[Captain]

It all started with the sound of a single gunshot.

Aspen’s head snapped up from her book as she sat on the couch while her mother, Raine, worked in the kitchen. “Mom, what’s happening?” She asked, the young teenager quickly getting up from her seat as her heart thumped heavily in her chest. Her father, Talon, rushed into the house and slammed the door behind him, breathing rather fast. “They’ve found us - Aspen, you need to run. Now!” The young girl shook her head, her hands shaking as more sounds of gunshots and screams rang out through the small town of Northbury as the Government searched through the houses for the hybrids that littered the town -killing them on sight. Her mother rushed over to her, grabbing Aspen and making her look at her. “You need to get to safety, don’t worry about us. We’ll join you soon enough. Please, we love you.” Raine said, rushing her small daughter to the back door of their small home.

Talon uttered a growl of pain as a bullet broke through the weak wooden door and went through his shoulder. “Dad!” Aspen shrieked, watching her father fall to the ground with blood pooling from his shoulder. He shifted into his large, pitch-black wolf form. He turned to his family. “Run, Aspen. Run and don’t look back.” He urged, pain and fear within his amber eyes, “I love you so much.” As he said that, he leapt out the door and went to defend his family. Raine looked back to where her beloved husband fled. “Talon!” She said, desperation in her voice. She turned back to her daughter. “Run into the forest. Be safe, please. I need to help your father.” With that, Aspen’s mother left her, shifting into her lean, white and brown cat form.

Aspen’s head turned back and forth to the front door to the forest, not knowing what to do. She shook her head violently and rushed out the sliding glass door into their backyard, shifting into her swift Bengal cat-form and leapt over the fence and dashed off into Plyth Forest, thorns and branches scratching her sides and making her wince as tears formed in the corners of her eyes, knowing that her family was surely dead. Several bullets whizzed past her head and she quickened her pace, stepping over stones as her ears flattened. A sharp pain formed in her flank as a bullet grazed that area, but not entering her flesh. Blood soaked her right flank as she eagerly limped deep into the woods before collapsing next to a stream on the cold, smooth pebbles of the river-bank, her chest rising and falling, exhausted.

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