Violet

Our wolf appeared beside us in an instant and Zephyr leaped onto its back, hauling the children up with her. Our wolf lunged forward, and the man was beside us on his own wolf, both animals stretched out in desperate flight.

The wave was coming.

I could feel its shadow falling over us, and it scared me.

We ran faster.

"Where are we supposed to go?!" Zephyr yelled at the man. "We were meant to head for the sea—"

"Just run!"

She screamed, "We are literally running in the direction of where our enemies would also be taking to escape the—"

A grey wolf slammed into us from the side.

Our wolf went down, tumbling, and Zephyr was thrown free. The children screamed as they fell, their small bodies hitting the rocky ground with sickening thuds. The grey wolf lunged for them only for our wolf to catch it by the throat, tearing and killing it.

But more wolves were coming, trying to also outrun the wave.

The ground rumbled and cracked as the waters thundered down on the city behind us.

I turned around only for the water to hit me like a fist.

The world suddenly went dark and cold. I couldn’t see or breathe. Something struck my head and pain exploded through my skull.

Then nothing.

[ - ]

I woke up again to find myself still trapped in Zephyr’s body.

But the distinction was growing harder to hold onto.

She was me. I was her.

I could feel her body ache and throbbing headache. I was wedged between two rocks, water still streaming from my robes. Her lungs burning as she coughed up seawater.

She then pushed herself up, crawling, and clawing her way onto more stable ground.

The sight before me rendered me speechless.

The world was destroyed.

Where the city had stood, there was only wreckage. Broken buildings jutted from mud and debris like shattered bones. Bodies lay everywhere, and the sea had retreated, leaving behind devastation that stretched as far as she could see.

Zephyr stood there, swaying on her feet, and began to weep.

The children. The man.

They were all gone.

Her grief infected me, and we went around searching for them.

But the search proved futile.

I don’t know how long she walked. Time had lost meaning. She walked through the bodies and ruin of everything she had ever known.

She walked toward what remained of the city.

But when she reached a ridge, she saw surviving wolves pulling their peers out of the wreckage.

Dozens more still prowled through the ruins, sniffing at bodies, and hunting for survivors. They hadn’t all been killed by the cataclysm. The ones left remained to finish what they had started.

Zephyr dropped to her stomach, pressing herself against the muddy ground, her hand clamped over her mouth to stifle her sobs.

She couldn’t go back.

There was nothing to go back to.

She crawled away, weeping, and the world went dark.

[ - ]

When the vision returned, everything had changed.

I was in a cave.

No... I remembered this place.

This was the crystal cavern with the pink glow and where my wolf had come out from. But it looked a lot different now. The ceiling was completely covered, and the only sources of light were the small glowing orbs placed around the space. The cave was a lot wider here and the crystals were not as many.

But that giant crystal slab was in front of me.

And Zephyr... I... was painting something on the slap with blood.

Her blood.

Her fingers were stained red, her palm sliced open, and she traced patterns onto the pink crystal surface with trembling hands. Tears streamed down her face as she worked, her lips moving in prayers I couldn’t understand.

But I felt her grief and despair, along with a desperate clinging hope.

I slowly realised she was sealing our wolf in here.

She was tethering part of her soul to this place, a pattern that would reach through death itself to find her again.

I was amazed.

How had she thought of this?

"She tried it with others first."

The wolf’s voice echoed through the vision, layered over the image of Zephyr painting with her blood.

It had jarred me. I had not expected to hear its voice even here. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"Two volunteered amongst the other Lycans that had escaped to these caves. They believed in what she was attempting, but when she performed the ritual on them, they died. One by one. Their wolves died with them. The strain from being ripped from their wolf was too much to bear. Others wanted to still follow through, but she refused. Scared to cause more death."

Zephyr’s face crumpled as she painted.

The vision shifted.

Zephyr was walking deeper into the caves, past other Lycans who huddled against the walls. Survivors. A handful, no more. Their faces were gaunt, their eyes hollow. There was no food here. No water. No sun or moon to draw energy from.

They were dying.

The vision faded to black.

"The wolves hunted them even here... They found entrances. Some went in, others waited outside, patient and relentless. And when the caves began to fill with water from the damaged coastline, the wolves simply let it happen."

"A few were killed. Others escaped. Many more drowned when the lower chambers flooded. Zephyr stayed in the crystal cavern. She stayed with me... She couldn’t bear to leave."

I was awake again, but I felt so inexplicably weak. Much like that time I nearly died when escaping from Shadowpine. My eyes... our eyes... watered.

She was dying.

She was curled up against the base of the crystal slab, her body thin and wasted. My eyelids felt to heavy to leave open so they closed. But I could slowly feel the water rising around her. Inch by inch.

She didn’t move.

’No... get up.’

’Get up, please...’

She had nothing left.

There was no pulse anymore as I descended into an even steeper darkness.

The grief that swept through me was not my own, but I felt it anyway.

My wolf was mourning.