I take a sharp right, the final stretch is in front of me, my pursuer has company now. There must be six or seven of the hunters dogs on my tail. The largest is in the lead, eyes trained on me. He must be the Alfa male of the pack. He nods to a white husky in the pack, he looks well built. The white husky lets out a long howl that sends a chill down my spine. You can see the muscles in his legs ripple as he picks up the pace and sprints toward me. I look forward and dodge more trees. I’m almost there, 150 yards left to go. I sprint, because this is what I was built for. I was built for speed.


We are far from the rest of the hunters dogs. I stop at the edge of the cliff. The white husky closes in on me while I rest. He lunges forward, I doge the sloppy attack. I can tell he is worn out. He lunges forward again, and I dodge once more. This time its my turn to play offense. I quickly go in for the leg. I bite and feel it snap between my teeth. He recovers by opening a gash on my forehead. Blood flows and quickly blinds my left eye. I hear the other dogs nearby. Limping the white husky circles growling and showing his teeth. He goes for a bite to my neck but I doge just in time to get a bite in on his jugular. Blood fills my mouth and when I release it, it squirts, covering my face with the warm thick fluid. The rest of the dogs are only 30 yards off. The white husky dashes toward me. He bites into my front leg and tumbles over the cliff, bringing me with him.

We fall. The frigid waters envelope me, breaking my fall. Alarmed, I look around for the white husky. The cold water fogs up my brain. I catch a glimpse of white fur. when I look closely I see that the husky was skewered on a jagged rock, adding a faint red to the river. I rinse the caked blood from my face, and out of my eye.


I limp to a nearby cave to clean my wounded shoulder. My tongue feels like sandpaper against my teared flesh. I look up to the cliff from where we fell and can barely make out the shape of huskies lined on the edge. They let out a long howl to mourn the death of their fellow husky. A high pitch squeal calls the huskies back. I can see the hatred in his eyes and the glint of alpha male’s collar as he turns to return to his master.

I should continue on before the human finds one of his dogs missing and comes looking for its corpse. I stand on all fours and follow the river.

I continued to walk for hours. My pace has deteriorated to a slow limp. I’ve lost a lot of blood and my mind has become foggy. I’ve lost my way, and I wander aimlessly, hoping i can get to her in time. Everything starts to go black, I can’t walk in a straight line. I fall over. The last thing i see is a boot in front of my face.

I wake next to a cozy fire.

“you know you’re real luck you aint’ dead.” Says the elderly man while he carves a piece of wood.

I only whimper in response as I strain to sit up. I must keep moving. “take it slow, your only gonna hurt your self more. I warmed you up some beans and bacon” he says as he pushes a bowl towards me. “eat up, they’re good for ye’”

They smell pretty descent and taste better then they smell. I listen to the man and eat the beans. but only because since my injury i haven’t been hunting and to be honest i’m pretty hungry too.

Shortly after eating i fall back asleep and awake under a warm blanket inside the tent to the sound of howling wind, “Glad to see you up again. You've been out for about a day or so. Storm’s comin’ in pretty quick.”

This is the first time i have actually been able to study the man’s features in the faint light of the lamp. His native american face is weathered. He wears a worried expression in his eyes as he gazes towards the opening of the tent. “I’ll be right back, stay here and rest. Don’t move to much.”

I hear the faint jingle of chains and the whimpering of another dog outside. The man returns shortly with a small bag. “This will only take a second, i promise.” he reaches in the bag and pulls out fresh bandages and a paste. He removes the blood stained bandages from my shoulder and forehead --he must have put them on when i was sleeping-- and applies a fresh coat of the paste to my wounds and presses the bandages to my raw flesh. “You got torn up pretty good. Im surprised you survived the fall. i’ve been following you since you fell from that cliff, you’re lucky you didn’t get skewered to. The hunter was pretty upset about his dog you killed. But i guess he shouldn’t have set them on you if he didn’t want trouble. Here you go” The man passes me a bowl of cooked meats with spices. Taste like a little rabbit, and deer venison. Although i don’t get the satisfaction of the fresh kill it still taste’s descent.

As i was lapping up the last bit of juices the man took the bowl and reached up towards the lamp, “get some sleep, it’ll help you heal. Were leaving in the morning and if you feel up to it, you can follow my dogs” he slowly turned a knob on the lantern and the flame danced its last dance.

I wake to the sound of bacon crackling over an open fire. I slowly stand and whimper as a sharp pain shoots through my shoulder. I limp out through the tent and join the man in the snow. “go ahead” says the man as he nods toward the bacon.

I eat a piece of the crispy meat and softly nudge the man in his side to say thanks. “your welcome” he says.

He swiftly packs up camp and i hop onto his sled as he gives the dogs the order to go.

“mush”

We went on for hours. I lay on the sled slipping in and out of reality. I dream of a place where the radiant sun and enchanting moon dance together in the same sky. In this place I can leap higher than i ever could. This is the place where weird creatures that i’ve never seen before roam.

I wake to the sound of growling dogs. I quickly chew through the ropes keeping me on the sled and leap onto all fours. The huge white beast stands tall before us. We surround the bear as he lashes out in all directions. The bear follows runs toward a rather large tree that’s branches are high from the ground. I can see the Indian man climbing near the top. He keeps shouting for us to run. But i wont run. My muscles ripple as I charge. I let out a fierce howl that attracts the bears attention for a moment. suddenly time slows as i run faster then i ever have before.

I take in my surroundings. I see clearly where i need to attack. Where all of his vital organs and all his weak spots are. His left leg is weak from an older injury almost crippling him, i see this by the way he stands on his hind legs. A long scar along his left arm from a run in from a larger animal, probably another bear. I lunge for his left leg and tear a reasonable sized chunk of muscle and fur covered flesh from his calf. A long blood curdling growl leaves the bears mouth as he swings around his right paw and catches my side, launching me into a tree. One of the other dogs leaps and bites into the thick muscle on the white beasts shoulder. He lets out an agonizing growl and reaches towards his shoulder and grabs the dog and throws him at a tree. The dog hits hard. His back curves around the tree. The bear charges the wounded dog and with one foul swoop cuts the dog from its privates, along its body, all the way to its neck. The dogs stomach and intestines fall out of his body.

The other dogs and I leap towards the bear biting into his thick fur on his back and arms. The bear spins and lunges in all directions trying to loosen the dogs grip on his flesh. He shakes a them all free except for me and bashes me against the thick tree that the human sits in.

The Native American man leaps out of the tree with a whoop. He takes a knife and a stick and stabs them into the bears eyes. He quickly dashes towards the sled and fumbles through several bags. the blinded bear dashes in the direction the man went. He swings blindly. Listening for the man to give away his position. The man pulls a stick with a heavy stone tied to the end out of a bag. The bear gets lucky and hits the sled, knocking it on the man. The man tries to get up, but the bear puts all of his weight on the sled. The bear leans in over the man and growls menacingly at the man. Every thing starts to go black as i helplessly watch the bear lean in over the man. I slowly stand, and bark at the bear.

In just one second the bear made the mistake that ended its life. It looked towards me.

The human quickly grabbed the makeshift mace and with one swing, the man tore the bear’s lower jaw from his face. Blood squirted in the humans face as the bear reared up on his back legs and fell on its back. Dead.

Then i fell to the ground and blacked out.

I dreamed again, i dreamed of that place. But this time I saw the sun wasn’t a sun, but it was a giant fiery rock hurling its way towards that world. I tried to give a warning bark. But no one could hear me. I saw a large wolf. He stood boldly on a mountain, staring at the rock bearing down on earth. The Wolf’s face was expressionless as he walked into a cave. He was greeted by group of wolves. A female and 3 small cubs. He touched his nose to the females and nuzzled the cubs. They all walked into the cave as the fiery ball hit the earth.

I wake to a start, i’m not in the sled nor the familiar tent of the man, i’m in some foreign place. A person enters and i whimper as the human pets my coat of fur. I sense her. I look up to where the human entered, and see her with my babies. Shanai.