Ravencrest Pack

Thick fog like a cotton wall had lined your step for days. You were soon to hit half-moon in the mountains. You trusted your navigational skills, but you had yet to see stars blinking their directions after nightfall. The environment was all conifers and rocks. Misty dew clung to them, bleeding the fog from its water and yet never cutting deep enough to clear it up.

You were beginning to consider that you were lost. Technically, it wasn't all that bad. Prey was plentiful: when your eyes didn't meet flesh, your nose certainly did. It was comfortably cold, trees shielding from the worst of the high winds. And yet, you rose early every morning to begin the trek out of there. That fog couldn't be natural. Not only it shielded your vision, but played tricks with the senses. Sounds accompanied with no scents. The constant feeling of being watched. Being woken by asphyxiating weight, smothering fog paralyzing any attempt to move. It had happened before, and it was happening now.

You were beginning to consider that you would die. Whenever the fog made its presence known, it came sudden like thunder. Panic rose in your throat, feeling the clutch of the fog, filling your lungs instead of air. This wasn't how you thought you would meet your end, but there was no fighting back now.

And as quickly as it came, it let up.

No, not let up. Chased away. There was light before you, brighter than any sun after so many days of milky haze.

"Are you lost?" asked a voice, its warmth cutting through your panic.

"Who are you?"

Eyes now more used to the light, you notice a wolf holding the glowing sun. It had been tamed inside a metal cage. And for the first time, you saw the fog retreating back.

"Your guide."

She was lean and small, fur painted yellow like the fire she carried. Despite her unassuming appearance, there was a certainty in her eye that made you pause. It was as if she could see beyond the fog.

"Let's get you out of here."