I was walking down a frozen river, with trees of ice and frozen leaves, jingling as they dangled in the wind. The trees had a fun-house effect, but I could never see myself clearly. Only a sliver blob warped around each tree. The ice felt slippery, but I was wearing sharp silver claws. They fit perfectly; as if the cow the leather came from knew he would die for my paws. I saw my reflection in the water. Two, ice blue eyes stood out like a beacon. My face was warped, but you could tell I looked more mature. A red and white scarf wrapped around my neck, like a candy cane was stretched into fabric.

A scratching sound came from up ahead. I looked up, and saw the ice wolf.

The river flowed smoothly from water to ice, allowing the wolf to exist.

"Mika," He said. "There is no hope for you, or the old man."

I would have growled at that remark, but I was too stunned to do anything besides stare in horror. Fear, and hopelessness filled me.

"Give up. You will never make it back in time."

It was like each words essence was filling me with dread. I wanted to curl up and die right there.

But a sudden hope flared through me. I was able to shake his trance; I was not going to give up so easily!

I shook myself, then leaped at him like lightning. Time seemed to slow, and the earth stopped moving. I was suspended in mid air for what felt line years, until I heard my name being whispered in the trees. "Mika," They said. "Mika."

"Mika, wake up!"

I snapped up, getting to my feet quickly. It took a second for me to register where I was, and to settle my heart.

Kota was by me, and his paw was out as if he was shaking me. The sky was dark, but I could see a glimmer of light in the distance. The stars had shifted.

I saw next to him a fox a fourth his size. It had mostly gray fur, with a white underbelly and brown in between. His dark eyes told the story of himself; cunning, and sly. He wore a grin, and his eye brows were up, as if the whole world amused him. He smelled like sand, stink and smaller animals.

"I see your friend is up," The fox said, his voice rising up. "My name is Sqalei." He said while bowing.

"What's he for?" I asked groggily, rubbing sleep from my eyes.

"We need help getting home, remember? Sqalei said he could help us." Kota whispered to me.

Remembrance flooded me. Of course we had wanted help, but from a fox? From what mom had told me, she said they were cunning, and you shouldn't trust them. Sure, you could break their neck in seconds, but they could trick you into walking off a cliff faster.

"Umm, Kota? When did you meet... Swolly?"

"Sqalei." The fox corrected.

"Sqalei," I said. "Whatever."

"Well, he sort of came to us. He woke me up and said he knew we were chasers by our scarves. He says he can lead us to someplace snowy." Kota said.

"Cedar mountain, to be exact. It snows quite frequently there, from September to March. Though the city below it doesn't get much..."

"Well, anyway," Kota said, "We need to find our other friends first."

"Are they chasers like you?"Sqalei asked.

"Umm, yeah." I said. I didn't really like this guy.

"Can you smell them?" Kota asked.

I inhaled deeply through my nose. I detected faint scent of canine and cinnamon coming down wind.

"That way, towards the river." I gestured.

We started walking across the area.

<><><><>

After about an hour of walking, we found the river. It ran between two hill-looking rocks. We were able to scent out Marsha and Jova; they were sleeping on a large, abandoned tent. I had no idea why someone would want to camp there, so don't ask.

Marsha had a similar reaction to mine towards Sqalei, and Jova didn't really mind. Or at least I thought he didn't.

"So now that we have every one here," Kota said,"Can we start heading towards that mountain?"

Sqalei laughed slightly, as if Kota was a confused cub. "It will take a while to get there; a few days, at least."

"A few days?!" I said. We didn't have time! Something bad could be happening now!

"Is there anyway we can get there quicker? I don't feel like walking for days." Marsha said.

I agreed with her. My paws were sore from gripping on rocks and sandstone.

Sqalei thought for a second, humming. "I have an idea," He said, "But it isn't great."

It was most likely better than walking, though.

"Cars are always traveling up north. We have no idea where each car is going, but we can deal with that later. Some may be heading to the city, but it's not likely we find one that will."

"We can look at a map," said Marsha. "If I can get the gist of what's going on, I can find out what we need to look for on cars."

"Excellent!" Sqalei said. He got up immediately, then started walking the way we had come. "Come on; the museum will be open soon, and we can't let the humans see us!"

<><><><>

After thirty minutes of walking, I knew the fox had something bad planned for us. If he hadn't made us his slaves, or have us clean his ears out by now, he was taking his time for something big.

Jova and Kota weren't nearly as concerned as they should have been. I pulled Kota aside frequently to talk about it.

"Do you really think Sqalei wants to help us?" I would ask.

"No, but what other choice do we have?" He asked.

I wanted to say that we could have searched a little longer for another animal, but I kept quiet. Boys just didn't have the senses girls have.

We crossed river, then headed to a building. I couldn't read the signs, so I had no idea what they said. Sqalei lead us inside, but I felt weird about it. Like I wasn't allowed inside.

Inside were rows of books, stuffed animals, toys and candy. To the right of us was a stand with rocks in it, to the left of us was a cashier. On the same wall as the cashier, the room lead into another. All the lights were off, and the building was empty. Realization crept over me that the doors should have been locked.

"Sqalei, why weren't the doors locked?" I asked.

"Oh, me and my friends broke the lock days ago. They haven't got it fixed yet." He said.

The explanation was pretty believable, but I got the strange feeling he wasn't telling the truth.

"Look for a map, guys." Jova said.

We searched the room for a bit. I looked by the books, hoping to find something that resembled a map. But the thing was, I had never seen a human map. But the books on the shelves looked pretty cool. They had pictures with all sorts of desert animals and plants, beautiful landscapes, and orange land forms.

"I found something!" Marsha said.

We all gathered to her by the cashier as she studied a big, un-folded paper with lots of colored lines and symbols. None of it made sense to me.

"It doesn't really say where we are..." Marsha said in thought.

"Sure it does! We're right here!" Jova pointed to the map.

"No," she said, "Like what country we're in."

"Well, you're in the United States of course," Sqalei purred, "Southern Utah, to be exact."

"Ugghhh," Kota moaned. "I hate converting metric to standard..."

"I say that it's much easier to calculate things in feet or miles," Sqalei said.

"Whatever! Just, how do we get to Cedar?" Marsha asked.

"Oh, I could have told you the way!" Sqalei said.

I growled. That stupid animal wasted our time. And for what? To laugh at us?!

"Then why are we here... at the gift shop?" Marsha fumed, trying to stifle a low growl. She stood up, growling at Sqalei. He flinched, but I didn't blame him. She was pretty scary.

"Hey, we can all just calm down, alright?" He said quickly. "We don't have any food for the journey, anyway! There's tons of jerky here!"

Marsha backed down, but she didn't loose her gaze. Without asking, Kota and Jova grabbed all the jerky and shoved it into their scarves. I grabbed a few pieces and tied them into my rope.

"Let's look for supplies..." Jova said hesitantly.

Marsha growled once, then broke her gaze with Sqalei. He had hopefully learned his lesson.

We went through the doorway, and it lead us to more toys, souvenirs, human clothes and some hiking stuff.

I went to the clothes and grabbed a leather bag with an arch stitched with orange thread on it. It attached with a button, and it had the string thingys moccasins had.

I wrapped my claws with an ugly shirt I saw. It didn't pierce the shirt, meaning they were getting dull.

I untied them from the rope, then put them, the rope, and the jerky in the bag. I grabbed a key chain from the souvenirs for good measure.

By the time we reassembled, we were crammed with stuff. Jova had a black shirt on with the arch on it, and he had tied some rope around his chest and shoulders. Kota also had a shirt, but it was orange and had human letters and a squirrel on it. Marsha had also found a bag, but it was reggae. A clip-on compass hang from it's strap. Sqalei only had a fanny pack with a tree on it.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Let's get going before they open." Marsha said.

We left the way we came, then walked to the side of the building.

"So, which way do we go?" Jova asked.

"That way!" Sqalei pointed to the way we had just come.

Marsha growled, and the rest of us sighed. We started to walk behind the landforms and through the fields.

<><><><>

As usual, the trip was boring and tiring. It was pretty cold at first, but it got hot quick. I immediately wished I had brought some water. The river was to the right of us, but I had no intention of drinking from it. Red sand made it brownish. The trail we followed curved. sometimes we could hear or see the road, but other times I heard nothing but the creek. The path the river had cut was usually wide, but sometimes we had to wade through the water. I didn't mind though; it felt good.

The bite Brutus made on my paw had proven to be small, but it still hurt. I was limping by the time the sun started climbing.

To keep ourselves from complaining, we sand Christmas songs. I didn't know allot, so I often just listened.

"Deck the halls with boughs of holly, fa la la la la, la la la la! 'Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la la la, la la la la! Now we don our gay apparel, fa la la la la la la la la!"

The songs were lovely, though. Marsha, Jova and Kota could really sing. Often, they would break out in different harmonies, as if they had been in music class for years. One time, they did Carol of the bells. Kota started beat boxing, while Marsha would rap in her high voice and Jova would make his voice sound like there were twenty other singers. It made my fur stand up; I had music chills on my nose.

I tried joining in on a few, but my words were slurred, and my voice sounded like a drowning chicken. So, I stopped after a while.

By sundown, their voices were raspy and soft. Jova was the last one singing by then.

"I really can't stay. baby it's cold outside. I've... got to... go away. Oh, whatever."

"Can we stop and sleep?" Kota asked, sitting down.

"Yes! There are some trees over there!" Sqalei said, trotting over to some prickly trees. They bundled by the river, hoping for water.

I dragged my tired feet to the trees, then flung my bag off. I lowered myself then started taking big gulps of water. It was a little sandy, but I didn't care by that point. All I wanted was some water. The others followed my example, but apprehensively. Sqalei took only tiny tongue-fulls. In fact, he didn't look tired at all.

After taking a drink, I grabbed a jerky from my bag. I clamped it in my paws, then started tearing at the wrapper. It came off in little bits, but I still had trouble getting it off. I kept chewing to the point I could taste meat. It took a few minutes, but I had eaten all the meat and the wrapper was left mangled. The others laughed a little, but I ignored them.

Again, as soon as I had laid down, I fell asleep.