The Larissa Epic
Copyright© 2026 by Oz Ozzie
Chapter 10: In the wild
Coming of Age Sex Story: Chapter 10: In the wild - At the start of the story, Larissa is a young woman failing to cope with Covid. The story trace's Larissa's growth through the challenges of Covid and marriage with Julian, and the lives of people around her, ending with Larissa and her friends changing the nature of Australia
Caution: This Coming of Age Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa mt/ft Fa/Fa Mult Teenagers Fiction Rags To Riches Light Bond Group Sex Orgy Exhibitionism Oral Sex Nudism
The day after they got back from their holiday with Thomas and Jane, both Larissa and Julian had a lovely day; no complications; everything going how it should. They sorted out their honeymoon details in New Zealand, and Suzy booked the tickets for them, and arranged accommodation for them; Larissa was really looking forward to it – her first trip outside Australia, though Julian had been to Disneyworld in Orlando as a younger teenager, and New Zealand a few times. Then, at the end of the day, they sat on their balcony sharing a simple meal; the sea was still like a mirror, the temperature was warm, the people on the beach on front of them were chilled out by the weather, and all was right in the world.
Then the world came crashing back on them the day after; Larissa had a more challenging day at work, toxic people, and she felt that she was only getting through it because they were having Ruby, Pete, Chelsea, and Liam over for dinner. Then, midway through the day, she got a message from Julian: something big had come up, and he was getting on the road to watch something out in the bush, and probably wouldn’t get back till Friday afternoon. Yes, shame about the visitors, but he thought she should go ahead anyway. Larissa’s initial response was quite negative; she was pretty mad that her evening was ruined, and drafted a snarly message to send back. But just before she hit send, she stopped. Her man: he wouldn’t do that to her unless it was really important. And if it really was important, she sure wanted him to be committed to it. So she sucked it up, sent him a message saying ‘good luck, thanks for letting me know. I’ll miss you, and look forward to seeing you home.’ Their visitors agreed to come anyway, and they had a lovely evening sitting on their deck and chatting after a quick and intense swim out the front of their place. Not a Larissa swim though – the beach was packed since it was a hot day.
The next day, Larissa started at the office, meeting Harry and his sister for marketing work; his dog was getting better, and allowed to walk very slowly, and they did a lovely video interview between the two of them, and his sister Emma showed Larissa her 3d portrait of Larissa saving Lacey – the service agreed to sell them on her behalf. That took a couple of hours, and it was a blessed break for Larissa because she’d looked at the fire danger rating for the day and the next one: extreme on this day, and code red emergency the next day – both days very hot and dry with a north wind, and the next day, a howling north gale followed by a late afternoon change; code red emergency pretty much meant shutting the state down in advance in case a bush fire started, since if one started, the firefighters would just run away in those conditions. And there were always fires, one way or another; the only question was how big they’d get.
Sure enough, when she was finished with Harry, Bob – the operations manager – briefed her; an existing bush fire east of the city was getting worse, and they had strongly recommended everyone in the zone evacuate, she was heading straight off to the evacuation centre to check on everyone’s pets, and she was seconded to the fire command until the end of the day.
She headed out with the fridge trailer on her van – for all the dead bodies she would expect to have to deal with. She grimaced to herself; today was likely to be physically, mentally and emotionally challenging. At least she was loaded up with water – enough that she could just douse herself as often as she wanted all day.
The evacuation centre was a gentle start to the day; most people had evacuation plans, and were well organised; mainly, her job was making sure they had their pets wrapped in wet towels to keep them cool. She did give a few people spray bottles from her stock in the bushfire trailer, to keep their pets cool. And themselves, she supposed. Then the later arrivals started drifting in; not so well organised and needing pet food and medications. She handed some food and even medications out, but people mostly didn’t know what the right medication was, and she was rescued from one angry pet owner who demanded she give them medicine but didn’t know what they needed by an urgent summons from the fire command. She dumped a whole bunch of supplies on the most competent pet owner she’d seen and left in a rush.
The summons was because they’d found a couple of mildly burnt koalas on one of the burnt roads, and they wanted her to look after them. And shoot some burnt kangaroos too. For the next hour, she was busy running after the crews cleaning up dying animals, and rescuing a few left behind pets that the owners had managed to get the CFA to care about. There was smoke and blocked roads everywhere, and one of the CFA crews she was following pointed out a cluster of burnt houses on the radio – the people there had stayed to defend their houses and farm animals, against advice, and they’d all died in the flames; the first casualties of the fire season.
But not the last. Larissa had been sent along one road to find a crew that wanted something from her – shoot another kangaroo or something, and she was driving through the smoking black wreckage of a burnt forest when, through the smoke, she spotted a shape she shouldn’t see – a car, off the side of the road. She skidded to a stop and looked down the bank at the car: it was still smoking, a dark black smoke that stunk, and it looked like it was not an old wreck to her. There was no way she was going down the bank to look more closely; she could feel the heat from the road, and it could be slippery – a death trap. But she could walk along the road, and when she did, she was pretty sure she could see the remains of a person in the driver’s seat. Maybe; the trees around looked like a mix of gum and pine; they’d certainly burnt very hot, so she wasn’t sure. But sure enough to call it in, and she was joined a few minutes later by the CFA crew she’d been heading towards, and one of them did go down the bank, roped up in case it was slippery, and confirmed: two fatalities, adult and child; caught on the road in the smoke and fear, probably speeding, and they’d driven off the road; hopefully the crash at least knocked them out before they burnt. Larissa shuddered; her first fatality she’d been somewhat involved in, even if it was only finding the wreck; what a horrible way to go.
Then the CFA team took her back to where they’d been and showed her a partially burnt farm, and one of them helped her load up animals that could still be saved into van, and she shot a few more; then her van was full, and she arranged an exchange with Bob. Nicely, they were good to go on this, and just switched whole vans, so now she had a fully loaded van again.
Driving back to the fire zone, she was listening to the command channel and heard them talking about someone who’d been spotted hiding in the forest; for a second she thought of Julian, out there somewhere watching something, and her heart was in her mouth. But she was sure he’d gone much further away than a few minutes from the city. They didn’t have anything for her to do right then, so she found the CFA staging point and waited with a friendly tanker crew, watching the fire front sweeping towards more populated areas. Something would come up in a few minutes for sure.
And when it did ... the fire front suddenly jumped a couple of kilometres – this happened with Eucalypts, which sometimes exploded when burning, throwing embers far away. Larissa was listening and watching, trying to follow, when someone read the address of a property burning in the fire. Another voice chimed in, “That’s the pet stay place.”
Larissa’s heart fell; holiday season, so it would be full of pets, expensive ones, probably, thousands of them, and it was burning? Shit. Larissa was already turning her van to go by the time they ordered her to head towards the place, though the most direct route led through the fire front, so she had to go a long way around. On the trip she called Bob – for sure she’d run out of supplies, and she needed advice. He was in a meeting, but they pulled him out and when she told him what she was doing, he dropped everything and told her help was on the way, everything they had, but at least forty-five minutes behind her.
Shit. Forty-five minutes? She had injections to put twenty pets down. And she only had a hundred rounds of ammunition left. She was still talking to Bob when she arrived at the place; fire command had ordered her to wait for a CFA crew to check it before she went in, and this was certainly the closest she had been to the fire front. The sign for the pet stay was still there, but looking up the drive, the reception building was a bonfire, though it looked nearly burnt out. She couldn’t see any further than that. Where was that CFA crew?
Oh, she found: already in there. A fireman appeared at the top of the drive, and beckoned her up the drive, past the burning building, and then showed her where to park, next to the fire truck. She jumped out of her van, and he briefed her. “Hi. This place is run by a couple, who stayed to protect the animals. They had pretty good fire suppression systems, but they still lost a pet barn, and another has partially burned. The guy passed out from heat exhaustion,” and he pointed to a man sitting in the fire truck, a wet towel over his head. “The other two barns are still standing, but there was a lot of radiant heat and smoke. No point you looking at the building that burnt, but maybe you could start at the partially burnt one? Anyway, Celia here is going to help you.” He pointed to another fire crew member, and Larissa smiled at her. Celia’s primary job was to make sure she was safe; she’d do whatever Celia said.
She grabbed her gun and her preloaded burns kit, loaded up her pockets with ammunition and said, “Let’s go.” There were four barns in a row; Celia took her to one that wasn’t burnt so she could see how they worked: each barn was a long building with a corridor down the middle, and a double layer of cages on either side for pets. It was well set up; the cages were spacious, and it wasn’t too hot in the building, even with the air-conditioning off because the power was out. The whole building was soaking wet, inside and out, from the suppression systems. She saw that the dogs and cats were distressed though, and heard right away that they had inhaled too much smoke. She nodded grimly and then they walked over to the partially burnt one, and Celia showed her how it was burnt down one end, and then burnt on one side, the side facing the remnants of the barn that did burn. Right, Larissa saw; no point checking that burnt barn, there was no way that anything in that building survived.
The wife of the couple was waiting for them at the entrance to the partially burnt barn, the door at the least burnt end. She was totally overwhelmed; Larissa could see it in her face. Surprising that she was still standing, and Larissa respected her for that, but figured that she couldn’t rely on the woman for much. As soon as she entered the building, Larissa could smell it: dead and dying animals, burnt meat, and burnt building smell. The smell matched what she saw, and the smoke was still thick; good thing she was wearing a smoke mask – and well used to wearing masks in a way she wouldn’t have been in the past.
Her heart went out to all the dogs and cats; they were clearly suffering, lying prone and not moving, concentrating on breathing; they needed to get out, get clear air – or clearer, at least; smoke would be everywhere for days yet. But how could she do that? Further into the building, the damage and heat became worse, and the pets were in more distress too, and then she started seeing animals that actually had burns, and then she saw the first that wouldn’t survive. A few steps after that, Celia said, “No further.” Larissa looked up and saw that for the remaining twenty meters or so of the building, there was enough structural damage to the roof that more bits might yet fall down, and it was still smoking a lot. Twenty meters, two layers of kennels on each side, about thirty kennels, so over one hundred animals all up that she couldn’t even look at it, though most of them would be dead and unrecognisable.
She took a deep breath. Where to start? Well, she could only have two priorities – saving the worst of the animals that could be saved, and putting any that couldn’t out of their pain. She turned to the owner. “How many animals can you tie up outside?” Lots, but not sure how many. “And can you still keep them wet?” Yes, a generator and a pump were still working, and there was still water in the tanks. Larissa showed the woman where she should start, getting the non-wounded animals out of their cage, helping them outside, tying them up in the open, and making sure they were kept wet, and working towards the door. No way that she could get them all out, but at least she would be busy, and helping.
Then she got on the phone to Bob, telling him what she needed – lots of leashes and rope, and a water tanker or equivalent to keep the dogs and cats outside wet until the day cooled down. Then she went to work, starting at the point Celia said was her limit. She made a quick assessment of which animals had no chance and started shooting. The owner saw that and the expression on her face pretty much matched way Larissa felt, but she couldn’t leave them to linger in pain for however many hours it would take before they died. Later, someone would have the problem of explaining to loving pet owners why a vet rescue person had shot them – they didn’t usually shoot pets, but her instructions from Bob had been clear: shoot the ones that won’t survive and then do what you can. She tried to put a few animals further along from her limit down, but she found that she had a problem; all her gun training hadn’t included anything about aiming the gun, and her first shot nearly missed altogether. She shot animals from up real close – real personal, for her. She turned to Celia. “Would you go any further along the corridor, and would you use the gun?”
Celia screwed her face up. “No? And definitely not the gun.” She thought quickly. “Another five meters then, and I’ll watch the roof the whole time. You run if I say anything.” Larissa nodded, and worked her way up until she ran out of ammunition before her temporary limit. There wasn’t much point in going further; the animals were mostly dead already any closer to the burnt bit. With a sigh of relief, she put the gun down and got to her real work – checking the animals, particularly their paws; dressing any bad burns, and then carrying them outside to join the growing collection. It seemed like only a few minutes before additional vet rescuers turned up. The first was a guy called Blake, and he said Bob had suggested that he take over site management – was she OK with that? Great, from Larissa’s point of view; she could put her head down and care for the animals if he took over all the responsibility, and she gratefully agreed, and quickly told him what she’d seen and done.
Blake agreed with what she was doing, said he was going off to check the rest of site quickly, and should Celia go with him? She should, and Larissa sighed; Celia had been a great help, carrying animals and keeping Larissa wet; it was even hotter inside the building than outside. But Blake needed Celia, and then shortly after another fireman turned up to help her. It seemed like only a few minutes later, Ruth walked in, and they worked together getting the pets patched and outside and trying to stay cool and hydrated in the ferocious heat.
Eventually, Ruth asked when she last took a break. Larissa looked at her, confused; what counted as a break? “I suppose it might be time for lunch,” she said. Ruth nodded grimly, and pointed out the time – four o’clock. Really? Ruth ordered her to sit for a few minutes, and drink a litre of water before she did anything more. She sat amongst the rescued dogs while she drank, doing her best to comfort them. She would do the same for the cats, even though she was definitely a dog person, but they were a pretty feral by this stage, and all tied to short leashes to keep them apart.
At this stage, a problem presented itself: she also needed to wee. Where the hell would she do that? Celia passed, so Larissa asked her. Celia shrugged. “We just squat. And don’t go hide anywhere, it probably won’t be safe. No one will look, but do you want me stand in front of you?” Nah, Larissa said, you go do your job. She moved away from the animals, dropped her pants and squatted. If anyone saw, they didn’t say anything.
She was fixing her belt when she heard some loud yelling, and suddenly several people, including Ruth, ran out of the building she’d been working in. There was new concern that that building would fall, she gathered, and a couple of minutes later, it did, the burnt end collapsing. By this stage, she had finished her litre of water, and was standing with the group watching. She grimaced; scratch one rifle, which she’d left down that end of the building, and probably her burns kit. No – Ruth had grabbed the burns kit as she ran out. Now the real concern was a whole new load of dust and toxins in the air for all the animals to breathe. A few minutes later, the CFA crew agreed that what was going to fall had fallen, and they were allowed back in the building. Larissa sighed; so many pets, they were only half way through them, and where could they go?
After what felt like only a few more minutes, Blake came up to her and told her to stop. Her new job was to go through the wounded animals, pick out the worst, get them into her van, and then take them down to headquarters, where someone else would take over, and then she was done for the day. She protested; she couldn’t walk out on them before the day was over. Blake assured her that she could do this, given it was already six o’clock, and she needed to get them out of there. And how was she holding up anyway? Actually, she was done, she agreed. Very tired indeed. Blake smiled at her, and between them they identified which animals she was taking, and then she loaded them up with help from a CFA guy.
It was seven by the time she made it back to base, and someone was there to take over the van. Bob was there too and walked her up to the tea room and got her some chilled water – lovely – while she debriefed with him for a few minutes. Then he called Sandi, the nurse, and she came and listened to Larissa’s breathing, and then took her to the women’s change rooms, and told her to strip and get in the shower. Larissa did, and Sandi checked her all over for burns and scratches, and gave her the all clear. “You do this for the guys too?” Larissa asked, and Sandi grinned, yes, but in their jocks.
Then she was gone, and Larissa relaxed and tried to figure out how she felt about the day. Drained. Empty. But also, she’d done what she needed to do, and saved as many animals as she could. She could feel good about that. Should, anyway. She got dressed back in her uniform and wondered what to do with her evening. A gentle swim in the bay on a hot evening sounded like a good thing, and hopefully Fiona would be home and could make her dinner? She made her way to her car, and stood, looking at it. She was tired, she couldn’t recall being quite this tired before. Was she even safe to drive? She leaned against the side of the car and got around to looking at her phone, the first time in about eight hours.
She expected a lot of messages, but her notifications were insane. Messages and even phone calls from lots of friends, and family. She looked at it in shock – what had happened? One of the missed phone calls was from Julian, and she even had a voice message from him. Something must be seriously wrong; he’d never done that before. Alarmed, she ignored everything else and listened to it.
“Hi, babe. No one can get hold of you, so I assume you’re doing a bushfire; I hope you’re OK. I just want to tell you that I’m OK. Chez will send you a link that will explain, if you haven’t already seen it. The police have just let me go, and now I’m really looking forward to getting into your arms as soon as I can. Missing you seriously today.”
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