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"You've done well, Lukas," said the wolf I'd seen back in Elder Wood. I jumped to my hind paws, stumbling backward against the tree.

"You... What do you mean? Have you been following me?" I demanded.

He stood no taller than I was, he seemed more... ethereal than I remembered. This was the first chance I had to get a proper look at him; I was unhindered by tiredness now, ready to notice the slightest of details. "Following you? Well yes, in a way, but also no." He stood proudly just ahead of me, arms outstretched. Life around me had halted all too literally, Otto still sat against the tree with his mouth agape, stopped mid-sentence.

"What do you want with me? I have nothing that you'd be after, unless..." I reached for the piece of jewellery that hung around my neck.

"Oh c'mon Lukas, why would I want that? Honestly, what use would I have for that? After all, I'm hardly even here," he cooed. He vanished in a burst of black and purple mist, I blinked unable to believe my eyes. I drew my sword and inched around the tree, immediately distrustful of the strange wolf. "Gee, would you calm down just a little? You were never this jumpy," he said, appearing again.

"Alright explain, what's going on? I'll run you through, I swear I will," I threatened. He went down onto his haunches and stared up at me as a child would his father. Funny, I figured he'd be more mature considering our previous encounter.

He sighed and closed his eyes, "pushy. Alright, I'll tell you but sit down first, wouldn't wanna scare Otto when things go back." I grudgingly complied, finding my seat was still surprisingly warm. "Good boy, here's a treat!" he tossed a weakly coloured biscuit to me, tendrils of purple and black following loosely behind. I growled as it evaporated barely a meter in front of me, not because it didn't reach me, but rather because of the implication. "Growling? You're getting quite used to your new form, why I'd say that growl almost came without you even having to think about it. I would know."

"Get on with it already," I muttered.

"Well, I'm here to help, trust me on that. I am you. You are me. Okay well to be clearer, I'm your spirit guide, only a part of you," he explained.

My face twisted into the oddest of expressions, "You're my what?"

"Oh don't you worry, you'll see soon," he said fading back into a black and purple mist. Again he was gone, and I knew almost nothing more about him.

Everything continued once more, Otto finished a sentence that no longer made any sense, wind again chilled me to the bone, snow threatening to finish the work of the freezing breeze. "Do you?" Otto emphasized.

"Say again?"

"How did you not hear me? It's quiet as death out here... Well, I said it's been some time, you don't think anything's gone wrong do you?" his voice was shaky as he spoke.

"She'll be here Otto, she'll be here," I reassured. Time went by with no sign of Sheila, we grew more and more nervous by the second, the dreadful silence and cold of the snow were less than comforting and I could feel a tension in the air. The snowfall had picked up, somewhat obscuring our vision, forcing us to strain our eyes to see the even watchtowers at the city entrance. Occasionally I looked in Otto's direction, he breathed heavily as he struggled to find oxygen in the icy air, every exhalation thrusting another small cloud of mist into the atmosphere. Minutes turned to an hour, which in turn became several, I'd begun dozing when a stone struck me on the knee. My back became rigid, my paw making a fluid move for my sword, I was racked with paranoia in the ever-darkening Duskwood.

I released my breath in a relieved sigh as I heard Sheila's soft voice once more, "thanks mate, I don't think I could have gone another night in that... in there," she said, despite the strength she voiced, I could still tell she wasn't quite alright. "We'll have to move, they'll easily see us from that palisade if we stay 'til morning."

Otto and I slid up the tree simultaneously, "Sheila! What took so long, we were starting to think something went wrong," Otto said in a raised whisper, the three of us wasted no time in leaving the area around the camp, in the morning we would undoubtedly be hunted by the bandits and if, gods forbid, we were caught, we would be executed on sight.

"That hyena bitch, she's dedicated to doing her job proper. I only barely managed to get outta there when she changed shifts with some other blokes. It was a long wait," she said angrily, charging ahead of us. I looked toward Otto, he only shrugged, his guess was as good as mine it seemed.

"You don't really seem as happy to be free as we expected," I noted once we'd put considerable distance between ourselves and the town. Otto slumped down to the ground and curled up to sleep. Sheila looked at me in the dark, small fractions of moonlight trickled between the clouds and snow, not much but enough for me to see the sad look in her eyes.

"Look, I'm happy you saved me from those bandits back there, it's just..." she choked on her words.

"Just what?" she stumbled closer to me and fell against my shoulder, sobbing softly. I was hardly able to reassure her and find a seat. She sat beside me, still leaning her head against me, and still sobbing.

"I-I didn't want it to go this way, when I left the warren I said I'd find my sister... A-and I got taken, I mean, I'm supposed to be better than that, how could I h-have been so careless? She's long gone by now, probably enslaved by those damned humans..." she said between sniffles, I couldn't say anything, still unsure of myself let alone in a condition to be of any real comfort to this woman. I did all I could manage, I held her against me, looking out into an indeterminable distance. I could see the faces there, I was sure of it now, but these were not the faces of men, nor were they of Nephilim, these faces were cast by the shadows of the forest, these were the faces imagined throughout my hunting, those that haunted me all that time. They never left me. They were trapped souls, enjoying Sheila's torment, mocking how I tried so hard to see that they weren't there. I could've thrown a stone, shot a bolt perhaps, but the missiles would find no purchase on these twisted spirits that were purely of my own mind. "I can't take much more, Lukas, I've been out here for over a year, I went to those Southerner blokes, got my arse kicked out of human towns, ran out of money and, well you see where that got me... and now I'm no further than when I started. In fact, I think I've gone backwards!"

It was some time before she stopped sobbing and as she looked up at me with hopeful eyes, I saw the dark streaks her tears had carved down her cheeks. Her tail curled around me, "Sheila I... I didn't realise you were looking for your sister. You've been out here for months? Why? After the summer, there is almost no chance of survival, and this winter is the harshest yet..."

Sheila cut me off "No! She's alive alright? I know she is... I remember the day, almost two years ago, but I still see her all the time, like a ghost in this gods forsaken forest," Sheila explained, her breath hitching with every so

The Northern Warrens, one year and a half prior.

Home... A whole mountain, jutting up and forming a jagged cliff along the edge of the ever-stretching ocean, a whole mountain bathed in the golden glory of the sun, with plains that were broken by hills that rolled on to lands far beyond our own. And we lived inside the mountain, where the light would only ever reach when the sun was at its highest, shining through skylights far too small to be any good at all. I resented it. I stood on a hill I'd claimed as my own, looking out over what generations upon generations of Kangaroos had protected. It was a wonder why they protected land they would never actually make use of, who would even be bothered about some dust and a mountain along the coast? A breeze blew by, making the grass bend and sway this way and that, like dancers all in sync.

"You know Gavin wouldn't like this," Harriet called from somewhere off in the direction of the Warren.

"No he wouldn't, why would he like his people imagining how it feels to be free?" she came bounding toward me, the tall yellow grass parting as she passed. She'd been foraging all day, along with a number of the other women, that was their job in the warren. That was one of three major jobs for a woman. There were the foragers who would pick berries and such from the fields where they grew, then there were the caregivers that watched over the new-borns and children that were too mischievous for their own good and finally there was my crew, the medics, we were there to ensure our men didn't die of poisoning from the rusty weapons and traps, or the nasty bites our Nephilim cousins gave us. "Find us heaps of food?"

"Hardly... But you remember Randy? You fixed up his arm and shoulder a few days back, he can't hunt for a while, but he's a real bonzer bloke, helped the foraging crew because he said he couldn't take a day off," she said, peering into the distance at a treeline that looked like only a thin streak of black, separating blue skies from golden fields.

"You didn't come here just to talk to me, did you?" Harriet only continued to stare wistfully into the distance, no reply from the sixteen year old kangaroo. "Hattie?" that was her nickname. I hardly ever called her that, it was strange to me, though she seemed to like it.

"Huh?" she turned her eyes on me once more, coming back from whatever fantasy she'd dreamed up this time. She looked embarrassed, she rarely ever drifted like that, and it was becoming more common these days, anybody with half a brain could tell that she wanted to leave. She sighed and lowered herself against a rock, facing the forest. "Have you ever wondered about what's out there? Or maybe, why our ancestors never wanted to move away from this... this rock?"

"You're asking if I've ever wanted to leave?"

"That too,"

"And why would I think about what's out there? We have everything we need inside this 'rock', we've been here since time itself," Harriet laughed me off, she knew me far too well to think I believed what I was saying.

"That might work on father, but I know the truth. Why else would you sit out here after your shift? Every day, after every shift, you come and you stand out here. You're gone until dusk, you see the sun off. Rumours are going around."

"Rumours? I've heard a few of them... I don't care, let them say what they want. But you should get home you little ankle-biter, before they think the same about you!" I warned jokingly.

"I'm not little anymore! I'm sixteen," she pouted, I looked at her sternly. It was bad enough Gavin and his council didn't like me for staying out here so late, I couldn't let them get suspicious of Hattie too. "Fine, but one day I'm getting out of here," she promised. She got up and swept my legs with her tail. I hit the ground hard, annoyed that I didn't see that coming. I scowled at her as she left, but it wasn't long before I turned my gaze to the worlds that lay beyond our own. I'd met a few merchants that came from faraway places, mostly Nephilim, they never stayed long. From the stories they told it wasn't really surprising that they were eager to get back home. I'd heard so much of green valleys, of forests with trees as big as the gods themselves, and the adventures each of them had been through. The way they described it, they'd lived life enough for ten men. Maybe it was time for me to leave. But most fascinating were the humans, I've only ever seen one of them. Humans are new to the continent, they're furless and strange, thousands of them came during the first visitation... The first confrontation. Few kangaroos have ever seen a human up close, nobody trusts them. They betrayed the Nephilim; they offered peace at first and took advantage of the good nature of the Nephilim. Hardly a month since their arrival on the mainland and they'd already begun raiding cities, peace only found its way into the picture a few years back. Even still, it was a very loose peace. Everybody hated everybody else now, the humans hated us because they thought we were Nephilim, the Nephilim hated us because we didn't offer aid, and they hate each other because of how everything started.

"Time to go," I said to myself as the final rivulets of sunlight receded and left the darkness of a new moon in their wake. Silhouettes shifted against the mountain, the dedicated workers making their way back to the warren, they scrambled as though they'd be lost if they didn't get home in the next five minutes. Silly, the torches at the entrance would blaze for an hour after dark, everybody still had plenty time. I walked casually, catching grass in my paw as I moved, the warmth had yet to ebb from their stems and it was a soft, pleasant feeling, the last I'd have felt before I entered the warren for the night.

The warren was an immense structure, a complex network of caves that snaked in every possible direction to confuse outsiders. Twisting and turning and doubling up, paths that lead higher, tracks that lead lower and we all knew the layout of the entire warren, drummed into us since we could speak, so that we would be safe, so that _if_we were invaded we could take a route unknown to our assailants. If, if, if, that's all that ran through the council's uniform mind, it was always such an arduous task for them to allow us more of anything, particularly rations. "What if we run out?" they would say, well, what if we starved before then? But then, who am I to speak against them, its worked thus far.

"Sheila! Over here!"

Harriet? I strained my eyes to see my sister sitting outside our burrow, she was waving me over. Outside again. She had a knack for getting up our parents' backs, and she's been made to spend the night outside the burrow many times before, it seemed like she wouldn't ever learn. "What did you do this time?" I said stepping up to her.

She looked at me innocently, batting her eyelids, "nothing, I've been chased out for no good reason this time," I couldn't help giggling at the absurdity, it's a wonder they ever let her free of the watchful eyes of her caretakers. "It was something stupid this time, not really intentional. I tripped and knocked a few things over."

"Klutz."

"Bite me. Anyway, could you go get my pack and sneak it out through the window? I had something... Special, stored in there and I didn't have time to grab it."

"Alright, but if father catches me I'll tell him you forced me to. Remember the last time he caught me bringing you food?"

"Yeah, yeah, please could you just get it? I'm starving and its getting colder out here,"

I shoved the door open, it was bad enough the damned thing creaked so loudly, now it was getting stuck too? As I stepped inside I was greeted by deafening silence and weak light and dust floating aimlessly in the main room, I coughed as I inhaled the grainy particles. "Welcome home, Sheila," I thought quietly to myself. I walked on through the empty room, mother and father had turned in early after a long day of working, and surely enough, in a neat pile, were the items that Harriet had knocked over.

Harriet's backpack was slightly heavier than the last time, or perhaps my arms weren't what they used to be. I hefted the sack onto my back and I was about to turn out of my sister's room when a strange melancholy washed over me, pulsing through every ounce of my being for just a second, and then a chill down my spine made the fur on the back of my neck stand on end. I glanced around; checking nobody else was in the room with me. "Nothing," I muttered "Just getting jumpy."

Present day in the Duskwood

"If I'd known that she'd stashed supplies to run away, I would never have taken them to her... It's pretty much my fault she's gone now" Lukas scowled at the nearby brush, he seemed oblivious to the fact that I was telling him my full story, but somehow he'd managed to hear every word I'd spoken. I shivered, even against the warmth of the dog that I hung on to with all the power in my arms- and tail.

"You've been through a lot, Sheila, but it isn't your fault she's gone. You didn't tell her to run away, Harriet made that decision. Now you're out here looking for her, if you ask me, you're a damn good sister."

I looked up at him with dreamy but tired eyes, and then buried my face into his shoulder once more, this time less out of sadness and shame. The clothing that adorned him was thick and dirty, the fur sticking together in filthy clumps, despite how unpleasant the cloak was, I felt... comfortable? Here against a stranger I felt comfortable? A stranger that saved my life and freed me from the dank depths of a dungeon... No, not a stranger anymore, this man was my friend. If he was a transformed human, he certainly didn't act as I imagined he would, perhaps then there is hope for the human race. "Thanks mate, that helps but... It won't bring her back," my words were slightly muffled in the expanse of his shoulder.

"Maybe not, but for now, let's get some rest. We could all use it." I didn't so much as make a sound as I lay back against the earth, which was in a strange way as comfortable as any of the finest beds. The dirt and snow embraced me warmly as a lover, the wind caressed my bare fur with fine finesse, even the sound of the night stilled to acknowledge every shallow breath that my lungs and chest heaved. An artful symphony of both bereavement and happiness.

My eyes snapped open, but I wasn't awake, I spun around and looked all across the white void that stretched to gods knew where. I took a step forward, noticing a painless and light experience I'd almost forgotten, the "ground" seemed to ripple as my paw returned to it. For a time nothing happened but it was as I considered sitting that the land began to fill itself in, starting from where I stood and moving outward in all directions, it began as a black sketch against the white, becoming more and more detailed with colour being thrown in splashes. "Wow," My words ushered a breeze in, the green leaves of trees rustling in its wake.

If only the world could be this and nothing more, oh how much easier life would be.

But even this beauty was tainted, this scene was the first part of the Duskwood I'd seen when I began the search for my sister. I saw a tree I'd marked, the knife I used was still there, buried to the hilt in wood, for some reason. Involuntarily I took a few steps forward, cool green grass massaged the padding on my paws as I moved along.

I'll find you Hattie, that I can promise, no matter how long it takes I swear I will find you.