I woke up. The sun was already high in the sky. I had slept longer than I should have. The red cloud had caught me again. It had held onto me longer this time.

Golden-pelt and Gray-streak were sitting off to one side, against one of the trees. Torn-ear was lying on the ground still, but Black-paw and Stub-tail were standing near him. The puppy was lying against him, and that same feeling of warmth and calm seemed to be all around us.

Torn-ear whimpered where he lay. His amber eyes stared blankly ahead of him.

"It's okay." The not-sound filled my head again - the first voice, the young male. "It's okay."

Torn-ear closed his eyes and shook his head.

There was silence for a little longer, then the older female's not-sound filled my head. "We should leave. I think I know where we're at - I used to cross the no man's land when I was younger, to trade with another pack on the far side of it. I think I can lead us to safety. And most of us are able to shift again. We can find a pack now."

The puppy shook his head from next to Torn-ear. "Please - just stay a little bit longer. Once he comes back, then we can all leave together. He needs your help, too. I can feel it in him - he wants to keep you all safe. It will hurt him if you leave."

It was quiet again for a long moment, until one of the older male voices spoke. "This is dangerous. He's a feral Alpha. If he tells us to do something, we won't be able to stop. If we come across another rogue, he has the power to force us to hunt them. To kill them. We wouldn't be able to stop ourselves."

The young voice came again, sounding sad. "I know it's dangerous. But he needs your help. He'll fall apart again if he loses you."

"He runs right through the night, and goes for days at a time. I can't remember noticing that as a feral. It didn't feel like it was night until we stopped to sleep. But I see it now. It could be days before he stops again." Golden-pelt's ears fell as she looked away from Torn-ear and the puppy, staring out into the forest. "If it was just a matter of muscle strength that would be one thing, but... we aren't ferals anymore. We need sleep. We need real food, something that isn't... something that isn't still bleeding. But he doesn't. He's a feral Alpha."

"And we're tired. It was one thing to run like this when we were trying to outrun our past, but now..." Gray-streak joined Golden-pelt in looking out into the forest, and her ears fell. "It's been two weeks since you healed Naomi, Jonathan, and you haven't been able to help him. He... he might not want to come back."

I perked my ears as a soft whine came from the puppy. I got to my feet and walked over to him, nudging him before narrowing my eyes at Torn-ear. If Torn-ear had hurt the puppy... but Torn-ear still wasn't moving. He had barely even looked in my direction when I had come over. I whined and stretched out on the other side of the wolf, nudging against him. Golden-pelt and Stub-tail's sickness must have spread to him. Everybody was sick now, except for me and the puppy. I didn't like that. I hoped the puppy would stay well.

"He does. I can feel it - he's still in there. He just needs a little more time, and he'll come back." A long silence stretched through the not-sounds, until finally the young voice spoke again. "But... if you need to go, I understand. It is dangerous out here, and you've been risking a lot to help us. Thank you. But just give us another day or two first though, please? If I don't get through to him by then, I'll understand if you go."

"We'll take you with us." Another voice. One of the older males. "Any pack would be thrilled to have a Comforter. And it's not safe for you out here."

"No. I can't leave him like this." The puppy stumbled around Torn-ear's side to wiggle in between us, finding enough room to squeeze against us both. The warm feeling returned, and I let out a long yawn before resting my head on the ground. "Please? Just for another day or two?"

The rest of the pack looked at me - except for Torn-ear, who was still trembling with his eyes closed. The puppy nuzzled against his side.

The other wolves nodded.

We ran again.

The others didn't try as hard to keep up. I snarled and barked at them, urging them to keep ahead of the red cloud... but they didn't seem to want to run anymore. Even Torn-ear didn't seem to have his usual impatience with their delays. Instead of joining me in my barks, he just ran in silence. Or he walked alongside the others. Sometimes he would stop entirely, instead dropping to the ground to stare blankly at his paws, as if something about them scared him. The puppy went to him and nudged him each time, and the feeling of warmth returned.

My pack had been caught by the red cloud. It had grabbed each of them, and it hadn't let go. Now they were sick. I had failed to keep them safe... a thought which brought the red cloud closer to me every time I had it.

The red cloud was still trying to catch me, too. It was closer to me now. I could always feel it - brushing against my legs, nipping at my tail, flicking at my ears. The warm, calm feeling was always there too, stronger than it had been before... but it didn't keep the red cloud away. If I didn't run far enough it would get me. And the pack wasn't running fast enough.

Torn-ear would eventually get to his feet, and then we would run a bit longer, until someone else delayed us. The day passed that way - short sprints, watchful rests while the other wolves refused to run.

Then we couldn't run any longer, and the day ended. The others stopped in a small clearing and lay down, surrounding Torn-ear in a pile of cuddles, and no amount of barking or whimpering would get them to move again.

I stretched out on the ground a short distance away from them, watching the forest for any sign of threats. I had to be extra careful, with the rest of the pack sick. I couldn't trust that they would be capable of helping me if anything attacked, and I would need to do my best to make sure they stayed safe.

The puppy stumbled towards me with his tail wagging, and dropped a stick to the ground with a happy bark. He nudged the stick towards me, then dropped into a play-bow, tail wagging faster.

Something was familiar about it, and the red cloud came closer as I watched him. I remembered nudging the puppy to play with the others in the pack all the other times he had tried to play with me, so as to keep the cloud away. But the others were all sick, and weren't up to playing with the puppy now. And the puppy looked so happy, and was so eager to play...

The red cloud grew closer as I growled playfully at the puppy and nipped at the stick, starting a game of tug of war with the energetic child. One of the others in the pack would look up at us occasionally, and the warm feeling of calm peace surrounded me as I lost myself in the game.

Eventually the puppy grew tired, and he yawned instead of trying to fight me for the stick. I nudged the stick aside and made room for him like I had every night. He curled up between my forelegs, and I rested my chin on him as I drifted off to sleep.

~

Fire was everywhere. Smoke was stinging my eyes. Something in the kitchen must have caught fire in the fighting. I couldn't feel the Beta anymore - one of the ferals must have gotten him. Or maybe the other pack had - the ferals had just been the diversion. The neighboring pack, the one we had graciously helped year after year. They had decided to attack us the one year we hadn't been able to, and had decided to take our food as their own. One of them had led ferals here, then escaped when the ferals had gone for us. Then the rest of the attackers had hit us from the other side, and...

I was covered in blood. Much of it was from the attackers, some from a feral. Far too much of it was mine. I stumbled towards the packhouse. If I could get to it, maybe...

A wave of heat washed outwards as my home crumbled before me. The fire grew stronger for a moment...

Everything was dark when I came back to my senses. I struggled to my feet. It was cold. The fire was gone. But the smell of it was still in the air. All around me. Burned things. Burned houses. Burned trees and plants. Burned dirt.

Burned bodies.

There was nothing left.

The attackers would be at the storehouses - they had come to steal our food, so that's where they would head next. If anybody in my pack was still alive, they might be trying to follow them, or ready an ambush there. Some last attempt to fight back. An attempt that would just get them killed.

I reached into the mindlink and shoved a command into it. An Alpha command, one the entire pack would obey. "Get out. Save yourselves."

I waited for the responses from my pack - the nonverbal acknowledgements, the feeling of fear, the... anything at all...

The mindlink was quiet.

My pack was gone.

I had failed. Failed to protect them. Failed to keep them safe. All of them were dead now, because of my mistake.  Because of me.

I stumbled towards the charred wood not far from me. All that was left of the packhouse. All that was left of our home.

Everything went red.

Faint wisps of red mists drifted over the burned land around me. One feral sat at the edge of the mist. His eyes had changed to a blue color - not the bright red I knew a feral usually had, but a shade similar to my own. And he looked like I did. The way my own wolf form looked. The same color fur. The same scars. The same notch in one ear.

The puppy sat beside the feral and watched me with the same sad blue eyes. Tiny strands of mist drifted towards him, brushing against his fur, then burned away from the power of his aura. We stared at each other for a long moment... then I looked away.

I continued stumbling towards the body in the rubble. The one I knew was there. The one I could sense through my matebond, even as weak as her injuries had left her.

I grabbed my dying mate again and held her against me. She was crying. I tried to tell her it was okay, but I couldn't get the words out. And I knew she wouldn't believe me, even if I had said it. Everything was gone. I couldn't hear any voices in the mindlink. Not from the pack. Not from our family. If our son was alive, I couldn't hear him.

And I was about to lose her, too.

"Dad? Mom? Are you there?" Something groggy at the edge of my awareness, a faint whisper in the mindlink. I heard scratching somewhere, near where the feral was watching me. "Is anybody there...? Help! I'm trapped; can anybody hear me?" Something was digging its way out from beneath a heavy beam of wood. Blue eyes peeked through the soot and ash, as a puppy wiggled out from beneath the rubble that had trapped it. When the roof had collapsed, and knocked him out. No - not a puppy.

The pack's Comforter. Jonathan.

Our son.

I turned from the Luna to watch him as he stumbled towards me... and he froze. He stared at my eyes, and he started to shake. He took a step back. "No, Dad, please! Don't go feral, you can't! You have to fight it, please..."

Something soothing came over me. His aura - the ability he used when we were frustrated and stressed, or when we were fighting. His calming ability. I looked down, feeling myself start to shake...

...and I looked back into the eyes of my dying mate.

She tried to whisper something. I leaned closer, hugging her as close as I could. Her breathing grew slightly louder as she tried again. "...I love yo..."

My mate died. Again. Just like she had every night, each time the red cloud had caught me, in every one of my dreams. Just like she had when my pack had been attacked.

What remained of the red fog rushed towards me, drowning out the world in angry reds...

The red faded.

A warm, calm feeling was all around me. Like I had been wrapped in a soft blanket and set in front of a cozy fire.

I could still smell the fire. Bodies were still all around me. The two Omegas that had been caught in a closet as the building burned. The cook that had tried to put out the fire. The attacker that had set and encouraged it. My mate's body.

The feral that looked like me stared at me from where it sat in the rubble. Its dim blue eyes held a terrible sadness and pain in them.

And the puppy sat beside me, staring down at his dead mother with his bright blue eyes. The last traces of red mist drifted towards him, only to fade away as it touched his fur. He broke the horrible silence with a soft whimper as he looked at the body of my dead mate - of his mother - before he leaned towards me and nudged his head against me.

I picked him up and held my son in my arms.

"They're gone, Dad. I'm sorry. I wish they weren't." The Comforter looked up at me, staring with his bright blue eyes. I felt his aura again, calming me. "But they are. You have to let them go. You have to wake up. Please. Come back, Dad." His ears drooped, and I felt the warm calm of his aura grow stronger. "I miss you."

~

I woke up.

The five former ferals were already awake. I could feel them watching me, could feel their worry and fear in the pack link.

I ignored them and looked down at the puppy still asleep between my forelegs. I stared at him through eyes that I knew had shifted back to their usual light-blue shade.

I pulled the Comforter close, held my son against my chest, and cried.

The red cloud had caught me again. The pain was everywhere, and it wasn't stopping. The memories were all there in my mind once more, impossible to deny.

But...

I wouldn't run. Not anymore.