I'd had a dream once. A very bad dream. In this dream, my Pack was in ruins. Our camp was devastated. I returned home from a hunt beside a group of males whom I could not recognize, only to find the ground torched, the tents razed, and all manner of objects littered around the area, broken and abused. A place not only of decimation; but one of supplication. And I beheld the sanguine orgy of corpses and of the pests that fed upon them, fed on rot. The corpses of my Packmates... The bodies of my friends. I remember staring at that scene with a nauseating kind of detachment, a clawing and scraping malignance as my very soul tried desperately to escape the harsh resin cage my flesh had become of it. I was in agony. This dream had faded quickly with the waking hours, but the feeling behind it remained: the omnipresent fear that I should fail where another might've succeeded, and that my Pack would pay the ultimate price for my hubris. Ove

"JULIUS!!" Cil and I sprinted through the camp looking every which-way. The fog was finally beginning to lift, and unfortunately for us, the increased visibility was exactly what we didn't need right now. It might help us to find Julius, but it also meant that the only thing standing between us and a violent death was speed. We searched everywhere while we ran: we peered into tents, beneath rubble, and among groups of bodies. The carnage was horrible; every lifeless packmate I witnessed sent a chill up my spine that only served to compound my nausea – and fuel my anger. Behind me I could hear the roaring shouts of the males who hounded my Pack. I expected that most of my kin would scatter and try to find their own way up the mountains, but the trails were only a few, and I worried some of them might get run-down by their attackers before they found a viable route. As it was, it was probably best that they mostly stuck together. The few times I glanced over my

Their Alpha stayed here. Her scent was everywhere. From the soft, warm blankets upon the tiny bed to a pile of clothes in one corner – it stank of her. The other one, the Stronger one, had been here recently as well; but his room was definitely the one next door. I kicked a stack of wood piled up against the wall. Stupid – how could I have been so stupid? I let them get away, let HER get away, and now, now there was no way to find them... Father wouldn't have let them get away. But father wasn't here. I grabbed one of the pillows and bit down, feeling the feathery contents sink between my teeth before I tore it to shreds. It felt surprisingly good to do. Looking around the village had filled me with anger. I couldn't tell why, though; something to do with the blankets, and the houses, and the smells of food? Is this what the Weak did all their lives? Did they warm themselves and eat well, stay close to one another when things got bad... "Son.

Cheers (and howls) arose from my Pack when the ground finally came into view, not long after the trees themselves became visible. Cil had been right about that; but I wasn't about to call a stop on the middle of the slope just to celebrate what we thought we saw – especially after just seeing it had almost sent a few of us over the edge.But now that the snowy and pine-littered ground lay tantalizingly below us – visible at last over the jagged outcroppings and only about a hundred feet or so down – I allowed myself to feel some jubilation. The golden glow of dusk was just beginning now to tickle our foreheads, but there would still be enough time to reach the ground before it became too dark to see; still, I forced everyone to hurry.

Without warning, Cillium rushed me. His paws tore up the snow and his eyes were keen – he might've even frightened me if it weren't for that damn tongue he kept losing track of. "Good! Uhh- " I floundered. "Good aggression! Now, attack." Cil didn't need to be told twice before he leaped at me. We stood among the trees a small distance from our cave, making use of the brightness of day and the frost-bitten air for our own comfort: it had quickly become apparent that too many Shifters in one enclosed space – even one so large and surprisingly well-ventilated as ours – warmed up the room rather quickly. Especially when some of those wolves were putting in exercise. Cillium had already been told twice not to hold back too m