No words were spoken and no signals made.

The cries and screams issued by the other youths went unnoticed as Rykar and Loki both broke into a full sprint in the opposite direction of the body being devoured in front of them.

The rope which was loosely clutched in the deceased body’s hand was easily pulled free with a sharp lurch.

As Rykar had been in position to assault the youth, before he got pulled to the ground, he was trailing slightly behind Loki. Conveniently, this only made it easier for them to decide on which path to follow, as Loki lead the way forward. This made their escape even smoother, seeing as they were too panicked to have been paying any notice to the direction they were fleeing in.

Still sprinting at full speed, Rykar stretched his head backwards, getting a glance of the scene behind. All of the others had exploded out with any energy they had left, as though they hadn’t spent the last few hours walking through the woods at all. The trees were obscuring his vision so he wasn’t able to make out who was who, only that one of the silhouettes was moving rapidly in the same direction which Chris had escaped in.

He had also managed to see that the body of the youth which had been holding the rope was still lay flat on the ground however the body was now completely unrecognisable. He could barely be considered a person anymore.

The lower half of his body was still intact, however the top portion where his clothing which had failed to protect him from the wolfs attack was totally mutilated. Bones and organs could be seen sticking out in all directions, to the point of spilling onto the dirt beneath him. It almost didn’t even look like the wolf killed him due to hunger. It was more like it tore him up for the fun of it, treated his body as a chew toy and then moved on after getting bored.

Wait…

It was then that he noticed what was wrong with this scene. The body was still on the ground, organs scattered. The others were still running. Him and his brother had managed to build up a lead…

But there was no wolf.

His head then whipped back round looking intently at the back of Loki while refusing to glance back again as Rykar put his full effort in closing the distance with his brother.

“The world is a cycle. The world is a cycle. The world is a cycle.” He could hardly control his breathing while sprinting between the trees but the only bit of relief he could hope for was in those words that had long since committed to memory.

The principal was, ’The energy you send out will come back around for you’ just like the law of karma. Never had he wished death on someone, but now? He was praying with all his might that the wolf was right on the heels of the other three. No, he hoped that demon of a wolf was anywhere as long it didn’t have its eyes on him and his brother.

It was at this point, the highest moment of Rykar’s anxiety, which Loki finally found the courage to look back at Rykar to check on his situation.

In reality, the twins had constantly been together without fail since they had been born. While the others in the village would only see their stony and emotionless facades, the minor changes in even those features could easily be picked up by each other as though reading an open book.

Beaten, teased, robbed, scolded, threatened or pitied, Loki was without a doubt the one who would keep a straight face, masking his feelings as though nothing phased him. On the contrary, it was often Rykar who would wind up struggling to contain his anger when things got taken too far.

All in all, Loki could be described as calm and calculating in the most stressful of situations to date which had gotten them out of enough sorry situations to write a small book.

As Rykar saw his brother’s face gaze upon him, it brought him back to those times, a feeling of comfort welled up within him as he felt that almost indifferent stare wash over him as though no situation was worth their attention. Everything would work itself out.

However, that only lasted a split second.

Within a second of looking back, Loki’s pupils were reduced to pin pricks, causing Rykar’s skin to crawl uncontrollably. The way his face had changed caused tears to threaten to break loose from Rykar eyes as his emotions were thrown into chaos.

Loki’s pupils had contracted to the extreme, his eyes left only with only the pinkish hue caused by his albinism, while his mouth widened to let out heavier breaths.

Before Rykar could even take another glance behind himself to understand what Loki had seen, it felt like a hammer had crashed down on his shoulders, forcing him down to the ground. Due to the speed he had been moving, the inertia kept dragging him across the floor with dirt and twigs scraping across his face and unprotected skin.

From Loki's point of view, as he looked back the wolf had already been descending towards Rykar like an omen of death. The sheer impact of what he had seen had left him unable to register what had been happening, hence his delayed reaction to it all.

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As Rykar had been dragged down to the ground, Loki couldn’t control his body as fear gripped him. Shutting his eyes tightly while denying the reality at hand, he continued to increase his pace, fleeing further away from his struggling brother.

Tears flowed from both of their eyes as the wolfs fangs inched downwards.

With the suddenness of the situation, the rope that had been binding their legs together had been completely disregarded. At the speed Loki was running, it only took another two seconds before the rope grew tight. The sudden tension whipped his leg backward, causing many of the bags tied to his waist and shoulders to break their bindings and spill their contents across the ground.

A moment earlier the wolf had bitten down on what should have been Rykar’s neck, it’s teeth only succeeded in punching holes into one of the many bags which he had been forced to carry.

Growling in frustration, the wolf began to shake its head for a moment before the rope went tight.

With the momentum taking full effect, Rykar’s right leg was dragged up over his back as though he was morphing into a scorpion. This allowed him to do a reverse somersault, switching positions with the wolf while leaving the both of them disorientated.

Instincts took over on the wolfs side, the feeling of the leather causing it to think that it had buried its teeth into the vitals of its victim. So, it simply gave up on getting to its feet or surveying the surroundings and committed to mauling whatever was in its mouth.

The sounds of tearing which followed caused the twins to break out in a cold sweat. Ryker’s left side was still slightly buried under the wolf so he pushed with all his everything he had, swiftly freeing himself. He then felt a massive pulling force helping him to speed away in the opposite direction which he didn’t fight against in the least. Still slightly shaken up from the tumble, this pull had given him a direction to focus on rather than escaping blindly.

Stumbling in this new direction, he quickly made it over to Loki who was still tugging frantically at the rope like his life depended on it. The initial fall had left Loki shaken up and blood could be seen dripping from his ankle where the skin was torn open.

The torn skin was the least of his problems. What worried them both was the way that Loki’s foot was clearly dangling at an unnatural angle, as though there was nothing supporting it from the joint.

In the best case scenario was that it was dislocated. In the worst, it had been completely broken.

Without the time to think on the subject, Rykar dragged Loki to his feet as they both hobbled forward.

Looking ahead of them, they spotted a chance for them to escape their dire circumstances. A large tree at least three times the size of the others in the surroundings was standing tall like an anchor. The tree was only around a dozen metres ahead of them.

Aside from the size of the tree, another aspect that caused it to stand out from the others was that it was completely devoid of life and moisture, almost unnaturally so.

Decay had set into the tree, but this had also crept along the ground allowing no plants or grass to grow within a few metres from the base of the trunk.

The pace of the twins was already as hurried as they could handle, every movement from Loki would trigger pain from his ankle, causing him to wince fiercely. Tears and with cold sweat already drenched him completely as his vision swirled and twisted.

Coming to its senses, the wolf raised itself up questioningly, curious as to why sweet taste of blood that it had been expecting had not followed the leather being ripped open.

Looking down at the ground, all that could be seen were pieces of dried bread and a water skin, along with a few berries which were strewn about haphazardly. Anger washed over the wolf as it saw its prey escaping towards the large tree.

It begun taking steady steps towards them, rapidly increasing in pace until it had broken into a full sprint. The twins were directly ahead of it, nearing a portion of the tree which had broken apart, forming a hollow which they had intended on using as a shelter against the onslaught of the terror behind them.

As they arrived within a metre of the tree trunk, Rykar released his grip on Loki, hoisting him off of his shoulder and barging him towards the entrance to the hollow. The gap was less than a metre wide, so it would be hopeless if they both intended to scramble in at the same time.

Coupled with the fact that his leg was in that condition, if Loki didn’t get in first then there was no way he would get a second chance. Spinning around, Rykar faced the wolf while back peddling, hoping to stick the landing while moving in reverse.

The wolf was now only two metres away and every detail, from the wet blood around its mouth, to the mottled dirt littering its fur, was blindingly obvious in front of Rykar. Its feet then left the ground, rising over a metre into the air, intent on crashing against his upper body.

As fear caused Rykar to lose his footing, he completely came to a stop while frozen in bewilderment.

The limits of his comprehension had been met and then destroyed over and over within a moment, and that was only the first of a series of unexplainable events.

As the wolf had been barreling towards him from the air, it quickly passed the area which the decay had been spreading around the tree.

It was then that the entire wolf became monochrome. Shades of grey enveloped its body as it soundlessly melted into the wind, becoming dust.

Unwilling to stay put, Rykar spun on his heels before entering the hollow behind Loki.

Just then, a feeling of weightlessness enveloped him, as though he was falling yet also completely still at the same time. There were no forces affecting him at all. While struggling to clear his eyes from some of the ashes of the wolf that had managed to enter his eyes and nose, he became aware of his surroundings once again.

It was a circular room, with walls made out of what seemed to be wood yet he couldn’t make out any joints... as though the entire space had been sculpted from a single gigantic piece. The space was well decorated with two of everything; tables, chairs, beds, shelves etc. also made from the same dark coloured wood. Just next to him in a similar manner, Loki was already propped up against the nearby wall while scrutinizing the area before them.

“W-were sorry for disturbing you! It chased us in the woods!“ Without the chance to fully take in the surroundings, Rykar realised that there were two people sat in the centre of the room side by side and staring directly at them. Rykar began to stammer out sentences which barely made any sense.

“Was a wolf and –“

“SHHHH”

Loki quickly interrupted while taking a look out of the entrance. He had entered only a few seconds before Rykar. He had no idea where they were or how they ended up in the room but he was becoming more and more certain that souls of these people were no longer present in the world.

At this moment, within the hollow within a tree, four gazes locked together.

Two pairs of twins. One dead and one alive.