𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑆ℎ𝑎𝑑𝑜𝑤𝐻𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟

Prologue

    
     Snowfall rolled over in her nest. She could feel the warm dawn light on her pelt as she stretched her wings, the tips brushing against the den roof. She looked to her sister Opal's nest, but she wasn't there. Snowfall shrugged it off, assuming her sister was just outside eating her morning meal.

     Snowfall couldn't find Opal anywhere in the camp. She thought this a little strange, it being so early in the morning, but she stayed calm, telling herself that her sister was just in her hideout in the forest.

     Things started getting even more strange as Snowfall got farther from the camp and closer to Opal's hideout. There was a tangy scent in the air, almost like metal, and the common forest animals were dead silent. Snowfall stepped in a puddle, and shook her paw out.

     "Curses!" Snowfall spat. She didn't like getting her paws wet. It made her uncomfortable.

     But what made her heart stop was that her paw was dripping with blood. She looked down at the puddle, seeing her blood-red reflection staring back at her. She saw that there were more blood puddles leading in the direction of the hideout. Alongside the puddles were bloody pawprints, that  Snowfall added to as she hysterically ran toward Opal's hideout.

     "Opal!" She screamed. "Opal!"

     The hideout – a treehouse in a big willow tree – was right in front of her now. Snowfall stared at it, her legs threatening to buckle beneath her. The tangy scent (that Snowfall had identified as blood-scent) was much stronger here.

     Snowfall inched toward the treehouse, afraid of what she'd find.

     Against her better judgement, she  built up her courage, and flapped up to the tree and into the treehouse.

     When she set her paws down, they splashed in the massive puddle of blood covering the entire floor of the treehouse. Snowfall's eyes trailed a hint of shimmering white fur that she knew to be her sister's, and she almost fainted when she saw Opal's face.

     Opal was mangled and beaten bloody, her entire body bearing deep gashes and crumpled limbs.

     What could've done this to her?! Snowfall thought, before she felt something hard slam into the back of her head and the world fell away to darkness.