night fell quickly with the kind of cold that crawled into her bones to rest. twitch curled tight into herself, spine tucked against the crook of a rock with her tail over her paws. she'd meant to stay awake, just for a little while longer—eyes fixed on the dark treeline, listening for sounds that never came. sleep found her anyway, somehow.

the dream took her quick. a lumbering groan, snow tumbling off branches like something had brushed them from below. the stink of rot and fur and something older curling in her nostrils like smoke. she knew before she saw it. bear. hulking beast, big and wrong. its snout wet with foam, its eyes pits of glinting amber. the kind of thing nightmares envied.

she couldn't move. her limbs locked, like roots had grown through her. it drew closer, each step a slow, purposeful drumbeat, the stink of it clinging like a second pelt. she tried to scream. tried to bolt. nothing worked. and then—

nothing. when her eyes opened, the world was… wrong. no less wrong than the bear from her dream. she shot upright so fast her head spun, dizzy. breath tore from her lungs, gasping for breath like she'd been drowning. but there were no trees. no snow. no familiar scents. she was sprawled in the middle of a vast plain of grass, tall and copper-tipped, swaying under a warm breeze she didn’t remember existing. the sun sat on the horizon, drowning the sky in orange, bleeding gold into the clouds.

no rocks. no forest. no bear. no home.

twitch’s breath stuttered in her throat. where the fuck—

her own scent was unfamiliar. warped, as if part of it had been erased and rewritten. this wasn’t the same world. this wasn’t even the same reality—it couldn't be. fuck.