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He heard footsteps. Ren whirled around, his eyes narrowed, his taloned hands lifted and poised, ready to attack.

Something collided with him. A familiar voice, smeared with fog. Ren's gaze widened.

"Tybalt!" he cried out, and his hands searched through the thick greyness for the black dog. His fingers closed around one of his wrists and he yanked the boil up and into his arms, giving him a relieved hug whether he liked it or not. Ren couldn't deny that through the bickering and the squabbling he and Tybalt had formed some sort of awkward, ridiculous bantering back and forth, but Ren had started to enjoy the arguments. It was just another part of his little home at Amityville, after all, and he knew that, despite the fact that they would go back to their normal, argumentative, violent relationship as soon as this was all cleared, right now Ren was unbearably glad that the black dog was still alive.

He let go of Tybalt after only a few seconds and gripped his shoulders, eyes searching through the fog for a sign of the others, of LW, of Jove...

"Where are they?" Ren said fiercely. One ear swiveled, trying to pick up some sort of noise, anything that would give him a clue, but there was nothing. "LW, Jove, have you seen them - "

A howl.

A shrieking, rage filled howl split through the air, muffled in the fog, but still recognizable, even in this blankness. It sent horrible shivers up and down Ren's spine, and his fingers dug into Tybalt's shoulders in an almost painful grasp.

No. No, no, no, NO -

"LW!" Ren screamed, trying to get past Tybalt, trying to run back to where they had come from, but there was no way of knowing from which direction that was. The ugly grey mist surrounded them on all sides, and Ren felt panic and uttter despair seeping into his veins.

"LW!" he screamed again, his voice hoarse, his heart clambering in his chest, desperate for that howl to not have been her, for it to have been someone else -

But he knew it wasn't. He knew the shewolf's voice when he heard it. A deafening, horrible roar ripped from his throat, loud and echoing mutely within the dense fogginess.

Ren slowly dropped to his knees. It may have been a dream - whatever this was - but it did not mean that it hurt any less. His heart felt as though it were shattering in his chest, breaking into a thousand pieces.

I want to go home.

LW.

Please let me come home to you.

Jove had an instant to run for the mist, a single moment where, had he taken it, he could have gotten away. But for once he didn't feel that nagging weight on his chest, the anxiety that pushed him to run.

Instead it was a fiery anger that rose in him. How many deaths would he have to see before this was over? How many more friends would he watch suffer, at the hands of the school, the horsemen trials, the hunters? Deep inside he knew they couldn't all come back. Sure they had so far, even the pup had experienced his own dissipation on more than one instance, but what happened when they were gone for good? Like Red was? The little ghost had arrived in Halloween with nothing but his own existence, and to imagine that little spark being wiped out, the uniqueness that every little wisp of FEAR brought to the world... He couldn't take it.

Pushed forward by that exploding rage, Jove let out a howl himself and hurtled himself headlong into the hunter who took down LW. Even without his fluidity of form, his rage made him more monster than child. Teeth flashed. Jove tasted blood, and the FEAR in him rejoiced. He wanted to rip them apart, break them so they could never hurt Halloween again. To bleed was simply not enough, he wanted them destroyed.

The sudden pain in his left side was nothing to him as he fought like a rabid dog against layers of fabric with tiny nails and sharp teeth. He would willingly take that pain if it kept these hunters away from his family! He would fight even harder for their lives, and if he was too small to fight, he'd gladly be a sacrifice.

As he dropped to the ground, overcome by the hunter's attack, the pup's last expression wasn't one of hope, sadness, or fright. It was a crazy grin that would put even the scariest shadow foxfire to shame.

"Free" was a relative term, Ren thought, as he stared dismally out into the grey fog that surrounded them. It was thick and white and he wasn't sure which way to go, what to do, or what to think. He still had Tybalt beside him, but there was no pitter pattering of light footsteps from his little brother, no chiming of bells from his ghoulfriend.

Just silence. A muffling, deadening, horrible silence that stretched all around him, consumed him, suffocated him. It reminded him too much of the island, and he had died there - or died before he had realized what was happening, watched as Alessa's eyes had opened in horror, her face turning into a pain-filled one, heard her gasp of surprise before he had dissipated into nothingness.

It had been awful. And now, more than ever, he missed her. He missed Gabrian, he missed LW, he missed Jove - missed them so much that his chest physically hurt, and each breath was painful, dragged in as though he could not quite get enough air into his lungs.

This is just a dream.

But he'd had dreams before - or rather, he'd had nightmares. Terrible, black drenched nightmares that had soaked into his mind, and Ren had grown all too used to them.

This is just another nightmare, thought Ren, as he closed his eyes, inhaling sharply. He could still feel Tybalt beside him, the black dog just as lost as he was, and Ren turned his face towards him, offering what might have been a smile, maybe, the corners of his lips quirked upwards.

"Well. We made it," he said, but the words sounded dull in his mind - dull and dead and flat, and Ren closed his eyes again, turning away from Tybalt. Looking at him reminded him of LW, and again he wondered how long it would be before this all ended and he would be able to see her again, to touch her hand and to hear her sweet, chiming voice ringing in his ears, the sound of her laughter surrounding him.

The fog was lifting now, swirling around them, and for a brief second everything seemed to be sharpening, growing clearer. Ren could see everything laid out in front of him - where Amityville was - or had once been, where it was supposed to have been. Now it was just pieces of rubble, smashed brick, shattered glass - the bare bones of something that had once been there but wasn't any longer.

His heart seemed to be filled with a blank void. Ren's chest ached, and his throat clogged as he stared out in front of him, exhaling slowly.

Is it ending, then? Is this all ending?

There was a figure standing amidst the cluttered remains of the school - a silhouette, more like, a stark shadow within the grey fog. One arm extended, a hand motioning towards him - towards the both of them, beckoning them forward.

Ren felt a smile ghost across his lips.

Let me go home to you.

"Come on, Tybaltina," he said, and then the smile was wider, stretching across his face until it filled his whole expression, and Ren's wings flapped, once, twice. "Let's go home."

One of his ears twitched. He was already moving.

"I'll race you."

And then he was off, running home once more.