Prologue.

Five years ago.

 

Tau blinked against the bright light that all of a sudden filled the space. He winced as the wooden doors of the barn creaked loudly as they were pulled all the way open. He looked down at the straw-covered floor as a figure stepped in the way of the blinding sun. He didn't have to look closely at the person in the doorway to know who it would be.

 

Tau turned his head to look at his two older brothers. Both of them were laid on the floor, resting now on their elbows. His middle brother no doubt reacted to the light that had lit up the barn, while his eldest brother reacted only to the sound of the door. Both of them, just like Tau, were keeping their heads down.

 

"Runt." his fathers' guttural voice rang out through the space. It seemed to bounce off every corner of the barn. Tau felt his whole body go stiff as he knew that the man was talking to him. Tau was the only one the man called "Runt." It was a name that the older shifter had given him from the moment he was born, and one that Tau knew his mother despised. He couldn't remember much about the human that was his mother, but her strong dislike of that name his father gifted him with, was one of the things. The other things were her hatred of the man that was their father and the love that she had for all three of her boys. Time hadn't been on her side though and she'd died leaving all her sons in the shifters' hands.

 

"I said, Runt." The man said again, this time his voice even louder. "When I call your name, you come to me. It's time we take that walk." He said.

 

Tau wondered how long it was going to take before his father asked for him to step outside. He knew exactly what the man wanted, and ever since the day before, he knew his time for the walk would come.

 

Tau was the last of his brothers to go on that walk. Him being the youngest of all of them, that wasn't exactly a surprise. With the memory of when his brothers had done the same walk with their father fresh in his mind though, he wasn't looking forward to what was about to happen. It had been a year since Tam had been called outside of the barn, but what had come after that walk still lingered in Tau's mind when he slept. The dreams he had most nights forced him to relive that day over and over again. Tam had never been the same since, and he wondered how long it was going to be before he became the silent ghost of a shifter he should be.