Mysterious Circumstances

  The small group of young wolves have done remarkably well on their own. However, the next challenge facing our young friends is to be their hardest one yet. To begin this part of the story of these wayward adventurers, we must go back before the horrible start of their journey, where disaster struck elsewhere...

 Kinto walked between the frosted trees toward his home, where the rest of his pack were awaiting his arrival. He was a tan-furred wolf of about two years old, and soon he would be a father. His mate was due to give birth any day now and he was eager to get home and check on her.

 The sudden sound of a snapping twig off to his right caught his attention and he stopped to investigate, his curiosity getting the better of him. "Hello! Is anyone there?", he called, but the only answer he got was the slow creak of the tree limbs as they swayed in the softly blowing wind. He flinched as the call of a lone bat emerging from its roost in the twilight hours of the evening shot out of the darkness. Deciding that it was nothing more than his imagination, Kinto continued to make his way through the soft snow towards home.

 Snap! He whirled around, knowing for sure that he had heard something that time. "Who's there?", he called. Again, no answer came. Kinto began to feel very nervous. He was being followed, but he didn't know who, or what it was. He turned around to run the rest of the way home... and suddenly found himself pinned to the ground. 

 The breath was knocked out of him as he landed hard on his back. His attacker's face was shadowed in the fading light of the day, but his dark brown eyes shown out with hatred. Kinto looked upon them with terror, fear gripping him like an iron fist, forcing him to stay where he was. He closed his eyes desperately trying to escape the piercing gaze of this horrible creature. The last thing he saw was his mate smiling beautifully back at him, the image seemingly burned into the backs of his eyelids. Then he didn't see anything, ever again.

-Two Months Later -

  The four siblings walked through the slowly melting snow. Spring was upon the land, and in only a few days, the once frozen and snow-covered ground will have thawed out. Spring was Winter's favorite season. All the colorful flowers would bloom,and the green grass would grow, feeling soft and comfortable against the pads of her paws as she walked, as opposed to the cold, hard, icy snow crystals that covered the ground during the colder months of the year.

 The knowledge that her favorite time of year was fast approaching, however, did little to quell her growing unease. The small group had entered a forest early that morning and, now more than ever, she heard in her head the words of caution that her father had spoken to her what seemed like ages ago. "A forest can be dangerous place for those unfamiliar in its mysterious ways. Be wary of where you step, for you can never know what terrible enemy could be lurking behind the next tree. And not all enemies, Winter, come in the form of flesh and blood.", he had said to her. Winter wished now, as she had many times before already, that he could be there with them, so that she could assure herself that everything would turn out alright in the the end. But he wasn't. And she couldn't. And despite being in the company of her siblings, Winter was beginning to feel more alone than she ever had before.

 Although, she was not the only one who felt uncomfortable walking under the shadows of the forest branches. Twilight gazed up at them now, ever watchful of the sinister, twisted forms as they snaked their way towards the cloud-covered sky. He quickened his pace and walked up beside Winter. "We should never have entered.", he said. 

 Winter glanced at him and said, "I agree, but we have no choice but to continue on. I'm not sure how to get us back the way we came."

 Twilight thought about this situation that they found themselves in as they continued on through the shadow-filled forest. "This is bad.", he thought. "Something terrible is going to happen. I can..." He never finished his thought. They had entered a small clearing, and as he looked around he caught sight of a large boulder a few feet to his right. 

 He stopped walking as his vision slowly blurred from the outside in, until the boulder and a snow-covered branch above it were the only things that stood out in sharp detail. He found four places on the boulder where the face of the rock caved inward, and it was this that he focused on specifically. Suddenly, the snow on the branch slipped from its perch in three separate chunks, and two of the holes were covered by the falling snow. Just like that, his trance was broken.

 "Twilight!" He turned to see that the others had stopped. "What's wrong?", Winter called out to him. 

 He was about to reply that it was nothing, but, as if from a ruptured floodgate that could no longer hold back its waters, a wave of unease swept over him. Instead he looked up with anxious eyes and yelled, "Run!"

 It was no sooner than when the four of them left the clearing that two more figures dropped from the trees on either side of the clearing and a third emerged from behind the boulder. All three were dogs with rough and tangled fur.

 The third dog stared at the spot where the young wolves had made their exit, his dark brown eyes narrowed and blazing, and said, "Let them go. There is nowhere in this forest that they can hide from us." With that, the other two dogs followed their leader as they started to head back for town.

* * * 

 Winter leaned up against a twisted and knotted tree, panting heavily from the long and hard run. She turned to Twilight and asked between breaths, "What... was that... all about?" 

 Twilight looked at at the ground as he to, recovered his breath, and said, "I can't explain it... but I had this sudden feeling... that we were about to be... attacked."

 Winter stared at him, thinking of questioning him further, but she gave up on the idea. He would most likely find a way to avoid the questions, or he'd just flat out ignore her. She sighed, looked back the way they had run, and said, "Well, if we were about to be attacked, they must have decided not to follow us." 

 Jared suddenly spoke up, saying, "You know, Twilight. That's the second time I've seen your face go blank like that, and then you all of a sudden come up with these gut feelings that have turned out to be right.  What is goin' on?"

 Twilight slowly turned to look at Jared, who suddenly seemed to shrink beneath his brother's piercing gaze. Jared asked, "What?"

 "Did you or did you not just hear me say that I can't explain it?" Twilight asked. Jared gave his 'Oh, now I get it' face, and waited for the sarcastic comments that were sure to follow from Twilight. 

 Luckily enough for him, Winter interrupted the conversation before it could continue. "I think that we should get moving." she said. "We don't know whether or not we're being tracked by whoever tried to attack us, and staying here could be dangerous."

 While they were talking, Veena had been quietly sitting nearby. The sun had finally come out from behind the clouds, and she found that everything about the forest had changed. It no longer looked sinister, but beautiful. The birds began to take flight from their nests, twittering as they went, and rays of golden sunshine lit up the snow making it ever brighter, as if bright-hot gold. She closed her eyes, listening to natures wonderful symphony. Then a sound reached her ears that she did not expect, and her forest-green eyes suddenly flew open.

 She stood up and walked over to Winter, who saw the look on her face and asked, "What's wrong, Veena?"

 Veena said, "I can hear someone laughing." 

* * *

 Arlen sat watching as her children played in the small clearing, her every sense on high alert. How had the forest she had grown up in and called her home ever become such a dangerous place? Two of her three young pups were in the middle of the clearing, romping around with each other. The third was a little bit away from them, walking along in the snow.

 "Renn, don't wander too far!", her mother called.

 Renn looked back and said, "I won't, mama!" 

 Renn continued to look around. She only rarely got to come out and play. Looking into the trees, she wondered what it would be like to see what was beyond this small clearing, which was as far away from the cave as she had ever gotten before. She turned around to see her mother walking over to break up the fight that her brothers, Orek and Pine, had gotten into. Now was her chance. All she had to do was take a step forward and she was free to explore to her heart's content.

 Renn turned back to the trees with a determined look on her face. She took a step forward, and was surrounded by a mass of green, white, and brown color. She made her way into the forest, excitement boiling in her blood. The young pup stopped to take in her surroundings. She heard the birds chirping, the dripping of water from icicles, and the crunch of snow as... "What?", she thought. Crunching snow that sounded as if a large animal were making it's way. Right towards her. 

 She immediatly became frightened and ran back to the clearing. "Mama!", she called. 

 "Renn!?", Arlen said, fearing the worst. She nuzzled her daughter as she ran up to her. "What is it?"

 Renn motioned towards the trees she had emerged from. "Something is coming. It scared me."

 It scared Arlen even more. "Run for the caves.", she said. "Now."

  They ran, but Arlen stayed behind. She had to make sure that her pups were safe. She backed up

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