Ashfall

The air is freezing and tainted by the time I realize I'm no longer dreaming. My surroundings come off to me as foreign yet, thinking back to the still landscape of greys and umber earth under a hazy sun before I found myself wandering down into the cave. It was cold before, but not this cold, and the ground wasn't frozen. I don't even remember climbing back out or how I fell asleep in the snow in the first place. The last time it snowed I was dreaming, and even the smell in the air is both familiar and not. I ponder on the idea of me possibly still dreaming again as I attempt to stand when a sharp pain sets loose a yelp in my throat. It never hurt before, confirming my doubts that this isn't just another one of my dreams.

It's night time, I think, or close to morning judging by the dull orange-brown glow off in the distance. That, and I can't see the stars. It's too cloudy to see the moon or the sun. A storm maybe? No, the air doesn't feel right for one, but something surely doesn't feel right about it.

I shiver at the chills suppressing my body as my muscles refuse to budge. Eventually, I'm able to overcome the discomfort long enough to find my way back to the cave all while hoping to find my friend there. My throat itches whenever I cough and at some point, I can't seem to stop coughing and the itching starts to hurt. Im left trembling by the time I've exhausted myself out, but that itch is still there burning down my throat. I can almost feel it in my chest like some pricking growth. I collapse near the entrance to the cave for only a short moment before forcing myself to stand a little longer.

Holding back a whine, my attention is drawn back to the cave itself, now in ruins and long covered in murky snow and withered black vines. It almost feels like a dream just staring at it, as if everything I had discovered and felt was just that, nothing more than a vivid dream of my pointless imagination, maybe a hallucination even. Then why does it hurt so much realizing it to be so? Are They even real? Is He real? Was he...? This cave is real or at least was real...

I take a few uneasy steps back, taking in everything I can only hope had been real and compare it to what lies ahead of me. I stood awake when I saw Them in the field when daylight bled through the haze and trees, and I'm sure I was awake going into that cave and finding Them again. I couldn't have just imagined it. But when I think of my mother and my brothers and sisters, they don't think as I do. I'm not even sure they can even speak but I know I've frightened them just by being different. Maybe I'm the one stuck in a dream, or worse, am I even real?

I keep moving further back with this strange, eerie sensation clinging to me like dead rotting flesh on a lively body struggling to free itself from the mire. Each step grows faster and faster as my heart climbs it's way up to my throat. It's too quiet, deathly quiet, terrifyingly silent. Suddenly I forget all the pain and flee to find my mother.

The trees are black and barren of leaves. All of them feel sickly, but I don't think they're alive anymore. It's a bizarre feeling to have but somehow I feel like im the only living thing here. I'm about to rush right into the hallow where I left all of them resting but I stop short. It's dark in there and there's a smell I don't recognize. A bad smell that stuns me. I know I shouldn't go in there now, but it's hard to move when you're afraid. My legs are shaking again as I pry myself to look away, and immediately I'm running as fast as I had been running before expecting a bad thing to be chasing me down. Even in the silence, hearing my paws clash against the ground startle me. I don't look back but I don't watch where I'm going either.

Suddenly there are streaks of red all over the snow mixed into a weird murky color. Wherever I run the red is still there twisting along the trees until its source freezes all the blood in my veins and I'm left cold. Small bodies are lifeless on the ground with gashes at their throats in a sunken pool of blood. Mother's snarls shatter through me, alive yet frantic with fear as she stands before me with a threatening posture. Muck clings to her like a festering wound as if she had crawled straight out of the bog teeth chattering and claws tearing. The look in her eyes is unlike anything I've ever seen from my mother. They scream nothing but 'Bad Thing' repeatedly. In that brief moment I realize she stopped seeing me as one of her own and in that same moment while drowning in terror, I feel a splintering pain come from deep below my chest before panic reclaims its hold on me.

Mother lunges without hesitation, coming towards me with every intention to slaughter, but she never comes close as a truly bad thing, shadowy and cold, collides into her. It pins her to the ground with such a force, I hear that gut-wrenching sound when claws tear through flesh before seeing the damage. Newly blood gushes out and soaks into the snow beneath my mother's neck. Her movements jerk quickly and twitch under the bad thing's hold until she's still. Then the bad thing opens its jaws wide looking as if to consume mother's head but it doesn't. Instead, it inhales deeply. It feels like an impossible thing to turn away from the horrible scene unraveling before me, but as I watch my mother's life leave her eyes and her spirit leave her body, I crumble down to nothing. I've never seen anything become so frail and so hollow after death. I can hardly recognize her. The hollowness in her sunken eyes, the way her skin stuck to her bones too tightly to comprehend the reality of how flesh separates the two. I cannot stand the image of it in my head.

I'm running harder now than ever yelling for the storyteller, for my friend to find me. I yell until my voice gives out but he comes. Or at least I find him again back in the field knelt down on both knees tattered and bloody. He looks just as frightened as me. I scramble towards him in an instant and leap into his arms, clinging to the one good thing left in a world crumbling into darkness. His touch is delicate as if maybe he believes I could shatter with one wrong move. I don't let go, but I can't stop shaking while trying to get the words out. Everything blends together, tears and sight, words, and whimpers.

I cry out, "Sh-she tried to hurt me-my mother. B-but a bad thing got to her first and-I-I-my brothers and sisters...they're gone. All of them are gone."

I hold onto him tighter, trying to bury my face to forget, but the images are still there. I can't control it. My claws sink deeply into his cloak as I hold on for dear life. I'm choking on air I can't seem to let out as the pain submerges me. His hold on me feels steadier and then dark feathers wrap themselves around us, leaving behind a world forgotten.

After a moment I'm able to breathe for a little while without choking, but my eyes are still blurry from crying so hard. "Why would she do that..?"

I can feel him tense around me. The only answer he offers leaves no comfort, "I don't know."

"I'm scared." His gaze finally meets mine looking just as lost. I can tell he's been crying too.

"I'm here, little cub. I'm here." His wings embrace us further until darkness sends me to sleep.