Pain. Emmett could feel it, but at arm’s length, as though it belonged to someone else. His nerves hummed, his blood ran hot, and every breath rattled like kindling catching flame. The cold no longer gnawed at him, the ache in his bones no longer chained him down. It was almost worse that way. Because some quiet, nagging voice in the back of his skull reminded him he was still broken. He clutched the makeshift crutch he’d fashioned from a branch, forcing himself to lean into it even though his body wanted to surge ahead like a man reborn.

  The Pervitin had hold of him again. He remembered the last pack he’d carried, remembered how invincible it had made him feel and the brutal days that followed when it was gone. He almost smiled at the thought. Almost. Because he knew damn well where he and Eira were walking. Not toward salvation, but toward the end of their truce.

  He cast a glance at her. Her ears twitched constantly, listening, filtering every noise in the woods. Her tail flicked now and again, betraying tension she didn’t voice. And the limp she had favored was seemingly gone.

  They trudged west, the forest stretching endless and skeletal around them, every direction swallowed in snow. The path was long, deliberate. Moving further away from any roads and hopefully Russian patrols.

  “I feel… strange,” Eira murmured, her voice low, almost cautious.

  Emmett grunted, nodding as he stepped over a fallen log. “Pervitin’ll do that. And you only took a half dose.”

  She was silent for a beat. Then. “I took the whole, Emmett. How long will this last?”

  He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “Four hours. Maybe. When I was on it before, I kept dosing every few hours.” His tone soured as he added, “When the pack got ruined in the river, though… Those were some hard days.”

  Eira glanced at him sidelong, her voice flat but laced with a flicker of wryness. “Are you trying to imply you are not usually so miserable?”

  A rough bark of laughter tore from him. “Nah. Miserable’s the baseline. Just comes in flavors.”

  She nodded once, her expression unreadable. But Emmett saw her hands trembling at her sides. He looked down at his own fingers and found them twitching the same way.

  She caught him looking at the trembling hands and turned her gaze to her own, noticing the way they shook for the first time. She felt that something was wrong… Profoundly wrong. It was as though she could see every detail with unnatural clarity, every hair on the back of her knuckles, every crease in her palm etched deep like a map. She dragged her gaze away, turning it to the surrounding forest. Too sharp, too vivid, every tree carved against the snow as though painted in bold strokes.

  Her ears twitched toward Emmett. He trudged beside her, his breath plumed white in the cold, steady and strong.

  Then she felt it. The drum of her heart, not just in her chest but in her ears, in her teeth, in every vein in her body. Heat spread through her core until sweat prickled under her fur. The air was freezing, but she felt flushed. Burning.

  Panic struck her like a hammer.

  She pressed a hand to her chest, claws digging into her coat. Her heart was racing, frantic, each beat a thunderclap in her ribs.

  Poison. She had poisoned herself.

  The words from her instructors echoed sharply in her mind. Not for hybrids… unsafe… might cause irreparable harm. Was this it? After everything, was she about to collapse in the snow with her heart bursting in her chest, so close to her goal?

  Her breathing turned shallow and ragged, the panic almost alien, as though it came from the drug itself. She dropped to her knees, the Mosin-Nagant slipping from her shoulder and landing in the snow. Jamming a clawed finger into her throat, she gagged hard. Her stomach convulsed, bile rising into her mouth. She retched violently, spattering half-digested rations into the snow. Steam curled from the pile in the cold air.

  She coughed, panting, and shoved her fingers back into her throat again, desperate to purge the drug. Strings of mucus clung to her muzzle as she heaved, but there was little left in her stomach to bring up. Only a bitter taste that burned her tongue.

  Her chest heaved as she leaned back, eyes squeezed shut, as saliva and bile dripping from her lips. She swiped her mouth with the back of her sleeve and forced herself to laugh, a hollow sound laced with misery.

  “I will say it, Herr Granger… I should have only taken half as you instructed. You were right.” Her voice cracked, half bitter humor, half regret. “Why don’t you cheer, celebrate your victory? I admitted you were right.”

  A grunt answered her. She cracked an eye open and saw him limp closer, indifferent as ever. He unclipped something from his belt, the slosh of water sounding loud against the quiet of the forest. He crouched and held out the canteen.

  “It’s already in your system,” he said dryly. “All you did was empty your gut of the little food we had left.”

  She looked up at him, his one eye calm, unreadable, sweat glistening on his brow. He shook the canteen once more in front of her face. She took it reluctantly and swilled the cold water, washing the bile from her throat before spitting once into the snow. Then she drank again, slower this time, letting it settle the fire in her chest.

  “I regret much, Emmett,” she murmured, handing the canteen back and pushing herself upright. She towered to her full height again despite the tremor in her legs. Her blue eyes locked onto his, and for the first time she noticed his pupil was blown wide and his face sheened with sweat.

  He nodded once, as if the confession meant something.

  “We should keep moving,” he muttered, shifting the crutch against his side.

  Eira’s lip curled faintly, her tone sharp though not cruel. “Eager to drag me off to your scientist, ja?”

  He stopped mid-step, her words hanging in the cold. For a moment he didn’t move. Then, a low laugh scraped from his throat, tired and humorless. He half turned, one leg trembling beneath him.

  “I’m not dragging you anywhere, Eira,” he said, voice flat but edged with certainty.

  Her ears flicked at his words, tail giving an involuntary swish as if the act of standing still had become unbearable. She forced herself to remain quiet, but her eyes stayed on him, studying his expression, as if some hidden meaning might surface if she stared long enough.

  Emmett met her gaze unflinching, then simply nodded. “I’m not in the shape to make you do much of anything.” He turned, leaning into the crutch, and began walking again.

  Eira’s eyes narrowed. Heat pricked at the back of her neck as anger flared in her chest. Giving up? After everything? That wasn’t him. Not the man who’d clawed through death at every turn. The thought unsettled her more than she cared to admit.

  “So, what is your plan then?” she snapped, her tone sharper than she intended.

  He shrugged casually. There was a strange calm about him, one that didn’t fit a man with so much Pervitin coursing through his blood. “No plan. Just keep walking. We hit the German lines, I circle around, keep moving until I find the Allies. And if you were smart…” his eye cut sideways at her, “you’d come with me.”

  She froze mid-step. A chill worked up her spine, her tail going rigid, ears locking forward. For a moment she stood rooted, every muscle taut.

  Emmett carried on for a few paces before the silence behind him registered. He stopped, leaned on his crutch, and looked back. His gaze swept over her as though measuring, scrutinizing.

  “The writings on the wall, Eira,” he said, voice steady, cold. “How long d’you think Germany stands? Russians hammerin’ from the east, Americans, Brits, Canucks from the west. A year? Six months? Less?” He huffed, limping a step closer. “Ship’s sinking. Best chance any of you have is getting to the lifeboats.”

  Her lip curled, the beginnings of a retort rising but he cut her off.

  “You wanna know why I’m here? Why they sent me?” His tone hardened, iron beneath the rasp. “They want to know who made you. Where he is. Vollmer.”

  Her scowl deepened, blue eyes flashing. She leaned closer, her voice low, dangerous. “Why?”

  Emmett gave the smallest shrug. “That’s a question for the eggheads. But what I really want to know. Would you rather surrender to the Allies, or the Russians?”

  The silence stretched. She said nothing. Her silence was an answer of its own.

  Emmett let it hang a moment longer, then turned, the crutch thudding into the snow as he started forward again.

  Eira stood in place, claws biting into her palms. Her pulse hammered in her ears, every word he’d spoken echoing in her skull.

  Hours passed before the sharp edge of the drug finally dulled. Eira felt her pulse slowing, the hammering in her chest settling into something closer to normal. The world, once painfully vivid, began to lose its unnatural clarity. The trees no longer looked etched in glass, her own hands no longer a map of every vein, every strand of fur. Relief came hand in hand with a cruel reminder, her body again made itself known.

  The ache in her ribs flared with every breath. Her knee screamed with each step, threatening to buckle beneath her. The temptation gnawed at her with every faltering stride. Ask him for another tablet. She clenched her jaw, grinding against the thought. No. She wouldn’t beg relief from that poison.

  Ahead of her, Emmett moved with a vigor that made her hate him a little more. He was worse off than she was, more broken, yet he strode forward like his body had forgotten pain entirely. The Pervitin burned in him like kindling thrown to a bonfire, masking the ruin beneath.

  Her claws dug lightly into her palms as her mind circled back to what he had said. Come with me. He had asked it so plainly, as though it were nothing. She despised him for asking and hated herself more for recognizing the truth in his words.

  The Reich was crumbling. Everyone knew it. The soldiers on the front, their faces etched with desperation. Her kind, forced to watch the lines collapse.

  But for them, for hybrids there was no world waiting beyond Germany. Vollmer had created them. The Reich had bound their survival to its own. If the Reich drowned, so would they.

  Her hand drifted to her belly, pressing against the fabric of her tunic. A place she’d avoided thinking about for years. A place tied to something stolen under the guise of duty. For the first time, she understood the theft for what it was. Control. Not protection, not service, but ownership.

  The realization hit her like a blow. Her eyes widened, her breath catching in her throat. She stared at the snow under her boots, feeling the truth settle like ice in her gut.

  A sudden stop ahead snapped her from the spiral. Emmett had paused, grunting as he fished into his coat. His hand emerged with the battered packet of Pervitin. Without ceremony, he worked a tablet loose, popped it into his mouth, and crunched down. Grinding it between his teeth.

  His eye flicked to her, offering the pack with the casualness of a man passing a flask.

  Eira’s throat tightened. Feeling the ache in her ribs, the fire in her knee, every part of her screaming to take it. But she shook her head. Slowly. Firmly.

  Emmett shrugged, the gesture dismissive, tucked the packet back into his coat and adjusted the crutch under his arm. He started forward again, boots crunching over the frost-crusted path. Eira folded her arms tight across her chest, tail flicking behind her as she followed. Misery threatened to drag her down again, her thoughts circling like vultures, when Emmett suddenly broke the silence.

  “Remember me telling you where I’m from, yeah?”

  His voice was quick, words spilling faster than he usually let them.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Eira blinked, caught off guard, but gave a small nod. She doubted he saw it with the way he kept staring ahead.

  “Montana,” he went on, like he hadn’t needed her confirmation. “Where winter makes you question every damn choice you ever made. It sticks too. While other places get spring, we’re still choking on snow and ice.”

  He let out a strangled chuckle, half amusement, half tension. “When it finally breaks, you get this… this frozen rain. Covers everything in a sheet of glass. Makes you need ice skates just to get to the barn.”

  He paused, throwing a glance over his shoulder at her. “You know about ice skating?”

  Eira frowned faintly, surprised at the question, but nodded again.

  Emmett huffed through his nose. “Ice skates,” he repeated, almost savoring the word, like he was rolling it on his tongue. His free hand suddenly shot up to scratch hard at the side of his head, smearing away the sweat beading there. He muttered something low, too garbled for her to catch then pressed on with his story.

  “Summer comes quick after that. Hot, dry. Work never stops on a ranch. Dawn to dusk feeding cattle, moving cattle, shoveling shit till your back breaks. But when you do steal a minute? Christ, the freedom. Up north you had the mountains, elk and deer thick as thieves. Rivers stuffed with trout. Skies so wide you thought the whole damn world was yours.”

  His voice trailed, softer now. He limped another few paces before adding, “Ain’t seen it in six years.”

  Eira studied him, unsettled. He looked ahead, but there was something raw in the way he said it, like he was half-gone into the memory.

  “Why do you tell me this?” she asked finally, breaking the silence that hung between them.

  Emmett’s shoulders lifted in a shrug, lazy but twitchy at the edges. “Might be the Pervitin talking,” he said with a crooked grin, though the humor didn’t touch his eye.

  The shelter they made that evening was crude, but it would do. Branches supporting scavenged canvas, with a roof low enough to trap their warmth. They sat side by side on a fallen log, just enough space between them to remind neither was comfortable with the other. Dinner was hard rye bread and salted pork stolen from the dead. They chewed in silence, the crackle of the forest the only sound for a long time.

  Eira turned the battered canteen over in her claws. The one she had found on the Russians. She sniffed the sharp burn rising from its mouth. Vodka. Forbidden like so much else had been for her kind. Tobacco, Pervitin, and of course alcohol. She hesitated, thumb brushing the rim.

  “You look like you expect it to bite you,” Emmett said dryly, tearing another strip of bread free with his teeth.

  She sighed, thrust the canteen toward him. He took it, sniffed, and his eye went wide before a grin tugged his mouth.

  “Well, shit,” he muttered, tipping it back. He drank deep, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and chuckled. “Watered down, but it’s vodka all right.”

  He passed it back, eyebrow cocked when she hesitated again. “If you’re too squeamish for the Pervitin, this’ll take the edge off… Probably.” His tone was flat, casual. Like he was talking about the weather.

  Before she could reply, he jerked suddenly, rummaging in his coat. He pulled the pervitin pack free popping another one into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. His sigh was almost relieved, though his hand pressed against his ribs as if reminding him of the pain that still lived there.

  Eira studied him. She tried to remember how many he had taken today? Far too many. She felt like he was on the brink of controlling his mannerisms. He constantly fidgeted as if sitting was almost too much. His body coiled as if he was about to strike. She capped the canteen and shoved it into the pack. “Perhaps later,” she said evenly.

  “Suit yourself,” Emmett muttered, already back to gnawing on his bread.

  She leaned forward, elbows on knees, eyes narrowing at him. “What do you intend to do, Granger?”

  He paused mid-chew. “How d’you mean?” came muffled past the bread.

  Eira was quiet for a moment, her gaze fixed on the forest before her.

  “The map,” she finally said, holding out her hand.

  His brow rose, but he reached into his pocket and handed it over. She unfolded it across her thigh, tracing lines and marks until her finger brushed the border. She noticed a village just west of here. Germany. They were at the border. Her ears twitched. He hadn’t mentioned how close they were.

  Emmett watched her, his face stone but for a faint tic at the corner of his eye. “Already told you what I intend to do,” he said, finishing his bite.

  She folded the map sharply. “What makes you think I’d go with you? Willingly?”

  He shrugged, uncapped his canteen, drank. “Not a damn thing,” he said at last, voice flat as a knife edge.

  Eira gave a small nod, her eyes drifting to the treeline where shadows stretched long across the snow. The forest was settling into evening, that strange hour where the light felt neither day nor night. Her ears twitched at the creak of branches, and the rustle of pine in the soft breeze. Her pulse was too fast, her body restless, and she hated how the silence between them gnawed at her.

  She broke it.

  “May I ask you something?”

  Emmett, chewing on a tough piece of sausage, turned his head. His one eye narrowed, cautious, already weighing the trap hidden in the question. “Maybe,” he said at last. His tone was guarded, clipped, but he didn’t shut her down.

  Eira turned her hands over in her lap. Her claws traced the fresh cut in her palm, the line still raw and weeping if she flexed too sharply. She focused on it, grounding herself, before speaking.

  “I asked you before about your family,” she said softly, “and your response was… sharp. Something you clearly wish not to dwell on. Ja?”

  Emmett’s jaw tightened instantly. His brow furrowed, the anger flashing across his face so familiar now she almost expected it. But then he forced it down. His features eased, if only a little, his lips pressing into a hard line.

  “It’s not worth talking about,” he muttered.

  Eira inclined her head, accepting that without pushing. “I will speak of mine, then,” she said in a voice that carried both defiance and weariness.

  Emmett said nothing. He glanced at her, then down at the sausage in his hands, turning it absently as though it might provide an answer. He seemed ready to say something, but the words never came. He bit down instead, chewing without care.

  Satisfied he wouldn’t interrupt, she pressed on.

  “My family is… unorthodox. As I’ve said before, we are grown. Not born.” Her tone carried a quiet shame, though her eyes remained steady. “I am among the first twenty that Doctor Vollmer created. These I call my siblings. All the others are family, in a sense, but the first twenty…” she paused, her gaze softening, “…the first twenty I was closest with. Vollmer himself was like our father. He treated us as his children, involved himself in our lives, in our games, our learning.”

  She drew a breath, her voice dropping lower. “Of those twenty, there was one named Dieter.”

  Emmett tore another bite from his bread, his eye flicking toward her briefly. She could tell he was listening, even if he pretended not to.

  “When I was small, I was the weakest. A runt, you might say. I remember little of that age, but Vollmer used to tell me how the others would exclude me when his attention wandered. Toys stolen from my hands. Laughter at my expense. Always so small, so easy to overlook.” Her lips curved faintly, almost wistful. “But Dieter pitied me, perhaps. He would return what was taken. Sit with me. My earliest memories are of Dieter’s kindness. Always there, as he would always be.”

  Her smile dimmed, fading into weariness. “We grew older, and my body changed. No longer the runt, no longer weak. “But then, Vollmer’s role changed. He was taken from us, forced to focus on creating more of our kind. The warmth he gave us as children was gone, and in its place coldness. Orders. Duty. I pity the younger ones. They never knew the Vollmer that raised us. Only the scientist.”

  Eira’s ears drooped slightly, her eyes fixed on the snow at her feet. “But through it all, Dieter remained. He reminded me and the rest of us… That we were alive. That we were not only soldiers or tools, but… us. Laughing. Arguing. Living.”

  She swallowed, her throat tight. “I miss them dearly.”

  Emmett finally bit down on his bread, chewing absently. He didn’t lift his gaze, didn’t offer comfort or judgment. Just a low grunt of acknowledgement.

  “Yeah,” he said at last, flat as stone.

  He studied the last of his bread then tucked it away in his bag and stood, brushing crumbs from his trousers. He limped toward a tree, and she heard the buckle of his belt, followed by the low groan of relief as he pissed on the forest floor.

  Her claws slid into her pocket, curling around the small, sharp thing hidden there. The ace she’d kept hidden all this time. Her pulse quickened. She glanced to where Emmett had sat, the Russian submachine gun leaning against the log. Its blackened steel gleamed in the dying light.

  She couldn’t trust him. She never had.

  She quickly withdrew the item from her pocket and held it in her hand. Claws tightening around it until her palm throbbed.

  He shuffled back, fastening his belt. She flattened her ears, lips pulling back in a silent snarl, then snapped her head up as her body coiled.

  “Emmett!” she hissed, snapping her gaze to the treeline as though she’d seen something. Her hand shot out, seizing the PPSh by its sling.

  Emmett’s hand dropped instinctively to his hip, about to draw his pistol, his whole-body coiling like a spring.

  Eira thrust the submachine gun toward him. His eye flicked from her face to the shadows beyond, searching for the threat. He released his pistol and caught the weapon, his focus shifting outward, away from her.

  He didn’t see she still had the sling in her grasp.

  “What…” His question cut short when she yanked.

  She suddenly dragged him forward, stumbling into her. His eye flared wide with dawning comprehension. His hand dropped to his belt, fumbling for his knife.

  Too late.

  Eira’s fist drove into the side of his neck, the sharp end of what she gripped, plunging deep as her full weight slammed into him. The impact crushed the air from his lungs. Emmett hit the ground hard, his grunt muffled under her snarl as she pinned him fast against the earth.

  She seized both his wrists in her grip, crossing them over his chest and pinned them with one hand. With the other, she reached for what she had driven into his neck. She drew it free, slow and deliberate. A thin line of blood welled from the pinprick wound.

  Eira held it in front of his face.

  A tranquilizer dart.

  Emmett’s eye went wide. His lips parted, opening and closing as he tried to form words.

  “I threw a used one into the fire,” she said evenly. “This was your last.”

  “You bitch,” he rasped, thrashing beneath her. Her grip didn’t budge.

  She dropped the dart beside his head. It landed in the dirt with a soft, final thud.

  Emmett’s head sagged back, his breath heavy and uneven as the drug began to pull him under. “You should’ve just killed me.”

  Her ears flicked. “I thought about it.” She leaned closer, her breath visible between them. “More than once. Even considered gouging your other eye out.”

  Emmett went still beneath her, his struggles faltering. His one eye locked onto hers as though weighing the truth of it or bracing for her to do it anyway. That flicker of fear was brief, but she caught it, and some small, ugly part of her enjoyed it.

  “But that isn’t what I wanted.” Her tone stayed even, almost clinical. “I haven’t forgotten what you’ve done to me. Or what you intended for me.”

  She let the words hang, and realization dawned on Emmett. She was going to turn him over to the Germans. His eye widened in raw fury as the implications dawned on him.

  “Dirty, backstabbing bitch,” he snarled, his breath hitching. She could hear the rasp building in his chest as the tranquilizer began to spread through his blood. His time was running short.

  Eira tilted her head, unbothered. “Be honest, Emmett. Would you have really let me walk away once we reached the lines?”

  His eye burned at her, glassy but defiant. “So, you’re going back to the fucking Nazis?” he spat.

  She leaned in, her face inches from his. “My people,” she corrected sharply. “I don’t know what future Germany has, but the only chance for my kind’s survival lies with them. Not the Russians. Not the British. And certainly not your Americans.”

  “Fuck you,” he hissed, his head sagging as the drug dragged at him.

  For a moment, only their breathing filled the silence. His was ragged and fading. Hers was slow, steady.

  She adjusted her grip, voice quieter. “You did help me survive. For what that’s worth.”

  His body slackened further, limbs heavy and unresponsive, his lone eye fluttering against the pull of unconsciousness.

  “Perhaps if you cooperate, you may return home. To your family,” she said, each word crisp and deliberate. “It’s more than I would’ve been given.”

  His lips curled into a final snarl, venom bleeding into the last ragged breath he had left. “I hate you so damn much.”

  “I hate you too, Emmett Granger,” she replied, and watched his eye slide closed.

  She waited. Five minutes. Ten. Long enough to be certain that he was truly unconscious. Then she crouched beside him, studying his slack form. Dirt and blood had blackened his uniform. Sweat slicked his pale face. Her gaze lingered on the ruined left side. The black patch, the scar tissue carved by one of her own kind.

  She exhaled sharply as she stood and dragged him by the leg back toward the shelter, letting him drop with a dull thump when they reached it. Her mind ticked through what she would take and what she would leave. The journey was almost over; carrying him meant she couldn’t weigh herself down.

  Her bag was first. She opened it, stripped out anything unnecessary, and tossed the excess onto the bedding. Then she hesitated over his pack. Most of it wasn’t worth the weight. She left it where it was. Her eyes went to the Mosin-Nagant propped against the log, then to the Russian submachine gun still lying in the dirt.

  She picked up the PPSh, feeling its weight. It was more compact than the rifle she decided, slinging it over her shoulder and tossing the Mosin into the shelter, the wooden stock clattering as it landed on-top of the other items. She dug into her pocket, feeling the weight of the loose clips and tossed them in after the rifle.

  She opened the magazine pouch Emmett had taken and pocketed only two of the magazines, throwing the rest into the pile.

  Rising to her full height made her wince; every muscle burned. Still, she forced herself to move back to him. She looked down at his unconscious form for a long moment, feeling a strange twinge of regret she despised. Would he really have let her walk away? She doubted it. He was too stubborn, too determined. He would have tried something no matter how desperate.

  She thought of what she had told him before he slipped under. If he cooperated, he might live to see home again. If she was being honest with herself she really didn’t believe it. But she had made her choice. She exhaled slowly, reached down, and unbuckled his holster. She slid the pistol free and tucked it into the empty one at her own hip, slipping one of his magazines into her coat.

  Next was the knife. She drew it slowly, the double-edged blade catching the last scraps of light. It was simple, brutal, efficient like him. For a heartbeat she held it, then she exhaled, slid it back into its sheath, and tucked it into her coat. She checked his pockets methodically. Map, compass, a few small items she pocketed. But then her claws brushed something she recognized by touch alone. The battered packet of Pervitin. She froze, staring at it. Her pulse ticked faster. Relief in her palm, only a swallow away. She felt her claws tighten around it, almost opening the paper. Then, with a sharp flick of her wrist, she hurled it into the shelter without looking.

  Let it rot there.

  She grabbed a length of cord she had taken from his bag and bound his wrists tight, testing the knots to be sure there was no give. She was confident she could reach the German lines before he woke up, but she wasn’t going to risk it.

  Adjusting the straps of her bag, she slung the PPSh securely over her shoulder. Then she bent, grunted with the effort, and she forced her arms under him and hauled him up. His weight settled across her shoulders like a yoke, his head lolling against her neck. The smell of blood and sweat clung to him, sour and heavy, mixing with the scent of her own fur.

  “Come along, Herr Granger,” she muttered. Her voice was tired, but there was a grim satisfaction in it. “Our journey is nearly over.”

  Her heartbeat fast in excitement, not fear. Her eyes turned west, toward home. She would face her fate with her people, fighting until victory or the bitter end. Anything was better than a cage.

  She took a step. The snow crunched beneath her boots. Another step. Then another. Her breath steamed in the cold.

  She smiled faintly at the absurd thought that crept in. Tried to shake it, failed, and gave in.

  “Hi-ho, hi-ho, it’s off to work we go,” she murmured, trying to whistle the tune. Only air came through her muzzle, thin and broken. She laughed under her breath and kept walking.

  “Hi-ho, hi-ho, hi-ho.”

  The song drifted away into the darkening forest as she headed west.

  -SABLE