Ania looked at her liitle sister, daring Luna to chase her. Ania was almost an adult, now, but both of them were unusually thin. There was a famine, and it was very difficult to find food. The pack was suffering. Many wolves were dying. But, as in all times of loss, life went on. Ania and Luna played, as usual. Aniu, their sister led the pack with wisdom, compassion,  and courage. At that moment, Luna ran at Ania. Ania wisked around, and began to run. After a few minutes, she stopped. She couldn't run any more. Luna ran up to her. "You 'kay?" Luna asked. Ania knew why Luna didn't say more. After running, no one in the pack had much energy to spare because of lack of food. Ania nodded. Suddenly, they heard their sister calling them. "Come on, you two!" said the rather low voice of Aniu. She had had a mate. He had been a husky, but he had left her. She had two pups. One was unknown, one was a pup named Tundra. Tundra, however, Aniu had had with a wolf, so the unknown pup, Balto, was a hybrid, and she was a pure wolf. They walked over to Aniu. She was the same age as Ania. Luna looked exactly like them, though, all white The rest of the pack that could run was with Aniu. Aniu had no coice but to leave the weak, or the rest of the pack would suffer. Aniu had left the strongest of the weak in charge. She had told him that they might never see her agian, but to keep strong and everything would be okay.They began to run. Ania felt like she would collapse. Before she did, they found food. A herd of Caribou were grazing in a field. They attacked. The pack caught only a young straggler. It was not enough, but at least it was something. They ate. After eating, what remained of the pack rested. Night came. Ania dropped off to sleep. She woke early, at dawn. Aniu and a few other wolves were awake, too. Aniu was standing alone, thinking. Ania walked up to her. "What is it?" she asked. Aniu was silent, then she said "What will become of the pack? There is almost no food. Icker died." Ania gulped back tears. Icker was a wolf whom Luna was friends with. "Luna will be upset." Ania said to Aniu.  Aniu nodded. Luna was upset. When Aniu told her,  tears glistened in her eyes. Ania could tell that Luna wanted to say something, but all she managed to choke out was, "Oh." Aniu then called the pack to her. "We are going to hunt. We are going to run until we find food." Aniu said this with something in between determination and fear. Ania suddenly felt more tired and weak than she ever had before. The pack began to run. They ran and ran.  They ran for hours, but they found no food. Ania felt so weak. She began to lag behind. They came to a place in the woods they were traveling in where the woods grew thinner, and finally stopped. Ania found herself looking into a big grassy field with a big, lone bush about a quarter of a mile away in it. She almost fell, but managed to keep standing. No one spoke. No one had the energy to. The wolves began to run Aniu was leading, and Luna was right behind her. Ania managed to run a few steps, and then fell. She couldn't run any more. She closed her eyes, not caring what happend to her. She heard the  pack stop. They all ran back to her. She heard Luna's voice saying, "Ania, can you get up?" Ania slowly shook her head. She heard Aniu's voice saying, " A-Ania, we'll have to leave you here." Aniu was almost crying. "I love you, Ania." Ania felt her sister's teeth dragging her away. ''We'll leave you in this bush.''

Luna cried while running. It was so sad that they had left Ania in that bush. One of Luna's friends, Tundra, caught up with her. "Hey, I'm so sorry we had to leave your sister in that bush. It must be so sad for you. And Icker died, too." Luna nodded, and nuzzled her friend. Tundra was crying as well. The pack stopped to rest. Luna and Tundra were sitting on a log, when Aniu came up to them. "You two okay?" Aniu asked. She looked unusually grave. "You're hiding something from us." Luna said suspiciously Aniu sighed."How did you know?" "You look too grave to not be." Aniu sighed again. ''All right,'' she said, "Do you know the source of this famine?" They shook their heads. "It is hunters." Aniu said scathingly. ''They are taking all the food for themselves. There must be a famine in the human world, too, or they would not be doing this.'' Luna and Tundra did not say anything. "Well, I guess we'd better get going.'' Aniu said, walking away. The pack began to run again. Tundra ran beside Luna. The pack ran for a long time before they found anything. The wolves were ravenously hungry, so it did not take them long to kill a caribou. It was big, and everyone got enough, something that hadn't happened for a long time. Contented with their meals, the wolves, one by one, dropped off to sleep.

Nearly three months had gone by, and Luna and Tundra were growing rapidly. Luna had become a proud wolf known for trickery and cunning. However, through all of that shined love and faithfulness to the pack. Tundra had become a vicious, pround yet loving young wolf. She would be a great leader, Luna knew. Luna also knew that she herself would never be a good leader. She wasn't demanding enough. Luna wasn't as quite fast as Tundra, but she was trickier and slightly smarter. All of these qualities put together made them a great team. Aniu still lead the pack. Luna and Tundra were almost adults, but neither of them had found mates. This, however, was for different reasons. Luna had not found a mate because of her trickery to get other pack member's food, sleeping places, and even their places in the pack. Tundra's reason was quite different. She was very fast and strong, so a lot of not-so-strong and fast male wolves of her age were jealous. Luna was not jealous. She couldn't be. As neither of them were well-liked by most wolves, they had to stick together. As of this minute, they were less liked than usual. Luna had snuck up on a wolf named Launer, who was eating, and stole his food. Then she had tossed it to Tundra, who ran and hid with it Luna came running up to a cave. Tundra was hiding in it. "I've got it." she said. They grinned. Tundra broke the bone in half. They gnawed on it, still grinning. Then, they heard Aniu calling them. "Com'n, you two.'' Aniu stood at the mouth of the cave. At the guilty look on their faces she rolled her eyes. "Have you two been stealing again?" Without waiting for an answer she walked away. Tundra and Luna walked out of the cave. The pack was assembled a few feet away. They walked toward it. Launer shot them a look of pure hatred. They smirked. The pack ran. They were a big pack, of about twenty. They ran for a long time. Then they heard gunshots and dogs barking. A bullet whizzed overhead. Luna and Tundra looked at each other, fear in their eyes. Then, Luna felt pain in her leg. It had gotten shot. Tundra was stumbling. A bullet had barely hit her chest, and she could not walk very well. She was falling behind. Luna slowed down. Then, a big, snakelike thing soared overhead. Luna ducked. The snaky-thing fell right around Tundra's neck. Tundra said to Luna, "I think these humans are going to have us be sled dogs, and I am coming with them." They heard Aniu's voice, "Launer, keep the pack together and keep them running!" The snaky-thing was jerked back. Aniu was beside them. Tundra said to Aniu the same thing she had said to Luna. Then the snaky thing flew in the air again. This time Luna didn't want to escape it. She wanted to go with Tundra. The snaky-thing caught around her neck and she did not resist. Then, she saw a dogsled with about five dogs harnessed to it sled up. Aniu snarled, but Luna said, "Don't," To their surprise, another one drove up. This one had about twenty dogs harnessed to it. The man in the first sled pointed a gun a them.  Then Luna began to be  jerked. Before they could be jerked any more, they began to walk in the sled's direction. Then, Luna felt hands on her. She wanted to run beside the sled, not be a prisonor on it. She bit, but her teeth closed on thin air. Then ropes were being tied around her. She thrashed, but of no avail. She was tied down. She still thrashed, and then she saw the man take out a big, heavy thing. He raised it above his head....Tundra was sitting patiently on the sled...pain clouded Luna's vision........she saw Aniu backing away.......everything went black.

Aniu backed away from the humans. Luna was tied up to one of their sleds and unconcious. Tundra, Aniu's daughter, was tied beside Luna and sitting serenely. The humans surprised Aniu. They were taking wolves to pull sleds.l Aniu trotted away, her head down, tears filling her eyes, sad that she let herself lose two more wolves that she grew close to. She had lost both of her sisters, her daughter, her son and the pack.......the pack? Aniu suddenly realized that she had told Launer to keep the pack running. They would be miles away by now. Aniu was packless and hopeless. She trotted on, then broke into a run. She wanted to run, run until she found something, anything, that would ease her misery. She ran for a long time. It was dusk by the time she stopped. She had found nothing worth looking at or playing with. Aniu was by then so blinded by greif and misery that she began to feel as if nothing mattered. She stumbled beneath a tree instead of somewhere safer. Aniu managed to fall asleep, in spite of her great sadness.

Aniu was running, running faster than she thought was ever possible. She didn't know why, but she thought she had run like this before, somewhere......sometime.... Aniu