I try to hold my breath. I think someone's on the other side of those boxes.

Do I call out to them? Do I hide? Not that there's much room to hide.

Whatever's out there starts pulling the boxes out one by one.

I don't know what's in those boxes, but they don't look easy to throw around. They're just chucking them like it's nothing.

I can feel my knee start to tremble.

A chill runs down my spine and my teeth start to chatter.

Both my knees give up, and I'm back on my ass against the wall.

The fear is starting to get overwhelming, and my vision starts to blur again.

There aren't many boxes left, and something starts to sow between the cracks: a light. A flashlight.

Before I know it, the ray of light is completely covering me. It's a task to lift my arms to block the beam, and even harder to keep them in the air. I was already struggling to move, without fearing for my life. I don't think I can take much more of this.

I'm getting overstimulated, I feel like I'm shutting down. Just as I start to succumb to my panic, the light suddenly shifts. Slowly, I open my eyes, peeking through the cracks of my fingers. The person, no, beastman holding the gun moves one step closer.

"Don't. Move" He says in a gruff, commanding voice.

If I was cold before, I'm frozen now.

I'm just sitting here, trying to follow his movements the best I can with what little I can see. Through the slits of my fingers, I can ascertain one thing.

He's a dog, no... not quite. He's a wolf, and a talk one at that.

The wolf circled around me. I can see him clearly in my peripheral.

He can see my face now, along with the terrified expression I'm wearing.

Gun or not, he could rip me to shreds with just those claws.

Not that there's much to rip apart.

I don't stand a chance at running in my current condition. Hell, I can barely stand up. So I sit there, waiting to see what he's going to do with me.

He's a few feet away, gun still pointing at me.

Upon closer inspection, it looks to be the size of the pistol, but it doesn't look like any model I've ever seen. The wolf shifts his head, looking all over my body.

My teeth start chattering again, reverberating through the alley.

He walks up closer with intent.

I shut my eyes, that's all I can do.

This is the worst my breathing has been since I woke up.

I can feel my empty stomach churn and my dehydrated eyes strain to tear up.

The only thing that pulls me out from my panic attacks is the feeling of something soft under my chin.

"Hmmmm..." He starts to slowly lift my head with his paw. His paw pads feel like worn leather under my chin, his breath is hot on my face. Now more than ever, I wish this was just a dream.

The wolf squints his eyes and speaks to me.

I can't make it out as the ringing in my ears is too loud.

"U-u-uhh..." Is all I can muster.

".r...y..y...o...ay?" The wolf closes his eyes before pulling his hand away. He sits in front of me.

"...H-huh?" We're eye level with each other.

He pauses once more, before repeating himself again. "Are. You. Okay?"

I don't respond, I'm not in the right state of mind to.

He seems to pick up on this. "Calm down. I'm not going to hurt you."

The wolf places the gun he was holding on the ground, and slides it to the other side of the alley. "See? If I wanted to, I would have already."

That's one gunn gone, but what about the big ass one on his back?

My eyes veer to it, which he notices. "... I'm not taking that one off, it would be too much work."

He states matter-of-factly, before switching to a criss-cross position. "You're okay, you're okay."

He looks me in the eyes again, before holding his paws apart in front of me. "Breathe in."

He pulls them closer, almost in a clapping motion. "And breathe out."

I'm slowly transitioning from panic to confusion, which I'd say is an upgrade. For some reason, the inflection in his voice sounds weird. He's speaking English undoubtedly, but something about it is off. I can't put my finger on it.

Is it a dialect?

Regardless, I do as he says, and start to match my breathing with his movements.

...

We do this for a while, and slowly but surely it seems to be working.

With enough time and effort, and with the help of this wolf, I bring myself out of my self-induced panic attack. After one final deep breath, I manage to get back to just breathing through my nose. I'm still breathing faster than I would like to, but it's a start.

"There. How are you feeling?" He takes deep breaths as well. I guess that took longer than it needed to.

"... Tired, and dizzy." I finally drop my hands down for a moment, before moving to hold my head. It feels like I swapped a panic attack for a headache.

"I'm not surprised." The wolf gets closer to me, to my head. Wow, I really don't like how close he's getting. "You've lost lots of blood."

Gently, he holds my chin and shifts me to the right, revealing the back of my head. He leans in closer and takes a few sniffs. I can feel his breath again, and I start to get apprehensive. I instinctively pull back. Gentle or not, this really isn't helping with my anxiety.

"You're still scared." He says

"Huh?"

He leans in again. I can feel the wetness of his nose on my forehead as he trails around my head, before sniffing around some more.

"U-uhhh..." I don't know what to say with his actions.

"Sorry." The wolf says bluntly before he pulls back. "Habit of mine."

"Uh, okay..."

"What's your name?" He asks suddenly.

"... I don't know." I literally don't have an answer for him.

The wolf doesn't seem fazed by that. "What do you know?"

"Uhh... I don't know." My emotions feel like a metronome, swapping between scared and confused at the drop of a dime. I'd like to believe he's right. If he wanted to hurt me, he would have already. Now that I think about it, I don't think he could hurt me either way, on the account of not feeling any pain. Well. that's not true. He could break my legs and even if I couldn't feel it I'd be at his mercy. That flash of imagery in my head makes me shudder.

"Wait here."

"Huh?"

His voice snaps me out of my imagination. He stands up and then moves near the alley entrance. I cock my head as I try to see what he's doing.

The wolf waves a paw over his right wrist, and a small screen lights up in front of him. It seems to be coming out of a bracelet he's wearing.

I squint, trying to make heads or tails of it.

Seriously, where the hell am I? We certainly didn't have this kind of tech back on Earth. Whatever he's doing, he's tapping furiously away on it with his fingers.

...

For a moment, he places his free paw over his chin.

He looks deep in thought.

All of a sudden he turns his attention back to me, looking me over more, before typing away again. He waits.

Then I hear something, a notification?

Then he starts tapping again for about a minute, before sliding the screen away.

"Okay, can you stand? I'm going to take you home now."

"Uh-"

The wolf walks up to me, before starting to get me on my feet. "Here.".

He carefully gets under my armpits and lifts me up slowly, trying to keep me stable. "How's that?"

"W-wait a minute." I stumble on my knees, and he catches me.

"It's okay, I can carry you if you wan-"

"I said WAIT" I raise my voice, and the wolf's eyes widen a bit. I push him away, choosing to slump against the wall again. At least I'm still standing, even if barely.

"Who the hell are you? Where the hell am I? How do you know where I live?!" Even though my adrenaline from earlier has worn off, I'm starting to get hit with rising paranoia. "I barely even know where I live. You can't seriously expect someone with a head injury to just go with someone they don't even know, do you?

"Hmph, quite feisty for someone with a head injury." The wolf sighs before walking over, then sits down in front of me again, so that I'm looking down at him.

I'm kind of glad he did. My knees feel like they're about to give out and I sit back down on the ground.

"I don't know how to explain this without alarming you, but you're going through a fairly common experience around here." He taps the side of his head. "Barring the head injury."

"What do you mean?"

The wolf scratches the back of his head. "It's best that you know as little as possible, unless absolutely necessary."

"That's a horrible way to build trust." I didn't mean to say it out loud, but I did mean it.

"I don't need your trust. I could take you by force if you really want me to." The fur on his neck bristles and my fear spikes again. He plattens back down, before rubbing the back of his neck. "Relax, it won't come to that if you just cooperate. I'll say this: I've done this before, many times."

"Done what?"

"Taking humans home, amnesiac or not."

"How do you know where I live?"

The wolf pauses. " Do you know where Resoom is?"

"No. should I?"

The wolf exhales, almost in relief. "Whether or not you do doesn't matter to me. Resoom is one of the few cities that's mainly just humans around here."

"Okay, so where's around here?"

The wolf shakes his head. "We can talk about it later. Honestly, we've dallied long enough. just know that I have contacts there."

He lifts his paw, pointing to that weird bracelet. "I've confirmed a meeting point to get you home safely-"

I open my mouth, to which he interrupts. "And before you ask any more questions, I gave a description of your appearance and they matched it up with someone who's missing."

I close my mouth.

"I guess you have done this before." I'm kind of surprising myself. I'm taking all of this in a way too quickly aren't I? I guess when your head is nearly empty, anything new becomes acceptable.

Regardless, I'm going to at least try to remain skeptical. "How do I know that you're not just setting me up?"

The wolf smirks at that. "You don't. What would you be able to do in your current situation if I was though?" He has a point. Don't know where or who I am. I wouldn't be able to make it far. I sigh. I can't tell if my ears are still ringing, or if there are alarm bells going off in my head.

"Okay, fine. It's not like I trust you, though." I resign myself, I really don't have a choice.

"That's wise. I won't do anything to hurt you, you can count on that."

"We'll see, I guess."

With that out of the way, the exhaustion is starting to catch up, and I scoot back to my familiar spot against the wall. "I can barely stand up, let alone walk. Not to already impose, but you wouldn't happen to have any food or water would you?"

"Hmm, yeah, we could probably have a quick bite to eat." The wolf thinks it over, before running toward the alley, listening. "Lemme just-" He walks over to the pile of crates and starts stacking them again, providing some decent coverage. "There, that should be fine. I doubt anyone will go through the trouble to get through that."

"Beside you?"

"Fair enough" I spot that ugly smirk of his.