Shadewylf

40 - Vengeance

As fast as she ran, Lexi couldn't escape her thoughts. They were beads of energy, zipping after her like the lightning she left behind, piercing the back of her head and tearing through her mind with ferocious intent. They wouldn't stop, and so neither could she.

Her paws thumped at odds to her heart, creating a jarred rhythm within her. Nothing was in sync. Her breaths caught like she was trying to inhale smoke.

With every beat, another death rung within her, its sound a hollow din.

Her mother was dead. Her father too, most likely, struck down as she sped away. Toivo may as well have been dead, swallowed by murdering shadows. Her morals, too, seemed to have had the life sucked from them, in the same way a life hung from her claws, ripped from another wolf. Deimos was dead.

Her heart felt slaughtered in itself.

Only when she surpassed Storm did her fellow Thunderwylf enter her conciousness. One wolf that wasn't dead, at least. One wolf to run beside.

The town was behind them now, lost from sight. Trees cramped Lexi's vision instead. Night's darkness dripped through the leaves, casting shade at every turn, drowning the world in an ocean of deepest black.

Black was death's colour, she knew. It always had been a fact to her, echoed in every story she read, but now its origin finally made sense. The night echoed the empty loss within her, devoid of colour the same way a body could lie devoid of life. The darkened boughs of the trees were bones jutting from discarded corpses, gradually crumbling away until they were nothing but dust.

Lexi knew the routes through the forest like nothing else, but in the life-destroying dark, the paths seemed to tangle amongst themselves, as if this new world of night had seen fit to rearrange them for its own pleasure. She battled onwards, ignoring Storm's call from somewhere behind. Its exact words were lost in the irregular pounding of her heart.

Time slipped away as she ran onwards. Her paws ached, but she barely felt it. It simply didn't compare to the pain within.

Twice more, Storm called. The second time Lexi made out a, "Stop!" shaped by her voice. Yet she couldn't obey. To stop would be to let the dark sink in above her, and the pain settle, and everything become real.

The trees fell away, replaced by yet more empty dark. A full night sky opened up ahead of her, studded with stars. Silver eyes of dead souls, peering down at her. Lexi briefly wondered which one now belonged to her mother.

For the first few steps away from the forest, she pretended that she hadn't seen the steep drop ahead. Perhaps if she hoped enough, it would vanish, and she could keep on running forever. But eventually reality, along with the grip of Storm's teeth on her tail, tugged her backwards, and she finally staggered to the stop she'd been fighting against for so long.

Lexi crumpled, the ground a cold press to her flank.

The world danced out of control, spinning in wild circles. The stars blinked at her from all sides. The darkness gripped her throat, forcing her to inhale in short, ragged gasps.

"Lexi," said a voice, steady, firm. She grasped for it. "Lexi, it's okay now. You're okay."

Through the haze of dizziness, Lexi made out Storm's sharp green eyes. A paw, Storm's paw, rested on her side, driving her back to the real world. It was a steel rod, anchoring her in place. Every other part of her trembled on, wracked with draining pain and clawing loss.

Through the blockade in her jaw, she shoved out a reply. "But it's not. It's not okay."

Chasing through the path the words had carved to open air, a sob pushed its way out, choking her. And suddenly it was all emerging. Tears raced down her snout, dripping into the grass, and still there was enough of them to drown her thoughts.