>>5851152>Allow it to happen.You force yourself to harden your heart. Leaping into the fray will result in injuries for you both. Saving your sibling will come at a cost to yourself that you're not willing to pay. There's no chance of the other two leaping in to help. Their place in the pecking order had been firmly displayed, and the tyrant has the upper hand in every way, apart from numbers.
Savage jaws clamp down harder on the limb, wrenching from side to side until it breaks from the pressure. Meanwhile, the vines completely restrain all four of their limbs, entangling with the roots on their own back and ripping chunks of them out. The roots emerge, wet with blood. Your youngest sibling's cries grow weaker and weaker, choked out by the verdant tendrils that wrap around their airway and constrict. Their eyes flicker about, wide and alert in panic, and you can feel the waves of fear washing out of their mind and overwhelming you.
But nobody comes to help. Not mother, not father, not the other two—
Not you.
~~
Night falls outside. The nest is in disarray, with your largest sibling snoozing peacefully on one side. The limp body of your youngest brother lies in the middle of the rocky enclosure, cold and unmoving. The other three of you are curled up, pressed together on the opposite end and remaining as far away from both the corpse, and your sibling as possible. None of you move, speak, or even think, only hoping for morning to come. And yet, you dream the dawn all the same, for fear of the sun casting its light over your sibling's body.
