Several months earlier...

Faces swirled and materialized in his head. Long gone, transient reminders of a life that had once been, fading into existence from blackness, and fading away again just as quickly as they'd formed. His childhood friends, running around, laughing, believing for a few short moments that they hadn't a care in the world. The adults around him, trying to maintain order, pretending that they could right their sinking ship, and keep matters from becoming any worse than they already were.

The faces of his two fathers.

Strong men, powerful leaders, though both in different ways. One of them with hard, stony features, determined to do whatever it took to ensure his people's survival. The other one a bit softer, more understanding, but with just as much resolve. Two pillars in his life that had seemed, once upon a time, as though they would be with him forever.

But now, slowly they faded away. Bit by bit, their faces crumbled, falling out of focus, and then dissipating completely. Leaving him alone, bathed in the black of night, with no one or anything.

His true self. The only version of him that had existed, nearly for as long as he could remember.

He awoke. Drenched in sweat. His naked body dripping onto the floor of the cave, his skin so hot that he was honestly surprised to find himself in his human form.

“Shit,” he muttered, shivering, and brought a cold palm to his drenched forehead. He thought it was the nightmare that had awoken him from sleep, and he could already feel himself fading back toward unconsciousness, teetering dangerously toward slumber.

Then his ears pricked up. He heard the sound of breathing. His nostrils flared, and his eyes widened at the smell. A familiar, unwelcome odor. The potent scent of canine musk.

“Damn it,” he breathed, goosebumps erupting along the course of his skin. “They've found me.”

He rose up from his bed of stone and brushed his fingers through his hair, combing it free of his eyes. He inhaled deeply and crept toward the mouth of the cave, on edge, preparing for the fight he knew was coming for him, whether he wanted it or not.

“Come on, you son of a bitch...”

It was a full moon out, predictably enough. Of course, what other conditions would these monstrous creatures choose to strike? He narrowed his eyes as he craned his neck around, his ears piqued, his nostrils flaring. At the first sign of movement, he would be ready to spring into action. Or, so he hoped.

“Come on...Come on...”

And there it was.

It nearly gave him a heart attack. The dark gray form appearing out of nowhere, not even a trace of motion. As though it had been lurking in the darkness the entire time, just waiting to be noticed. It's luminescent green eyes reflected the pale orb of the moon, staring at him without blinking, as the creature's black jaws pulled back, revealing a full mouth of vicious, yellow fangs.

A low, guttural growl emanated from deep within the wolf's chest, the sort that made the man's own insides tremble with tension. He locked eyes with the creature, challenging it, refusing to give in to the pressure. He stuck out a hand, the palm outstretched, pushing his luck even further still.

“All right. All right. Just take it easy there, fella. Let's not do anything that either of us is going to regret here. I'm sure we can come to some kind of—”

It was in the air before he even finished speaking. Its body airborne, its mouth wide, saliva frothing from between its open jaws. The crushing of teeth. A howl of pain. Blood gushing down his arm from the open wound, and the beast clinging to his flesh for dear life.

He lifted his arm up into the air with a tremendous effort, the wolf clinging to him like it was little more than his favorite chew toy. “God damn it, I warned you!”

He drew back with his free arm. He swung through the air and crushed the wolf's stomach beneath a solid fist. The creature yelped in pain. Its teeth ripped out of him in a spurt of blood, and the wolf toppled back down the undergrowth, skidding several feet south along the slope leading to the cave. Its thin legs kicked and tore through the dirt and leaves, scrambling to try and upright itself. It went several feet before it got itself flipped back around again, then it sprung forward back at the man, its jaws snapping, its thirst for blood seeming far greater than before.

But the man wasn't there anymore...

In his place, a massive black grizzly bear loomed in the cold moonlight. His frame tremendous. His teeth bared, his claws outstretched in a threatening pose. His nostrils flared as though daring the creature to try that again, and the wolf was already racing too rapidly toward it to heed such valuable advice.

The minuscule canine body plunged into the bear like a bug hitting a windshield. The wolf's victim scarcely budged at the blow but whipped its arms up and sunk its claws into the creature's sides. The wolf's weightless body went flying through the air, smashing hard into the ground, and skidding once again across the undergrowth.

It was up again in the blink of an eye, seemingly bound and determined not to let this grizzly bastard get the better of it. It leapt up at the bear, challenging it to a face-off that it must have immediately known it would lose. The bear dragged a massive paw through the air and ripped through the side of the wolf's face, evoking a howl of pain. The wolf snapped at the grizzly's arm but bore the force of another hard blow, this time across the bottom of its neck.

It toppled again, and it was clear as its body hit the trunk of a tree that it wouldn't bounce back so easily this time. It rolled through the leaves and skidded to a halt, whimpering with pain, a glistening pool of red forming beneath it in the moonlight.

The bear stood and stared at it, breathing deep, trying to decide what to do. He hated any unnecessary loss of life but knew that if he let the son of a bitch go, there would likely be hell to pay for it at some point down the road. He needed to end this fight, before the wolf got word back to the others as to the bear's location.

But it was already too late for that...

The grizzly loomed over its fallen opponent, his paw raised, ready to administer the death blow. The last thing it saw was the wolf's green eyes, glistening up at him as though begging for him to be merciful. Then POW!

The bear felt the wind being knocked from its body. Pain shooting up his spine as a weight slammed into him, small, but with a fierce momentum. It knocked him forward off his balance, causing him to slam his head into the same tree that had helped cripple the moribund wolf at his feet.

A second canine, its claws digging into the bear's thick pelt. Gripping him from behind. Doing its damnedest to bite into his thick flesh, and tear him to pieces.

The bear let out its mightiest of roars. He thrashed. He tore. He flung his claws behind his back, scrambling to dislodge the wolf with all of his might, but the wolf was digging in harder. Latching itself in place with a seemingly unbreakable fierceness. Absolutely refusing to let go.

The bear felt the agony of its skin begin torn at, the sting of his blood as it clotted up into his fur. Then slowly the haze of his concussion subsided, the panic giving way to a clear and obvious solution.

He whipped his body around and flung himself back toward the tree with the wolf still clinging to him. He felt the hulking weight of the tree as it slammed into his spine. Felt the wolf being crushed between wood and fur, its bones breaking. A blood-curdling whine of sheer pain rang in his ears, and he kept pushing, in spite of it.

At last the bear jerked forward, letting the broken form of the wolf topple onto its fallen comrade with a meager yelp. He growled at the two of them. By now, though, he was by no means arrogant enough to believe that would be the end of it.

No sooner had the grizzly turned his back than two more wolves materialized instantly from the darkness, their jaws snapping, their eyes shimmering with hate. The bear whipped his body violently around, tearing his trunk-like arms through the air. The mighty beast slashed at the two wolves with its great claws. Felt the tearing of flesh and fur. Heard the deep thud of their bodies as they hit the grass, not nearly as hard as the first two.

Time to bolt for it.

Without waiting for more company, the bear's tremendous body shot into the darkness, galloping through the woods on his four mighty paws. He’d only made it a few feet when another wolf sprang out, was crushed by the grizzly's furious momentum, and sent flying back hard in the direction it had come from.

How did they find me? Where the hell am I going to go? I was already in the most deserted place in this entire goddamn forest! There's nowhere left for me to run!

His thoughts were cut short by the surge of pain from another wolf biting down hard on the bear's neck. The pain coursed through its body, and streams of blood raced down through its pelt.

The bear didn't even care anymore. If this was the end, then this was the end. He wasn't going to keep buckling under the pressure from these sons of bitches.

He kept on running, and after a while the wolf's jaws were ripped loose. A sharp tear of pain in the bear's neck, but then the relief of the beast's weight diminishing, leaving him to run unimpeded. He still had a very long way to go, though.

The wolves lurked around every corner. They leapt out from behind every shadow, every tree, through every cold shaft of moonlight. Biting. Clawing. Tearing at the bear’s legs.

Doing everything in their power to bring the beast down.

The bear kept running. Kept fighting for its life, even as its hope drained away.

His original goal was to make it down off of the slope, to somewhere he might actually have some hope of escaping. The wolves came up at him from that very same direction, though, always choking off the path, clustering around him in such relentless numbers that there was no recourse of escape, no possible way of tearing through them. The only way to go was up.

The bear was forced along up a steep slope, toward the crest of the highest mountain in the entire forest. It wasn't at all where he wished to go, but he made some hasty calculations. Maybe, just maybe, if he got far enough away from these bastards fast enough, he could descend down the other side before they managed to catch up, and escape from the woods down the opposite slope as he’d originally hoped to do on this side. It was a long shot, of course, but at this point it seemed like the only shot he had.

He lunged forward. His muscles aching, his open wounds screaming in the cold night air, and sweat dripping painfully down into the blood. But he kept going. He refused to relent. Refused to let the light of his sleuth be extinguished on this night, after the same sons of bitches chasing him had already gone so far out of the way to diminish them to the point of virtual extinction.

He kept on going. He ran. And ran. And ran.

At last, he came to the peak of the mountain.

His chest swelled with a final surge of hope. He rose up mightily, determined to make it out of this place alive.

Then the glowing green eyes materialized from the darkness...

He skidded to a halt, struggling not to topple straight into them. The wolves had seen right through the plan, he realized. Or even worse, they'd designed the plan themselves. Driven the bear to the one place in the forest they knew he couldn't possibly get away, cornered him like a cat cornering a mouse.

Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! How the hell could I have been so stupid?!

The grizzly veered back around, desperate to backtrack. It was clear immediately, however, that this was not going to be an option. The wolves had swarmed up from behind as well, and now surrounded the crest of the mountain on all sides, blocking off any and all options for escape.

The bear paced back and forth, back and forth. Then he froze.

He knew he was defeated.

He stood there in the circle of these dogs, disbelieving that this could possibly be the end. He wondered, now that he saw his fate so clearly, whether the nightmare in the cave had been a portent of things shortly to come. Whether the faces of so many loved ones had been calling out to the dreamer, telling him that he was soon to join them, that it wouldn't be long at all now. But if that was the case, the man would make them proud. As the last representative of their people, he would do what he could, he would fight to the very end, and refuse to go quietly.

The bear stretched himself out, pushing his chest forward, trying to make himself as large as possible in the eyes of the wolves circled around him. To look intimidating. Powerful. Invincible.

And who the hell am I kidding?

Looking around at all those eyes, all those hungry jaws frothing with a hunger for his blood. There was simply no way. No possibility, even, of attempting to die with any kind of honor.

I've lived all my life running. I've been so alone, for so long. My story can't end like this. It just can't...

What happened next was something the wolves surely couldn't have been expecting. The bear lowered his head. He sank onto his knees. He disappeared. The fur receded. The frame shrank to a minuscule fraction of what it had originally been.

The man was left kneeling before them, naked and vulnerable, tears streaming down his face in unstoppable torrents. He knew exactly how pathetic he must look in their eyes, how defeated. And he didn't care. Defeated was the only word to describe how he felt. The only possible emotion to capture this darkest of moments.

“What the hell do you want from me?” he begged the wolves. He had no pride left to defend. Nothing in the world worth standing up for. The only thing he had left was his life, and at this point he simply couldn't be above begging for it.

He didn't expect an answer. Didn't expect a damn thing in the world but the rush of movement, the piercing of teeth into flesh, tearing what was left of him, and his people, into little bite-sized pieces.

What he really didn't expect was the sound of a grizzled human voice, its tone sick, cold, and vicious. “We want you gone. And we want the land that has been the territory of our people for generations back under our possession.”

The man looked up.

Three nude males stood before him, their bodies inked black with tattoos, their eyes the exact same cold, green hue of the wolves surrounding him on all sides.

“What? You have your land. You have all of this, everything!”

“No,” said the lead figure, a man with a scruffy black beard and wild, untamed hair. “You are the last of our great enemy, the Noble Sleuth of the Sun Grizzlies. As long as even one of you exists anywhere on this sacred land, a single pathetic soul, it will forever be our mission to ensure your removal, by any means necessary.”

“God...Jesus, you know—this is...this is unreal. Don't you think you've done enough as it is? You don't think wiping out everything, everyone I've ever known, loved, or cared about is sufficient? Letting me live in a cave without a single soul around for miles is just too much for you, isn't it? You have to make your extermination as complete as you possibly can.”

The wolf shifter smiled malevolently down at him.

“I'm sorry it must be this way. But you surely understand that it must. It's nothing personal. It's only competition. The humans have driven us into smaller and smaller pockets of existence, and among these pockets we must do everything we can to preserve what remains of our land. The moment we let even a single interloper such as yourself continue to exist in this place we call our home, we fail at our most sacred of missions. And such a failure is not a luxury we are presently able to afford.”

“I see,” said the man on the ground, breathing deep, trying to wrap his head around this. “So that's it, then. You want to get rid of me. Completely. To kill me for trying to preserve the only home I've ever known.”

“This place is not your home,” said the wolf shifter, and the man on the ground knew this was true. This place had not been his home for a very long time, as much as he'd tried to pretend it some day could be again.

“What if I leave?” he said finally, gambling the only thing he had left. “What if I depart this forest forever, never to return? Would you let me leave this place, with my tail between my legs? Would that final act of degradation be enough for you to spare me?”

There was a deafening silence. He thought the man might burst out laughing at him at any moment. The wolves, for that matter, were sinking toward the ground, looking prepared to strike at any moment, the instant their leader gave the word.

The man was surprised as they were at the next words that passed forth from the lips of the head wolf shifter.

“Yes. I believe I would.”

His head jerked up, and several of the wolves stared at their leader with perplexed looks across their muzzles.

“You—you would?” asked the man, incredulous.

The head wolf shifter nodded. “Leave this forest. Leave, and never again even think about setting foot in it. Do that, and your life shall be spared. I see no point in relentless cruelty when the situation does not call for it. But be warned. Return to this place again after you've left, and there will be no compromise. You shall be killed, on the spot, by the first of our kind who happens to stumble onto you.”

His voice caught in his throat. He looked down at the ground, considering the prospect of leaving this place forever. The impossible conditions he was about to agree to. Yet he knew that he had no other choice but to capitulate.

He nodded his head.

“Okay. Okay,” he said. It almost occurred to him to say thank you, but he stopped himself. He wasn't about to show gratitude to these bastards.

The head wolf shifter stared at him for a long moment, as though to assess his sincerity. Then he gave a single, low nod of his head, as though judging his decision a sincere one.

“Very well. You have until sunrise to take your leave of this place, and to never return for the remainder of your days. We will leave you alone until you go. Collect whatever possessions you may have and anything else of that nature you feel needs to be taken care of. But be aware, my men will be keeping an eye on you until you're gone. Don't think there's a place in these woods where you can hide from us, where we won't be able to discover you. We will find you, just as we've done tonight. And I reiterate, there will be no second chances.”

The man stared up at the head wolf shifter and gave him a short, unfriendly nod.

“Don't worry,” he said. “For the very first time in my life, I'm done hiding.”

Hours later, as the sun cast its saturated orange glow over the face of the hillside and the trees appeared to burn with autumn foliage despite it being the middle of springtime, a single male figure trudged his way down along the slope, out onto the road that ran alongside the mountains. An abandoned road, cracked and in a state of general disrepair, the white and yellow faded against the gray asphalt.

The man set foot onto the cool pavement, standing there for a moment, completely naked in the midst of the civilized world. He took a very deep breath, and even this first inhalation of air seemed different to him. Like he could tell instantly that the world he'd entered into had changed from the one he’d left behind.

He could feel the eyes of the wolf shifters locked on his back. Unseen, hidden from view, but there all the same. As present and as plentiful as the strange new air he now breathed.

He tried to ignore them, though. After all, this wasn't their story anymore.

As much as he hated them, he knew that, in some ways, they were doing him a favor. They were giving him the impetus he'd been searching for to finally get up and leave this place, pushing through his fears. There was nothing for him here anymore. There hadn't been for a very long time. He just hadn't had it in him to leave of his own volition.

Now, though, as he stood on the edge of the road, he ran his fingers slowly through his long brown locks, thinking about the future. He could already imagine shearing every hair from his head, shedding his wildness, leaving this whole unhappy life behind him.

It was time, he knew. Whether he was ready for it or not, he knew it was time.

He took another last deep breath of clean forest air. Then he placed a single foot forward onto the road, unsure of where it might lead him, but determined to follow it until he got to wherever he needed to be.

“Look out world,” he muttered under his breath, his eyes narrowed on the horizon. “Here I come.”