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The night should have been loud.
Crickets usually stitched the darkness together with their songs, and the gum trees whispered whenever the wind passed through. But tonight, everything felt wrong—too wide, too quiet. Possum Mama clung to the rough bark of her usual tree and felt it again: the hollow where warmth should be.
Her pouch was empty.
She froze, heart thumping so hard she could feel it in her whiskers. Slowly, carefully, she checked again, nudging the soft folds with her nose as if the babies might be hiding, playing a trick. They weren’t. No tiny tails. No gentle squeaks. Just the cold night air where her joeys should have been.
Panic crept in like a shadow.
Only hours ago, they had been there—three little ones, blind and clumsy, tucked safely against her as she foraged near the creek. She remembered the snap of a branch, the sudden rush to climb higher, the way she’d leapt tree to tree without looking back. Had she climbed too fast? Had one slipped? Or two? Or all three?
Possum Mama closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe.
Think. She had to think.
She lowered herself down the trunk and sniffed the bark, the leaves, the dirt below. There—faint, familiar scents tangled together. Her babies. They had been here. Recently. Relief fluttered in her chest, quickly chased by fear. The smells split apart, leading in different directions, thin as threads ready to snap.
“Stay strong,” she told herself, though no sound came out.
She chose the strongest trail and followed it across the forest floor, moving low and slow. Every rustle made her flinch. Every unfamiliar scent made her pause. The forest was full of dangers for small, helpless joeys—but it was also full of hiding places, and hope.
A soft sound stopped her.
Not a cricket. Not the wind.
A squeak.
Possum Mama lifted her head, ears twitching, eyes scanning the darkness. The sound came again, weak but real, from somewhere near the fallen log ahead. Her tired legs carried her forward faster now, heart pounding with something new—determination.
“I’m coming,” she whispered into the night.
The forest did not answer, but it watched as Possum Mama disappeared into the shadows, following the call of her lost child, unaware that this was only the beginning of her search.
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