (by ten minutes), Simon, looked up from the iPhone he was holding. It had been a Christmas present from Dave. When Alvin had asked why Simon had gotten an iPhone while he and Theodore, the youngest of the triplets, had only gotten small, thin phones Dave had explained it was because Simon would use it for reading and school-related research.

"What a surprise. Call the tabloids." The bespeckled chipmunk commented sarcastically. Alvin shot him an irritated half-glare and pushed off the wall, stretching.

"Well I'm going to take a look around while we wait for Dave and the others to get done with their meetings or clubs or whatever." He said.

It was Saturday. Dave happened to have a meeting in the same multi-purpose building where Theodore and Eleanor had a cook-off and Brittany and Jeanette were meeting with their extra-curricular babysitting class. Alvin would really rather have been anywhere else. At home playing video games or hanging at the beach or the park or going to a movie or something. Not just sitting around in some fancy downtown building for a few hours. He hadn't even brought anything to do. Simon had. But Alvin wasn't really interested in reading Beowulf over his little brother's shoulder.

"Alvin…" Simon protested, but the one with the letter had already scampered halfway down the hall. Simon glanced back down at his iPhone, tempted to stay and read it, then sighed and closed the digital book, locking the phone. He considered stuffing it in his hoodie, but decided it was too bulky and tossed it in the pocket of Dave's jacket.

Alvin knew Simon was following him as soon as he heard the scratching of tiny claws against the tiled floor. He smiled to himself and slowed down – just enough for Simon to catch up, but just enough so he wouldn't catch up before Alvin got to where he was headed. The red-clad chipmunk leapt up onto the windowsill and cracked it open, pushing it up with effort – it felt like nobody had opened it in maybe one hundred years.

"Alvin, what are you doing?" Simon demanded. His older brother turned around with a cocky smile.

"I want to see those gargoyles up close." Alvin replied.

"Alvin, wait!" Simon was too late. Alvin had already squeezed through the chipmunk-sized opening and vanished. Simon groaned, fear tying a knot in his stomach as he jumped up to the sill and reluctantly followed his adventurous brother.

The ledge was too narrow for a human to walk along, almost too narrow for even a chipmunk. Simon almost kept himself from looking down, but wasn't quite successful. He gulped and pressed himself closer to the building, wondering why they had decided to wait for the others fifty stories up.

"Keep up, Si!" Alvin called happily from ahead of him. Simon pried his eyes away from the pavement and looked to see his brother waving to him. Forcing the thought of falling to his doom out of his overactive imagination – after all, if Alvin could do it with his overactive imagination, Simon could do it – the blue-clad chipmunk scampered – cautiously – along the ledge.

Alvin was having the time of his life – the wind in his fur, the sun on his face, fifty feet above ground and a few locked windows away from safety, and his little brother tagging along behind him and making him look even braver by comparison. Alvin could see a gargoyle up ahead of them. It's carved features were supposed to look threatening. They didn't scare the chipmunk. It looked like some sort of mutated crossbred child of a dragon and a monkey. Like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. Or fantasy. One of the two.

Alvin turned around to yell back for Simon to hurry up when a dark shape caught his eye. It was at the top of the building and it looked very familiar. The dark shape shifted, it's sides bulging out like it was morphing into an alien or possibly being warped by some unseen force…

…or spreading it's wings.

Alvin's eyes widened in horror. It was a bird. No – a bird of prey. Frozen in instinctual fear, the chipmunk watched as it shot like a graceful killer into the air and arched smoothly down, a missile locked on course right towards…

"SIMOOOON!"

Simon looked up just in time to get a face full of red sweatshirt as Alvin tackled him backwards. The force of his tackle flipped Simon fully over from a crouch onto his back in a matter of seconds. And just as quickly or even faster, the weight of the elder munk was ripped off the younger. Frantic, Simon's arm shot out and grabbed Alvin's before he even had a chance to process the fact that his brother had just been thrown off the ledge of the building by some unknown terror.

"Alvin, Alvin what's going on?!" Simon asked as he shakily pulled his brother back onto the ledge. His eyes were wide with panic and his entire body trembling as he tried not to think about how close he had come to losing his brother.

"Eagle. Later. Inside now." Alvin gasped, stumbling as he tried to turn Simon around and head back towards where they'd come out.

"No, the gargoyle is closer." Simon argued. Alvin hesitated, but let Simon take his arm and drag him the last few feet toward the stone statue. The eagle – a golden eagle to be precise – had circled around and come back, but it was too late. Simon and Alvin lunged under the gargoyle within seconds of being torn to bits – for real this time.

It was dark and cramped under the statue. The space between it and the ledge was only about enough for the two chipmunks to lie down side by side, or maybe sit if they curled over themselves. The dark, cold rock blocked out the sun and Simon felt like his beating heart was ten times as loud as Alvin's guitar solos during their concerts. It wasn't until he felt the smaller chipmunk move closer so they were side-by-side that he managed to pull himself out of his panic and look over at his brother.

"Alvin, are you okay?" He asked.

"Never better," Came the pained reply. The tight-lipped, hoarse tone of voice was enough to set off alarm bells in anyone's mind, let alone someone who had been with the other one literally since birth.

"Don't lie to me. I'm so not in a joking mood right now." Simon threatened. Alvin choked a laugh.

"Yeah, me neither." He murmured.

Simon turned on his side with effort and noticed that Alvin was facing away from him, lying on his left side and clutching his right. In the darkness, it was hard to make out what was wrong, but Simon could see that the fabric looked as if it had been torn away, and the area around that torn bit was an ominous, dark color.

"Are you hurt?" Simon's words caught in his throat. Alvin couldn't be hurt. Not now. He'd never been hurt before in any of their antics…okay he had, but never seriously. Alvin was the oldest chipmunk, the awesomest one, the indestructible one. He couldn't…he just couldn't… Calm down, Simon. You're getting ahead of yourself. It's probably not that bad. Simon tried to talk himself out of the down-spiral in his mind.

"Um…yes." Alvin admitted carefully. "But I'll be okay."

He was lying and he knew it. He was trying, but he couldn't stop the bleeding. And he didn't have to be a medical expert to know he was going into shock. Not to mention he couldn't move his right leg and almost everything besides his arm on his right side felt like it was infested with a swarm of angry bees. Possibly angry zombie bees, he corrected internally.

"Let me see it." Simon's voice felt like it came from far away, and Alvin jerked in surprise when his brother's hand touched his shoulder. Carefully, he felt himself being rolled over.

That only seemed to irritate the zombie bees. Alvin clenched his teeth to hold back the screams of pain, whimpers sneaking out no matter how hard he tried. He opened his eyes to see a blurry Simon with an anxious expression on his face and attempted a reassuring smile. It didn't seem to help much. Alvin tried to shake himself out of whatever half-aware state he was in. He had to be the strong one…he always was.

Simon watched as Alvin's normally sharp and energetic brown eyes opened. But they weren't Alvin's eyes. They were glazed and unfocused. Simon felt panic rear up inside him again even as Alvin smiled weakly at him. Weakly. Alvin never did anything weakly. He tore his eyes away from his brother's face that was not his brother's face, inspecting the wound…and immediately wishing he had not.

Three long, deep gashes had torn through Alvin's right side - one cutting across his ribs a little under his arm, one ripping across his vulnerable middle, and one slashing through his lower back and his upper thigh. Simon almost puked at the sight, his panic threatening to take over. He'd thought the nightmare possibility of losing Alvin was over. But it was just beginning. If he didn't get medical attention soon…

"Hey Si, maybe I should wear your glasses. You don't look too clear." Alvin joked, his voice coming out more delusional than he'd intended.

"You need help." Simon took off his sweatshirt and pressed it to Alvin's wounds, killing two birds with one stone – trying to stop Alvin from bleeding out and hiding the carnage from view. "I should try to make it back to the window."

"No!" Alvin shouted. He closed his eyes, his body throbbing in pain from the effort. "No," He repeated, quieter, eyes opening and focusing on his brother. "You have to stay here. You wouldn't…" His eyes detached from Simon's face and wandered aimlessly, losing focus and purpose simultaneously.

"Alvin!" Simon reached out in fear without thinking and shook his brother's shoulder. Alvin shrieked in pain and Simon jerked back, horrified at what he had done. "Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry, Alvin!"

"No, no, it's…fine." Alvin forced a smile. "I was…drifting. Anyway. You have to stay here. The eagle will get you if you leave."

"It would have gotten me anyway." Simon felt guilt burning through him like molten lava. Alvin had blocked the eagle's strike with his own body. He had saved Simon…and Simon had forced him away from the window, maybe the only hope he had of survival. "I should've listened to you before. When you tried to run for the window."

"Never would've made it." It was getting harder for Alvin to talk. And focus. What was he focusing on again? Simon. But where were they? And why did his side hurt so bad? Dave. He had to tell Dave he was hurt so he could go to the hospital or take some medicine and feel better.

"Alvin, stay with me." Simon's fear-soaked voice shook Alvin from his mind, if only for a moment.

Dave's not here, he reminded himself. There isn't any medicine for something like this.

"I'm not going anywhere." He said in what he hoped was a convincing tone. He wanted to convince Simon that he would make it…then at least one of them would believe it.

Dave met up with Theodore, Eleanor, Brittany, and Jeanette at the designated meeting spot after a long morning of boring meetings. He was barely awake. He needed coffee…or five minutes trying to control his hyperactive son Alvin. Now there was something nobody could sleep through. But when he got to the meeting spot, neither Alvin nor Simon – who was supposed to be on Alvin Duty – were there.

"Where do you think they went?" Theodore asked nervously.

"I'm sure they're fine, Theo." Eleanor assure him. "Maybe they got hungry."

"Or had to go to the bathroom." Jeanette guessed.

"They probably went exploring." Brittany huffed, crossing her arms. She was tired. Alvin had better not have gotten into trouble…she had just spent two hours learning how to feed, cloth, and rock to sleep babies around five times her size and ten times her weight. She was not in a good mood.

"But what could they explore without getting us called down to whatever meeting they disrupted?" Jeanette asked.

"Why don't you call them?" Theodore asked pleadingly, huge eyes looking up at Dave. Dave smiled.

"Of course I will." He said. He reached into the pocket of the jacket he had left with the other boys…and barely managed to catch a certain meticulously-scratchless iPhone as it fell out of the same pocket.

"Well," Brittany sighed. "I guess that's out."

Simon's blue sweatshirt was almost soaked through. His paws were stained with the dark liquid and Alvin was becoming more and more unresponsive. They were huddled together against the cold as Alvin's limp body folded more and more into Simon's taller and protective form. Simon cradled his older brother in his trembling arms. He was growing stiff, but he wouldn't move for fear of causing even more pain.

"Alvin, can you hear me?" He asked shakily.

"…yes…" Alvin's voice was little more than a whisper. He was fading fast and he knew it. He couldn't move at all anymore – just his eyes and his mouth when he needed to speak. And he knew that even that would soon be gone. The scary part was he couldn't bring himself to care. He was definitely in shock…and he was so tired. All he wanted to do was sleep. That couldn't hurt, could it? Just close his eyes…and let go.

"Please don't let go." Simon whispered, almost as if he could hear his brother's thoughts. He was praying hard for someone, anyone, to open a nearby window and save them. No – save Alvin. Alvin was the one who needed it, Alvin was the noble hero who had sacrificed himself to save his brother, his family. But the family wouldn't be the same without Alvin. Stop thinking like that! Simon screamed internally. He's going to make it! He has to!

But it was so cold. Simon's sweatshirt was so wet. The question rang like a broken bell in the smart one's head; how much blood could a chipmunk lose and still survive?

"Alvin! Simon! Alvin!" Theodore called. He was really getting worried. The five of them had been waiting for twenty minutes and his brothers were still missing. Finally, they had agreed to split up to look for them. Theodore had stayed by the meeting point in case they came back – and this time, everyone had a phone.

"Huh, that's strange." A man who looked a little like the high school janitor was standing by a window. Theodore moved closer, curious.

"What is?" He asked.

"This window wasn't open the last time I was up here." He said. Theodore's eyes widened.

"DAVE!"

Alvin was numb. He couldn't feel anything – not his legs, not his arms, not even his chest when he sucked in what used to be painful gulps of air. He tried to open his eyes – and a blurred image of what might be Simon appeared so it probably worked. He opened his mouth and tried to speak, his tongue feeling like a swelled cushion in his mouth.

"Si…" He murmured.

"Save your strength," Simon knew it wouldn't do any good to try to stop him.

"If…if I don't…" Alvin gasped.

"You will." Simon insisted, more forcefully than intended.

"But…if…" Alvin coughed weakly. "T-take care of Theodore…okay?" Simon tightened his grip around his brother.

"I thought I did that already." He joked lamely. Alvin squeaked a pained laugh.

"Tell him I…"

"Tell him what?" Simon prompted after a long silence. When there was no reply, he looked down frantically. "Alvin? Alvin?" The oldest chipmunk's eyes were closed, his body limp as a rag. Simon pushed on his sweatshirt, applying more pressure than needed to the wounds in desperate hopes of shocking Alvin awake.

Nothing. Nothing happened. There was no response, not even a reflex.

"Alvin?" Simon felt the tears drop from his eyes as he clutched his brother tighter, pulling him close. Simon pressed his ear to Alvin's chest, trying to find a heartbeat. A faint, weak beat that was nothing like the strong thump Simon would expect met him. "Thank God." He sighed. But the heartbeat was fading. Simon's trembling fingers gripped Alvin so tightly they turned white. But he wasn't about to let go. It was some kind of superstitious belief that he could keep Alvin from dying just by holding onto him.

Stay awake. Alvin murmured in his head. He was swimming in darkness, lost in a collapsing dream. There was nothing here. Okay well if you're not going to stay awake, at least stay aware. He realized with a giddy excitement that 'awake' and 'aware' had all the same letters besides one. Wow I really am in shock. He murmured silently.

He could feel himself dying…and it was hands down the worst feeling he'd ever felt. He remembered when he had thought school was the worst thing that could happen to him. He thought he was dying from that. But really, he hadn't even been close. This was dying.

He just hoped…hoped that…

"Simon! Alvin! Simon!" Someone was sticking their head out of a fifty story window calling names of chipmunks in a rock band. Nobody really paid attention. They all just kind of shut their windows and turned up the music on their iPods, cleverly concealed within their clothing items. Nobody noticed – or tried not to notice – the frantic tone in someone's voice.

Nobody watched out their window as a grown man made his way out the window and edges along a ledge too small for his feet toward a gargoyle.

Nobody saw him reach beneath said gargoyle and pull out two chipmunks, like a magic trick.

Nobody saw him almost fall as he made his way back to the window.

Nobody saw anything.

Nobody witnessed the little red car shrieking out of the parking garage and toward the nearest hospital.

Nobody saw…and nobody knew that there was a critically injured rock star in the front seat, along with a desperate group of brothers and sisters.

Nobody saw how it began.

Nobody saw how it ended.

There will be a second part soon! I promise! But I just had to upload this first. :D And I love cliffhangers. Review!