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Jacob stood in silence, his eyes wide, too stunned to speak. The young wolf wanted to whimper, to cry at the loss of his parents and his bleak fate, but the bleak landscape before him killed the sound in his throat. He stood on a rock outcrop with the few morphs who managed to escape the Vault. The air was incredibly dry and the wind moaned sadly, the land that stretched before them was dry, barren, dead.

Behind him he heard shrieks of pain made faint through the several feet of steel that made up the cog-shaped door that sealed the Vault from the dead world outside. Those screams came from dying morphs being brutally murdered at the hands of the human occupants of the Vault, beaten, shot, having their pelts ripped from their bodies while they were still alive. Two of those voices belonged to Jacob's mommy and daddy.

He didn't know what to do. He couldn't go back to the only home he knew for the eight years since he was born, and he couldn't possibly make it in this dead world. The ground cracked, nothing green in sight in the entire valley. A single building sat by a dilapidated road that ran through the valley. Once gleaming parked cars sat rusting in front of the dirty service station. Off somewhere in the distance down the road wailed an air raid siren, the terrible droning wail was the only thing that pierced the dead silence.

Suddenly Jacob found himself falling as if he had plunged straight through the ground and into open air. He fell through darkness, infernos casting dancing shadows over decaying buildings and the faces of humans wielding bloody blades, cackling as they came to skin him. He fell and fell, endlessly into the darkness...

_____

Jacob landed on something hard, knocking the wind from him. Breathing hard he grabbed the handgun resting on his chest and rolled to his feet in one smooth motion, well honed instinct guiding him. The debris on the floor crunched under his boots and he swept the small room with his 10mm pistol for threats. His breath came in gasps and his paws shook as they gripped his weapon. The room was empty, and by listening close confirmed that the rest of the building was as well, he lowered the pistol with a relieved sigh, leaning against the weathered wall. Just a nightmare. Then he realized with a start he realized that the sound of the air raid siren was still present. A chill ran up his spine. The siren was distant, he could tell by its faintness, but still, it was time to go; that siren hadn't come alive on its own.

He stowed his handgun in one of the baggy pockets of the worn brown duster he wore, the leather made darker by the dust and dirt of the Mojave. He looked down at himself to make sure he was all still there, and not in the nightmarish hell he had awakened from. He looked at his worn paws, covered in dark grey fur mottled with lighter spots; he was too young to have gray fur that light.

He pulled on his worn leather gloves and began packing up his gear quickly. He had to move. This building may provide sanctuary against the wind-thrown sand and heat and cold, but it was the only structure for miles. Any raiders in the area would check it frequently for lone travelers. Besides, he couldn't stay around hearing that sound, it chilled him to the bone, bringing back the memory he had just so vividly relived. He shouldered his pack and picked up the old but well cared-for M4 carbine he had left leaning against the wall the previous night. It was in better condition than anything in the room, including Jacob himself.

The dry Nevada soil crunched under his boots as he stepped out the door of the small long abandoned service station he had camped out in for the night. His notched ears swiveled to pinpoint the source of the air-raid siren. With relief he confirmed it was coming from somewhere south, he wouldn't approach it as he traveled down the highway that led east.

He began walking down the decaying highway towards the morning sun, eager to put distance between him and the wailing to the south. He scanned the landscape around him out of habit for signs of threats or civilization. His mind wasn't in it though; the distant morose droning of the siren forced him to keep reliving the most terrifying day of his life.

_____

"Jacob get up we have to go now!" Mommy's terrified voice reach his ears, made bleary as he struggled awake. The lights flickered to life a few moments after Mommy had thrown the switch. The lights in the Vault hadn't worked properly since he was four.

"What's wrong?" Jacob asked groggily as he turned in his bed to face the doorway, twisting the covers about himself.

From the main living space of their small Vault apartment Jacob he could hear his father let out a savage yell and a grunt. Mommy turned and looked back through the door, her eyes wide and her paws covering her mouth, holding in a scream. There was fighting for several seconds and then a loud crash and thump. Jacob leapt out of bed and rushed to Mommy, trying to see what was happening. "Daddy?"

Daddy was frightening. He stood over the motionless form of a human sprawled across the floor, his fur bristling and panting as he held a pistol in his shaking paws, pointed at the man on the ground. He shook himself out of his reverie and looked to Mommy and then at Jacob. "Come on, there's no time to take anything, more will be here soon." But Mommy stood frozen in the doorway, trembling as she stared at the motionless human on the floor. "Now woman!" Daddy yelled. He leapt forward and grabbed Mommy's paw and tugged her along.

Mommy clamped her free paw on Jacob's and together the three darted into the hallway outside their living quarters. Jacob could hear yelling down the hallway and looked up at Mommy, now starting to get scared. "What's happening?"

Before Mommy could reply Daddy pulled them along the hall in the opposite direction of the yells. Jacob didn't know where they were going or why they were running so fast or why that human had tried to hurt Daddy, but he was too scared to speak as they ran along. They passed through the hallway that ran along the main Vault recreation area and Jacob peered through the windows into the large room. Groups of humans stood over struggling morphs, beating them savagely with whatever they could get their hands on, stabbing them with kitchen knives. There was blood all over the cold steel floor.

_____

Jacob was jolted back to the present as he saw something on the side of the road in the distance. An abandoned car it looked like. He stood still and thought for a minute, deciding whether to steer clear or investigate. It could be dangerous, he'd seen unwary scavengers lured in by the prospect of untouched pre-war supplies, only to be robbed of everything, and that was if they were lucky. Often they were simply sniped from afar, and sometimes the really twisted raiders rigged the car with explosives as a means of entertainment.

He decided he'd be better off leaving the car alone, but that was easier said than done. Running alongside the road was a steep cliff about fifty feet high, and chances were there were raiders sitting up on the heights. It would take an extra hour at least to detour out into the country, and other dangers lurked out there. He would have to find a way up onto the heights and try to sneak by behind them.

He kept on walking, looking for a path up onto the cliff. And though it was now noon, the blazing sun high in the sky baking the dead earth, and he had made some good progress, the sound of the air-raid siren carried far over the landscape and still wailed in his ears.

_____

Jacob's father had led them to a junction with another hallway where a group of morphs joined them, fleeing pursuit by a mob of humans wielding billy clubs, hammers, even pool cues. Jacob saw another with a gun in front of the mob yelling at the morphs to halt. They kept running. Up a flight of steps, down a hall, up more stairs; all the while the humans kept pace, shouting insults and taunts madly at them.

Shots rang out, the sound echoing weirdly off the metal walls. Earsplitting screams erupted behind Jacob as a couple morphs lurched forward onto the ground, almost tripping Jacob. Mommy forced him in front of her and Daddy and they kept running. They turned a corner and Jacob saw a single door at the end of the hall. Suddenly only a dozen feet from the door Mommy's head snapped back violently as another gunshot rang out behind them, her paw slipped from Jacob's as she slumped to the floor lifelessly.

Daddy howled with rage and snapped around, fire in his eyes. He raised the stolen pistol and fired twice, the human who had shot Mommy stumbled and fell, causing the rest of the humans to pause as they stumbled over him. Daddy grabbed Jacob's paw and yanked him towards the door. As he yanked it open Jacob looked back where Mommy lay, her dark fur and the wall beside her splattered with crimson blood. Daddy shoved him through the door and slammed it shut once every morph was through, the crazed humans a scant half-dozen feet away.

They were in a room that Jacob had never seen, only heard about. It was dark and grimy. A control panel stood on a platform nearby and a large cog-shaped steel door stood set into the wall at the far end of the room with dingy yellow numbers painted on it. Daddy slammed the lock on the door to the hallway and scrambled to the control panel where he rapidly punched in a code and threw a lever forward. At first nothing happened, but then large metal clamps near the ceiling by the Vault door shuddered to life and descended upon it. It began to pull the large steel door inward with an agonizingly loud screech as metal scraped against metal, causing Jacob and the other morphs to cover their ears.

Yelling and pounding came from the door to the hallway as the humans tried to force their way in. Everyone looked nervously from the door behind them to the large one before them, now pulled out of position and rolling painfully slowly to the side. The mass of morphs rushed towards the Vault door and the blinding light pouring through it just as the door behind them groaned and buckled, threatening to give way. Daddy and a couple others rushed to it to hold it closed. Jacob stood, looking from Daddy to the open Vault door terror stricken. "Daddy it's open!" he yelled.

Daddy looked down at him, to the control panel behind him, and to the gaping Vault door in rapid succession. There was no one left in the room but the few adults and Jacob and the lock on hallway door failed with a loud crack. "Jacob, I'm sorry. Your mother and I love you very much. You have to run!"

"Daddy no!" Jacob cried, tears matting the fur around his eyes.

Daddy raised his pistol and fired at the control panel. The great steel door shuddered to life once more, slowly rolling back into position. "Take this!" he said and pushed the pistol into Jacob's paws. "Go!" he yelled as the mass of humans began to push the hallway door open.

Jacob stood staring at Daddy, whose own eyes were now filled with tears, for a couple more seconds before turning and tearing down the steps towards the closing Vault door. He sprinted and leapt through the opening. He turned in time to see the humans force the hallway door open and swarm upon Daddy and the other adults, bloody billy clubs and crowbars raised.

_____

At last Jacob found a path leading up to the heights, bringing him out of his trance again. He had let his concentration slip and found himself much closer to the abandoned car than he would have liked and had still found no way onto the heights. Chances were that if there were raiders nearby, they weren't far away. He looked back over his shoulder at the way he had came; he should have looped around the car through the country, but it was too late for that.

He hefted his M4 to a combat-ready position and swept the cliff edge as he headed up the path. He winced and swore silently as he heard his boots crunching loudly on the ground. The wind had died and the siren was almost more eerie in its absence, now the silence was as complete as death. The only sound came from the dry dirt as it crunched beneath Jacob's boots.

He sniffed the still air for scent with his good canine nose. Nothing. Far from reassured he continued up the path as quiet as he could, but the crunching of the dirt sounded so loud. He had to keep turning to sweep for threats now, the path was walled in now as it wound its way up and through the rock and away from the road to the heights. He could feel his guts knotting up as anxiety grew in him, his heart beating faster. He swore he could hear it beating in the deathly quiet.

Suddenly there was a gust of wind that brought with it a familiar scent to Jacob's nose, but one he had not smelled in a long time: humans. Cold fear raced up his spine. Human raiders were the worst, they had a burning psychotic hatred for the morphs that ruled the world they still considered theirs. Horror stories brought back by survivors who had somehow managed to escape told that they spared no morphs, and suggested that they particularly enjoyed skinning morphs of their fur, alive.

Jacob swung his rifle instinctively to the source of the scent as soon as it hit his nose, moving fluidly despite the fear gripping him. But he was too late, there were five hunting rifles pointed at him, each one held by a grimy human male. They had sick grins on their faces, like hunters anticipating the taste of the meat from their kill. Jacob felt his insides turn inside out, he could see trophies of previous kills hanging off of them, fur, claws, fangs...

This was it, the end of the line, the end of the wolf hunt, the point where the wolf was surrounded with no escape. But after everything he had gone through, everything he had survived...he wasn't going to give up now without a fight. It felt like time was passing in slow motion, a second was an eternity, each breath came slowly. He began to depress the trigger of his rifle, he could feel the spring compress. He knew exactly how much pressure he needed, exactly when the rifle would fire.