Isla's POV
The box hits my face before I can scream.
"ISLA, MOVE!" Jenny's voice cuts through the warehouse, but my feet won't listen. I'm frozen, staring up at the mountain of supply boxes tipping toward me like a deadly wave.
Then the world explodes.
Cardboard and metal crush down on my chest. My ribs crack—I hear them snap like dried twigs. Air rushes out of my lungs and won't come back. I try to breathe. Can't. Try again. Nothing.
I'm going to die in a warehouse full of vegetable seeds.
The thought is so stupid it almost makes me laugh, except I can't laugh because I can't breathe. Blood fills my mouth, hot and metallic. Above me, through the gaps in the boxes, I see the broken warehouse roof and gray Seattle sky.
"Someone call 911!" That's Marcus, my supervisor, his voice high and panicky. "Isla! Can you hear me? Stay with us!"
I want to answer, but my vision is going spotty. Black dots dance across everything. The pain in my chest is huge, crushing, like an elephant sitting on me. My fingers twitch, trying to reach toward the voices, but they feel so far away.
Mom's going to be so mad I died doing volunteer work.
More boxes shift above me. Someone screams. The weight on my chest gets heavier, heavier, impossible. I taste blood and dirt and my last breath.
Then—darkness.
Pain wakes me up.
Not the crushing chest pain from before, but everywhere-pain. My whole body feels like it got hit by a truck, then the truck backed up and hit me again. I try to sit up and immediately regret it. My ribs scream. My head pounds. Everything hurts.
But I'm breathing.
Somehow, impossibly, air is moving in and out of my lungs.
I force my eyes open and see... purple?
The sky above me is purple. Not sunset-purple or bruise-purple, but actual grape-purple, streaked with pink clouds. And there are two moons. TWO. One big and silver, one smaller and pale blue, both hanging in the sky like someone copy-pasted the moon and forgot to delete the original.
"Okay," I whisper to myself. My voice sounds raspy and wrong. "I'm dead. Or dreaming. Or having the worst concussion hallucination in history."
I try to sit up slower this time, gritting my teeth against the pain. My ribs are definitely broken—maybe cracked, at least. Every breath hurts. But I'm alive, which seems impossible after being crushed by a thousand pounds of donation boxes.
The ground underneath me is hard and rocky, nothing like the smooth warehouse floor. I'm lying in dirt and pebbles, surrounded by strange twisted trees with black bark and red leaves. The air smells different too—wild and sharp, like a forest after rain, but with something else. Something animal.
Fear hits me then, cold and sudden.
Where am I?
I force myself to stand, swaying like a drunk person. My jeans are torn and bloody. My Community Garden volunteer t-shirt is shredded on one side. I have cuts everywhere, bruises blooming purple-black across my arms. But I'm standing. Moving. Not dead.
The forest around me is completely silent. No birds. No insects. No traffic sounds or city noise. Just silence so thick it presses against my ears.
Then I hear it.
A growl.
Low and rumbling, coming from somewhere in the twisted trees. My heart slams against my broken ribs. Every animal documentary I've ever watched plays in my head at once: Don't run. Don't make eye contact. Make yourself big.
But I can't make myself big when I can barely stand.
The growl comes again, closer. I see movement in the shadows—something huge and dark sliding between the trees. No, not something. Multiple somethings. My brain screams at me to run, but my legs won't move. I'm frozen, just like in the warehouse.
I survived being crushed to death just to get eaten by space wolves.
A branch snaps behind me.
I spin around and see it—a massive wolf-like creature the size of a small car, with silver-white fur and eyes that glow ice-blue in the strange light. Its teeth are the length of my fingers. Drool drips from its jaws.
This is it. This is how I die.
The wolf-thing takes a step toward me. Then another. I stumble backward, my broken ribs screaming, and trip over a root. I hit the ground hard. Stars explode across my vision.
When I blink them away, there are four creatures surrounding me.
The giant silver wolf. An orange-striped tiger bigger than any tiger should be. A golden eagle the size of a human. A massive black snake with scales that shimmer like oil.
They're all staring at me with intelligent eyes. Too intelligent. Animal eyes don't look like that—curious and calculating and almost... human?
The wolf opens its mouth, and I close my eyes, waiting for teeth to rip into my flesh.
Instead, I hear words.
Not growls. Not animal sounds. Actual words in a language I don't understand, but words all the same. My eyes snap open.
The wolf is... talking? Its mouth moves like a human's mouth. The sounds coming out are rough and growly, but they have rhythm, pattern, meaning.
The tiger responds, its voice deeper and smoother. The eagle makes sharp clicking sounds. The snake hisses something that sounds almost musical.
They're having a conversation.
About me.
My brain can't handle this. Talking animals. Purple skies. Two moons. I open my mouth to scream, to beg, to ask what's happening, but nothing comes out except a wheeze.
The wolf steps closer. I flinch away, but there's nowhere to go. Its massive paw—bigger than my head—reaches toward my face. I squeeze my eyes shut, certain this is the end.
I feel warm breath on my cheek. Then something wet touches my forehead. Gentle. Almost... kind?
When I open my eyes, the wolf is staring directly into mine. This close, I can see its face isn't quite wolf-shaped. The snout is shorter. The eyes are positioned more forward. And when it opens its mouth again, I see something that makes my blood turn to ice.
The teeth are sharp, yes. But behind them, I glimpse something else.
A throat shaped for speech. A tongue that moves too precisely. Lips that curve almost like a smile.
These aren't animals.
They're something else entirely.
The wolf makes a sound—softer this time, almost questioning. Its glowing blue eyes search my face like it's trying to understand what I am, just like I'm trying to understand what it is.
Then the tiger moves closer, and I see it clearly in the purple light.
It's standing on two legs.
My vision starts to blur. The pain, the fear, the impossibility of everything crashes over me like a wave. I try to stay conscious, try to make sense of this, but my body has other ideas.
The last thing I see before darkness takes me is the wolf-creature catching me as I fall, its massive arms cradling me against fur that feels impossibly warm.
And its face—shifting, blurring, becoming something between animal and human.
Then nothing.