Chapter 2: Restrain.

She halted suddenly, the tray in her hands rattling softly from her solid grip and her eyes expanded to its full width.

“…the child seems to possess the same traits as its mother. He will be useful, like she’s been to us”.

It was his voice and who was he talking to about her son? It made her unrest resurface with an even greater force when she heard the next lines that followed.

“And once we’ve successfully completed it, their powers shall belong to us while we lay them to waste”. Malignant laughter issued after that and her heart shattered into a million pieces.

She accidentally dropped the tray and fled from fright. She knew they had heard and would know she had eavesdropped. But that wasn’t the focus of her concern.

She needed to get her son and flee immediately.

The four year old was alone in the room he owned, playing with glass-like figurines his mother had carved for him when she suddenly gushed into the room, out of breath and with her hair all over her face.

The boy was confused to see her and stood up with approach. She shook her head and came down on her knees to speak to him.

“We don’t have much time…we need to leave, I need to get you to safety” He wouldn’t understand and it was for the best he didn’t.

She rose, frantically gathered a few belongings into a small sack and picked the boy into her arms.

Taking the secret exit at the back of the shelf that stood in the boy’s room, she didn’t offer a last glance… breaking free from the chains that had kept her locked up over the dark days she had spent there.

Liberation, redemption was right before her eyes and she embraced it tightly, never to let go.

Two hours into her escape, running through a forest she knew no directions about, she began to feel from her senses that were one with the nature, the stomping chase of her captors gaining gradually on them.

“Mommy where are we going?” The boy kept his curious inquiry on repeat and like she had been doing, she refused to reply.

The trees bent, the birds fled, the earth beneath her feet trembled and lifted, with the wind pouring with a push from behind her…all jeering her into the path to her freedom.

Nature itself desired her freedom and escape as she clutched the boy tighter to her chest, panting and unrelenting at her speed.

Soon, the pursuers were gaining closer and fear zipped across her mind. Doubts flitted over her vision…would she make it?

Once she would be out of their territory, the dangers would have simmered but she was at least, forty minutes from the boundaries that would cut the chains of confines and release her into safety.

It all came crashing when she received an unseen hit to the side that picked her off her feet and sent her flying a number of feet into the dirt ground.

She landed on her side and screamed with the bones that snapped inside her body. ‘My son!’

He wasn’t around her and panic dyed her form. In distress, she pulled her body up, the trees offering their branches as support until she was standing in a hunched fashion.

Cuts healed and blood ceased flowing from them as she glared at the man before her. He was carrying the boy who was looking scared in his arms and closing the gap between with gentle strides.

“You thought you could escape? Like it’d be that easy?” He scoffed at her and she lunged her body forward, shifting in the blink of an eye.

No one saw that coming and before they knew it, she was on the run again with her pup between her teeth.

“When did- Don’t let her escape! Capture her!” The alpha blared his commands to his warriors who dashed into pursuit as he too shifted back to his dusty-brown wolf and followed after.

She was as fast as the leading wind that swirled around her, protecting her from her enemies who were facing unnatural interference that stalled them and hindered their pursuit.

When she was far enough, she stopped behind a large tree that protruded its bark to form a circle-like enclose around them and dropped the boy down gently.

They would soon catch up, she knew that but she wasn’t in for the run anymore. ‘Son…’ She brought down her head, resting her large forehead against his.

The boy held the face of the blinding white wolf that was acting so affectionate towards him with a smile that contrasted with her amassing grief.

‘I am sorry that I can’t bring us a better life…I can’t promise a home and neither can I be with you forever. Forgive me someday…but you must live on’ Like spells being chanted, the nature shook with unrest and a blinding light sparked between them, drowning the entire forest.

It lasted for a second and when all returned to normal, the boy saw his mother lying in a pool of blood and a large dusty-brown wolf with it’s mouth dripping with blood.

And it all spiraled and went dark, like lights being switched off…and it was silent. All that was left was void and the distant resonance of the hollowness within.