Whitefish River Boom, boom, boom, clap

A wicked smile curved Jinx's spittle-stained lips when the child spoke. Although imagined bats were whizzing around her head and the crackling sound in her ears was louder than ever, sending shivers up her spine and making her skittish, she smiled, but it was eerie and wrong. This became apparent when she began to cast around herself and fidget on the spot, jerking as though she was going to cross the river, and then leaping back as though she was afraid of it. She could see the pup shrinking back into the shadow of the plateau, but the fear in her eyes seemed to transfix the Plateau wolf (little did she know it was just fascination).

“Yooou,” she said in a broken, cracking voice, lifting herself higher on her feet and swaying unsteadily. Jinx had a memory of that name, that specific name, spoken to the tune of sea lions barking. She didn't recall much about it, having had her mind infiltrated and broken down into insanity by the neurovirus already, but she remembered the most important thing.

“Atka,” she said pleadingly, twisting back her ears and falling prone to the ground in fearful worship, shaking and sputtering and coughing through foamy lips. “At... ka. Save... M-m-me...”