Stone Circle BWP- My Breath's getting short and im unsteady

*eyes* I didn't know the time of day, or the state of Greyback, so let me know if you need anything changed! Also, this'll be Merrit's only post <3

Merrit did not slumber, he did not rest, he did not join his family within the safety of Stone Circle, despite the command of his mother. He would not. Though the ground shifted underfoot, in ways no one could explain, nothing frightened him more than the way the plains seemed to weave a streamless strand of nightmares through his subconscious regardless of whether was asleep or awake. The visions blurred his focus when he least expected, and the longer he spent here, the worse they grew, blinking through the darkness and the daylight until he found safety in nothing but distance - so distance he gave them.

But today had been better. He had patrolled the perimeters, braved the escalating quakes. They were less worrisome than the absence of prey, the empty plains, and the trail of the russet woman, Indra, that left Easthollow one way, and never circled back.

He puzzled over what this could mean. He had heard no call ring out from her that she would be gone for more than a night, but he had seen at least three sunsets, and still no sign of her...

So Merrit sought his mother. She had no answers to the quakes, but she had seen many wolves come and go, and he knew she would quell that dreadful churn of anxiety in his gut. Hadn't Indra been one of the ones - ?

CRK GGGRCK

And he lurched, caught off-guard and thrown off-balance, by the longest and strongest tremor yet. The whole world rocked around him, and for a moment he felt himself colliding the sweet summer grass, on that dreadful day, and Leta's eyes flashed through his mind - 

but just as fast, he realized he still stood upright, though his heart kicked heavy against his chest -

Leta. Leta. Sea Witch. Indra. And he didn't know when he had started running, but his heart challenged the speed of his paws, which ate up the ground with a voracious sprint. He had to find mother, he had to find mother, he had to find -

The world blurred to everything but the pigeonholed objective forged in this panic, and he did not notice the form of the other until he had tripped across him, thrown head-first and over-heels onto the ground on his packmate's opposite side with a loud, resounding, oof!

Greyback.

The last wolf who needed to see him like this, that last he needed to see - and he scrambled to his paws, to collect himself, wind-blown from the fall and fur ruffled in ways he could never cover.

"Greyback. I - I didn't see ... "

But as the man drew into focus, he could see there was something wrong. And Merrit narrowed his brow. There was something wrong, because a trip like that should have woken --

He should have --

Shit.

He didn't even think to check if the Patriarch had breath in him; all he could see was Leta in his limpness, Leta in his stillness, Leta in everyway he was -

- his throat constricted, and he let out a panicked and warbled cry, and he stumbled backward, away away away from the Patriarch - did he breathe? didn't matter - away from the nightmare of his sister - from the fear he held for Indra. It was too much, too much, away away away -- that by the time anyone showed up, he was already gone, stripped away from Easthollow, with only his scent to testify that he had even ever been here.