★ Follow the Fireflies

The voices echoing around him seemed to grow louder, swirling about the air like invisible phantoms. Their echoes grew louder and more clear the longer Maverick stood here focusing on them. Suddenly he was able to place some of the voices. His brother. His father. Venom. The chatter didn't seem to make any sense, and logically he knew that none of the wolves who possessed the voices were anywhere near here. So why the hell was he hearing them?! Panic began to grip his nerves, an uncharacteristic anxiousness taking over the dire wolf. And still, further down the tunnel, those fireflies beckoned to him, shining their iridescent glows. Calling to him with their lights. Maverick lifted a paw, the voices in his head becoming deafening, and was about to take another step deeper into the caves...

The very real voice beside him snapped Maverick out of his delusions. Rapid blinks brought him back into reality, and suddenly the voices were gone. Mav glanced to his side, seeing those two other wolves there with him. When had they followed him in? "Yeah, never better..." came his mumbled reply. The smallest of the three mentioned that they should probably go. Mav turned his eyes back to the fireflies once more, which now seemed to be growing dimmer, as if proceeding down the tunnels without the wolves. "Yeah, let's get the fuck outta here," Maverick agreed, turning and starting back up the tunnels towards the fresh air and low light of the night just outside. No amount of bizarre fireflies were going to coax him deeper into those hellish caves.

"Maverick"