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One by one, Sharra's senses slowly returned to her as she made a slow transition from a deep dreamless sleep to a state that somewhat resembled wakefulness. She lay still for a moment, slightly disoriented. For some reason she was curled up on the floor and for the life of her she could not remember why. She thought furiously for a few short seconds, trying to remember. Slowly, fragments of memory returned, the dull ache in her left forearm making recent events all too clear.

She uncurled and stretched then let out a groan as a throbbing headache sprang to life behind her eyes. Stiffly, she pushed herself up to a sitting position and held a hand to her pounding head. Such was the price of being a Healer. The after effects of performing a healing were not unlike those of partaking in too much strong drink. Every single muscle in her body radiated distinct displeasure each time she moved. She screwed her eyes tight shut for a few moments and tried to ignore the persistent ache that had encompassed her entire being. It didn't work. With a groan she flopped back down onto her side and lay still for a moment, concentrating on the cool draft that drifted gently along the floor from the ill-fitting door of the old shack.

Sharra's black nose twitched as she took in the scents on the fresh air that leaked its way into the cabin. The ever-present and spicy scent of coniferous trees was strong. As the draft worked its way along the floor towards her, it mingled with the acrid scent of smoke, the heavy scent of uncured leather, a few tantalizing hints of past meals, dust, and the tangy, salty scent of the creature who's arm she had healed this morning. She breathed in deeply and relaxed somewhat. Her headache slowly subsided to a dull but tolerable level.

Slowly it dawned on her that she was alone. Where had the creature gone to? Her ears sprang up and she sniffed a little more intently. She pushed herself up to sitting position again and scanned the interior of the shack.

Dust danced in the shafts of light that filtered in through the small windows. All was still and quiet and the creature was nowhere in sight. She stifled a yawn and with a grimace she fought her way to her feet. She stood unsteadily for a moment, and a look of surprise crept over her face as she realized where she had been sleeping.

She had been lying on the pile of hides that she had put down for the creature when she dragged him in those three long days ago. She was still for a minute, at a complete loss to understand how she ended up sleeping there. The last thing she remembered was healing his broken arm and then slowly fading away into unconsciousness while sitting at the table. She thought furiously for a moment and only succeeded in bringing about a resurgence of activity from her headache.

Her eyes were clamped shut and she had a hand pressed against her temple trying to ward off the throbbing pain that had spread through her entire head when the answer suddenly came to her. Her eyes snapped wide open in surprise. The creature had carried her there! She vaguely remembered waking up for a short moment when he gathered her into his arms and then again when he gently set her down on the pile of hides. She could hardly believe it. Her tail began to wag slowly, and her headache receded to the limits of sensation once more. It had been a touching gesture. That he actually cared enough to not leave her unconscious in the chair by the table was a good sign, and one that filled her with hope.

But where had he gone off to? Had he decided to run away into the forest and face an uncertain future amongst the snow and the trees rather than deal with the unknown that confronted him in the cabin? Or had he, as some people often do when stress climbs to unbearable levels, gone off to be alone so he could think over recent events without any unnecessary distractions and perhaps let any fresh wounds begin to scab over?

After thinking for a moment, she decided that the latter option was the most probable one. She had followed a similar course of action two years ago when her life had been ripped away from her. The pain that quickly rose up from deep within was like the cut of a hot knife. Her tail hung lifelessly behind her and she clenched her jaw, trying to fight off the sadness that suddenly burned brightly. The memories of that day were so burned into her mind that they would not leave her until she departed this life for the next one. Why had it been her fate to have everyone and everything she knew and loved torn so completely from her grasp? She was empty now, a shadow, it had felt as if someone had reached inside of her and clawed away a large part of her soul and cast it to the wind, never to be retrieved. Even after two years, she still did not feel complete, and she wondered if she would ever be whole again. She shook her head slowly from side to side. All to clearly she remembered wandering about aimlessly, mind and senses numb, trying vainly to gather the pieces of her life back together, not believing that everything and everyone was gone. When the pain had become to great for her to bear, she had fled.

Back then she had followed the same instinct that sends wounded animals into hiding. Her only desire was to be left alone, for only in solitude could the healing process gradually take hold.

Did the creature feel the same way? It was a possibility. What thoughts lurked in that strangely shaped head of his she could not even begin to guess at. He seemed distant, emotionless, but was no doubt shocked beyond belief and she couldn't quite blame him for that. He had spoken very little, and had not even yet told her his name. She scratched behind her left ear for a moment and stifled a yawn. He was so difficult to read that creature. His thoughts and emotions were buried beneath an alien exterior and behind a pair of faded blue eyes. No tail and such small immobile ears meant that he showed almost no outward signs of what he was feeling. That was not to say that he was without any indications of emotion at all. There were clues, but she'd had to pay very close attention to catch them. His tone of voice gave a few hints, as did his scent. That seemed to change ever so subtly, especially when he was angry or afraid. And his face, the subtleties of expression that appeared there left her at a complete loss for words. There was no fur there to hide the pale skin that moved and shifted so strangely as his moods changed. Such a strange creature, obviously intelligent, perhaps even comparable to her in that respect, yet so very different. That brought another question to mind. Just how was it possible that he could speak a language that she did not know, yet she could understand his words? And why did it work both ways? It had obviously been just as much of a shock to the stranger as it had been to her. She let out a long and drawn out sigh. She had no idea what was going on. The Gods must be playing some sort of joke on her.

One thing was certain though. The creature had been gone for some time. The traces of his scent were getting stale and the fire in the stove had died down enough that the metal was barely warm under her hand.

Like an elder with the disease of the joints, she stiffly made her way out onto the front porch of the cabin. There she sat down on the edge and drew her knees up to her chest, her tail curled around beside her. The sun hung low over the mountains to the west, illuminating the landscape before her in a warm yellow light and throwing a touch of gold onto her grey and white pelt. A cool wind swirled up from the valley and danced through her fur as she flicked her ears this way and that, following the sounds of the forest. The wind brought with it only the scent of the evergreens. Not a trace of the creature could be detected. He was out there somewhere, that much she knew for sure. Her eyes followed the prints left in the snow by his heavy feet. He had wandered down past the old shed, perhaps heading down into the depths of the valley. She raised her muzzle to sniff the wind once more, hoping beyond hope for even the faintest hint of his scent.

Nothing

She pulled her knees up a little tighter to her chest and breathed in deeply, a trace of worry showing in the way her ears flicked back. She really hoped that he would come back. He had only been here three days yet she had already grown accustomed to his presence. For the first time in two years she remembered what it was like to have companionship. It would be more than she could stand to have it for such a brief moment, then to have it slip from her fingers as had everything else.

She really hoped that he was all right.

**************

As soon as I was out of the cabin and into the open air, I began to feel quite a bit better.

As far back as I can remember, being out among the trees and the hills and breathing the clean crisp air had always helped me to relax. If nothing else, the peaceful surroundings and majestic scenery at least allowed for a clarity of thought that was impossible amongst the noise and hubbub of a large city. For me, it was an escape from the modern insanity that passed for life these days. A return to an existence of pure simplicity where body and soul were free from the shackles of trying making a living in a technological world.

On this day, it wasn't the heat and bustle of the city or the computer assisted maze of modernity that was the problem, though in the past that was what I had endeavoured to escape from. All of my current problems here stemmed from a large, furry, bipedal, wolf-like critter with opposable thumbs that had a name and spoke some weird language that I apparently understood even though I knew there was no possible way that I should.

I'm not lying when I say it made me want run as far away as I could.

Though a large part of me wished to flee from the unknown, the rational side of me was not so sure that that was such a good idea. But then again, My rational outlook on life had taken a rather severe beating over the last few hours and I wasn't exactly sure if it was up to the task of rationalizing things anymore.

Dazed and confused, that was me. Welcome to my little world. I paused at the crest of a ridge and took a few minutes to lean against a solitary pine tree and gaze out over the valley that stretched out before me. Desperately, I tried to gather the shreds of my psyche back together.

I'd been out there for at least a couple of hours by that time. I'd followed the trail that led from the front door of the cabin and meandered my lazy way along it for the first half a kilometre or so. When a convenient game trail crossed my path I then struck out on my own and met up with a small creek that I thought was the same one that flowed past the cabin. I'd been wandering along its banks for the last hour or so, taking in the sights and listening to the sounds of the forest while my mind drifted elsewhere. Let's just say that it was a good thing that there was snow on the ground, otherwise I might have found it difficult to find my way back to the cabin, if I was actually going to go back there. That was another thing I wasn't so sure about.

What had happened to me? Where was I? Those were the foremost thoughts on my mind. So far I hadn't seen even the slightest trace of another human. Even out in the wilds there were often hints left scattered about by those who cared for little but themselves. Cigarette butts, beer cans, the inevitable bits of plastic garbage, firepits where anything even remotely combustible was cast into the gasoline fuelled flames. All were missing. As were power lines, cut lines, clear cuts, roads. Anything that would have told me that I wasn't all alone out here.

I had to admit that it fit in with everything else that I had seen to date, and that made me distinctly uneasy. I don't like mysteries. I don't like uncertainty, and this situation had more than enough of both.

Why me? Why was I the one to have all of this dumped on me? I felt the anger build up, smouldering, smoking, threatening to burst into an all consuming fire. I was unable to hold it back. In a blind fit of rage I voiced an inarticulate yell and grabbed hold of the pine I had been leaning against with both hands and shook it for all I was worth. The only thing I succeeded in doing was drenching myself in a shower of melting snow and pine needles.

The anger faded away as I collapsed to the ground, and an indescribable feeling of emptiness took its place. I took a moment to pick the pine needles out of my hair as I sat overlooking the valley and my hand brushed across the bandage wrapped around my head. I had forgotten about that. With as much care as I could muster at a time like that, I gingerly peeled the bandage away from my scalp and held it out in front of me. The wind toyed with it as I held it in my shaking hands.

A simple greyish piece of coarse cloth that's what it was. Perhaps it had been white at one time but now it was stained with sweat and the brown splotches of dried blood. As I sat and stared at it, a rather sobering thought pushed its way through the confused jumble floating in my head.

I was very lucky to be alive. Not only that but I owed my continuing existence to an impossible creature that had helped me more than I could put into words. She had dragged me away from certain death in the snow and into the life giving warmth of the cabin. She had tended my wounds and ultimately healed my fractured arm. She had given me food from what meagre supplies she had. All of this she had done without even knowing who or what I was, and all she had done without asking a thing in return.

The bloodstained bandage hung loosely in my hand, the wind threatening to tear it from my numb fingers. So much had happened in the last few days, so much strangeness, so many things that resisted my half hearted attempts to explain them. Had I really been disconnected from the world I knew so well as if by the flipping of a switch? One minute I was there, now I was somewhere else entirely. A place where humans seemed not to exist, a realm where wolves have the ability to walk on two legs and to heal broken bones at a simple touch. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I lifted my left arm into view and scrutinized it carefully. Short hours ago it had been broken, the pain of the splintered bones a constant companion. Now, after a brief and unbelievable episode of 'healing', it was as good as new. How was that possible? It defied any sort of logical explanation. Memory flared to life, a distant echo from the dim recesses of my mind _"everything is connected to everything else."_That was what the voice in my head had revealed to me during the healing. It had been Sharra's voice, no less. How it got inside my head at a time like that was beyond me. I clenched my hands into fists. Was there any hidden meaning behind those words or was I to accept them at face value? I tiredly shook my head.

How any of this was possible was a mystery to me. I did my best to shut out the world around me and withdrew deeper into my thoughts.

The sun crept ever closer to the mountains in the west, the shadows grew long and a distinct chill crept into the air. It came as a surprise to me when I realized that there was little time left before the sun dipped below the horizon. It was time for me to head back.

The muscles in my legs were cramped and stiff from sitting in one place for too long and they made their displeasure felt when I forced myself to my feet. I looked down in surprise when I realized that the bloodstained bandage was still clamped in my fist. After a moment's indecision, I carefully folded it into a square and put it into the pocket of my jeans.

I had to make my way back to the cabin soon, or risk getting lost in the approaching darkness. I bid the valley farewell and turned back the way I came. I trudged along head down, retracing my steps in the soft snow as the twilight forest closed in around me. My thoughts drifted to Sharra. What exactly was she? That was another question that plagued me. At first glance, she was unquestionably canine. However, after taking a closer look and talking to her for a while, I wasn't so sure. Her expressions and anatomy revealed an intriguing mix of canine and human characteristics. Two possibilities for her existence presented themselves to me, and neither one of them made me feel very much at ease.

The first and by far the most plausible possibility that came to mind was genetic engineering. Given the state of biotechnology at the time when I was thrown out of my old life, creating a canine/human hybrid didn't seem all that far fetched. But that did little to explain the lack of any sign of civilization in these parts. It could have been that I was stranded in the middle of a national park or a wildlife preserve or something else along those lines, but that still got me no closer to the truth. If Sharra was some kind of genetic experiment, one would think that she would have been restricted to the confines of a laboratory, and not be living out in the proverbial middle of nowhere. The most crucial bit of evidence against that possibility was that I was nearly one hundred percent sure that Sharra had never seen a human before. But then again, maybe her creators weren't human. That last thought didn't sit particularly well with me.

The second possibility was the one that seemed to fit in with everything I'd seen so far, and it was by far the most disturbing possibility for me to contemplate. It could be that Sharra was a member of a canine species that had evolved to a human level of intelligence. The human characteristics that I saw in her could simply be a case of form adapting to function. I wasn't quite sure what that would entail, but it could have meant that I was no longer a resident of planet Earth. There were other possibilities along similar path as that one. The theme often found in science fiction about parallel universes came to mind as did the possibility of having traveled far into the distant future.

I wasn't exactly sure if I wanted to know which possibility, if any, were correct. One thing was for sure though. After all that had happened in the last three days, it was a wonder that I was still sane.

That brought up a third option. In actuality I could have been stuck in a padded room in the psycho ward of a mental hospital somewhere and all of this was simply some sort of weird delusion. That could explain the unspeakably weird translation that took place whenever Sharra spoke to me.

My impromptu laughter echoed through the trees and faded to a chuckle as I kept walking. If this was a delusion or hallucination, I didn't know they could last this long or be this real.

At least Sharra was being friendly towards me. Her motives were unclear, but I hadn't felt threatened by her yet. She seemed quite civil actually. It was just way too strange to see something that looked like a wolf walk and talk like a human.

I stopped in mid stride as I was suddenly struck by the memory that she hadn't been wearing a stitch of clothing during the whole time I talked with her. My eyebrows shot straight up, and I broke out laughing again. With a stupid grin plastered on my face I resumed my trek back to the cabin, shaking my head along the way. I guess with a built in fur coat, she wouldn't really have the need for clothing now would she?

One thought however stuck in my head, and that was: How did I not realize that she wasn't wearing anything until just now?

I started laughing again. This was weirdness, plain and simple. It was so far beyond my ability to explain it that I figured I might as well just go with the flow and try to make the best of a peculiar situation.

I was almost at the main trail now, the one that I had split off from on my way out. It was a good thing too, because the light was fading fast and all the colours were going with it. The forest was blending into a uniform grey hue and I had no desire to have to stumble my way through the trees in the dark.

By the time I reached the edge of the clearing in which the cabin stood, there was barely enough light for me to see Sharra perched on the edge of the porch. She was staring in my direction, ears perked up and head cocked to one side. I stopped. She craned her neck this way and that, all the while staring right at me. I wondered what she was doing when all of a sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks. She didn't see me! The distance was only sixty or seventy metres, I would guess, but from the looks of it she could hear me but not see me, or maybe she couldn't see me well enough to recognize who I was. Not that I should have been that hard to pick out. There seemed to be a startling lack of humans in these parts. However, it did give me a bit of a clue as to how she might see things. From what I knew of dogs and wolves, their eyesight is among the worst of their senses. They rely heavily on their senses of smell and hearing, both of which are far more sensitive than any human's. The wind was going in the wrong direction for Sharra to get scent of me, so she might not have known who or what she was hearing.

A mischievous grin spread slowly across my face. There are times that I can't suppress the side of me that is a bit of a practical joker. I felt a little guilty for what I was about to do to Sharra, but I figured it was time for a little experiment. With as much stealth as I could muster, I melted back into the trees and dropped down to my hands and knees in the snow. I took a moment or two to formulate a plan. There were low bushes and a few small trees in the clearing that may just hide me enough in the fading light to get within twenty or so metres of the cabin without Sharra knowing who was creeping up on her.

This was going to be interesting. As slowly and as stealthily as I could, I picked my way towards the cabin, keeping behind the dubious cover of winter bare willows and among the shadows as much as I could. As I got closer, Sharra became distinctly nervous. I could see her ears twitching this way and that as she tried to pin down my location. She lifted her muzzle to the air and sniffed the breeze.

I was trying so hard not to break out laughing. I had moved another thirty or so metres closer and Sharra was still not sure what was going on. By the looks of it, she was getting really uneasy. After another moment of creeping around, I figured I should end my little experiment before it got out of hand. I groped around in the snow until my searching fingers located a suitable stick. Waiting for exactly the right moment, I threw it a good fifteen or twenty metres away. When she heard the stick land, Sharra sprung to her feet and stared out into the gathering darkness with her back towards me. At the exact moment she jumped to her feet, I stood up from the shadows and waited, trying desperately to hide the wide grin plastered on my face. After a moment of staring with ears perked alertness in the direction that the stick went, Sharra turned back to my location.

I'll never forget her reaction as long as I live. She jumped straight back a good half metre and let out a high pitched yelp of surprise. There was a moment of wide-eyed silence while she collected her wits, culminating with the following exclamation:

"What were you doing? You scared me half to death!"

My response was to finally let out the laughter I'd been holding in for the past few minutes. When I finally regained control of myself, I walked nonchalantly up towards her. I could see that her eyes were still as wide as saucers.

"Sorry Sharra. I just couldn't resist doing that" I said between chuckles. "When I came to the edge of the clearing and saw that you didn't know it was me making all that noise out there in the dark, I thought it might be entertaining to sneak up on you."

She looked a bit angry. Her ears were back and her eyes were narrowed almost to slits.

"Entertaining for who?" She asked. "You? Or me?"

I grinned again. "Me." then hastily I added "Don't worry Sharra, I was just having a little fun. Look on the bright side, in a few weeks you'll be able to look back on this and laugh."

She gave me an odd glance before shaking her head and chuckling. "You know, you are probably right about that."

I gave her a friendly smile in return. "No harm done?"

She looked up at me and a mischievous smile appeared on her muzzle. "No, I will think of some way to get even with you"

I nodded my head. "I'm sure you will. But for now, let's cook up some dinner, I'm a little hungry after all of that walking and thinking."

"I am not surprised" she said as she led the way into the cabin, her tail wagging happily behind her.

I stayed out on the porch for a moment longer and watched as a few stars sprung to life in the twilight sky. This wasn't so bad I told to myself. At least I didn't have to get up and go to work tomorrow morning.

I was still chuckling to myself as I made my way into the cabin at last. I had the feeling that the next few weeks were going to get interesting.