Page 60 of Found in Obscurity

A yip pulled him back to the path, sounding confused and scared.

Lorin frowned, his heart pounding. Vaguely he could feel his lungs protesting, but it was a distant thought and feeling.

Another yip, louder this time, and Lorin began to run.

“Kit!” he called out. “Kit!”

The road stretched on, no end in sight, no sign of his familiar. Fog began to slide in from the edges of his vision, blurring the paths and overtaking everything.

“Kit? Where are you?”

He began to struggle, feeling his body weaken, the connection shaking and blurring around him.

No.

He hadn’t found Kit yet.

He fell to his knees on the path, feeling his surroundings pressing down on him. The weight of the trees was sitting on his chest. The fog obscured his vision.

“Kit…” he gasped.

He couldn’t draw breath. He didn’t know the way back.

He felt so lost.

But just as the world collapsed inward, color fading to blackness, a shape bounded into him at lightning speed, right into his chest. It knocked him backward, a vision flashing before his eyes like a movie as he tumbled back into his own body and broke the surface of the icy water, coughing and gasping for air.

He hung over the side of the tub as the real world faded back into Technicolor, the vision before him fading into the sight of Kit, fully human, standing before him.

Kit

He hadn’t thought he’d ever see those moments again. While the visuals he had as a fox were blurry and abstract at best, he knew. Every inch of him knew what had happened to him all those years ago.

He was aware of the fear and the uncertainty that had accompanied it. He could recall the horror of realizing he was stuck. He could hear the taunting and the laughter and the victorious cheering as his body shrank down to his fox form against his will.

A deep, hidden, human part of him could recall it if he tried.

Which was why he rarely did. He didn’t want those images in front of his eyes. He didn’t want to look back and see them chasing after him, hot on his heels. Close enough to touch him, hurt him again.

But then Lorin had done whatever it was he was doing, the reckless, thoughtless, impulsive little witch, and Kit was right back there.

All the way at the start of it all.

The moment his mind had found Lorin's, something had ignited. Like someone had pressed an on switch on his mind and a flurry of images had burst through.

They weren’t in order, at least, he didn’t think so. He’d tried battling them, storing them back behind the wall he’d built around them, but it was useless. He couldn’t escape them.Something Lorin was doing was calling them to the surface, and Kit had no choice but to watch them like a horror movie.

A skulk of foxes, tumbling around in the snow. Two large ones and six pups, rowdy and mischievous, nipping at each other, chasing each other around and yipping when they won the game only they knew the rules to.

A cozy den, warm and inviting. Smelling of freshly made stew and a table filled with family as their human forms talked over each other, laughing and teasing while they ate.

A crash in the night that had sent them rushing out of their beds, scared and confused. Their bodies ready to fight but minds telling them there would be no winning. They had to run. They had no time. Their den was compromised, taken away from them by force by someone they didn’t know, someone they hadn’t even seen coming.

But they could smell danger in the crisp air around them.

Voices.

Countless, loud and unfamiliar, echoing around the walls that no longer meant safety for any of them. A patter of paws on wooden floors, leading Kit and his brothers and sisters out the back door away from the voices. Away from the threat.