The 3 Mates

The day started normal in the Bloodmoon pack, Addy helped her mother cook breakfast for the pack from the eggs and fruit her brothers gathered. They had a feast made up of egg salad, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, fresh fruit and biscuits with fresh pressed orange juice and apple juice. The squeals and laughter of children rang through the dining hall as they giggled and played around in the toy kitchen after finishing their food.

The older children went about their chores around the farm as normal after breakfast, some helping butcher the ready livestock with the adults assigned for the day while the little ones played under the careful watch of the cleaning mothers.

It wasn't until nearly dinnertime that screams filled the packhouse as the fires took over the fields, livestock and crops burnt to a crisp. Just outside the front of the mansion a fight broke out Addy was rushing to throw things in her bag when Uncle Sammy pushed his way into the room. "There's no time you have to go now if you're going to make it out alive. They want you, go now!" He said before lunging at a man with a knife, "Get out of here before there's none of us left to protect your exit. I'll keep the boys safe". After hearing his words she ran to the ladder on her balcony practically jumping off the side and landing on her feet and taking off into the orchard. It hadn't burnt yet there was more coverage than the open battlefield if she was lucky no one saw her escape.

Hours had past the exhaustion was setting in and she needed to find a place to rest but she was still worried about being followed. Before long the hours had turned to days and the days had turned to weeks though to her it felt like months. Every time she tried to rest she'd wake up from night terror flashbacks of the fire or the kidnappings from earlier in her life. She hadn't slept well in months; she'd been having flashbacks a lot since her brother's second birthday. After all if it weren't for the trauma that caused the flashbacks she wouldn't have had 3 sons her parents adopted.

She shook her head to get herself out of her thoughts knowing it would cause an issue later. She looked around for somewhere to wattempt to sleep, her eyes settling on a tree that had been cored out and the space was large enough to shield her from the pouring rain. She quickly climbed inside the tree slipping out of her soaked shirt and pants digging around her backpack for her oversized hoodie, blanket and stuffy. She pulled her knees to her chest carefully balancing the stuffed rabbit on her knees wrapping the fluffy blanket around her shoulders and then putting the oversized hood on zipped it up over her legs blanket and stuffy before pulling her arms in and cuddling her stuffy and blanket resting her head on her knees as she tried to sleep in her little cocoon of warmth.

Hopefully the next day would bring her some positivity she thought as she drifted to sleep. Her dreams were full of flashbacks to both the fire that took her home, her family and her past each one getting steadily worse as the night moved on. She woke with a start screaming No as she watched her mother burn in the night terror tears run down her face as she cried. The sound of a twig snapping made her shreek she huddled deeper into the hollowed tree praying to the Moon Goddess that one of monsters who destroyed her home had not followed her.