The frigid wind carved across his face like a blade, dragging icy grit and the sharp scent of snow deep into his nostrils.
His ears filled with the ragged rasp of breath, tangled with frantic footsteps and the relentless crunch of snow compacted over and over beneath fleeing feet.
“Quick, grab her!” “They’re right here!
They can’t have gone far.
Fan out, search properly!” The voices drifted in and out, muffled and distorted, like sounds rising from the depths of murky water.
Luke’s consciousness clawed its way up through the haze, inch by inch.
Everything before him was blurred, alien, wrong.
He forced his eyelids open.
His vision flooded with white, a massive, heaving expanse of white, impossibly fluffy.
‘Wait.’ He blinked.
A wolf’s face hovered directly above him.
Sapphire-blue eyes stared down into his own equally fuzzy little face, those eyes swimming with terror and desperate anxiety.
A white dog?
No.
That was a wolf.
He wrenched his head to the side, trying to take in his surroundings.
Darkness stretched to the horizon in every direction.
Snow blanketed everything.
In the distance, pine and cypress trees thrashed wildly in the gale, shaking loose great cascades of powder from their boughs.
Farther still, at the mountain’s foot, a few scattered lights flickered weakly, but they only made the forest feel deeper, more ominous, more alive with unseen things.
Before he could so much as gasp, the white wolf holding him realized he was awake.
Her massive paw, covered in thick white fur, pressed firmly but delicately over his snout.
The pressure was controlled, gentle, yet undeniable.
He couldn’t move against it.
“Shh” The warmth of her paw pad radiated against his mouth.
Soft fur tickled his nose.
He struggled to push her away, but the moment his hands came up, he froze.
What were those?
Little paws.
Furry.
Covered in short white down.
Luke thrust both “hands” in front of his face, turning them over and over, his mind detonating in white-hot shock.
Trembling violently, he fumbled at his own face, and yes.
Fur.
A muzzle jutting forward.
A nose that was cold and wet to the touch, drawing in air that carried the unmistakable mingled scents of snow and pine resin.
It’s not a dream.
He had turned into…
a furry?
A cub, at that.
Wasn’t he in the middle of a competition?
He remembered the robot tournament, his teammates beside him.
The final debugging session.
Then one of the machines had malfunctioned, a robotic arm swinging out of control like a thunderous elbow, smashing into his chest.
A searing, blinding pain in his heart.
White light.
Then nothing.
Now this.
“Luke, watch out!” His teammate’s warning still echoed in his skull.
But he himself had become something else entirely.
The white wolf’s arms tightened around him, pulling him flush against her chest.
Her warmth seeped through her fur into his small body.
Her heartbeat pounded against his back, fast, frantic, desperate.
The ground lurched beneath them.
She was still running, still fighting, her paws tearing through the snow with relentless urgency.
“Still nothing?!” A furious roar exploded from the distance.
“If you don’t find them, we are finished!
You worthless mutts, what, did your noses go on vacation?
Smell, damn you!” The wind snatched the enraged shouts and hurled them forward.
Snow swirled in blinding sheets.
Luke struggled to poke his head out from the white wolf’s embrace.
Icy air flooded his throat, triggering a fit of coughing.
He raised a tiny paw to wipe his face and watched his breath plume out in a white cloud that the cold devoured in seconds.
The white wolf looked down at him.
Her coat gleamed like fresh snowfall, almost luminous against the darkness.
But her eyes, those clear, beautiful blue eyes, were bloodshot and raw.
Tracks of dried tears streaked the fur at their corners.
Her pointed ears drooped backward, limp with exhaustion.
She had run too far.
Her muscles trembled with every stride.
Yet she held him as if he were the only thing that mattered.
“Don’t be afraid,” she whispered, her voice shredded to nearly nothing.
The hunters drew closer.
Luke craned his neck, straining to see ahead.
Endless conifers blurred past on both sides.
Snow sprayed into his face with every bound.
Far away, headlights swept across the horizon, accompanied by the faint, muffled bleat of car horns.
“Here!
I found them!” A sharp cry came from behind.
The white wolf surged forward, finding another gear from somewhere.
Luke felt her chest heave and shudder with every agonizing breath, she was burning through her last reserves.
Wind roared in his ears.
Snow erupted around them.
Bang.
The gunshot ripped the night apart.
Luke’s world spun.
The warm embrace vanished.
His small body was hurled into the freezing air, arcing through the darkness… Then the snow-covered ground slammed into him.
He crashed into a deep drift, ice shards and powder snow flooding his mouth and nose.
He choked, gagged, dug desperately with his paws, and clawed his way up through the white suffocation.
Gasping, he spat out snow and shook his head violently.
When he turned… His pupils contracted to pinpricks.
The white wolf lay in a spreading pool of crimson.
Blood poured from her chest, melting the snow around her into a steaming pink slush that the wind snatched and froze again within seconds.
Her limbs twitched weakly, sporadically, as if she still wanted to rise, still wanted to run.
“Run…
Kevin…
run…” She lifted her head with monumental effort.
Her blue eyes locked onto him, something vital already fading behind them, but still she focused, still she held on, just to say those words.
‘Kevin.
Is that my name?’ Luke’s eyes burned.
Tears flooded down his cheeks before he even understood why.
He didn’t know this wolf.
He had never met her.
But the agony that ripped through his chest was real, raw and unbearable, like a thread woven straight into his heart had just been torn out by force.
No time.
Behind him, massive shadows emerged from the snow-laden forest.
Footsteps crunched closer.
Luke launched himself forward.
His stubby legs pumped desperately toward the distant lights.
The snow was too deep.
His paws sank, pulled free, sank again.
Every stride cost him everything.
His lungs felt like they were collapsing.
Every exhale streamed white behind him like a desperate vapor trail.
His footprints traced a jagged line of flight across the snow, and the falling flakes were already swallowing them up.
‘Is this how I die?
Right after I got here?’ That single thought hammered through his skull.
There wasn’t even room for fear.
The shadows had gathered around the fallen white wolf.
Their leader was a massive gray-brown beast, powerfully built, clad in a black coat that strained across his shoulders.
He held a pistol in one hand, his gaze flat and cold.
He crouched beside the white wolf, leaned in, and inhaled deeply.
The heavy scent of blood was rapidly dissipating in the wind, but what remained told him everything he needed.
“Where’s the cub?” He chambered a round as he spoke, his eyes sweeping the darkness.
“Search every inch of this forest.
Now.” His subordinates scattered.
He himself remained crouched.
Unhurriedly, he rolled the white wolf’s body over.
The bullet had failed to exit, the distance had been too great.
It was lodged between her ribs.
From inside his coat, he produced a small metal toolkit.
Tweezers probed the wound with surgical precision and extracted the deformed lead slug.
He wiped it clean, tucked it into a pouch, and rose to his feet.
“Boss, over here!” One of his men had found the trail.
Luke’s ears were sharper than they’d ever been.
He could hear the pursuit behind him with terrifying clarity, the crunching of snow, the grunts of exertion, the pace of hunters closing in.
He didn’t dare to look back.
He just ran.
His four short legs churned against the ground.
His vision swam.
His limbs screamed.
And then… The trees parted.
Light flooded his eyes.
He had reached the edge of the forest.
Black asphalt gleamed wetly under harsh yellow streetlights.
A car howled past, spraying him with slush and mud.
He stared at the road, brain blank.
Highway?
This was a highway.
There were cars.
Streetlights.
Road signs.
Where were the people, then?
Where were the residents?
“Found you, you little brat.” A cold, mocking laugh slithered through the air behind him.
Luke spun.
The gray wolf in the leather coat had climbed up from the slope.
One hand dangled the pistol at his side.
His long muzzle stretched into a grin that showed too many teeth, canine fangs glinting under the streetlight.
His boots hit the curb, crunch, snow compacting under his weight.
Luke bolted.
He scrambled across the asphalt, his short legs skidding on the slick mix of snow and mud.
His claws found no purchase.
He stumbled, nearly fell.
A sedan screamed past, horn blaring, its tires spraying water that drenched him.
The bumper missed his tail by inches.
“Stop!” A bellow from behind.
Footsteps slammed against the pavement, closer, closer… Luke tried to scramble up the opposite curb.
A blinding glare filled his peripheral vision, a green delivery truck barreling toward him.
Too fast.
Too close.
He slammed his paws down, scraping two desperate grooves into the asphalt.
Car ahead.
Wolf behind.
The gray wolf’s hand lunged down.
Fingers grazed the fur on the back of his neck… THUD.
A black SUV hurtled out of nowhere, tires shrieking against the snowy asphalt.
The massive vehicle slammed into the gray wolf with devastating force.
Metal met flesh.
The sound was sickening, heavy, absolute.
The gray wolf’s enormous body launched into the air, tumbling twice before crashing into a snowbank on the roadside.
His pistol spun free, skittering across the road with a metallic scrape.
The SUV’s brakes locked.
Tires dragged two long black scorch marks across the slush-covered asphalt before the vehicle ground to a halt less than two meters from Luke.
Luke collapsed onto his rump.
Every limb shook.
His heart pounded so hard he thought it might tear through his ribs.
Another two steps forward and that truck would have flattened him.
Behind the black SUV, two more vehicles pulled up.
The first was a stretch vintage sedan, its black finish gleaming under the streetlights.
Behind it, another identical SUV.
The three cars maintained precise spacing, braking in sequence as they registered the accident ahead.
The leading SUV’s driver’s window rolled down a crack.A polar bear in a crisp black suit poked his head out, shoulders so broad they nearly filled the entire window frame.
He studied the scene for a few seconds, then pushed the door open and stepped heavily onto the road.
The passenger door and back doors opened too.
Three more polar bears emerged.
Four polar bears.
Massive as mobile mountains, their suits straining over powerful musculature.
Each footfall compacted the snow into wide, deep prints.
They advanced toward Luke in unison, deliberate and unhurried.
Luke’s brain short-circuited completely.
‘Where the hell is this??’