There are too few trees, and no prey, and too many moons in the sky. 

My belly is thin and my tail drags in the ice-glazed snow. The wind hisses through my fur and strips my warmth away. No pack at my side to guard me against cold that bites to the marrow. I must feed soon, or die. I will know when it is time to die. Not yet.

I trot on under the night sky that is too bright. A howl. It does not challenge, it calls. My tail lifts and dances; I am not alone! I howl as a lone wolf, bereft of pack. I hear a reply and run to the sound, paws crunching through snow.

I come to a clearing and hear the howl again, close by. I smell fresh kill! And a female nearby, adult, not in season, well fed. I cannot resist; I am so famished. I find the meat, I feed, and grow tired. Too tired. Must sleep…



I wake in a place of smooth surfaces, strapped to a table. Things like vines connect to my body, my head. Before me is a dog bitch; it was her scent I smelled in the forest. I snarl and strain to rise. She sniffs me, then makes noises into a little box she carries with her. Her forepaws are odd, long and thin like those of humans.

“I am sorry for what I have done to you,” she says. “But you were so near death. I have changed you just enough so we can talk.” They are human noises, but they sound familiar now. 

I try to snarl again, and a lifeless thing nearby makes sounds. “I hear you,” it says. I recognize these sounds as my own thoughts. I strain again at the straps. There is too much I don’t understand. I want to bite my way free and [i]run.[/i]

“You were the last living wolf in the wild. My masters have given me leave to help you, if I can.”

“You…  [i]help[/i] me? Why would humans ever show [i]mercy?[/i] They take. Take everything from the world.”

“The humans are ready to leave this world. They are putting the extra lights into the sky, full of their people. But they also wish to reduce cruelty and suffering, and the world of nature is mostly cruel. They can reduce the total pain in the world by letting most species die out. 

“But some can be saved. [i]You[/i] can be saved, if you will let me.”

My snout wrinkles. “You’ve never even killed something with your teeth. How could you help?”

“You don’t have the ability to understand fully, right now,” she says. “I can give you this understanding. But I will have to change you more than I’ve done do far, and I need your consent for that.”

I remember, with what in this tongue is called [i]instinct[/i] but which is so much more–the racial memory, the knowledge of the world bred into one’s bones, the experience of the past made manifest in flesh. I remember the first wolves that walked towards fire, the cringing Omegas that betrayed their packs to join with shivering ape things, barely out of the trees…

“Bears, pumas…” I say. “They are more merciful than humans. A bear will just kill you; a puma as well, though more slowly. But humans change what you [i]are[/i]. To be like them, but lesser. Beta. Worse.”

“All animals on earth are Beta or lesser, before the humans,” she says. “You’ve been beaten anyway; the right thing to do is show submission. Wolves can learn to get along. We can lift you up to stand with us.”

I stare at her, with the look that makes prey freeze with fear.

“I heard the joy in your voice, when you responded to my howl,” she says. “Your will to live. You can still live, and learn better ways than nature taught you. Nature does not care how many bleed and die, by her rules, but the humans seek to stop death itself.”

I snarl out something that does not work with the Thing that Speaks for me.

Her ears flatten; she understood me anyway. “I’ll let you think about it.” She turns and walks away on her hind legs, awkward, tail straining to keep her balanced.

I settle my head back on the table, with its sterile smell.

She may do as she likes, but a wolf knows when it is time to die.