*Shadow Pack — Pre-Dawn*
The world inside Crystal’s dream was eerily silent at first. It wasn’t the comforting hush of the forest or the steady lullaby of crickets she knew. She stood barefoot in a field covered with ashes that stretched farther than her eyes could reach. The ground crumbled under her toes. The sky above was colorless, stripped bare of stars… as though even the Moon Goddess had abandoned this place.
Wind slid through the emptiness, stirring faint curls of gray powder. It carried the faint scent of charred wood and burnt fur… memories of battlefields she had stood on, but worse, emptier.
She recognized this place even though she had never stood here before. It felt like every battlefield, and smoldering ruin she had walked away from.
Her fingers twitched around seeking
