I was young. Not so young that I still needed a step stool, but still young enough to allow my hair to be tied down in two dark braids. My hair was so long, even then, nearly reaching my spindly waist. Aunt May once said I looked almost exactly like a new sapling, swaying along with the wind.

It was so cold that day, even inside the Moonrise pack mansion. The mischievous wind managed to squirm under and over the cracks of the windows, snaking along my spine and sending chills.

In my tiny thin hands I held...what did I hold? It's blurry now, why can't I remember?

Just breath....slowly....

I was sitting on my bed holding...something. I can hear laughter, a child's. I'm not sure if it's mine or...

I turn my head towards the door, and I smiled. It's a boy...no, two boys, but at the same time they are identical.

Ben and Tyler.

Oh, god. They're smiling at me brightly, bright white teeth, too perfect for children. No, that's not right. Ben had a tooth knocked out, or maybe it was Tyler.

They race into my room, and they begin jumping on my bed, and I begin to pout, nagging them to stop or they would ruin my new pink bed spread. They stopped jumping.

They're wearing thick clothes, much too thick for the inside of the pack house.

"Come on Ale Ale Oxen-free." The gap toothed twin, I recognize as Tyler now, grabs my hand in his gloved one, and he pulls me out of the house. We race down the stairs, our giggles erupting around us like popping bubbles, floating high above us.

"Slow down, Mija!" I turn around to look behind me, and there she is, my mother. An apron is wrapped loosely around her waist and her hair is piled high and messily. She is beaming down at me, her fingers brushing lightly against my cheek. I giggled at her and stuck out my tongue, racing out to the back of the pack house, and diving into the snow.

I always loved the way the snow felt on my skin, like soft pricks of fluff. I imagine this is what it must be like to live in the clouds. But even I knew that if you stay to long, get to greedy, the snow becomes something more cruel than kind.

So I let Tyler and Ben pull me out of my mattress of flurries, and through the plain expanse of the yard.

The grounds were perfectly and crystal white, the snow so evenly spread that you could tell each path of footsteps from the others.

Maybe I should have looked closer at those footsteps. Why hadn't I? Maybe if I had...

God dammit, focus.

What happened next? Right...

So, Tyler and Ben and I were playing in the yard, hurling balls of snow at each other, laughing, giggling...and then...crash.

The sound came from the pack house, and we all froze and turned to face the open back door of the mansion. We're stark still in the lawn, and all we can hear is the scattered murmurs from inside the house.

"What was that?" Tyler asks, and the twins shuffle closer to me, so that we are huddled together, protected by each other's warmths.

"Why is it so-" I began to ask when-

"I want to stop." I squeak out desperately, ready to open my eyes.

"You're doing very well, Alessandra. Just take a deep breath." Dr. Sanchez' soothing voice echoes around the room, and I shuffle in the seat, trying to get comfortable but failing on all attempts.

I asked why is was so... something. But my younger self's question was swallowed by the loudest and most blood curdling roar I had ever heard.

I opened my mouth to scream, but that's when I saw my mother and father sprinting from the house, right towards me.

"Mama? Papa?" I called to them in a scream, racing away from Tyler and Ben in a dead sprint for my parents.

Papa grabs me and hoists me into the air, holding me tight to his chest.

"We need to get her out of here." Papa whispers fiercely to my mother, and she nods, her crystal eyes filled with anxiety and fear.

"Papa, que pasa?" I squeaked to him, burying my head into his bearded collar. "What's happening?"

"Tranquila, mija." He whispers to me, hugging me closer. "Don't fret, we just need to leave."

"Mama-" I turn to reach out for my mother, but before my fingers can reach her dark hair, I hear another roar, and a scream escapes me as I throw my hands over my ears.

"Alejandra, get out of here!" My father shouts, and his eyes are so filled with fear and terror, a look I have never seen on my father's face.

"Alvar-" My mother starts to respond, when she collapses to the ground, tackled by a wolf the size of a bear. She is screaming-

"I WANT TO STOP." I screech, my fingernails digging into the arms of the couch, my claws beginning to emerge.

"Alessandra-"

"I WANT TO STOP."

"Alessandra!" Dr. Sanchez' voice is right in front of me, and he places a hand on my arm lightly, the gesture oddly calming. But my heart is still beating at a million miles an hour.

"Continue, please. We're almost done."

My mother, she's screaming, and the snow is turning redder and redder by the moment. I'm on the ground now, my father having placed me a relatively safe distance away and charging at the beast after shifting into his great white wolf.

He lets out a howl that I have never once heard come from my father, and his teeth and bared and foaming, rage pouring from every place in his body.

My father and the beast circle each other, and there is an oddly recognizable glint in their eyes...it was no longer terror, but shock. My father knew the beast. My father knew Titan. Of course he knew Titan but how...

I tear my eyes away from the fighting wolves to...

"Mama...?" I move towards her, grabbing her hand in mine. Her crystal eyes are dead, gazing up at the bright white sky in an unblinking gaze.

"Mama!" I scream over the snarls behind me, and I begin to hit my fists against her arm, just trying to make her wake up, to breath, to not leave me.

"PLEASE MAMA!" I scream once more, before my world turns to black and red.

I open my eyes finally, and I am shocked at the sudden wetness under my lashes. I swipe my finger under my eye and feel the salty tears streaming furiously down my face. I look up from my fingers to Dr. Sanchez, who is staring at me with a perplexed look in his gaze.

There is a filled silence, so thick and clotted.

"Satisfied?" I choke out before storming out of the room.