Octavius (WATTYS 2016)

one | frozen toes

Part One

It's too cold on the mountaintop, the wind and ice wrenching through my fur like knives. I am running down the mountain side, dodging trees left, right, left, right.

    "Alessandra." The voice icier than the storm whispers.

    I run faster.

    I can't feel my legs under me.

    "Alessandra, please." It's laughing now, frantic and cynical, as if it had just tasted copper and flesh.

    No. I want to shout back to them, refusing to succumb to their tortures. Refusing to end up like Mother and Father.

    "Come back to me."

    I can feel the heat of its evil spreading across the back of my neck, as if the voice is just waiting to swallow my soul and chew my body.

    "Alessandra! Wake up, now!"

    I am wrenched from the dream, my dark hair pillowing messily behind me as I shoot up in bed, covered in sweat. 

    I look up to see my Aunt May standing over me, her eyes frantic.

    "May, what's happening?" I ask, scrambling out of bed, my feet touching the cold wood of the floor.

She looks as if she has just seen a ghost.

    "We're being attacked, you need to go now."

    My ears are ringing, my mind flashing back to that fateful day seven years ago.

    My mother screaming as I watched the enemy alpha tearing at her long, dark hair.

    "Alex! You need to go now!" I stare at my aunt, her exact words finally registering to my ears. I am broken from my memories, and brought back to this cruel reality.

    "But, what about you?" I ask frantically, as I watch her pull a random pair of jeans and a long sleeved shirt from my closet, throwing them at me.

    "I will be safe here, he is only looking for the pack members under 18."

    "B-but," I ask, pulling the shirt over my head, "Why?" Confusion bubbles up through my words, ending in stuttering and mumbling that I pray is coherent enough for her to understand.

    "He wants to create an army, and he needs the youth."

    He. The Alpha. The man who struck fear into the hearts and minds of millions around him.

"Aunt May, just stop and explain please." I beg, trying to grab at her arm, but she just shakes her head furiously.

    "Come on, we need to get you out of here, we haven't got much time, Knox is mindlinking, they have already entered the boundary lines."

    She pulls me from my tiny room, and I run with her, my long legs moving faster than her's. My mind is moving too fast, as I attempt to hold back the flashbacks of that terrible day.

    You need to focus. My wolf whispers to me, and I shake my head, knowing she's right.

    We reach the bottom of the stairs in the pack house, and I can see mothers crying over their little pups, having nowhere to go. I see Lacy, a little six year old. She is holding her baby brother, Charlie, now, the little redheads huddled next to their father, Beta Rendal.

    "Sandra!" Lacy shouts when she sees me, running to me and nearly knocking me down as I catch her, not letting her fall.    

    "Hey, Lace." I say, and stare into the little green eyes. She's going to be so beautiful when she's older.