Running with Wolves

19

AN: I am aware there are a few tenses used in the italic. It was on purpose. Spelling mistakes aren't but no one is perfect. Le Update - Enjoy Xx

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We were awoken by a scream. It was the kind of scream that made your blood run cold. It pierced the brain and ignited all primal instincts of fight or flight.

Everyone left their homes that night to see what had caused such a traumatising scream of pure agony. No one returned.

In the blackness of the dark came the wolves. They came in numbers. They came quickly and calculatingly, hunting us like it's a game, taring us apart like they're trying to paint the continent with our blood.

"Stay with your brother. Promise me, stay with him!" Dad had warned me, leaving me to the protection of my (4 years older) brother who had his arm protectively around me in the corner of the room.

"No! Please don't!" I cry out for him, holding onto his hand as tightly as I possibly could.

"I'm sorry Sera, I need to help." He kisses me on the head. That was the last time I was to see my father but little ol' me didn't know that. It was better that she didn't know that, otherwise she'd have run outside to him one last time and gotten herself killed along with the rest of them.

First came the claws.

Then came the fire.

Archer tightly grasps my hand, keeping me close as he pulls me out of reach of the burning hands. The entire village burns in a sea of red, yellow and orange and the cries of our people, our neighbours echoed into the night. The flames rip their way through the buildings surrounding us, tendrils of smoke reaching desperately into the sky, as if trying to escape the blazing inferno below.

They are relentless. Bodies are scattered amongst the rubble, little gasps leaving my lips every time I see a new one. Though, it's the distinctive screaming of a child that has me halting my run in order to find the source.

"Come on, Blue." Archer tugs at my arm.

"They're hurt. We need to help!" I point to the direction of the noise.

"There isn't time!" He tugs at my arm again.

"Then we'll make time." I protest and stubbornly change our course to the pile of rubble. Archer groans but follows behind me and is quick to find a young girl trapped under the rubble. It takes both of us to lift the cement of the building and dig her out from under the fallen bricks but soon we're back on our same course with a little girl in Archer's arms.

A low, threatening growl in front of us has us stopping mid stride. Fear consumes me and a freezing shiver runs up my spine, planting me to my spot in the street.

"Blue, take her and hide. Don't come out until it's safe." Archer hands me the child.

"But...what are you going to do?" I look up at him with hope. If I'd known this was the last time I'd see him I'd have hugged him and begged him not to leave me, but I didn't. How could I? They never even found his body.

"What I have to." He continues to look into the inferno before turning to me and leaning down to my level with his hands on my shoulders. "Blue, you're strong. Way stronger than you think. You're destined for more so, promise me, you'll stay safe and stay live." His words had confused me at the time and still do a bit now but I'll know what they mean soon. Very soon.

And so I hid. I hid with the little girl in my arms. I found her name on the dog tag around her neck and later discovered she was an orphan.