SPLIT

By Andrew Heighway

Norton Sound Coast,

30 Miles from Nome.

The midnight sun was at it’s height over a small stretch of beach along the Norton Sound. The only sound was the crashing of the waves washing against the smooth pebbles that covered the beach like a cobbled road, there was no animals sounds to be heard not even the sound of the nocturnal on a midnight hunt. At the very corner of the beach was a cave that most animals and even people know never to enter, no one was sure why exactly, it seemed to have an almost ghostly air to it.

Of course there is always one that gives into his or hers curiosity about what’s in the cave that the native Indians and Eskimos believe to be tainted with dark magic. In this case we have a wolf, a typical arctic wolf looking for something to eat. He approached the beach hoping to find any wash-up fish on the shoreline, and then he noticed the cave and began to stare into its dark mouth. As he was looking into the cave he began to feel strange or at least stranger than any wild animal would usually feel something or perhaps someone was calling to him from the darkness and was trying to lure the wild thing into its heart... but for what purpose?

The wolf began to walk forward towards the cave whilst hearing the sound of his own heart beating faster and faster like an adrenalin rush, yet he seemed to be perfectly calm and showed no fear as most with any amount of sense would. He entered the cave still with the sound of his heart throbbing in his head, there was no turning back for him now... then all went silent... not even the sound of the ocean waves could be heard... the silence was then broken with a painful howl that came from the very centre of the cave. The wolf had gone...

Balto was on his way home from his latest adventure, sadly the adventure meant the departure of his daughter Aleu, although he knew in his heart that letting her go was the right thing to do he still missed her terribly and wished that she could be coming home with him.

The journey home was long and he began to feel tired, after all a lot had happened to him in the last few days and so he began to look for some kind of shelter so he could get some sleep. So he decided to head down to the shore line... not his best idea of the day.

‘It’s getting cold’ he thought to himself, ‘there must be somewhere to rest’.

He then found the pebble beach like the lone wolf before him. The quietness of the place unnerved him slightly, he couldn’t explain why exactly but part of him seemed to be drawn to this place while the other half was telling him to go. He then saw the cave and it began to speak to him telling him to come closer...

“I think I better go” he said to himself. “But... I can’t... what’s happing?”

The whispers in his head began to get louder and louder and so was his heart beat, he began to walk towards the cave like the poor wolf before, only this time it was different with Balto as a large part of him was telling him to back away, but it was no match for whatever was beginning to affect him. He entered the cave... then silence like before... then the same howling followed, but this time he was thrown out of the cave in an instant and was tossed into the sea.

Balto then started to paddle back to shore slowly; he was winded by whatever had happened to him... Balto then made it to the shore.

“Oh man, what the hell happened?”

Balto felt different like something had changed, he felt different but not in a bad way. He then looked down at himself...

“What the?” he said with shock, then immediately looking at his own paws and jolted backwards. He then ran towards a small pool of sea water to look at his reflection... he couldn’t believe what he saw. Instead of seeing a grey coloured wolf dog, he saw a husky dog with brown/white fur. Somehow... his wolf side had gone...

Nome, Alaska

The next day...

Jenna was sleeping outside her home after spending most of the night waiting for both Balto and Aleu. Boris was approaching quietly so he could wake her up gently; there was still no word on Balto. Muk and Luk where out looking for him on the outskirts of town.

“Jenna... wake up” said Boris softly.

Jenna opened her eyes and looked at Boris. “Boris is he?”

“No not yet. Have you been here all night?”

“What else am I supposed to do? I want them back, both of them... I’m not sure what I’d do if anything happened...”

“They’ll be fine Balto will be home soon, and everything will be back to normal... after I kill him of course for scaring the life out of me” chuckled Boris.

Jenna smiled for a second and then got up from the floor and stretched, she then looked out towards the horizon...

“I remember waiting for him on the serum run, it only seems like yesterday. Most of all I remember the day I first met him, he’d only recently arrived in town from goodness knows where. He looked a complete wreck, so tired, so filthy but he was cute. He just stared at me for a few minutes as he was walking by... and then he walked into a garbage can. Somehow, I don’t why but I knew we’d end up together... strange huh” said Jenna.

“When I met him he tried to eat me” said Boris.

“No way” Jenna replied.

“It’s true... he was still a slip of a puppy. He’d had gotten separated from his mother shortly after he was born and his father didn’t want anything to do with him. I was sleeping and I felt something chewing on my tail feathers, I thought he was a wolf at first so I tried to fly away... only to crash into tree. When I woke up he was just sitting there almost in tears feeling guilty, he just sort of stuck with me after that. I became the only family he had, at least before he met you.”

A few moments passed then suddenly a dog figure appeared on the Horizon. Jenna’s eyes suddenly lit up with excitement.

“Oh my god, he’s here!” she said. She immediately ran towards this figure leaving Boris behind. Who had fallen over since she dashed off so quickly. The figure had come to a complete stand still as Jenna was running towards him. As she got closer and closer the figure was coming into focus, she realised that this figure looked different to Balto so she began to slow down and then noticed that it was a Brown coloured Husky dog so she came to a complete stop. She was about 10 metres away from this stranger and just looked at him for a few moments.

“Oh, I’m sorry I thought you were... you know forget it, sorry to bother you” she said before she was about to walk away.

“Jenna”

“You know my name? Who are you?”

The stranger approached her slowly with a smile on his face, Jenna just stood still not knowing what to do.

“Jenna, do you remember that night in the hospital? You where so sad about Rosie that it seemed like nothing was going to make you feel better. You needed cheering up so much, so I showed something that used to cheer me up when I was down...”

Jenna then moved closer to the ‘stranger’, she didn’t know what to say to him at all. But he continued to talk...

“You didn’t understand what I was trying to show you exactly, at first the only thing you saw was a dirty cellar with broken glass all over the place. But back then, you where just looking at the glass half empty...”

Jenna looked slightly worried, but yet didn’t seem to move away from him.

“Northern lights...” she said. “I don’t understand, how... how you could possibly know about...” she then looked into the stranger’s eyes, those reddish coloured eyes that she had known for years... “Balto?”

“Yeah, it’s me.” He replied softly.

Balto then approached her and rubbed against her affectionately. She then did the same, but was still in amazement about what had happened to him.

“Balto, what happened to you? You look... well... amazing... not that you didn’t before.”

Balto gave a soft laugh.

“I can’t believe it myself” he said whilst walking towards a puddle of water. He looked at his reflection with a soft posing smile. “I just walked into that cave, bright light and some pain... then the next thing I knew this... and speaking of pain...” Balto then sat down with his paw holding his side.

“Oh god, are you alright?” asked Jenna.

“Like I said, it hurt a lot whatever happened. But it’s weird I’ve felt worse before and it’s never bothered me like this. Perhaps the wolf part made me a bit tougher... owww... god how do you cope exactly?”

“Balto where’s Aleu?” asked Jenna.

Balto then looked sad, he’d almost forgotten about her and felt ashamed.

“She’s... she’s gone Jenna”

“Gone?”

“She went away... she’s alright, she’s happy and with a pack of wolves...”

“Wolves? My daughter is with a pack of wolves!”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds, they where friendly, they saved our lives.”

“I couldn’t care if they covered the path you were walking on with roses, you let her go with a pack of wolves she barley knows, that ‘you’ barely know!”

Jenna stepped a few paces back from Balto and looked at him angrily in the face.

“It was her choice Jenna, I couldn’t stand in the way of that no matter how much I wanted too. In fact it was more than that, it was destiny almost like she was meant to go away” said Balto.

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this” Jenna said with tears in her eyes. “You let her go without