Evergreen

one.

*trigger warning in story description*

Fire.

There was fire everywhere and her pack was dying.

Sage was a young shifter then, only 15 years old when her pack was ambushed by a coalition of rogue wolves. They were determined to usurp her father and take over their lands.

But all she knew then was that they had taken her father hostage and her mother had disappeared altogether.

She was alone amidst the ear drum bursting chaos that had overtaken her community.

"Sage! What the fuck are you doing?! Go to the safe house! It's too dangerous for you out here!"

Her brother's voice crashed over her from behind. She looked over at him and he was in his wolf form. His hickory colored fur was slick with blood in many places on his body. The most saturated place was his mouth, his maw was soaked with crimson.

Before she could reply, the anguished howl of a pack member made Akari snap into action. Sage watched in pure horror as her brother leapt into the air and beheaded an enemy wolf by tearing his head off of his body.

The blood that ricocheted from his enemy's throat seemed to touch the sky.

Sage had to will herself into shifting right in that moment. She began to run as fast as she could to the part of the woods where the pack safe house was.

The heavy smoke in the air burned her eyes as she weaved through fallen trees and burning shrapnel. Snarls and growls were all around her as people were fighting and dying.

Her people were dying.

 Endless anguished howls were being sung and Sage was terrified.

The wolves that were attacking their pack had markings of those who were from Red Mane, Eclipse Valley, and other southern wolf territories that were miles and miles away from Lake Noire.

They were not invited here. They had to come to kill them all.

As Sage launched herself over another fallen tree on her path, the smell of a foreign wolf came over her senses. She immediately froze and she knew, she knew the wolf was on her trail. 

Taking a moment to listen to the wolf's gait, he was running at full speed.

Her mind was screaming at her body to move, but she was frozen in fear. She was petrified of what was surely to come. The smell of the approaching wolf began to be so strong to the point where it felt like she would feel his teeth at her neck in the next few seconds and...

She was too young to die.

That is was caused her to begin sprinting at full speed towards the safe house once again as she was told. And sure enough in the distance, she began to see the house's form. In a couple more seconds, she was there and bursted through the door of the place. The door rattled as she knocked it clean off  of its hinges.

It was there she found her.

The whole pack was looking for her. Sage's father was begging for her.

Sage was the last person to see her mother alive as she teetered on her bare feet on the edge of the wooden chair she was standing on in the small kitchenette of the safe house.

And she knew her mother saw her. Her lips parted when they locked eyes, noose already tied and secure around her neck.

Sage knew she saw her.