Blood poured down the street, soldiers swarming into the now undefended gates, swiftly slaughtering the innocent and helpless like sheep. Heroes step forward, some succeeding in their endeavor, pushing back the incoming bloodthirsty pillagers, while others fall.

Her head shot up, heart beating like a drum within her chest. There were a thousand emotions running through her mind, the taste of her own blood fresh on her tongue. 

A headache suddenly struck her, forcing her to the floor as her hands shot towards her head, clutching it tightly as her brain pulsed painfully, again and again. Letting out a whimper, she curled up, trying meaninglessly to reduce the suffering inflicted upon her.

Broken, distorted images flashed before her eyes. She didn't really understand them, not truly at least, and as the headache became even stronger, she found herself utterly unable to even attempt to decipher the information flowing into her mind.

Finally, as the headache slowly receded, she was finally allowed some quiet within her head. Still, she didn't move, trying to understand what was happening and why.

Her eyes opened, glossy and shiny with tears. She looked around, trying to figure out where she was. Despite the absence of light, she had no problems seeing the slightly wet and mossy walls of what she somehow knew to be a cave.

Shakily, she tried to stand on her feet. Instinctively, she attempted to stand up with two feet, only to fail miserably and fall back with a strange yelp ripping its way out of her jaws.

She twisted around at the last moment, preventing her from slamming the back of her head onto the floor below. Instead, it was the side of her head slamming painfully against it. It was painful, certainly, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Grimacing, she tried to understand what went wrong.

Something unknown to her sparked within her. Automatically, she twisted her head, staring at herself. Confusion bubbled within her at the sight of a body that did not belong to her... And yet, why would it not belong to her? It was her body, was it not?

Questions only lead to other questions, the confusion only leading to more confusion as she took in the sight of the body that laid before her. A snow-white, canine-looking body with a few features that seemed more appropriate for felines, such as the sharp claws and agile look.

Nine long tails flowed naturally behind her, sprouting from her tailbone. Suprisingly, they weighted very little despite the large amount of fluff they carried.

Letting out a long, calming breath, she tried to reel back her erring thoughts. She would try and decipher them later along with her memories, but for now, she wanted, no, needed to move around a bit. She somehow knew it would calm her troubled mind down to do so.

Carefully, she stood up, her legs trembling underneath her, unused to the strain of having to hold up a body, even one as light as hers. Had she just been born? But she knew that her body wasn't that of a pup. But, how did she know that? What even was a pup?

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Huffing, she shook her head. Questions could come later. Slowly moving a foot forward, she paused for a few seconds, feeling a lingering fear from her previous failure. After another few seconds of working through said fear, she finally put down her paw in front of her.

Seeing that nothing had happened, she repeated the motion with another paw, then another. Finally, a few minutes later, she found herself trotting happily along the cave, the lack of light hardly bothering her, as stated before. Curious, she pushed her head forward, sniffing the very green moss lining the cave walls. 

It smelled strongly of earth mana. What was earth mana? She didn't know, but the term seemed right to her. Somehow, this felt different to how she'd instinctively tried to stand up on two legs before, but she couldn't put her non-existent finger on it exactly.

After a few hours of trotting around, she finally came upon what she'd been looking for: the exit.

Poking her nose out of the suprisingly small opening that led to the outside world, she felt her heart go cold once she saw what lay beyond the safety of her abode.

The land was practically hell on earth. Rocks fell from the skies every now and then, striking the ground below with a force that put the fear of god into the fox. Lava boiled angrily, replacing most of the ground. There were no trees in sight, no water.

Her breath hitched as she slowly backed away from the small hole that separated her from whatever the hell was out there. After taking a few steps back, she turned tail and ran, only to trip over herself and land in a painful heap on the ground.

She whined pitifully, awkwardly holding her nose with her paws as her tails restlessly moved side to side in agitation. Intellectually, she understood that something had to be special about this place for obvious reasons, but the more instintive part of her was crying out to her to simply run and abandon all reason.

 Shaken out of her fear, however, she now resisted that impulse. Gritting her suprisingly sharp teeth, she inched her way back to the window of hell.

The scenery was the same. Volcanoes still spewed dark, dangerous smoke into the air along with the occasional flaming rock, magma slowly inching its way down. Meteorites still fell in the distance, and there was still no green to be seen anywhere.

However, thinking further about it, she found it... strange. Why was she not hearing anything?

Something within her told her that there should be some noise. The meteorites couldn't be silent, the volcanoes and magma too should at least warn her about their existence. Hell, the temperature was nice and cozy in here, nothing like the outside world.

She tried to put her paw out and through the thin space separating hell from hearth, but immediately retracted it, hissing in pain. The temperature outside was simply too great.

It hadn't hurt her, not really. Still, it was a pretty good indicator that she should decisively not go out.

Still, it was fine. She had other things to do in the meantime, deciphering her various memories being one of them.

Slowly, she inched her way away from the cursed opening, careful not to do anything that might cause whatever it was that made this place habitable for her to collapse.

Then, she ran. This time, she did not trip. She didn't stop until a few hours later, when she reached a dead end.

The cave was a fairly straight and long tunnel, holding various plants here and there. She had even spotted a few bugs and other small creatures prowling around, but they were few.

The complete lack of sunlight bothered her, as if those things shouldn't be here without it, and yet, she lacked context and understanding other than a slight unease with it.

Sighing, she chose a spot next to the dead end, one that looked fairly nice to her, and laid down, curling around herself as her head rested on her hips. Closing her eyes, she began to rummage through her memories, faintly happy at not being inconvenienced by the horrible headache from before.