His family was the foundation of his happiness. All their love, no one else has ever shown that to him. There was no way they would do that.

But...

It made so much sense.

Dear memories of his parents flashed by like a slideshow on 2x speed in his mind.

His mother's kind smile,

The delicious candy dad brought for him,

When they tuck him in at nights, everything.

Everything was a lie.

Tziporah was still talking to him. He didn't care.

All he could hear was the hum of his mother's lullaby.

Tears flowed like a river from his eyes. It didn't make him feel better.

"Tai! Don't- Don't cry," Tziporah looked left and right, frantic and unsure of what to do. "You'll be fine..."

All my life...

Heavy thuds resounded in the forest, quickly approaching their direction.

Dad said family was the only thing we have in this world.

"Tai.....we need to run..." Tziporah said, her voice trembling.

Mom said I was the apple of her eyes.

"Tai!"

Dad lied to me.

Tziporah dragged his body towards a tree and shoved him into a cramped hole then ran off somewhere.

Mom lied to me.

...

Tziporah screamed in horror and ran with all her might through the jagged terrain of the forest.

Hot streams of tears ran down her face as the heavy thumping of the huge monstrosity of a wolf's feet resounded behind her.

Six wolves...she didn't even know how they were going to share her tiny body amongst themselves.

A fifty of her steps equaled one of theirs. But still, she ran. Her weak constitution due to homelessness finally caught up to her. Each step was more strenuous than the last. She saw stars and panting like a dog.

She felt the monsters shorten the distance between them as their gazes on her back felt more and more intense.

She looked around furtively, trying to find something-anything -for cover. She spotted a few large shrubs to her right and changed course towards them. At that point, she could practically feel a wolf's hot, windy breath.

As she almost entered the shrubbery, she felt a blinding pain in the center of her back, stretching from her neck to her lower back. She ran into the shrubbery, going on all fours and crawling beneath the intricate web of branches. She felt warm liquid flowing down her body from her back.

The six wolves tore at the shrub with their claws. Tziporah crawled even faster, trying to avoid the falling sticks and leaves. Immediately behind the bush happened to be a tree with a thin crack stemming from its base.

Yes!

Finally there was hope. She felt a renewed strength in her body and gave a last push towards the tree. A falling twig stabbed in her wound and Tziporah screamed in pain. She pushed forward.

The shrub was rapidly decreasing in size, and she could now practically see the wolves above her. Their merciless eyes stared at her with a suffocating greed. Her heart lurched.

Thank goodness she was almost there.

Most of the bush was now torn to shreds by the time she finally left the web of thin branches. She scurried up the large, thick tree root protruding from the ground and shot towards the tree crack.

As she neared the crack, despair invaded her heart like ink in water. It was too narrow. She desperately pressed her body against it, hoping for some miracle to happen. The six wolves have now fully demolished the blocking thicket, and one of them pounced at her.

She forced her body in the crack and screamed in pain as the wood gratered against her back.

A millisecond before the wolf attacked the position she once was, she forced her entire body in. Her body spasmed in pain with every movement.

The beast clawed at the crack, brushing her arm and leaving another wound.

Her lips trembled as she uttered incoherent pleas, her eyes bloodshot. She had long run out of tears.

...

Tai sat, curled up in the hole Tziporah shoved him in for 10 minutes, but it felt like an eternity.

He wiped away the snot from his nose as he slowly regained clarity. He rolled out of the hole, got up, and stretched. His heart....felt messy.

He was confused, hurt, and many other things that he didn't even know how to identify. His mind was a swirl of questions.

He needed more information.

He needed to find Tziporah. He ran in the direction he vaguely remembered Tziporah went. Based on his vague memory, she was being chased by wolves. She saved him and sacrificed herself.

Another conflicting thought popped up in his already crowded brain. He was suspicious of Tziporah lying to him, but, would a person that lied to him about his parent's actions sacrifice themself for that person?

If what Tziporah said was true, then she tried saving him from being abandoned out here, then received the same fate in the process.

Tracing the large footsteps that crushed every fauna in its way, he ran for five minutes straight at full speed. His heart ached even more for the destroyed plants.

As far as Tai knew, Tziporah was a sincere, naive girl... she would not lie to him. He knew her that much.

...did he?

If she really played a part in this...he could leave her to die. He will most likely die trying to save her life anyways. But what if she really was innocent?

He soon heard a commotion in the distance to his right and sped in that direction.

There he saw six wolves clawing at a thin crack, ripping out the bark of the tree. Layed between him and the scene was a shredded bush. Underneath it was a thin trail of blood leading towards the tree. However, the wolves had no signs of injury.

Tai suddenly felt cold.

He circumvented the shredded bush and dashed towards the wolves, whose backs were all turned to him.

He grabbed a tiny, pointed stone that he could grip in his hand as he leaped and grabbed the wagging bushy tail of the wolf causing the most damage.

The tail didn't react, and continued wagging rhythmically. He stuffed the rock in his makeshift bag and climbed with experienced grace. Finally reaching the wolf's back amidst the fur, he ran up its spine and reached its head.

The animal shook its body then continued its attack on the tree with its companions. Reaching the top of its head, Tai took the stone, laid flat on his belly, and slowly crawled forward, using his elbows and his feet.

He barely moved towards its eye, careful not to alert the creature. When he finally reached within arm reach of its huge eye, he stabbed the creature in its eye using the stone. His hand, along with the stone, sunk deep in the gel-like substance.

The wolf barked in pain and swung its head side to side and blinked, threatening to crush Tai's arm. Tai grunted in pain and used his other hand to grab a fistfull of hair as he held on for dear life.

At this point the other wolves looked on in confusion. One of them tried to smack him off with its paw, but ended up missing him by a hair's breadth and instead clawed the wolf's eyelid.

The wolf opened its injured eye in another bout of pain as Tai yanked his hand back, bringing some gel-like flesh along with it. With his hand now free, he stabbed at the once again closed eyelid and the wolf howled in agony.

It opened its eyelid again and this time, Tai took a deep breath and launched his entire body into the eye.

His body sunk in the substance with ease as the wolf dropped and rolled on the ground. Tai dug into the gel substance till only messy mush remained.

Seeing that everything was utterly wrecked, he pried the eye open and slid out with the eye membrane and fell awkwardly on the forest floor.

The wolf was still whimpering in pain and rolling on the ground. He ignored it and ran towards the crack.

The other wolves, for some reason, either ran off, or were currently sniffing their assumed leader and were completely ignoring him and Tziporah.

When he was near, he saw a pale Tziporah, lodged in the tree crack, her hazel eyes unfocused. Blood trickled from her body into a small bloody pool by her feet.