AN: sorry for a long wait! Life happened, so I couldn't work on this chapter for a loooong time, but now it's finished! So I hope you'll like it.

Muffled voices filled the ears of my waking... body?

The blackness, that was surrounding my vision at the time, was not, in fact, the Void.

It was warmer, brighter, livelier.

I was... Alive. My eyes were just closed.

The voices stopped with a click of, what I presumed to be, a door, placed somewhere in front the warm cuddly place, I was lying in. 'The bed, ya dingus,' I remembered.

Silence filled the room, but it was not the same tense silence, filled with judgment and terror. It was just relaxing silence, mixed pleasantly with a soft beeping and hissing of, what I assumed to be, a heart monitor and a ventilator.

Even the dull soreness was not the same... Now I could actually feel where it was hurting. It was my chest, with a some sort of painful inside pressure. Ow.

I don't know how I was alive again, and how I came into the world from that one movie, but frankly, I didn't care that much. 'I can be an animal now for all I care,' I thought, 'Actually, no, scratch that, I don't really think I want this...'

'I need to confirm this one,' I thought as I opened my eyes.

And immediately closed them, because of the blinding light from the window, that conveniently shined onto my face.

Hissing a bit from the stinging sensation in my eyes, I waited a bit before trying to open them again.

Now the light wasn't burning as much as before, so my vision quickly grew accustomed to the light in the room.

Which turned out to be, like I thought, a hospital room. And it was almost like that one in a movie, but I think this one was an intensive care.

The greenish color of the sterile walls were brightly light through a window on the right side of the bed I was lying in, and to the left was a life support machine, drip, ventilator, and heart monitor. Beside it, I quickly spotted simple light grey cabinet.

And finally, in front of me was a door, which had the same exact color as the previously mentioned piece of furniture.

To me, this fact was somehow pleasing.

'Now, to the hard part of the dimension crossing,' I thought, as I tried to move my right hand a bit.

It didn't wanted to, at first, but with a minute of simple finger exercise, of me trying to clench my fist, the limb finally 'woke up'.

So, after calming my self before inevitable, I slowly brought my sore hand in front of my fa-

Yep, it was a paw. Paw that looked like it was more evolved, compared to one an animal would have back on Earth. It had more in common with a human hand, in context of its movement and finger placement, but it still was very much animal like, with its claws, paw pads and, strangely bluish white fur.

Still it gave me quite a scare, you know, a fundamental change, and this sudden, would put anyone into the shock state.

But mine was including a hyperventilation.

I tried breathing slowly, but my with each inhale it became harder and harder to do so... Only then I heard myself wheezing.

My troubled mind decided to jump to conclusions.

'Really, Fate? Really?!' I thought to my self, angrily, 'Just to ad insult to injury you not only had me killed, but also carried asthma with me, into another body and into another world!'

'Wait... I hooked up to ventilation... Then it means...' my eyes widened, as I expectedly started coughing.

A little bit of blood slightly sprayed through my closed muzzle, into the breathing mask and a blanket, which was a frightening and unexpected.

The pain in the chest worsened gradually, my tiny paw instinctively grabbing onto the offending part of my tiny body.

'Not dying first, change of species later,' I thought as the door suddenly opened, reviling a concerned she-wolf nurse. 'She must've heard me coughing from outside the door...'

When she saw the blood on my muzzle and blanket, her eyes widened, and then she looked into my eyes, quickly catching the fear behind them.

"Calm down, kit. It's gonna be okay," she said, entering the room, moving fast towards the cabinet.

She opened the upper drawer and pulled out a pair of medical gloves, which, when worn, were almost to her elbow, likely to prevent fur getting onto the patient.

Then she pulled out of there a simple syringe needle, connected to a plastic bag through the long silicon tube, and a pair of alcohol wipes.

My ears drooped a bit, because I already knew what she needed to do, and I did not like it one bit.

She-wolf lifted the blanket and opened my hospital gown on the chest, where on a shaved side of it I noticed a fresh surgery seam. After this, she started to carefully prod around it, until she found a spot that hurt the most and wiped it.

"Okay kit," she spoke up suddenly, looking me dead into the eyes, "I'll have to poke you right here, and you'll feel a lot better," she said, trying to reassure me.

'oh no...' it didn't work at all.

"On three, okay?"

'Please no,' I thought as a little whine escaped me.

"One," she said, positioning the needle, "Two," she counted as the needle was stabbed between my ribs.

It was painful and unexpected, but my attention was quickly captured by a liquid going through the silicon tube.

Soon, the procedure was finished and the nurse quickly gone out of the room with plastic bag full of reddish see-trough liquid, leaving your chest open, with a needle still imbedded in between my ribs.

I knew why nurse didn't explain a reason behind this procedure to a child, that I now apparently was, the real kid would've start crying if they were told, 'You have a punctured lung.'

How do I know? Well, I had to undergo the same procedure once, let's leave it at that...

But still... Coughing blood was definitely new, I decided to never go through something like this again.

Pain lessened to the tolerable level, and my eyelids were getting heavy. 'Would be nice to wake up healed...' I thought, as my mind was swept away, into the realm of dreams.

He couldn't see the object, only its silhouette, but it was enough for him to be terrified of it.

Never the less he stepped closer, the light emanating from the fire of the lit torch finally touching its unnaturally detailed carvings, the eyes of the strange disgusting figures, depicted alongside the normal mammals, were glinting with soft ominous orange glow.

The metallic object was, in fact, a dagger, that you could easily mistake for a sword, straight blade of which contained the wretched carvings, the scenes depicted on its surface brought the last meal he had into his throat.

His hand were shaken in fear and disgust after witnessing the gruesome, revolting imagery.

But his eyes were glued to it, to its every curve, each different ornament, each terrifying creature, which started to look like they were following his gaze.

He could swear he heard voices, whispers on non existent wind of the old castle's caves.

The voices were screaming for him to stop, to run, to forget about this place and never come back, but he persisted...

Like a moth flying towards the flame, he moved closer.

He reached out.

GASP*

I almost jumped out of the bed, crawling backwards into the headboard, my ventilation mask falling off of my face onto the floor with a drip, that I accidentally ripped out of my arm.

Taking a few refreshing breaths I spoke quietly.

"Just a nightmare."

I was not prepared to hear my voice.

'I sound like a little kid!' I yelled inside my mind, clutching my muzzle with my tiny paws, 'I haven't heard my voice this high in ages!'

And only then my waking eyes noticed the obvious.

I slowly moved my head to the right and saw the medical equipment simply lying there.

I moved to take the mask from the floor, leaning on my right arm to-

tink*

I saw how the needle fell out of me and onto the floor in shock, which soon turned into the confusion, when my arm left instinctively grabbed the place between the ribs, where it was supposed to be.

The shaved part of my chest had a newly grown patch of fur, and no trace of the seam, only a slight bump of the scar was touched by my finger tips

"What..." I uttered in total disbelief.

Then suddenly, the door opened.

Doctor Goodsdrav was on his way to intensive care to check on the arctic fox cub, that now was one of his current patients.

It was the same cub, who was heroically rescued during the famous case of detective Adrian Bogo, who almost singlehandedly brought down an entire cult, which existed in secret for almost two decades, some of the members were, surprisingly the mammals of high stature in the city's government, including even a few police officers.

Rereading the results of previous examination and a notice from a last shift nurse on the opened lung puncture, he shook his head slightly, a bit sad about the fate of this young kit, 'At least, the worst is behind him...' he thought, opening the door to the kits ward, 'Now he'll just have to rest and recover physically and mentally, for a month or t-'

Doctor's eyes met with a scared gaze of his young patient, who was now sitting on the edge of the mattress, arm on the injured side of the chest and medical equipment lying on the floor beside the bed.

But the most confusing thing to a badger doctor was the healthy fur on the side of the vulpine's chest, that was shaved a week ago for a surgery.

This didn't match his earlier examinations, the kit now looked healthy, was conscious and sitting up in span of six hours... How was this even possible?

"What the..." the badger managed to say, before the clipboard with his patient's medical history slipped from his fingers, and loudly fell onto the floor, startling the fox out of his frozen state.

Though his startle proved a bit to much form his arm to keep him stable on the edge, so it slipped, making the kit promptly drop down onto the floor with a small *yipp, bringing the blanket with him.

Doctor hurried to help the fox, but didn't got a chance, because the bundle of fur and blanket rushed under the bed as soon as Goodsdrav started his approach.

Quickly realizing his mistake, doctor took slow, more careful steps towards the kit's hiding place. But when moved close enough to it, he heard the sound of... crying?

Doctor silently berated himself for scaring his young patient, thinking of the way to get the cub's trust.

"Are you okay?" he asked softly.

The silence was his answer.

Old badger decided to take a step closer to the bed, but was stopped on his tracks by a sharp inhale from kits hiding place.

With a sigh, the doctor sat onto the floor, to make himself appear less threatening, and also get a good look at

The sight was heartbreaking, young tod was shivering and crying silently into the blanket, pressing it hard to his muzzle.

"Don't worry, it's okay…" he quickly said, trying to get attention of the little fox, "You're at the hospital, I'm your doctor and here to check up on your condition."

Crying slowly subsided to a sniffling, and, when the kit was ready, he slowly turned turned towards the older badger, with blanket tightly clutched in his small paws.

The tod's eyes were red and wet, distrust still present in his gaze, 'Poor kit…' the Goodsdrav thought, 'No wonder he was so scared… What have this savages done to him,' he wondered.

"I'm truly here to help." doctor said, trying to give the kit a small reassuring smile, slowly moving his hand towards the bed.

It was met half-way by the hesitant, scared and still trembling paw of the little fox, his gaze no longer showed full blown distrust, but fear and sadness still didn't left his features.

The doctor helped the kit from beneath the bed, and then onto the mattress, to start his examination, which made the doctor even more confused, because, as he strangely expected, the little fox was perfectly healthy, no bruises, scars, for an exception of one were the stab wound was earlier, or other external injuries were noticed by a careful gaze of Goodsdrav.

Later he took the cub to do an x-ray of little one's chest, the results added to the doctor rapidly growing confusion. Somehow, all the wounds sustained by the fox had vanished over the course of six hours he been alone.

Another strange thing the badger noticed over the 2 hours of the examination, was the fox's silence. He didn't spoke a word since the the doctor first seen him awake, answered questions with a nod or a shake of his head, didn't respond to the attempts of the doctor to start small conversation, as if the small vulpine couldn't talk at all…

So when they finally came back to the cub's room it was already evening.

He helped the little one onto the bed and started the final procedure, "Alright… The results of the examination showed, that you are in a good health," he smiled to the kit, who in his turn looked to the floor, his hands a bit shaky, "And now for a final procedure," that got the fox's attention, "I need to ask you some questions."

Again, silence…

"So… Lets start with a simple one. What's your name?" kit tensed up, his eyes glistening in the orange glow of the setting, from behind a hospital's window, sun.

"I…" the tiny voice got the badger a bit of guard, "I don't know…" a few tears escaped little fox's eyes, when he looked up, staring right into the badger's face, "I don't remember…" he sniffled.