Warning: this chapter is nightmare fuel. It includes skin walkers, the creature pictured above. Don't read before bed.

A hollow feeling sank through me, resonating deeply, like the sound of dry bones being gnawed on.

I didn't feel the darkness anymore; I didn't feel sad or angry. All I felt was the cold, as sharp and real as any emotion I've ever felt.

A voice of realization shivered through the darkness: the Guerro weren't in the cave. They didn't exist. Sarah lied to you.

The voice was enough to stir me. My eyes began to work again, but I could only see black. Was I dead? Had Sarah's feeble attempts to resurrect me failed?

I heard sounds, but they didn't make sense to me. Something grasped my chest, making the rhythmic rise and fall of it hold still. I panicked, unsure of what to do or how to breathe again.

Something hard hit my chest, and a spurt of water erupted from my windpipe, releasing the grip on my lungs.

I drew in thick breathes gratefully, and as I did so the noises around me solidified into words. Sarah was talking, but I didn't know what she was saying.

" . . . gonna be okay, Astor. You're breathing again."

The darkness rearranged itself into shadows, then to dimly lit spots of light. A stone ceiling hang above me, threatening to crush my lungs again. Soft, thin sand cushioned my back and sifted through my fur. The wet smell of ancient mold tickled my nostrils. I was in the cave. The light coming from the right of me told me we were near the entrance.

"Sarah?" I croaked, followed by a series of terrible coughs.

"Shhh, shhh, shhh, it's ok Astor. You don't need to move." She said as I tried to sit up.

I rolled onto my side, facing the exit of the cave. A sliver of gray sky peeked between the top of the cave's mouth and the sandy ridge we rested on.

"Sarah," I croaked again, "the Guerro . . . they weren't here."

She shook her head sadly. Her ears drooped exceptionally low, lower than my own ears. "No."

My mind raced, picking up speed as it gained consciousness. They weren't here. There was no Guerro to save my tribe. The army that I had been promised, if only through hope, didn't exist. Perhaps they never had.

Panic crept into my brain, and my breath quickened. The Shifter had won. Whatever terrible plan he concocted with Snake had probably been executed already. My tribe . . . my tribe! What would he do with my tribe! What would he do to Hare, to Sego, Negrita, Bat, Creek, Delta, and even Horizon?

Images of them crawled through my mind, laying on the ground, howling in pain, the Shifter with the body of Hawk, laughing at the blood he had collected on his muzzle and across his chest and over his paws-

My insides twisted horribly. I grabbed my head with my claws and sunk them in deep, trying to tear away the horrible scene.

"Astor, no, stop it!" Sarah cried, prying my tight paws away from my skull. "Please don't hurt yourself!"

"He has them . . . " I muttered, shivering violently.

"Astor, what-"

"HE'S GOT THEM! HE'S GOT THEM! HE'S GOT THEM!" I screamed.

"Astor! Astor!" Sarah barked, pulling hard against my paws as I tried to wrench them from her grasp.

I screamed again, over and over. In a dazed panic Sarah tried to comfort me, to quiet me down, but I couldn't hear her. All I could hear was my terrified voice echoing around the cavern, blasting through my ears like hundreds of lightning bolts, burning my mind to ashes.

"HE HAS THEM! HE HAS THEM!" I sobbed violently.

"A-A-Astor-r-r, stop-p-p!" Sarah stammered, her voice breaking. Fat tears slid down her clenched cheeks.

I hit her across the face with an outstretched paw. Four red stripes tracked across her cheeks, barely missing her startled eyes.

"YOU LIED TO ME," I bellowed, spit and water and horrible sounds coming out of my mouth.

"No, I-" Sarah started, but the crazed monster cut her off. I stood up feebly, standing over her.

"YOU LIED TO ME!"

She cowered beneath me, her breath shallow, tail tucked tightly, thighs and shoulders quivering with fear.

"Why did I ever trust you! Why did I ever trust you, or the spirits? Why? Why? WHY!"

She opened her mouth momentarily, begging me silently to stop this, but I couldn't.

"You are nothing but a mangy, delusional, LONER!"

Sarah let out a choked sob. "You d-d-don't-t-t mean tha-a-a-at,"

"You led me here to die! Your spirits work with the Shifter! The Fuego tribe knew we would be here, the exact place you led me to! The place you claimed the spirits had shown you!"

"As-s-s-tor, I never meant t-t-to-"

"OF COURSE YOU DID," I howled, curling my lips even higher over my dry gums. "you have been tricking me this whole time!"

Sarah cried out in pain. She crumpled to the ground below me, shaking her head violently. "No! No! No!"

She looked up at me, dark streaks running from her big golden eyes. "Astor, I love-"

I couldn't hear the words.

I ran down the slope towards the entrance of the cave, throwing sand in my wake. "I hate you!" I called out behind me.

I tripped on my paws and fell down the slope, cartwheeling like a bird falling from the sky. Sand got in my eyes, my ears, my scratchy throat.

I thumped on the bottom of the slope in a muddy red puddle, then got up and ran into the gray sky.

It was no longer raining, but the sky looked wet and metallic, reverberating against my pounding skull. The panicked, angry screams in my mind and my throat echoed through the endless desert, coming back to my ears in an endless stream, like bats swirling in the desert air. My paws prickled with feeling, stabbing up through my legs and into my heart, like I was stepping on decaying bones. All I could see was hazy red; I couldn't see the sky, the cliffs, the water or Sarah.

I ran and ran, faster than my heart would let me. Stitches burned in my sides, ripping holes through my body. Snakes crawled through them and ate my wheezing lungs.

I tripped as many times as there were stars in the sky, mostly over my own paws, landing every time with my nose in the sand, or in a bush, or in a sharp cactus. I didn't care. It didn't hurt.

As thoughts and images streamed through my mind, buzzing like wild hornets, I ran faster, trying to burn them away, but not succeeding.

I didn't want to remember anything. Anything at all. I didn't want to remember the Shifter, or my tribe, the hollow, the den I shared with my familia, the hopeless relationship with Sego, the spirits, the Guerro, Sarah, or even the desert itself. It all needed to be gone.

I felt the unbearably heavy feeling I experienced after I was exiled from the Piedra tribe. I glanced around me wildly, thinking of some way to escape this world. I saw a slot canyon to my right, cut deep into the cliff face.

I didn't know what was in there, but I followed it.

The space became narrow quickly, slicing the sky into a rope of light. My blundering body slammed its way through, bouncing off sandstone walls that rubbed my fur away.

The pathway from my mind to my legs suddenly cut off and they became limp, sending me tumbling forwards into a wall of stone. I hit my jaw on it, and something by my ear crunched, but I didn't recognize it.

I laid there in the dirt, up against the wall, for a second too long.

Get up, get up, my mind hissed frantically. I need to leave, need to leave!

But my body wouldn't move. My muscles twitched violently, but they wouldn't move voluntarily.

The hit against the wall was starting to make my mind a different kind of dizzy. Sparkles and shadows danced with the red, like blood in a river . . .

I only things I could feel was the pounding in my skull, the foam on my lips and my body slowing. It didn't feel like the euphoric slowing you get after going for a run; it felt like something much worse, like my body was choking itself to death.

"Astor!" A voice rang out.

What was that? Was it Sarah?

"Astor!" I heard again.

It sounded much higher and sweeter than Sarah's voice; it was Sego.

"Astor, are you here?"

I tried to call out to Sego, but all I could manage was a low gurgling sound.

"Where are you? I miss you, Astor."

My muscles calmed at the sound of her voice, and I gained feeling in them. I weakly lifted my head, my eyeballs swimming in their sockets to look for Sego.

Was it really her? Was she really there?

The horrible, drowning feeling I had felt before was softened by the hope of seeing Sego, her dandelion yellow eyes, her creamy fur and her soft ears. I was excited to be with her, to tell her how much I missed her, what I had gone through to save her.

I lifted myself shakily, leaning against the wall for support. I let out a yip to let her know where I was.

"Is he here?" I heard another voice. It was Hare! Was she here too? Would she take care of me?

"Yes, I see him!" another voice called out. It was lower, and very familiar, but I hadn't heard it for days. It was Hawk's voice . . .

A switch flipped in my mind. Something was wrong. A sense of caution trickled over me in waves, washing away the glimmers of hope I had just felt.

"Come over here, Astor! We'll take you home." Hawk said calmly. The voice came from a low crack in the stone.

"The tribe has missed you so much!" Hare purred, her melodious voice coming from another crack.

This was wrong. Hawk was dead. My tribe wasn't supposed to be here.

"Come home with us, Astor. It's where you want to be." Sego hummed, the sound coming from the crack right beside me, out of which a bony, white hand emerged from, curling its fingers around my back leg.

Despite the dizziness, my heart pumped with adrenaline, making my body jump away from the long fingers. My tribe wasn't here. These creatures were mimicking their voices.

I ran as fast as my tired legs would go. More hands crawled out from the cracks besides me, connected to arms that bent in awkward angles, bony shoulders and bald heads, scarred with ugly, shriveled black eyes.

"Astor!" One to my right called out, using Hawk's voice.

"Come to us!" Another up ahead of me cooed in Hare's voice. I jumped over its outstretched hands.

"Where are you going?" Sarah's voice called out from a hole up above me. It came from a peeked out head of one of the ugly creatures. It clambered from the hole and scuttled down the rock swiftly, like a giant spider.

The way it moved was enough to make me scream, but I didn't slow down.

"Don't leave us again, Astor!" Horizon's voice yipped from above me.

"Stay!" Delta's voice barked, and a white arm shot out from the crack beside me.

I tripped again, the hands holding on tight. My heart beat quickly again, tearing my inwards apart. I wrenched my paw away from the surprisingly strong grip, getting up in a haze.

"Astor!" Sego's voice cried.

"You can't leave us! Never!" Hawk's voice growled.

Two more hands shot out, and one of the creatures jumped on me from up above. Its sharp elbows and knees stabbed into my pelt uncomfortably.

I roared in frustration, but it didn't do any good. They pulled me to the ground.

"Stay!"

"Astor!"

"Don't leave!"

"Come to us!"

More voices clambered on me. My heart was beating so fast, I thought it would rip a hole in my chest before the creatures could.

They all grabbed a part of me, my leg, my ears, my thick scruff, and started pulling. Were they going to rip me apart?

My flesh crawled irritably under their dirty fingernails. It stretched uncomfortably, then unbearably. Sharp pain crackled across my body.

Boom.

The creatures stopped their pulling and terrible mimicking.

Boom.

There is was again, louder this time. Thunder.

Thick raindrops fell down into the slot canyon swiftly, spattering the sand like stars.

The creatures loosened their grip, then scuttled away into their cracks with very little noise.

The pain felt numb for a second, then it seared all over my skin. I knew I needed to get up, but I just couldn't make myself.

My consciousness drifted again as the rain fell swiftly, stinging my agitated skin. I didn't think I would be able to get up again.