In shock, Skipper almost dropped Private's…I mean, Skipper's…head and let it fall to the ground. However, he was able to catch it once again and set him carefully down to the ground.

After letting him go, Skipper stood up, a faraway look in his eyes as he tried to process what he was told.

"I don't understand. How can there be someone else who has my name? I thought having Skipper as a name was pretty rare!"

Skipper turned towards Kowalski, who was looking at the scene in front of him in confusion.

"Did he ever tell you what his real name was?"

"No, never! Besides, I asked him about it as well, but he wouldn't tell me either."

Annoyed, Skipper clutched at his head.

"Agh, this makes no sense!"

Marlene was about to come forward to try and comfort Skipper, but stopped when she realized something important.

"Uh, Skipper? Was that a British accent I just heard?"

Skipper looked at her in confusion.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

Suddenly, Skipper clamped his flippers over his beak as he realized that a British accent was indeed slipping through.

"Skipper? Is there something that you're hiding from us?" asked Kowalski.

Skipper considered denying that he was hiding anything, but when he noticed the looks that the four other remaining survivors were giving him, he knew there was no use trying to hide it anymore.

Sighing, he spoke up, the British accent coming through clearly.

"Skippah's not my real name. My name's actually Private, which is kind of a surprise, considering what he was calling himself."

He pointed towards the unmoving corpse of the former Private as he spoke.

"Frankly, I was kind of wondering why you were all calling me Skippah."

"Well, to be honest, we just went with what…Skipper…was calling you." said Maurice, nearly calling his deceased teammate Private again.

The group fell silent for a little bit before Marlene spoke up.

"All this just doesn't make any sense to me! Why were you trying to hide your true identity?"

Private turned away, not wanting the others to see what kind of torment he was going through as he spoke.

"I've done a lot of horrible things in my line of work. I killed a lot of animals. I mean, sure, they were threatening the safety of people that I've worked with, but that doesn't make it any less painful to see. For god's sake, I nearly committed suicide!"

Private paused to collect himself before continuing on.

"I knew I had to get out before things got worse, so I changed my name and went into hiding. But somehow Skippah managed to find me. How? I have no idea."

"How did you manage to get rid of the accent, though? It doesn't seem like something you could do easily." said Maurice.

"Lots of practice."

Having exhausted every possible avenue for questions, the group of survivors fell silent, as they all tried to refocus after the massive revelations they just went through.

However, their thoughts were interrupted when they all heard growling coming from in the distance.

"What was that?" asked Marlene, frightened.

"More wolves. They must have heard the gunshots. We need to move."

Not wanting to waste time arguing, the group made their way over to their supplies to pack them up.

"Leave them! We don't have time to pack all of this stuff up!"

Unfortunately, the survivors' need for the supplies overrode their need to get away from the wolves, so they continued packing the supplies, but at a faster pace. As much as Private tried to get them to hurry up and get moving, the wolves were able to catch up and begin attacking.

"RUN!" yelled Private.

He began heading off towards the south, hoping that the other survivors were going in the same direction that he was. However, he didn't want to risk looking behind him and giving the wolves a chance to catch up.

As for the other survivors, they did in fact start heading the same direction as Private, but not everyone managed to make it away from the campsite.

Maurice was sitting down when the wolves arrived, so by the time he was able to get up, a wolf was already on top of him, and he didn't have a chance.

Rico was unfortunately the next to go, as he didn't want to just run away. He attempted to head for one of the guns to defend himself, but a wolf got there first. Rico put up a good fight in trying to get the wolf off of him, but even a penguin of his considerable girth wasn't able to hold the wolf off for long.

Kowalski and Marlene were thankfully able to catch up to Private, and after running full tilt, they somehow managed to lose the wolves, as they hid inside a cluster of trees near a river.

After catching their breath, the group remained silent for a little while, listening to see if the wolves were around. They couldn't hear anything, though, so to make sure, Private looked around the area.

"I think they're gone."

Kowalski stood up with Private, but Marlene remained sitting. Concerned, Private walked over and attempted to comfort her.

"Come on, Marlene. Don't worry. You'll be fine, as long as we get out of here."

"No, we're not going to be fine. We're all going to die." said Marlene, a frightened look on her face.

Sighing, Private was about to make another attempt when two wolves showed up, growling. Private turned around to face Marlene and get her to calm down, but he heard a scream, and when he finally laid eyes on her, she shot off in the opposite direction, one of the wolves hot on her tail.

"Marlene, wait!" yelled Private.

He made an attempt to go after her, but Kowalski held him back.

"There's no time! We have to go now!"

Although Private desperately wanted to go back and help Marlene, he reluctantly followed Kowalski as the two of them headed towards the river.

When they finally made it to the riverbank, they were surprised to find that the river was way larger than they thought it was when coming up to it.

"That ice doesn't look too thick." said Private.

After glancing back and noticing that the other wolf was stalking them, Kowalski turned back to reply.

"We don't really have a choice. Just take it slow and we should be safe."

Spreading out a few feet from each other, Private and Kowalski began slowly making their way across the river, while the wolf approached the riverbank.

As the two penguins continued to cross the river, desperately trying to get across and away from the wolf, the wolf itself finally stepped on to the sheet of ice, only for the combined weight of the three animals to lead to the ice beginning to crack and eventually send the wolf into the water.

"Yes, it's gone!" said Private.

"It may be gone, but that hole is going to cause more cracks in the ice. We have to move!"

Nearly jumping in fright, Private noticed that the cracks coming from the hole the wolf fell into were beginning to approach the two of them as the ice began to break.

Panicking, Private tiptoed as quickly as he could to the other side of the river, successfully managing to make it over. However, as he turned around to face Kowalski and prepare to help him over, he saw that the other penguin was not moving.

"K'walski? What's going on?"

Private made a move back on to the river, but Kowalski frantically gestured for him to back off.

"Don't come any closer! Any more weight, and you're going to break the ice!"

Private immediately backed off, and Kowalski slowly began breathing in and out.

"Alright…just have to slowly step off of this ice, and I should be good."

Kowalski began moving forward as slowly as he possibly could. Even Private was beginning to think that the scientist could make it, but out of nowhere, the ice under Kowalski broke, and he went under.

"K'walski!" Private yelled.

He immediately went over to the hole and dropped on to his belly, attempting to reach down and grab Kowalski with his flipper, but the currents under the ice prevented Kowalski from being able to resurface, and he eventually drowned.

Angry, Private pulled his flipper out of the hole and slammed both of them against the ice.

"Why now? I was so close!"

Now alone, Private paused, lying down in the snow for a little while to reflect on the multitude of lost chances he had to be able to save the other survivors.

"I'm worthless. I can't save anyone." he said to himself before getting up and walking off after a few more minutes of wallowing in his sorrows.

Private spent the next hour wandering aimlessly, wondering where else he could go in life. Even if he did manage to get rescued, the deaths of nine other people would weigh on his mind for the rest of his life, although it was unclear what happened to Marlene.

Sighing, Private continued to walk, eventually finding himself in front of a cave. Ignoring the voice in the back of his mind telling him not to go inside, Private walked inside and sat down next to one of the walls, only to jump back up.

Swearing, he looked down at where he was sitting to find some stray beer bottles scattered around the area, with one of them shattered into pieces.

The more important thing he found, though, was a tattered knapsack. Curious, Private looked inside and found a small knife and a roll of duct tape. Although he was slightly confused at the odd pairing of items inside said knapsack, Private knew that these kinds of things would be useful for defending himself.

He grabbed the roll of tape and wrapped it around his flipper a few times, tearing it off and tossing it aside. He then started grabbing some of the glass shards from the bottle and sticking them to the tape, thinking that the more sharp objects he had, the better chance he had to survive.

Satisfied with the amount of glass he had on, he grabbed the knife in his other flipper and waited, expecting the wolves to eventually find him.

And find him they did, as the alpha wolf came into the cave, slowly creeping his way up to Private. Once Private noticed the wolf, though, he surprisingly scoffed.

"You know what's funny? How inevitable life is. You're born. You live. You die. Happens to everyone."

Obviously, the wolf couldn't understand what Private was saying, so he was pretty much talking to himself at this point.

After finally figuring out that it was pointless to keep talking, Private stood up. Sighing, he adopted a stern look in his eyes, before lunging at the wolf, knife in front of him.


I just wanted to say thanks to you guys for sticking with me throughout this (even though there was barely any reviews). Just in case you're wondering, I'm leaving Marlene's fate open to interpretation, mostly so I can get something going in terms of conversation.

As for Private, keep reading, there's a special scene right under this. And before you get mad, that's how the scene was in the movie, and I wanted to keep it like that.


The cave fell silent after a pitched battle between Private and the alpha wolf. The wolf was lying on the ground, injured and breathing heavily. Private was also breathing heavily as he lied against the wolf. However, the only thing that can be seen of him was the back of his head, so the reason as to why he was breathing heavily is unclear.