Chapter 1

Dreams

Disclaimer:

Toboe: Hello everyone! This is going to a sad story. It's my first sad story so please review! I would love lots of reviews! I don't own any of the Wolf's Rain crew but I do own the wolf slaves and the evil lady. By the way I am against slavery! (sights) So don't think I'm unbalanced or anything. By the way the italicized part that's in the middle of the page is Toboe's dream so it's told in his point of view. Normal italicized words are wolves speaking and humans can't understand it. Now on with my story!

Edited and replaced on Monday, May 28 2007

I was dreaming.

It was that dream that never went away.

No matter how hard I tried to forget those.

It had been haunting me for two long years now.

My friends…family all gone.

They abandoned me.

A skinny brown wolf twitched in his bed. He whimpered and it joined several other voices in the small cramped room he was in. There were five bunk beds on two walls and two doors, one leading out of the small room another to a stinky hole in the ground.

'Kiba!'

The white wolf who had taken me away form starvation and loneliness walked right passed me

'Hige!'

The brown wolf's furry cubby walked past me over to Kiba

'Blue!'

The she-wolf was following Hige and affectionately nuzzled him

'Tsume!'

The gray wolf with his cross shaped scar who I thought of as an older brother walked right past me.

I tried to walk with them but my feet won't move.

I looked down confused

They were shackled.

'Kiba! Hige! Blue! Tsume!'

'HELP ME!'

They walked away from me.

My tears froze on my face as the snow covered their path.

I howled!

I screamed!

The wolf broke out in a cold sweat and he felt pain on his back and paws. "Please" he moaned.

I screamed again

begging them to come back for me.

Then I saw eyes starring at me

I was relived

They came back

Yellow and blue eyes lovingly looked down but then they changed

My friends…family they towered over me on the snow

Their eyes glowing red

' We left you' they laughed

'We don't want you'

'You wined and beg'

'You never keep up'

'You slow us down'

I howled and screamed

'NO! Come back for me'

Pain!

My foot!

I looked down.

The snow…It was red…with my blood

They laughed

'Now Now' SHE said behind

Her tall eluding form wavered over me

Her black dress touched me

I shivered

I sobbed

'Go away!'

She would never go away.

She haunted my dreams and my life…never

The wolf moaned again and kicked out at imaginary demons.

"Toboe- san" a voice whispered, "Kawa-ane, I haded a bad dream" It was a small little girl who looked to be about six. Toboe lifted his head shakily. The little girl climbed on his bed. She took her little grimy hand and wiped her tears that stormed her face. The little girl threw herself on Toboe's neck and buried her face into his pelt. She had white hair and blue eyes. Her little body, clad in a blue shirt and white pants, shook.

"Hey Toboe" A girl said. She popped her head from the top bunk that she was sleeping in. "You got Ibis handled?" She had long brown hair with a ting of red and bright blue eyes. She looked to be about fourteen and was wearing a gray tang top.

He nodded and the girl sighed with relief. 'I am so tired'

"Night Kawa" he whispered.

"Gute Nacht Toboe"

He sighed. Kawa was always talking in her native language. She came from a different part of the world so it wasn't surprising. Then a head raised and tail up might mean a challenge in his tongue it could mean a greeting in hers. Toboe was just glad that she already was fluent in both when she came to this pack.

Little Ibis, the small child who had crawled onto this hard-as-a-rock cot, lay down next to the wolf dropping her illusion, showing her true form of a small white pup with a red tipped tail and amber eyes. Toboe sighed. For some reason the wolves in here looked up to him and Kawa. 'It might be that now we are the oldest here,' he thought. He looked at the empty bed across from him and shuddered. It was his fault Mimi died. Responsibility was a hard burden. He fell back asleep with her face dancing in his mind and the small pup curled up on his chest.

---

Toboe woke to the sound of a bell screeching. Ibis was still curled up under his chin. She was the youngest and smallest of the pack. There were seven in all. There used to be eight. He licked the pup's nose.

"Up!" Toboe stood up and drew up his illusion out of habit. He had long brown hair that reached his shoulder blades and was pulled back with an old piece of fabric and brown eyes. He wore a long sleeved red shirt that now ended at his wrists and green long pants with combat boots. He stretched the once silver bracelets on his hands jingling. They had tarnished to an almost black as the years went on. He knew these changes well, and knew that the changes most likely happened to hide scars. He also knew that under he illusion his bones stuck out painfully, and scars decorated this back, legs, and paws.

"Up everyone!" Toboe walked to each bed and woke up its inpatients. They were all in wolf form as they sleep but as soon as they woke they drew up their human illusions out of habit. Not that the wolves really saw those. The illusion was like a ghost in a wolf's vision, just an faded image of what weak minded humans saw.

There was four boys, Lif the kind helper, Danflor the daring free spirited pup, Jack the shy smart one, and himself the brother figure. There were three girls now that Mimi was gone. Ibis the innocent pup, Sano the optimistic and Kawa the goofy sister.

"Where's Kawa?" Toboe said wiggling his finger at Sano who giggled to see her big brother acting so immature.

"She's in bed. She fell asleep again I think."

Toboe sighed. Kawa could be so lazy some times.

"Sano go wake her up"

The little pup ran to the bunk and scrambled up to the top bunk. She had brown hair and wide green eyes. She looked to be about twelve years old and was wearing jeans with a fluffy pink top. Kawa was always telling her how much she hated pink but Sano love that shirt.

A few minutes later Sano crawled down dragging a blinking Kawa. She was wereing a white blouse and tan shorts in bare feet.

"Okay time for breakfast" Toboe said as he waked over to the door and knocked.

"Fueki! Everyone's up! Can we have breakfast?" he yelled and the door opened to admit a short old man with a small cart. Fueki was the caretaker for most of the rooms in this hall.

"Hello Group three!" Fueki said smiling. He had light gray hair and brown eyes which twinkle mischievously.

Sano and Danflor jumped up with joy. Everyone loved the kind caretaker. As the little man knelt down to his cart he Toboe's eye was caught by the bracelet on his arm. Akuma did this to him. Fueki was one of the few humans in the factory. He was treated better then the wolves but not much. At least he got his own room while these wolves lived in a brightly lit smelly small room that barely had enough room for the cots that were stacked in it not including the wolves. Why she did this the wolves couldn't fathom. Some said that she was once hurt badly and that's why she did this. Others said that she was a wolf possessed by the spirt of a vengeful human. All they really knew was that she was horrible and beautiful… deadly beautiful.

"Earth to Toboe" He blinked and saw everyone staring at him.

"Um… sorry I was just thinking." Toboe sat down and started eating his small portion of stinking meat as Fueki told them their plans for today.

"Sano, Lif, Danflor, Jack, and Toboe you with be sledding things around the main buildings today. At three Toboe will be moved to the other team for shipping across the dome. The others will continue shipping in the lighter load zone until five. Toboe you get out at five thirty. Kawa the Mistress wants you training till five then your done. Ibis you are with the Mistress. At six everyone is sledding till eleven. Everyone got it?"

He stood up and started packing up all the stuff he had brought out for breakfast.

"It's seven in the morning. Work starts at eight so hustle! You have free time with Group four for an hour today."

---

The pen wasn't that big. A wolf could easily do a lap around the towering fence. Several sickly trees dotted around. There once was a family of rabbits in here and Toboe had made sure that all of the wolves in his pack could hunt and on the side got some real meat in their belly for once. Remembering their faces as some had their first taste of fresh meat still stirred something deep inside him. A fierce protectiveness to free them so they could feel soft grass under their feet instead of hard dirt and concrete, to turn their head to the pale light of the moon instead of the harsh artificial light that was in all of the work spaces, to feel real meat travel past their jaws instead of that rotting meat that tasted of mold, and to smell fresh plants, wet earth, and clean air instead of blood and fear.

He was sitting under the sparse shade with Ibis curled up on his side. She had played hard and decided to sit with him and watch Kawa sniff around the fence, looking for any possible escape as usual. Toboe stared at the fence. It was about twenty feet high with an over hang over the top creating a metal cage. On his first day he tried to dig under it but it was no use. They were lucky… free morning came once every month. His eyes drifted to Sano and Danflor who were play fighting. Danflor jumped up growling playfully as Sano lunged at him. Sano's true form was that of a sleek brown wolf with green eyes, while Danflor was a reddish brown with white paws. His ears had little tuffs of fur on the end and an unusually bushy tail for a wolf. Sometimes just to bug him they would call him squirrel. Toboe sighed and glanced at Lif who was talking to a wolf from Group four which that in itself supried Toboe, being that the pup was so shy. He was in his natural form with white paws and a jet black body. They all seemed so happy, but he knew that in less then half of an hour they would all be breaking their backs, lashed with whips.

"Niisan?" Ibis wined, "I'm bored" Toboe sighed and turned his attention to the little pup.

"Go play with Kawa," He said and pushed her away with his nose. Stumbling the little white pup trotted over to Kawa.

The sleek lanky wolf had stopped pacing and had sprawled out on the ground. She had black fur on the nape of her neck and paws. Ibis snuck up behind Kawa and pounced on her twitching tail. Ibis had the white tipped tail between her paws when Kawa turned and rolled the pup over with her paws. Ibis yapped and tried to grab her tail which Kawa twitched to keep out of the way of the little pup's teeth. She sat down next to Toboe still keeping her tail out of Ibis's reach. Toboe thought of another way to get out of this place. The cruelty they faced him and his pack. SHE had different ways to torture them. Kawa was often used as a dog racer, Ibis as a little pet dog for her… but most of they were used as hard labor. The only exception was the fighters.

They were too insane and unpredictable to work close to humans. And the thought of them made him shiver. He had only seen a fighter once when his team was forced to transport it across the dome. It had cursed and tried to kill anything that came near him… wolf or human. Its eyes were bloodshot, its fur in patches, and its sanity frayed. The wolves were forced to wait in the cold, watching as snow slid down the outside of the dome. They winched as the heard the yells of people and the snarls of fighting wolves. When it had finally stopped Toboe was walked inside the arena. He had been forced to drag the carcass of the loser wolf back to the sled. It seemed to the wolf that even in death the wolf couldn't find peace as later he say the wolf was burned because the ground was to hard to bury it. He was woken out of his relevance by a large angry voice calling out.

"Group three! Group four! Work time!"

Toboe: It sucks so far… (starts crying)

Mika: Don't worry it won't get better later… I mean will!

Toboe: (glares furiously) Please review! No more till you review