Previously: echo was given a month to live because of a mark she doesn't understand, and then recently it was shortened to a week. she spent the last week thinking and being angry with frost. today is the last day.

echo woke up and rolled over sighing. she didn't want to face another day full of depressing thoughts. no, she wouldn't be. this was it. the day everything boiled down to. she started to ask herself how she felt but stopped. it didn't matter. she was going to die today. all her life she had known she was going to die at some vague distant point in the future. when she had been marked, she realized she was going to die soon, but it hadn't really hit her. she thought she had fully appreciated every moment, truly acknowledged that in a month her life would end, but she hadn't. then, a week ago, she had realized it was even closer than expected. she thought it had hit her with full force, but it hadn't. today was it. not even, she had maybe an hour to prepare. how do you prepare for death for something that wasn't your fault? she swallowed and felt it as her throat flexed and moved to accommodate the bile. it would soon be torn out.  how did she deal with it? how did any other the other marked people handle it? she was pretty sure they were just hunted down and killed. and the only ones who could get them to the forest were the young wolves, like frost and younger. her stomach turned. but according to everyone, this was better for her. but now, inside death's jaws about to clamp down, she wasn't sure. she really wasn't ready to die. she had imagined this day, how she would be brave, get up and tell them she was ready, embrace what she couldn't control. she was not embracing this. she didn't want to do this. she just didn't know how to stop it. a paw shook her and she sighed and sat up. secret stood over her.

"ok, you've had your time, lets go." secret silver fur gleamed and what would normally have been beautiful horrified her. a silver blade about to strike her down.

"wait, we have at least a couple extra days right? can she have the rest of the day? i dont think she actually prepared. she literally spent all week moping and being mad at me." frost interveinved, but didn't quite spare her. she smiled tightly.

"because she was being emotional. had she been rational, she would have spent the week preparing herself and enjoying the week to its fullest." she just couldn't leave out an argument point. maybe her frost wasn't all the way gone after all.

"she can have until noon. i dont think its wise to kill her at night, destroying the evil in her could damage the moon, but when the sun is at its peak it could hurt the sun instead."

"ok." secret nodded and made a hunting party, as if it was just any other day. as if today wasn't the biggest, and last day of her life. frost sat by her and waited.

"where have you gone?" echo said only the 4 sad words. 

"what do you mean? I'm right here."

"i dont mean you. i want to know where frost is."

"right here. are you ok?"

"no. you arent frost. frost would never stand to see me killed. frost would have refused to deal with me ignoring her, she would have made me come with her to run around the woods one last time, she would have wanted to watch me see all the new things and smile in her speacil way. frost would have understood me, and even if she couldn't she would have tried. she had emotion, feeling. both good and bad. she would never give up on our friendship, she would be to stubborn. she would have seen me upset and hugged me and tried to fix it, and she would have never rested until she found a way to remove my mark. you arent frost, you are a mindless pack loving slave of secret."

"that's a lot to take. no, i guess I'm not. i cant control it, I'm not very human anymore, I'm almost bound. and as alpha i cant have emotions. there is nothing to be done. but i will say dont worry about the execution. death is not what it seems."

"that's comforting."

"echo, i do still care about you. remember? were sisters, to the end. but i would sacrifice any of my pack for the pack as a whole. including you. and just because i dont care about you in a fully human way, doesn't mean i dont care. i haven't forgotten anything. every moment we spent together i locked away deep in my heart, some of the greatest treasures i have. but it was never going to last anyway, id be bound soon. and the pack comes first. always."

"i know. and that's your choice. but the only thing i have left is how i feel, and that's my decision."

"and how is that?" echo wasn't sure. sad, angry maybe, did she hate her? she wasn't really  sure. frost actually caring somewhere mattered, but this still wasn't frost. she mourned frost as tho dead. she would be dead in literal hours and she was focusing on how she felt about new frost. what she wouldn't give to relive everything of her time with frost, her friend. and maybe just as much to forget about this girl or wolf or whatever she was.

"what?"

"how do you choose to feel about me?"

"I'm not worried about it right now. I'm busy thinking about what happens next."

"do you want to be alone?"

"finally. of course i do, why would i want to spend this much of the rest of my life talking to a stranger?" out of the corner of her eye she saw frost withdraw, looking hurt. good. something she did finally affected her. 

"alright then. i wont bother you anymore." she didn't really feel bad. shewas glad to have finally affected frost. but it just made her sadder. her frost would have been angry and argued to try and make her take it back, she would never be hurt. frost was a fighter. but apparently not the imposter.

she was going to die. she wasn't sure what to do. did she mourn herself? be angry? what now?  did she want to be remembered as brave? did it matter? no. so she just let go. tears came gushing from her eyes, her sobs hurt her lungs but it didn't matter. they only had a few breaths left. she would just let go. she couldn't control anything, she wouldn't try to. she wouldn't think, she wouldn't feel. ever... again. she stood up and walked to the mouth of the cave, ignoring the sets of eyes, at least a dozen, following her every move. she gripped a stalagmite and leaned out, taking a deep breath of fresh air and checking the sun. she had about a half-hour. she let herself just go numb. frost would probably have tried to escape, the real frost, but she was her. besides, it might be better. but then maybe not. and if she tried to escape it would be a more painful sooner death, alluring tho it was. she didnt feel time pass, but almost instantly secret walked in with a deer and she and her group set it down in echos corner. dead, like she would be.

"alright, let go." suddenly at the worst possible time her numb feeling snapped. she nodded robotically to hide her fears and went over to stand exactly where pine had. she faced secret, faced death, nose to nose. at any minute she would snap forward and kill her. she was so close to just running. she had been right. it was worse here. she could see every little thing. heard a drip from a stalctite deep in the caves, saw pups rolling together, felt every breath of the tense wolves, but she noticed none of it. only the eyes of death. tears ran down her cheeks in perfect silence, and the wait seemed an eternity. and then she, and everyone else felt secrets muscles bunching as if it were their own, and every wolf waited in anticipation. and then the moment broke like twine stretched too tight.