chainless DISCONTINUED

4 - Smoke

trigger warnings // light mentions of death, death of children, and fire.

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Birds chirp outside of the boy's window, sitting perched on top of an old willow tree branch. The morning dew and heavy fog encompassing the woods and the institution. Ra shifts in his sleep, turning over onto his left side, nose wrinkling, ears flickering when he doesn't hear anything, no snoring. That was odd.

He hesitantly opens his eyes, vision blurry from sleep- Pushing himself up on the bed, rubbed his eyes, and looks around. No one was in the room, asleep or awake. Nobody was here.

"Where..." His words fall short upon the sight of a shadow standing in the doorway.

He is suddenly fully aware of what was happening.

Jumping out of bed, conscious enough to grab onto the window's railing at his bedside, he punches a hole into the glass. The shadow looms in the background, steadily growing larger in size. The hybrid bares his teeth, biting down on his tongue as he tries to pry the bars off of the window to escape.

He grabs hold of one of the rails above his head, stretching out his arms, situating his feet in between bars, gripping, using his body weight to shake and break the railing.

It takes a few tries of pulling, him hissing when he feels smaller pieces of glass digging into his skin from punching, but he doesn't care right now.

He pulls and pulls until it finally comes flying off, and he is along with it. A crash to the floor, the oxygen in his lungs getting knocked out of him. He groans, feeling winded and in pain. He sputters. But, the shadow persists, spreading towards him. He couldn't just lay on the floor in pain, he needed to get out. Get out and fast, he needs to wake up.

He sits up, pushes the bars off of him, and up to his feet. In his peripheral vision, he sees the shadow, the figure, steadily making its way over towards him. No time to waste, it can be here at any moment. He can't allow it to catch up to him.

The boy crouches down, and with a burst of energy, he runs up the window, jumping and colliding in the pane glass. Ra escapes, falling out of the window, and falls to the muddy ground.

-

This time, when he awakes, he is actually awake.

He wakes up to the wolf hybrid jumping on his bed, digging his foot into Ra's side, leaving him to wince and groan in pain. "Why...?" He questions, hearing the wolf chuckle. "Wakey wakey. A meeting was called that we need to attend." That piques his interest. He pushes the wolf off of him as he sits up, yawning tiredly.

"Meeting?"

"Yep, I don't know what for though. It was sudden, no morning announcement, or a bell to signal us for breakfast." 'What is going on?' Ra thinks to himself. The wolf helps him out of bed, knowing that Ra was pretty tired, especially after the night he witnessed from him, night terrors.

It was six in the morning, and he felt like he only got half an hour of sleep, whatever meeting they called for everyone to attend, he didn't really care at the moment, no matter how serious it was. He was that tired.

The wolf huffs as they pass by other hybrids making their way to the dining hall- where everyone attends meetings when they are called. For them to be called, especially this early in the morning and out of nowhere, was rare. It made him feel uneasy. The last time they had a meeting... He shakes his head, not wanting to think about it.

"Perry!" The wolf looks over his shoulder, watching the deer hybrid run up to them, "What's going on?"

"A meeting was called. I have no idea what's going on, no one does." The deer frowns, their eyes falling onto Ra, who was fighting back falling asleep on Perry's shoulder as they walked. "Rough night?"