“Save me Brother!” Monica yelled as she threw the dirt up and rolled towards the side with what remaining strength.

  THUMP as the sound of the wolf’s head rammed the tree, clearly concussed as it was sprawling its legs in all directions while shaking its head in an attempt to get rid of the stars circling its head.

  She wasn’t out of danger yet, as she could hear heavy footfalls behind her and a loud roar that was clearly getting closer. Before she managed to move to safety, the roaring being charged past her and went for the wolf.

  The ‘thing’ elbowed the wolf’s flank and shoved it with two hands. The wolf visibly stiffened and was then lifted off the ground for a brief moment before landing on its side a few meters away from the tree.

  The ‘thing’ lifted its ‘carapace’ and set it down on the floor, then it turned towards Monica.

  “Huh? Brother? Is that you?”

  There was no reply as she could only hear his heavy breathing, so she continued. “Brother, there are more wolves, we need to run.”

  Just as she finished her sentence, four shadows appeared from where she came, two wolves followed by two much larger wolves. The two smaller wolves moved out of the shadows, their head lowered, with ears flattened against their back, and their tails tucked between their legs. The two larger wolves loomed over the younger members of their pack as they approached in submission.

  The pack was clearly surprised by the appearance of another human, three of the wolves looked towards their interim leader, the wolf with a scarred muzzle, and it snarled at them. Thus, they approached the two humans slowly and cautiously, all the while keeping a safe distance.

  Morus glanced at the fallen wolf, then at the four approaching ones, without any hesitation, he unbuckled his belt and whipped it at the ground. THWACK! The two younger wolves were taken aback from the sudden noise, while the two larger ones were unaffected and remained on alert.

  “Move any closer. And I will kill you all, even if I might die. Starting with that one over there.” Morus stared at the four wolves, and pointed his belt at the fallen wolf.

  Monica watched with her mouth agape, mostly from shock but partially to recover her stamina and breath. ‘Would that even work?’ she thought to herself.

  To the siblings’ surprise, the two larger wolves moved back one step.

  “So you can understand me.” He sighed in relief, “Let us go.”

  ‘Scar-muzzle’ nodded its head then shook it. Then it looked behind it.

  Morus and Monica both stared at the direction where it was looking, and focused their attention.

  The sounds of leaves rustling, heavy but muffled footfalls. Suddenly, two bright crimson gems the size of fists were floating in the air. As it exited the shadows, two spouts of crystal white mist shot out of its long snout. They could see a wolf with silver highlights, clearly taller than Morus and was at least the size of a horse.

  It towered above the four wolves beside it, as it scanned the young wolf lying down at a distance, frothing at the mouth, then at the young man holding a ‘whip’, gauging him up and down, before finally looking at the young girl who had trespassed into their lair earlier.

  With the confidence of an apex predator, it moved towards its offspring, eyes locked with Morus’ gaze.

  Morus gulped as the giant wolf appeared, his legs started shaking but his resolve was still firm. His eyes locked onto it, prepared to launch a counter-attack should it show any hostility. Monica prayed silently to all the gods, buddhas and even devils that she knew of, hoping any one of these entities could come and help her, and if they did, she was willing to sacrifice everything, probably.

  As if to answer her prayer, or it might be a cruel joke by one of those beings, she could hear even louder rustling and the snapping of twigs as well as the crashing of bushes behind her.

  Everybody, human and wolf, looked towards the direction of the commotion. The giant wolf paused in its tracks and stared intently at the source of the noise and made a loud sniffing sound. Its ears perked forwards, its tail stiffened horizontally like an arrow, it started baring its teeth towards Monica’s location, as she was the only thing between it and the noise.

  The rustling grew louder and more apparent, a bush moved and the sound of wood snapping could be heard. Then, there was only silence.

  Monica slowly turned around, and both siblings swallowed their saliva in terrifying anticipation. Would it be another predator in these lands that was on-par with the giant wolf over there? Is it a bear, a tiger? Or something else?

  Before their imagination could run wild, the animal burst out of the bushes.

  A luscious golden mane that covered its neck, beady eyes that do not betray any of its emotions. However, the giant scowl on its face revealed that it was not happy with the current situation, not one bit. It scanned the area in front of it with a menacing look, then it saw Morus and darted towards him.

  Monica was surprised by the appearance of this beast, it was a majestic being for sure, but it would have been more intimidating if it wasn’t a waist-height Chow Chow.

  Morus stared at it in confusion, “It’s you? Did you follow me?”

  Ignoring Morus, the Chow Chow stood between him and the giant wolf, and started barking at the much larger canid. The giant wolf, without any hesitation, lowered itself to the ground and buried its head under its paws.

  The Chow Chow turned around, looking at Morus expectantly and wagged its tail like a wiper at full speed, everything was just screaming ‘Praise me!’. As such, the young man patted the dog.

  “I don’t know what you are or how you did what you did, but you saved our lives.” He looked at the Chow Chow, then at the giant wolf still prostrating itself and back at the Chow Chow.

  “Good dog.”

  The giant wolf raised its head. The previous arrogance and hostility is gone, now there was just absolute submission, and an expression of longing?

  Morus, noticing the weird look from the giant wolf, moved instinctively. He put out an open palm and slowly moved towards the snout of the giant wolf, paying attention to it just in case it bites him.

  It puffed out white mist as it sniffed his hand. Once. Twice. A third time. Before he could pull back his hand, he felt something wet on his palm, then the full weight of a wolf’s head against his hand.

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  Monica watched dumbfounded. This was an absurd turn of events. First, she stumbled into the wolves’ den, then chased by them. Then two larger wolves appeared but instead of hunting her, they started helping her. When she thought she was being let go, that last wolf kept chasing her and the others were following behind, and she almost died after tumbling into a tree.

  Her brother appeared suddenly, then the giant wolf, then a small lion-dog appeared which seemed to be acquainted with her brother. Now, the giant wolf just licked her brother’s hand and was nuzzling against his hand, much to the dissatisfaction of the Chow Chow.

  Morus backed away from the wolf and wiped the saliva off his hands on his jeans.

  “Since you guys can understand me, go back to where you came from and don’t bother my sister any longer.”

  The giant wolf nodded its head and stood up, then it barked a few commands at its kin and went to pick up the still dazed wolf with its jaws. Before long, the wolf pack disappeared into the shadows from where they appeared, however, Monica could still feel the gazes of the wolves landing on her from time to time.

  Morus took a deep, long breath, filling it to its capacity and exhaling it before walking over to where Monica was sitting and sat down beside her, “What happened? Are you okay? How did you get involved with those wolves?”

  After taking a few minutes to catch her breath, Monica gave him the full story after they separated, and asked for his side.

  “You said you heard a girl call out for help? What happened?”

  “Well, I tried to search for the source, then a fog rolled in and all I could see was white. By the time I could make sense of my surroundings, I found this dog.” He pointed at the Chow Chow. “It seemed to be leading me somewhere, maybe to its owner? So I started following after it.” He paused for a bit, as he suppressed a cough welling up.

  “Not long after, we heard the wolf howl, and the dog started to run faster. It took me everything to keep up with it, and when it stopped, I saw you dodge that wolf. Then you know everything from there.”

  “I think we should head back down the mountain, and warn people about the wolves. Hopefully the authorities can get rid of them, but I wish I could get my backpack back though.” Monica suggested and grumbled.

  Her brother nodded, “That’s a sound decision, now we just need to get ourselves un-lost.” He looked at the Chow Chow, “Do you know the way down the mountain? Could you lead us there?”

  The Chow Chow looked at Morus with a puzzled look.

  “I guess that means you don’t know.” Morus sighed, “Why did I even put my hopes on you in the first place?”

  “Haha brother, it’s alright! It’s a cute dog anyway! Can we keep it?”

  “If it doesn't have an owner, sure. Our new apartment is pet-friendly, and it’s close to your university.”

  Monica nodded frantically.

  “Let’s retrace our steps.” Morus looked at his sister, “I’ll assume you don’t want to go back into the wolf’s den, so let’s try my route.”

  Morus then led them the way back he came, up until he found the spot where he found the Chow Chow. “This is where I met it. Should be a good enough start to search for the paths down the mountain. It’s good that we have some light to work with, though we might have missed the sunrise.”

  His sister shook her head, “It’s fine, with what we’ve been through, I could use some rest.”

  They then spent the next 15 minutes walking in near silence as they tried to search for any signs of the hiking trail or even human life.

  “Brother… It feels like we’ve been walking in circles. Also, now that I think about it, wolves don’t grow that big…” Monica broke the silence after calming down more.

  Morus sighed, “You’re right. I don’t think there are wolves in the country we live in. And don’t you find our surroundings a bit strange?”

  “Now that you mention it, it does feel weird. The temperature’s not as hot, I thought it was because it was barely dawn, but it’s too cool for 30°C. It feels more like under 20°C?”

  Morus nodded, “You’re right, and that’s not all. Both of us should have been soaked in sweat from all that running. Yet our clothes are mostly dry.”

  Monica exclaimed, “You mean the humidity is much lower? But how could that be? I don’t remember any warnings of inclement weather on the news?”

  “I guess that’s what we need to find out. First of all, let’s try to see if my hypothesis is correct. Before that…” Morus motioned Monica to stop. “You there, I know you’re stalking us. Come out and let’s talk.

  Dead silence.

  Monica’s head went blank as she heard her brother say that. She tried to focus her attention into the surroundings, but all she could hear was the loud thumping in her chest.

  The Chow Chow also stood still, ears perked but it also doesn’t seem to find anything out of the ordinary. It tried sniffing the air but it was to no avail as well.

  Morus mentally counted to 10 seconds.

  ‘Three seconds…’ The sounds of the woods have vanished. No birds, no insects, when did they disappear?

  ‘Five seconds… Was that a rustling of the leaves? Or was that my imagination?’

  ‘Eight seconds… If someone was nearby, would they fall for my bluff?’

  There was no movement that they could see, but Morus instinctually felt something was not quite right, so he grabbed Monica by the wrists and started running. The Chow Chow, not wanting to be left behind also quickly followed.

  They didn’t run far, in fact, they couldn’t.

  Not even a second had passed since they tried to run, when someone walked out of the shadows in front of them and pointed a bow and arrow at Morus.

  He put his hands up and slowly backed away from the archer.

  “You run, I put a hole in your legs.” The archer said in a threatening tone, her voice was hoarse, but it was definitely a woman. “Who are you? Are you the ones who startled the wolves?”

  Morus tried to appraise the archer in front of him. But her features were all hidden under a cloak, only a pair of green eyes shone beneath the shadow cast by her hood, so he dismissed any thoughts of attacking her, for now.

  “I’m Russel, this is Nichole. We found this guy and were chased by the wolves somehow.” He motioned his head at the Chow Chow beside him, it was clearly unaware of it being in danger because it was wagging its tail like a little helicopter beside him.

  Monica was clearly tense from the situation, so she let her brother handle things. If the archer attacks them… They won’t go down without a fight.

  The archer looked the siblings up and down, taking note of their outfits, Morus in his T-shirt and jeans as well as his backpack, Monica in her long sleeves and leggings. “You speak the truth, outsiders. But you…” She undrew her bow and looked down at the dog. “You were expected elsewhere.”

  “Woof! Woof!” It barked at her in defiance. To which, the archer just rolled her eyes.

  “Regardless. You seemed lost. I can bring you to our village, we welcome outsiders, it has been a long time since we had any guests.” She takes off her hood and looks up at the sky, “We will reach by noon, as long as nothing happens.”

  Morus was just about to reject her proposal, but when she took off her hood, he was dazed by her face.

  She had symmetrical features, thick eyebrows, sharp cheekbones and chin, and those almond-shaped eyes with emerald gems embedded in them that seemed to draw the surroundings into them. The only thing that stood out of place was the vertical scar that seemed to run down from her right brows to her cheek. She wore a coif underneath the hood, hiding her hair, or lack of it, as well as her ears.

  Monica was shocked by how beautiful this woman was, ignoring the scar. Morus on the other hand, felt a sense of déjà vu, a sense of familiarity, as if he had seen her and known her before.

  "Have we seen each other before?" was what he would have liked to say, but past experiences—and a familiar tightness gathering in his chest—told him it was better kept to himself. He swallowed both the question and the cough back down.

  The archer turned around, “Follow. I trust no funny business from you.” She reached inside her cloak, into a pouch hanging on a belt, and opened her palm into the air in front of her, summoning an orb of light into existence.

  It was at that moment, both Morus and Monica knew for certain they were no longer in the world they used to know.