Chapter 6

Unresolved Dealings

Even in broad daylight, the tall buildings surrounding the alley hid the civilians of Freeze city as well as anything else within the walls in a shrouded state. The alleys were dimly lit, and the darkness seemed to taunt those who wandered in into being lost. Droplets of light in this ocean of darkness occasionally appeared as light-posts in awkward places. Perhaps with the expansion of the city there wasn't much effort put into replacing accessories like light posts. After all, this was a poorer district of the city and the sad excuse of a government couldn't care less how the other half lived.

Flashing through these morbid corridors, Sasha followed Kiba's trail while also "admiring" the relentless and unchanging architecture of the buildings surrounding her.

"And if you look to your right, you'll see gray wall number forty-three", Sasha joked.

Kiba was not amused, nor was he affected. While Sasha kept her focus on Kiba's path, Kiba kept his focus on the only thing that really mattered to him: paradise. Though he had no first-hand experience with paradise as far as he could remember, his existence and "paradise" seemed tethered together.

With every passageway looking the same and the dim lighting, the convoluted path they were taking seemed meaningless. How in the world did Kiba know where he was going? After a few minutes of endless running, Sasha finally built up the nerve to ask Kiba.

Expecting to hear the typical answer (i.e. something about paradise), she braced herself for no real assistance if he even cared to answer at all.

To Sasha's surprise, Kiba turned his head to his side while running and answered,

"We're following the lunar…"

Because of his sharp focus on his conceptual objective, Kiba had lost focus on his "where am I actually moving".

Sasha couldn't help but snicker.

Yan's paws dug desperately into the earthy soil, his mind filled to the brim with a voracious, bloody rage.

This was the reason he was suffering. This was why his life had changed. This was where all the answers were. And yet, having caused him this suffering, the brown wolf merely taunted him. Was this supposed to be a game to him? If so, it was a game Yan was not interested in.

His calm demeanor had inverted to one of rage and vengeance. Running as fast as his legs could carry him, he yelled,

"Why are you doing this to me!? What did I ever do to deserve this!?"

The mysterious character, thoroughly amused, turned around with a smug grin, and yelled back,

"You should know the answer to that!"

The chase carried on, but as much force as Yan put into every step; as much as he focused on the single objective of capturing this mysterious character, he seemed to be neither gaining any ground on him, nor falling back from him.

The constancy of the grey concrete walls surrounding the chase made Yan feel like he was in a dream; he felt trapped in an endless alleyway of his subconscious.

Suddenly, the brown wolf stopped running, turned around, and smiled devilishly at Yan. Yan knew of the strange powers of illusion wolves used, but the malevolent expression of this brown wolf was unbelievably surreal, essentially other worldly.

Seeing that expression, Yan was paralyzed. As if entering a wintery plain, his legs froze like icicles, his body shivered to protect against the callous look on this mysterious character's face.

"Karma comes in many forms, and this is one of them. This 'curse' was caused by your selfishness"

Yan was stunned. The hold of the emotional tundra became even more powerful; his entire being was frozen in disbelief.

Yan felt as if this character was peering into his mind with a magnifying glass. How could this random stranger now about that; about what he had done? His most personal memories and thoughts and ideas and emotions and everything; they were all at the hands of this heartless character.

The brown wolf stared for a minute, and simply laughed in his seemingly sadistic demeanor.

All of the rage that had built up in Yan turned to fear and confusion. His mind was going to explode from all the emotions flying through it. The eyes that once turned like daggers toward this mysterious character were now broken walls allowing the brown wolf's malice to slip through. He was getting into Yan's head. But who was this character?

The character responded to the thought.

"I am someone you know too well."

And with that, the brown wolf hurried into an alleyway on Yan's left.

Yan's mind jumped out of the state of confusion it was in temporarily. He could not risk losing this wicked character, as he apparently played a role in creating the tragedy of his current life.

Running around that same corner, Yan saw a dead end. There were no pipes, no doors, no windows, and at the top there was a concrete roof securing the alley like a box. There was no escape, yet the character defied reality.

Yan had already thrown out all his prior perceptions of his life, but did he now have to throw away all he knew about the laws of physics? There was no way this character could have gotten away through here, but he had to accept what was happening to him.

"Stupid human light-box!", Kiba yelled.

Another snicker was heard, but this time both of them were confused, as it wasn't Sasha that time.

Searching for the perpetrator of this violation of privacy, they both looked up to see a tall caramel skinned man jumped down from the top of one of the buildings. Wearing a black denim jacket and skinny black pants, the man looked down at Kiba condescendingly.

From what she learned in the past few days, Sasha deduced that this man was actually a wolf. No human could survive such a fall. How many of them could there be?

"Tsume, what do you want here?" Kiba asked.

"What's it to you," Tsume answered.

A silence commenced for just a bit, in which the emotional tension between the two was mentally deafening.

"I see you didn't take my advice. Even after I told you it's stupid to look like a wolf in this city, you continue to do it. Are you trying to spite me or are you just an idiot?"

Kiba's eyes blazed with rage from the typically condescending Tsume's remark, but he looked into Sasha's deep emerald eyes. There was no reason for this. It wasn't worth the waste of time.

"Hmmph", Kiba turned and continued running.

Sasha followed behind, but before turning the corner to follow Kiba, she looked back and gazed at Tsume, if only one last time. She looked back almost out of necessity, as if this man was connected to her by some thread of fate. There had to be a reason they kept running into him, and some reason to explain this odd feeling she had around him.

Tsume, not seeing the questioning gaze placed upon him, stared into the distance and bit his lower lip; he was annoyed at how Kiba avoided a fight he'd been hoping to have.