"FREE! YAHAAA! WOOHOO! I'M FREEEEE!"

The pouring snow and never-ending aches didn't even bother One-eye as he hopped and danced around in his territory. "NO MORE RULES, NO MORE RESPONSIBILITIES, YES, I'M FREE-HEEEEE."

He jumped on top of a boulder and let the storm blow through his fur, his only eye turning around madly in its orbit and drool dripping off of his lips. "HOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" he howled. "I'M ALL ALOOOOONE!"

He somehow felt really, really relieved. As if, after almost his entire life of failing and being miserable, he finally felt good. Great, even. He'd never imagined he'd ever feel such liberty in his life again.

Barking with joy, the old wolf jumped off of the boulder and raced the final distances to the den.

But, as he slowly progressed and neared the oddly-branched tree, another, strange feeling overtook him. For all the months that he'd lived here, which felt twice as long as his assassin career had been to him, Lynn had been in that den. He'd never allowed her to leave, and, for whatever reason, she'd always obeyed that rule.

The old wolf stopped in his tracks and looked under the umbrella-like branches. The den now seemed so...empty.

He shook himself, groaned for a bit, and then lay down under the roof made out of twigs. He still felt some happiness inside of him, but it seemed to have faded. Come on, mind, she's gone, and there's nothing I can do, cut me some slack. The hunters took her and no wolf can go after hunters, especially one in my condition!

He put down his head on his feet and closed his eye.

"HOLY FUCK, I FORGOT MY CYBORGEYE," he suddenly yelped as he got up and bolted towards the spot where he'd last seen it, forgetting the pain, Lynn, and his dignity.

***

The humans talked for a while longer, until finally the two men came and approached the cages. Lynn was afraid, but they just went for Leyta. The vixen tried to defend herself, but one of the men did something that made her struggle less and less, until she finally stopped fussing.

Lynn lay back her ears as she heard them open the cage above her, and then she saw them drag the she-fox out, holding her by her scruff. She was hanging limp, but Lynn saw that she still breathed. What did they do to her? She whimpered in fear and pushed herself to the back of her cage.

The men paid no attention to her yet. Whatever they planned to do with her, they seemed focused on Leyta now, as they, their dogs, and the female human left the room through the door they'd come from, taking the vixen with them. That was the last Lynn ever saw of her.

Time passed. Lynn had no idea how long it took. The "window", as Leyta had described it, didn't tell her much anymore about time passage: The color of the sky had been gray for way too long.

Lynn sighed. She was all alone now. No one to rescue her anymore. One-eye is probably dead, as well... oh... I lost my last family member. I lost everything!

She blinked, fighting the tears. Even Leyta's gone now... She hadn't trusted the vixen a moment, but still, she had been the first form of company Lynn had known besides One-eye in the past half-year, and she never really seemed to want to harm her.

The young she-wolf sighed and lay her head down on her front paws, hopeless. She lay still for a moment. All she heard was the faint wind blow past the window and the endless, rhythmic ticking noise that came out of a strange, circle shaped thing that hung on the wall. It annoyed her to no end. Where were the natural, ruthless sounds of the forest when she needed them? The wind slowly rustling the wind, the leaves whistling, the deer bellowing in the rutting season. It was all gone now. All gone for this stupid, endless, clicking noise that prevented her from focusing on the wind sounds.

Lynn did not know how long she lay there, but it seemed like centuries. No passage of time seemed to happen at all. She just lay there, on these stinking flat things.

Then, out of nowhere, she heard a loud noise. BONK. At first she thought it was thunder, but this sounded stranger, closer, as if it came from the house.

She got up and looked through the bars. Nothing appeared. But she did hear the noise again. BONK. BONK.

Silence for half a minute. Then she suddenly heard an even louder, clinging noise. Then another BONK, this time louder.

She expected the humans to appear or the dogs to bark, but they were nowhere to be sensed. Still, something was inside the Alpenhaus.

She started to bark and scream. Maybe whatever came in could help her. But she instantly silenced herself. What if it was after her instead? Don't trust strangers! One-eye's words echoed in her head.

The little she-wolf heard more noises, coming from her left, where another of those strange, rectangle-ish things that the humans could appear from was. The thing was moving, and struggling and growling sounds came from behind it. What is this? Lynn thought, terrified.

Suddenly, with a rather silent click in comparison with the other noises, the thing opened. In the doorway stood no one else but One-eye.

She instantly got up. "ONE-EYE! Dad! You're alive!" she yapped with joy as she lunged herself at the bars, wagging her curled tail fast.

But the old wolf didn't look at her. He didn't look very good: His body looked battered and his snow-covered coat was even stragglier than before. He held his head low while walking, which made his hump seem more massive, and limped stiffly.

Lynn uncurled her tail and drooped her ears. She'd hoped for a bit more enthusiastic response of him when he saw her. But he just kept staring at the floor in front of him.

"One-eye, I'm here!" she whispered, wondering if maybe he'd gone deaf or something. He surely couldn't be blind, for his cyborgeye was on his face, still working, though it seemed to make more noise than usual.

The old wolf sighed and then looked at her. She saw sadness in his real eye.

She sat back and nodded. "Hey..." she greeted him, uncertain.

He said nothing, but then approached the bars, grabbed a strange thing, that seemed somewhat like an extension of these things, and was also made of the same material, and pulled.

Within a second, a click was heard and the cage opened itself.

"Yes!" Lynn barked as she got out, rushing past One-eye. "Why are you so slow? Come on, we have to get out of here! Leave!"

The old wolf looked at her for a moment, his jaw half-open. Then, he shook his head. "Eh... yes, you're right. Go through that Tür, as the humans like to call it."

Lynn nodded and sped through the rectangle-shaped opening, One-eye trotting behind her.

"How did you enter?" Lynn asked, afraid. And how will we get out?

The old wolf didn't respond, but he led the way through a big room.

Lynn looked around. This room was different from the cold and stale one where she'd been, with little things inside it besides the cages.This room was huge in comparison to that. There was no light on, but she could distinguish a lot of things in it. Soft things, wooden things, things made out of the same material as One-eye's mechanic eye or the bars.

"What is this?"

"The inside of their dens look like this. Humans are crazy. Let's just get out."

The pup nodded and she followed her adoptive dad, until they reached something that had been a window. The strange, translucent stuff that had separated the outside from the inside, however, was broken, and lay all over the place.

"Is this how you got in?" Lynn asked, pacing towards the open window.

One-eye grabbed her by her tail and dragged her back.

"HEY!" she barked.

"Quiet," the battered wolf commanded. "These humans and their dogs are gone, I've seen them all leave. No idea to where, but they're gone. So let's just stay quiet and leave. And beware of those things--" he pointed at the many angular pieces of translucent matter that were spread across the room in front of the window. "--they're really sharp."

Lynn nodded, but then sighed. There was no way for them to get out. From the inside, they'd have to jump through the open window frame. That was possible for One-eye, but for her it was harder. And, to make matters more difficult, some of the sharp-edged remains were still stuck on it. If they'd jump through the wrong way, they might seriously injure themselves.

One-eye seemed to have noticed, too. "Yeah...that won't work." He pointed at some small cuts he had spread over his entire body. "Just having to jump through once was bad enough already... Let's see..."

He walked to and fro for a minute, but then got an idea. He walked towards one of strange things that were made out of a soft matter. One of them was huge and long, but there was another one, hardly big enough for an adult wolf to sit on, not too far away.

"What is this?" Lynn said, sniffing the thing.

But One-eye nudged her away and started to push the smaller soft thing towards the window opening. Then, he climbed on.

"It's not perfect, but we'll fit through easier this way," he said in monotone, as if his thoughts were distracting him. "Let's go."

A struggle that seemed endless later, Lynn and One-eye finally were outside, where it was still snowing and the wind was still blowing fiercely.

Lynn instantly started to roll in the snow, enjoying her freedom.

"Quit that!" One-eye snarled, his bad temper returning.

Lynn stopped and lay back her ears. "O...okay," she said.

A loud roaring sound interrupted whatever One-eye was about to say next.

"What is that?" Lynn whimpered, hiding behind the old wolf. This was louder than a bear could roar. She tried to look, but the snowstorm prevented her from seeing anything clearly. She could just see some vague contours.

"A beast!" One-eye cried out.

Lynn yelped. But... beasts... contain... humans.

The roaring stopped, and they heard softer noises, followed by human tongue. The humans spoke softly, but then a loud bark interrupted them.

"It's Wilson! He smelled us!" Lynn yelped.

"Run!" One-eye screamed over the snowstorm as the hound chased after them. Other barks told them that there were more dogs following, too.

They ran into the snowstorm, searching for a nearby forest, but the human den they'd come from lay in the middle of a meadow, and with a snowstorm like this, and the fact that they were in unknown terrain, they had no idea where to go. All scents were gone and seeing anything but snowflakes was near-impossible.

"Where are we going?" Lynn screamed.

"Keep running!" her adopted father urged her. The two wolves did, with the dogs at their paws.

Then, a loud noise ran through the meadows, followed by a yelp.

Lynn looked around. "Dad?"

No response.

She tried to see him, but everything was white. "DAD!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. Still there was no sign of life. He... he can't be... No... After all of this...

She looked up as she saw the dogs nearing her. With a sob she bolted off. One-eye wouldn't have wanted her to stop running. Wilson gave an annoyed bark as his target darted away.

Lynn kept running. Her not-so-long legs sank through the deep snow and she was still pretty much blind, but she kept going nonetheless. "DADDY!" she shouted every now and again. But there was no sound other than some other Pang shots and the barks of the hunting dogs.

She ran and ran, until finally something gray started to emerge in front of her. She wasn't sure what it was, but it was huge and broad. The edge of the forest!

The young she-wolf took one final sprint. As she came closer, the vague, gray silhouette gradually started to look more like the woods. The den is in there!

She was still being chased, though, and knew she couldn't stop.

But the forest made it harder for her to run through, and, with that, also for the dogs.

Lynn was exhausted, but kept going, until one of her legs sank into an unexpectedly deep amount of snow and she fell. "YAAAH!" she screamed as a dog lunged for her, jaws wide open, strong front legs stretched out. She shut her eyes and waited for the teeth to sink into her throat.

But a sudden yelp and some choking noises came, instead of fangs. Lynn opened her eyes.

In front of her stood One-eye, his cyborg eye glowing bright green, teeth bared. The dog lay below him, throat open. Lynn also noticed that One-eye was holding up his right hind leg, which was bleeding out of a small hole in it.

"Run, Lynn," he said. Lynn did as he said without hesitation as she heard One-eye take care of a second dog.