Warning

Okay, before you read this, here’s a small warning. I don’t really know how to explain it without spoiling everything, but let’s put it like this:This episode contains descriptions of violence, death, and blood.
If you have trouble reading about such things, please don’t read it!
Take care of your mental health!I’m not sure if my way of writing might make it harder for you to read, so I’m putting a small warning here.Enjoy reading and if you can’t read this episode, don’t worry. In the following episodes it will become clear what happened, and those you can read safely.

ShadowRaven :)

Before I could even comprehend what was happening, the paw struck Dante. He immediately collapsed, motionless.
I didn’t have time to process it either, because next to Dante there was suddenly an orange blur — probably the vixen, though I couldn’t say for sure. My vision blurred, and to my surprise I noticed my cheeks were wet. Oh… I was crying. When had that started?

Then the beast let out a growl that would have sent the strongest man in the world running — yet even that didn’t hit me as hard as it should have. I barely noticed it.
Even my pain felt distant, a dull, fading memory.

The vixen lunged at the bear. Only their growls broke through my consciousness. My blurry vision was no longer just blurred — it was red. Bloody red.
I saw red. Black. Whatever it was, it filled me with strength, calm, and the feeling I could uproot trees — but not in a good way.

Calm as a ghost, I stood up. No pain in my leg. I grabbed my bow and dagger and went for the bear like the fox did. My movements felt faster, sharper. My strikes landed with precision, piling up.
I paid attention to nothing except the blood-red veil over my eyes.
The enemy could have ripped off all my limbs and I wouldn’t have noticed. I would have kept going.

I don’t know how long the fox and I fought side by side, me in silence, her with a piercing howl. But when the bear finally fell dead to the ground, not only he collapsed, but so did the red veil from my eyes.

My senses returned, and the pain was unbearable. The clearing and my body were soaked in blood — most of it from the bear, but a lot from me too. The bleeding wouldn’t stop soon, and I could barely stand from pain and blood loss. My body was covered in gaping wounds.

But none of that compared to the pain in my heart.
It felt as though it had shattered, and the knife-sharp edges of the shards were stabbing me from the inside out.

Dante was dead.
He had died saving me — in a fight that wasn’t his, on a journey he never would have taken if I hadn’t been such a damn terrible cousin.

I dragged myself to his lifeless body and fell to my knees beside him. I sobbed and cried, all the pain from my heart pouring out in my wailing.

I barely noticed Dante’s loyal orange friend join us. She, too, was drenched in blood and covered in wounds far too large to ever heal. She joined my lament with heart-wrenching howls.

I grew weaker and weaker until finally I lay down next to Dante in the snow.
The snow was strangely warm, like a fireplace — or was it just the blood staining the snow red?

Again my vision blurred. I took Dante in my arms, and the fox nestled at his side, even as his body slowly grew cold.

After a while — maybe it was only seconds, or days, or weeks — darkness and warmth embraced me.