So that cliff hanger last chapter left you curious, huh? Well Sam is now gonna tell Flora of his past and explain why he's in the pack. Brace yourself, this will be very sad.
"It all goes back to a few years ago." Sam started telling Flora the past event. "I was with my family. We recently went out of pack life because my parents thought that it was a better life style with just the four of us being together. We were all living a peaceful life...
…
(Flashback to a few years ago where we see preteen Sam racing with his sister Tori)
"Beat you again!" Tori proudly boasted.
"Aw come on Tor!" Sam pouted. "I was letting you win those other few races. This time, I wasn't setting up anything!" he wasn't really complaining. He and Tori would always joke around.
"Face it Sam, I've got it in me." smirked Tori with a bragging gleam in her eyes.
"Aw shut up you!" Sam tackled his sister starting a play fight with both of them laughing.
"You may be like seven minutes older than me, but I'm stronger than you." Tori was always so headstrong and confident.
"Okay fine I admit it, you're better than me." confessed Sam. "Now get off me please!" Tori slid of her brother laughing.
"Nah, I'm not better than you." she said truthfully. "I don't want you, my brother, to feel overshadowed by me. You're way smarter and nicer than me, I'll give you that."
Sam smiled at what Tori just told him. Her heart was always at the right place when it came to words.
"Tori, Sam!" their mother Dana ran up to her two children.
"Yeah Mom?" Sam asked his mother.
"Your father and I heard news of a huge storm coming. He wants us to go to the underground cave for safety." (for those of you who are gonna ask, it's not the cave Flora is imprisoned in)
"We'll be right there Mom, just one more race." Tori replied to Dana.
"No more races for today. Sorry kids, but the sooner we go underground, the better." the two preteens turned to see the dark brown saber named Jeff who looked just like Sam coming up to them.
The family was making their way to their shelter when a female beaky bird ran up to them looking terrified.
"Predators!" she cried
"Predators?" repeated Dana looking confused.
"Yes! Bears! Bears are closing in on us! Protect yourselves and your children!" after that warning, the bird ran off still panicking. The four sabers got even more terrified when they heard growling coming from an emerging shadow which was a grizzly bear, along with about four or five of it's comrades.
"Sam, Tori, you guys go to the cave! We'll come back after we're done fending the bears off!" Jeff ordered his kids.
"We can't just leave you!" protested Tori.
"GO, NOW!" commanded Dana.
"No way! What about you guys?!"
"Tori, we don't have a choice! We gotta run!" seeing that Tori was still resisting, Sam grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and dragged her with him. He felt so bad for being so violent with his little sister, but when she was being so hard-headed now, what else was he supposed to do?
"Let go off me Sam!" snarled Flora. Sam ignored her angry curses and just ran faster and faster as their parents commanded them to. Once they were near the cave, they heard two blood-curdling screams. They knew who they belonged to and lowered their heads in mourning.
…
This was the start of a depression for Tori and Sam. Sam was so distressed for the loss of their parents that he didn't feel any emotion. It's like he was shut down. It disturbed him greatly. Tori had her face buried in her paws and was crying about how it was her fault.
"Tori," Sam started stroking his sister's head with his paw. "Shh. Don't cry, it's not your fault."
"You're right." choked out Tori. "It's your fault!"
"What?!" Sam couldn't believe it! He was just being accused of being responsible for the death of their parents in the middle of their mourning!
"Yeah, it's all your fault! I wanted to stay with Mom and Dad and help them, but NO, you just had to run away and drag me along! If it weren't for that, they would still be alive!"
"What else were we supposed to do?" asked Sam. "We wouldn't to take those guys down anyway. I mean they're 800 pound bears, and we're just puny little sabers going through puberty. We wouldn't have much of a chance of beating them anyway.
"You know what your problem is Sam? You're scared of taking chances! Sometimes in life, you gotta be a risk-taker and go for it!"
"Tori, what's gotten into you? We're family and we should be-"
"And you just cower away like the chicken you are!"
This time, Sam felt infuriated by his sister's comment. "I may be a chicken, but at least I'm not some stubborn, feisty, hot-headed saber who always has to act before she thinks!"
"I'm out of here!"
"Where are you going?!"
"Anywhere without you!"
"Tori, get back here!"
"Whatever."
Sam immediately went after Tori even if she was picking up her pace. He couldn't just let her go out there on her own, he'd be pretty much abandoning her.
"Tori, listen..." Sam attempted to explain, but Tori was just yelling. "La,la,la,la, I'm not listening!"
They were stopped by a loud rumbling heard from the distance.
"What was that?" asked Tori.
"I don't know, but we better get back to our refuge."
Tori nodded and followed Sam back, but they were too late. Before they knew it, a giant, tidal wave went swooping down.
"Run!" Tori and Sam yelled in unison as they fled from the wave, but all too soon, they were caught in the current, desperately trying to paddle out to no avail. Coming up with a last minute rescue plan, Sam swam closer to Tori, grabbing her by the neck with his teeth while coming closer to a rocky plain. He climbed the ledge, still clutching his sister protectively. Once Sam reached the ledge, he helped Tori up, but right when she was to safety with him, she got swept away by the powerful tides.
"TORI!" cried Sam. He jumped into the current to find his sister and save her. He finally caught a glimpse of Tori who was getting weaker and weaker with every attempt of swimming out. Her eyes relaxed when she saw Sam coming to her rescue. He grabbed her and swam to open land where the tide was ending.
"Tori!" Sam cried looking at his unconscious sister. "Tori, please, speak to me!"
"Sam." Tori whispered hoarsely. "I'm so sorry. It's not your fault. I'm so stupid."
"It's okay Tori, I'm sorry too. It's not your fault either. You're not stupid." Sam comforted his sister. "Let's go back to the cave."
"Sam, go on without me. I'm not gonna make it."
"Tori, don't say that, of course you are. I'll take care of you."
"I appreciate it Sam, I really do, but there's nothing you can do to help me. You have to leave me here."
"No! I'm not leaving you! Tori, you're gonna live, just believe in it."
"I love you Sam. You've always been a great brother to me."
Tori used her last ounce of energy to place her paw on Sam's. After that, she didn't say or move at all.
"Tori, wake up." Sam nudged Tori awake. "Please. You can't leave me like this! TORI!"
It was no use. Tori was dead, and Sam was forced to accept it.
Taking Tori's lifeless body, Sam dragged her to a deeper part of the forest to bury her. He saw that the place they raced at was still in one piece, and decided that this was the perfect place.
However, once Sam gently placed Tori's body, he heard rustling. In the bushes. At first, he shrugged it off and proceeded to digging the hole, but saw vultures flying in near Tori's body.
"Shoo! Shoo! Get away from her! Get out of here!" Sam watched as the vultures fled in fear, not even having second thoughts about the carcass.
After burying Tori, Sam lay down next to her grave, whispered words of family love to her and his parents as well and hoped that wherever they now dwell, they're safe. Still not bearing to completely part with his sister, Sam lay down and spent his whole day at her resting place.
Night had fallen very quickly and it wasn't making Sam any better. He couldn't eat or sleep. He just lay there, still melancholy. He didn't even care that there was something out there stalking him. Once the pack of wolves that were hunting him down appeared, Sam couldn't care less if he made it out alive or not. At this point, nothing mattered anymore. But what had surprised him is that a saber, an adult, orange, male, muscular saber had jumped out and took out all of the wolves, leaving them yelping at the harm that he caused them and the whimpering once they retreated. After the saber's powning, he turned to Sam.
"Hey kid, what are you doing just sulking here?" he asked him.
"Nothing." mumbled Sam.
"That didn't answer my question."
"Why do you care?"
"Easy now boy. You better watch your tongue around Soto,the one who just saved your life, and what I'm saying is that you've got quite a debt to pay for that."
"What kind of debt?"
"Join my pack."
"How is that repaying a debt?"
"Offering you another home, the great life style of it. I mean the choice is yours, but if you would rather be a loner for the rest of your life, it's your choice."
Sam thought it through. That guy did make a good point. As upset as Sam was, he didn't want to be a loner. Plus pack life wasn't so bad.
"So what's it going to be kid?" asked Soto.
"I'll join your pack sir." replied Sam with the uneasy decision.
"You've got some brains. Now tell me your name."
"Sam. My name is Sam."
"Congratulations Sam, you're one of us now."
…
(End Flashback)
"Wow." Flora replied. "Sam, I had no idea. Everything that happened to you back then, that must have so hard on you."
"It really was. I lost my parents, my sister, everything. Tori and I were more than siblings. We were best friends, we linked to each other. The fact that I lost her made me want to die so many times."
Flora felt so much sympathy for Sam. She couldn't imagine what it was like to loose her family like that. If she would have lost her parents, brothers, uncles, aunts, self-proclaimed great-grandmother and her cousins, she wouldn't know what to do.
"And Soto said that being in this pack pays off your lifetime debt to him?"
"Yeah. He still holds that over my head. Sometimes, I wish I would have just gone with the option of being a loner. I just wish I would have walked away from the offer regardless of what Soto would do to me."
"Sam, don't beat yourself up for it. This might not be much help, I know that it was difficult to accept that your family is gone now, but you have to try to keep yourself together at times like this and move on with life. You can't change the past, but you can make a future."
"You're right. That's what I did. It took me a while, but I got over it and went on with my new life no matter how much I wanted to leave. Plus, I can think of a positive thing about me being in this pack."
"What?"
"I probably never would have met you. You're the only friend I've ever made and I'm lucky that you're in my life."
"Really? That's so sweet. I feel the same way. You are the only one outside our family who actually talked to me, and you made me feel like that I'm not just some deadbeat who has an abnormal birth defect."
"Because you're not. You're the greatest saber I have ever met in my life and if I never met you, I would still be so lost."
Flora and Sam were about to slide their paws to embrace them when he suddenly realized something.
"Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, why didn't I think of this before?"
"What?" Flora was confused as to what Sam meant until he wiggled the slightly loose bark door.
"I must have loosened it when I tried ramming into Oscar last week." she recalled.
Sam started sliding the bark door up, creating a space small enough for Flora to squeeze through.
"What are you doing?" she asked him.
"We're busting out of here." replied Sam.
Now we know why Sam is in the pack! Poor guy! He lost his whole family! D':
Sam's breaking Flora out of prison! How will their Sweet Escape go? Read to find out!
