A flash of light enveloped the world around him.  Star began to feel nauseous as he felt himself being stretched like a rubber band as he saw many wondrous spheres of light pass him by in a green tunnel of cold light.  In the spheres, he could see events in far-off lands.  One caught his eye: It depicted a man standing on a platform in a picture.  It was a picture on a newspaper that was written in a strange and foreign language.  A symbol was on a flag behind the man and a crowd of people was cheering in front of him while they saluted.  Star then saw another sphere with thousands of monstrous metal contraptions advancing across a snow-covered field towards similar contraptions bearing the symbol he saw earlier.  Looking ahead, he saw a peculiar-looking cloud that engulfed the city it was towering over.  Faster and faster he went.  He saw flying contraptions like planes he had seen before, but they had no propellers.  It was becoming harder to see the spheres as they passed by.  He caught a glimpse of a man standing in front of a monstrous metal contraption also similar to the ones he had seen earlier, but this tank was not advancing across a field, but instead it was a street.  Now, the tunnel turned pitch black around him as a portal of light opened up in front of him.  The light got bigger and bigger until he was surrounded by light.  Suddenly, time froze, and the silhouette of a dog approached him.  It greeted him warmly: "Hello. I'm sure that you're a bit... confused right now.  I'm not at liberty to explain what is happening at the moment but you'll... soon figure it all out." The figure looked behind itself as if it had been followed. "I'm sorry, but I must cut our conversation short.  This is where... I get off..."

     "Wait! What's-" Star was interrupted as the figure began to shrink and disappear.  This enigmatic stranger had left him with many questions, but now was not the time to think.  Star began to fall into the bright abyss around him until everything went pitch black again.  Closing his eyes tightly and whimpering, he began to feel frigid air rushing around him.  He opened his eyes and discovered that he was no longer falling into an abyss, but something worse.  He was falling towards solid ground.  He squeezed his eyes shut and braced for impact, but fell unconscious before he could let out a cry for help.

     Star was now on solid ground.  He was unhurt, and partially conscious.  He was being dragged along the ground by two other creatures, but he had no strength to open his eyes all the way.  He was slowly gathering his strength until he could open his eyes.  He found that he was in a familiar, yet completely unfamiliar location.  Ravens flew overhead, letting out harsh cries.  Pine trees surrounded him, but they weren't like the ones he had seen before.  These pine trees were dark as dark could be.  Their needles were brown and their branches were becoming brittle and bare.  The ground was just as bare except for piles of dead pine needles and black pine cones that lay beneath the trees.  Star almost could look to see what was dragging him, but he slipped back into a state of unconsciousness.  Later, he awoke again to find an empty street.  He was being dragged through a white and powdery substance now, but it was not the snow he was used to.  Around him he saw emaciated animals of various species walking along the barren, desolate wasteland around him.  He saw what remained of a bank.  It was dilapidated and in an obvious state of disrepair.  The decaying exterior had long since been stripped bare of its paint and had been broken in many places.  Its windows were dusty, cracked, broken, and even missing.  The front door was off its hinges and sitting in the dust.  Some letters above the doorframe had gone missing, but the letters still conveyed their message: FIRST NATIONAL BANK, they seemed to say.  Some numbers were above the message: 416.  Star recalled a bank with the same letters and numbers above its door in Nome, but he was thoroughly convinced that this wasn't Nome.  Where were the people, the dogs on leashes, the street lamps, the wooden sidewalks and sleds?  To his horror, Star saw something that did tell him this was Nome.  It was undeniable proof that took the form of a battered old sign.  As he passed it, he saw two words that made his heart sink lower than it had ever sunk before: NOME, ALASKA.

     Now, Star was being dragged into a new location.  He passed a rusty old fence that had mostly been ripped to pieces.  He began to feel the presence of other life forms surrounding him.  The two creatures that had dragged him for what seemed like an eternity across a barren wasteland suddenly let go of him and dropped him in the dust.  The powdery white substance from the streets rose in a cloud around his eyes.  He coughed, and he heard the two creatures respond with hacking and wheezing.

     "What th... Is it... Is that thing alive?" asked the creature, still in a coughing fit.

     "I think it is alive!  Hey, can youse.... hear me?" wheezed the second creature.  Star recognized the voices.  Only two dogs he knew could talk the way these two creatures did:  Nikki and Kaltag.  Star was now comfortable enough to slip back into unconsciousness again, and he was now more than sure that he was safe from harm.

     "...I know it's him!  It's gotta' be him!" interjected Kaltag.

     "Youse must be gettin' crazy from all that ash out dere.  Star's been gone for weeks and youse knows it!  Ain't no way he's still alive, I tells ya'!  No way!" retorted Nikki.

     "Stop yelling like that!  I'm getting a headache from all the bad grammar!  Make it stop!  Make the bad grammar go away, mommy!  Make it stop!  Make it stoooooop!!!" yelled a now conscious Star.  As Nikki and Kaltag approached him, Star looked around.  He was inside what looked like his musher's house.  The wood floors were covered in layers of dust and the wallpaper had faded away.  It was even torn off in some places.  The fireplace had been neglected as well.  Some faded black and white pictures stood on the mantle.  A pile of ash stood in the blackened hearth.  The rug below him was tattered and torn in many places, but miraculously had kept its color.  A pile of wooden beams crowded the stairs, making it an impossibility to climb them.  The front door was locked, and the curtains that once covered the nearby window had fallen with the curtain rod.  There wouldn't be any need for them, anyway, as the window had been covered in a fine layer of dust that was so fine, it seemed as though if the dust was intentionally allowed to accumulate there so that the window would look like it had never been there.  Before Star could look around the living room some more, Kaltag and Nikki loomed over him.  Nikki had grown bulkier, but instead of fat, the bulk was now genuine muscle.  Star turned his head to Kaltag, who had grown quite a bit, and was now looking more like the leader of a country populated by dogs instead of the leader of a trio of villainous sidekicks in a movie.  "Mommy, is that yooouuuu?" asked a speechless Star.

     "Star?  It is you!!!  Nikki, I knew it all along!" exclaimed Kaltag.

     Star was elated.  He now knew it was okay to express his feelings without having to worry about getting made fun of.  "I'm so happy to see you-"

     "Yeah.  Whatever.  Us, too.  Shut up- we're busy right now.  Where was I... Oh, yes!  You owe me five bones, Nikki! Ha!!!" interrupted an ecstatic Kaltag.  Star was a little upset about Kaltag's lack of enthusiasm about his safe return, but he was comforted- Kaltag's personality hadn't changed a bit.  Nikki, however, was less enthusiastic.  He walked to spot on the floor, ripped off a floorboard, and sent three bones to Kaltag from the stash.

     "I'll give youse the other two next week.", Nikki responded flatly.  Now, Kaltag exchanged the satisfied look on his face for a disappointed look as he turned to Star.

     "Star, what were you thinking?!  We've been worried sick!  But, seriously, we weren't really at all that worried.  We were when we found you, though.  You know very well that wandering outside of city limits is highly inadvisable, and that nobody's gonna' go out of their way just to find a missing dog.  Not only that, but you chose to pass out in the forest!  Everybody knows that the wolves'll come looking for live meat there!" complained Kaltag.

     "'Passed out?'  'Had a coma' was more like it!  Youse was covered in ash when we found youse!" corrected Nikki.

     "Don't you dare correct me!" yelled Kaltag as he proceeded to bash Nikki over the head with his paw.

     Nikki was angry now.  "Why you little son of a-"

     "Oh, you're gonna' get it now!", declared an enraged Kaltag.  They were both engaged in combat, now.  Kaltag and Nikki gripped each other at the shoulders, unwilling to let go.  Both tried biting the other, but they were too busy trying to keep the other from biting to