Speaker 1: The train pulled into Slangming station under a pale, graying sky,
snow lined the tracks, packed tight and dirty, with a
wind that pushed it against the platform. I stepped out first,
drawing a deep breath of air that felt sharper than
anything I was used to. Will was right next to me,
dragging his stuffel bag by his shoulder strap and grinning
despite his nose already turning pink. We took a shuttle
from Slanding upped Aramseau and d Eystein, which clung to
the edge of the alpine slope. Every building looked older
than it probably was, with sharply pitched roofs thick with snow,
wooden balconies stacked with chopped firewood, and narrow windows that
glowed faintly orange. As evening settled over the ridge, the
main street was quiet. A few bundled up figures walked
with purpose, but didn't linger. Every step we took echoed
between the buildings. The air smiled faintly of pine and smoke.
Albin and Marcus were already waiting at the guesthouse when
we arrived. They stood near the steps, both taller than
I expected. Albin wore a heavy black coat zipped to
his throat, a thick beanie pulled low. Marcus looked more relaxed,
leaning against the wooden railing, smoking a cigarette, his backpack
at his feet. Meeting them for the first time felt surreal.
We'd spoken for almost a year online, but there was
still something odd about standing face to face. You get
so used to that screen buffer that seeing your online
friends in real life is almost uncanny. Will went right
up to shake their hands, already launching some sort of
joke aft, though I could tell it was more polite
than genuine. We were the odd ones out, and it
showed they were the outdoor kids and we were the
indoor type. I kept my hands buried deep in my
coat pockets, trying not to luod too obvious. We checked
into the guest house. I remember sitting down on the
bed and peeling off my gloves, the tip of my
fingers numb and slow to respond. I was in use
to this kind of cold. Marcus brought out the maps,
unfolded one across the table between us, and we all
crouched around it. The trail they picked out looped around
the base of Hue Dashstein, curving through steep sections of
alpine forest before veering off into more isolated ridge lines.
It would take several days, but nothing they claimed we
couldn't handle. We double checked our gear before dinner. Everyone
had the basics. Insulated jackets, thermal base layers, crampons that
we wouldn't actually need, ultra light sleeping bags, collapsible cookware,
freeze dried meals, snow goggles, and small fire starting kits.
Each of us carried a knife, nothing large, just those
small practical blades meant for wood shaving, rope cutting and
food prep. Mind fit in the side pocket of my pack,
half the handle wrapped in red tape to make it
easier to find by torch. That night, we walked through
the quiet village and stopped at a small restaurant tucked
between a bakery and a church. Inside it was warm,
a stark difference compared to the outside. The food was heavy,
rich with gravy, and the portions looked fit for men.
Twice sighs. The locals didn't speak much, and when they did,
their tone was clipped and curt They weren't rude, but
there was no welcome in their eyes either. You could
tell they'd forget about us as soon as their eyes
wandered somewhere else. Still, none of us cared. We could
tell they weren't being rude. That's just how it was
around here. We were set to head out the next day.
Everything was packed, charged, checked, and sorted. We were ready,
or at least we thought we were. Morning came with
a hard chill that clung to my neck even after
I layered up. The sky outside the guesthouse window looked
washed in pale blue, broken only by faint streaks of
serious clouds that barely moved. We ate quick loaded our
packs and met in the narrow gravel lot out front.
Marcus checked his watch and gave a nod as if
to formerly signal the beginning of something. I tightened the
straps of my pack, and glancing at Will, who looked
too pleased with himself for some one who hadn't hiked
more than a few city parks, We set out through
the village on foot, snow crunched beneath our boots, packed
just enough to give way with every step, but not
deep enough to slow us down. The trailhead sat just
past the line of spruce trees on the edge of town,
marked with a worn wooden post and a frost bitten
map encased in fogged plastic. Their poles clicked rhythmically against
the frozen path. Will and I trowled slightly behind, mostly
because we kept stopping to take pictures. He'd pause every
few minutes to make some stupid comment about posing against
the trees or pretending to fight off imaginary bears. I
told him to save the battery, but he kept doing
it anyway. The forest around us grew denser as we climbed,
The wind stayed still, branches drooped under the weight of
snow that looked older than the season. I began to
notice that the snow was getting deeper. It hadn't looked
that thick when we left the village, but up here
it gathered around our ankles and sometimes higher. Marcus called
back to make sure we were keeping pace, and I
gave him a thumbs up without saying much. I didn't
want to admit how quickly the cold was biting through
my gloves were how my calves had started their ache already.
Then we saw a rusted metal sign nailed to the
side of a pine tree. After the right of the trail,
snow had crusted around its edges, bending against the face
plate where the metal had bowed outward. It wasn't bright
enough to reflect anything, but it caught our attention because
it didn't match the wood markers we'd been following. Marcus
stepped off the trail first and cleared some of the
snow with his gloved hand. The red lettering emerged beneath it,
streaked with rust Geschlaus and Vigan on Vetta gefar close
due to severe weather. We stood there for a moment.
The sky above remained crystal clear. Albin gave a short
laugh and said someone had forgotten to take it down
after the last tourist season. Will nodded along, already pulling
his phone from his pocket to take a photo of it,
saying it would make a great inside joke. Later, we'd
been delayed by nearly two weeks. Flights got canceled whether
elsewhere turned unpredictable. Marcus said most trails this high didn't
see real traffic this time of year anyway, so some
one forgetting to take this down wasn't too weird. The
trail beyond the sign dipped slightly before rising again toward
a distant line of trees. Snow covered rock jotted up
beyond the forest, and above that, the pale crown of
the mountain sat framed against the sky. We stepped past
the sign and kept going. It just looked like a
short cut, and we wanted this trip to be memorable,
so why not do the stupid thing. We'd been walking
for nearly two hours when Will slowed down beside me
and pointed toward the ground ahead. I looked where he gestured,
squinting against the glare. There in the snow, just past
the sloped patch of trail, where the trees thinned, a
set of footprints curved gently off to the left. The
edges were sharp, the indentations clean, not yet softened by
wind or drifting snow. The pattern suggested boots, maybe slightly
smaller than Albin's but deeper than mine. They cut across
the slope and disappeared into a thicker patch of forest
that veered away from the main trail. Marcus was already
moving toward them before any of us spoke. He crouched down,
pressing two fingers into the nearest print, and nodded to himself.
Someone came through recently, he said, lifting his hand and
brushing off his glove, probably this morning. Albin came up
beside him and followed the line of tracks with his eyes.
Looks like they were heading northwest. Might be going to
that outer ridge. Will and I exchanged the glance. We
were excited. Every step we took on the empty trail
gave the impression that we were moving through something abandoned.
I mean, we knew it wasn't, but given the fact
that we arrived here during the off season, we had
already kind of accepted that we wouldn't be seeing too
many hikers here. Seeing footprints, even from a stranger, meant
someone else was out here. We were excited to make friends,
meet new people, and hear new stories. Will gave a
grin and said we should tried to catch up. He
said it would be good to meet someone who actually
knew these paths. I agreed, though part of me suspected
he just wanted a break from trailing behind Marcus and Albin,
who barely seemed winded, while Will and I already felt
the ache in our legs. The path feared gradually up here,
but there were no trail markers in sight. The ground
was uneven and covered in layers of snow that looked
older than what we'd been hiking through earlier branches lay
half buried in the snow. Many snapped at their middles,
as if from weight rather than age. The trees grew
closer together here the light filtered through in a canopy
that seemed lower than before, despite the fact we were climbing.
Marcus stayed ahead, eyes down, occasionally checking the spacing of
the Prince. Albin trailed close behind him. Will and I
moved slower, watching our footing through the sections where the
snow dipped into holes beneath tangled roots. The air had
changed as well. I hadn't noticed it until then, but
the breeze had faded. There was no wind brushing across
my ears. Every now and then I looked up and
scanned the fire, expecting to see movement between the trunks
or hearing distant voices. Nothing. Whoever walked through here must
have been experienced, I thought to myself. Befoot prints showed
no signs of backtracking or double checking. Eventually, Will muttered
that we should have caught up by now. He wasn't wrong.
The prince had looked fresh when we found them. They
should have led us to someone really showed signs that
the person had stopped. There had been nothing. Still, none
of us said we should turn back. The idea of
meeting someone, anyone had become a silent goal. So we
kept walking, eyes locked on the tracks, boots pressing into
snow that had only been disturbed by one person before us.
The climb began to wear on us. After another hour,
the slope had steepened gradually enough, though it was barely noticeable,
the air had thinned, and each breath started to carry
a raw edge. Will was the first to speak up.
He stopped and leaned forward, hands resting on his knees,
his breath fogging him burst as he looked over at Alban.
We need a break, he said, not quite out of breath,
but close. Albin didn't argue. He dropped his pack into
the snow and pulled off his gloves to flex his
fingers red from cold. Marcus, who had been ahead by
a few meters, turned back and raised an eyebrow. I
could see from his expression that he didn't want to stop.
He looked back down at the trail, then at me,
as if asking for confirmation. The Prince still looked fresh.
The snow around them hadn't softened or filled in. Whoever
we were following couldn't have been far. I told him
we'd keep going just for a few minutes. If we
didn't see anything soon, we'd turn around and meet back here.
Will looked up and gave a lazy wave. Already digging
in his pack for a protein bar, Albin muttered something
about starting a small fire. While they waited, The forest
grew denser with each step. The trees were spaced more tightly,
their branches reaching inward, creating a canopy that filtered the
light and gave everything a dull gray tint. Some of
the trunks had twisted and broken unnaturally. Bark peeled in strips,
and several trees sagged in the middle, as if something
heavy was on top of them. Heavier than snow. Branches
lay broken across the path, not snapped by storm or wind,
but fractured at clean angles. Many buried half way beneath
the snow, as though they had dropped vertically. If I
didn't know any better, I'd have assumed a monkey was
climbing around here. The branches dropping and snapping under the weight.
Then the prince stopped. We both saw it at the
same time. Marcus slowed, then came to a full stop.
I stepped forward to join him and stared at the
snow ahead. The trail had continued in a clear pattern
until this point, deep indentations in a single line. Heeled
to toe, spaced evenly, and then nothing. The track simply ended,
a clean line of prints that led into untouched snow.
I crouched down and brushed at the powder with my glove.
The surface resisted. There was no hidden depressions beneath. I
looked left and right. The snow in both directions stretched
out without disturbance. Marcus spoke up and gave a sturdy explanation.
Snow must have fallen in that section earlier. Maybe a
small drift had covered them up. It was plausible. Marcus
glanced behind us, then turned and started walking back. I
followed without speaking. The forest around us creaked slowly. Somewhere
far off, a branch cracked. When we got back, the
forest had started the dim The light no longer filted
cleanly through the trees, shadows had stretched across the clearing,
and the smoke from the fire drifted unevenly in the air.
Albin crouched beside the flames, turning something over in a
small steel pan, the handle wrapped in cloth to keep
it from freezing fingers. Will sat on a fallen tree trunk,
gloved hands copped around a plastic mug, steam rising from
whatever he had mixed inside. They had already pitched the tents.
They stood a few meters from the fire, staked into
the packed snow, with robes strung around buried stones. Will
looked up as we stepped into the light of the
fire and raised his eyebrows. No lock. Marcus shook his
head and dropped his pack next to a tent. Tracks
just stopped. He said, looked like snow covered them. That
explanation satisfied. Everyone handed us balls and divided the food.
Some dehydrated stew he had rehydrated with melted snow. It
tasted overly salty and the texture left something to be desired,
but none of us complained. The heat settled into my stomach,
pulled the tension I hadn't realized had built up. We
drank from metal cups filled with warm, powdered cider that
Marcus had packed for morale. The taste reminded me of
something from a childhood field trip, though I couldn't remember where.
Will tried to tell a story, but eventually started forgedtin
where he was going with it, which made it funnier.
Alpin snorted through his nose, which nearly spilled his drink.
I caught myself smiling while we were conversing. It had
started the snow. It didn't fall heavy. The flakes drifted
down in slow spirals, catching the light of the fire
and tumbling through it before landing soundlessly around us. The
flames flickered orange and yellow, casting moving shadows into the trees,
then out of nowhere. Conversation was interrupted. Sh shut up,
The words cut through the laughter. We all stopped moving.
The only sound for a moment was the hiss of
the melting snow on the edge of the pan. Then
I heard it, faint but clear. Crunch, crunch, crunch. It
came in slow intervals, snow compacting underweight, not loud enough
to be something big, but still close enough to be dangerous.
They circled the sound, moved behind the trees, disappeared, then
returned again from another wrangle. Marcus stood, He looked toward
the direction of the sound, eyes narrowed, postured tight. Hey.
He shouted, something moved, a thudding scramble pressed into the
snow and broke it apart four point rhythm heavy enough
to echo off the surrounding trees. I glimpsed the shadow
moving between trunks, long enough to scense mass. Then it
was gone. No one moved for several seconds. The forest
turned to stillness, its wolves. Albin said he didn't try
to dress it up. Will open his mouth, probably to joke,
but closed it again. He looked at me, then at
the tree line. We decided to sleep. Soon after that.
No one wanted to say it out loud, but a
presence like this was enough for us to want to
cut this specific hike short. We could go to a
different trail, and being in the presence of wolves while
off trail didn't seem like a fun time. When morning came,
I stepped out of the tent, boots crunching as I
shifted weight onto half frozen ground, and I saw them prints,
dozens of them, all around the tent. The snow had
recorded every step in perfect detail. Some had pressed so
close to the nylon that I could see whether paws
had shifted mid stride. They circled in low, looping arcs.
Some approached the tent directly, then turned away again. A
few branched off into the woods before rejoining the others.
Marcus walked up beside me and led out a low breath.
Albin came out next, squinting in the morning light, then
staring at the ground. Will followed and whistled through his teeth.
Let's move. We packed in silence. The tents came down quickly,
my hands moving with more speed than coordination. We started moving,
and after about two hours of walking, we finally admitted
what we didn't want to the original trail we had followed.
The prints we had chased were gone. The snowfall had
raised them. Not even a partial indentation remained. There was
no path to retrace. Marcus adjusted the strap across his
chest and looked north. We followed the sun we head low.
None of us had a better idea, so we walked.
We moved in silence for the rest of the day.
The snow had deepened again, and each step sank further
than the last. The slope dipped in places, then rose
without warning, forcing us to stop and catch our breath
more often than before. The sunlight filtered through the trees
in pale shafts, but none of it felt warm. Everyone
stopped speaking. At this point. Will had not said anything
for over an hour, which felt unnatural coming from him.
Albin occasionally looked behind us. Marcus walked ahead, his shoulders squared,
presumably in an attempt to fake confidence. I began to
notice movement. It started with a flicker just outside my
filter vision, something moving between the trees. I couldn't make
out exactly what it was, but I knew it was there.
The shape appeared again, further along a bulk, sliding from
one trunk to the next, then freezing. When I looked
at it, the others had seen it too, I could tell.
Will walked closer to me than before. His eyes fixed ahead,
though they twitched toward the sides. When he thought no
one was watching, he rubbed the back of his neck.
His mouth opened once, then closed again, without saying anything.
We continued on without speaking, our boots dragged. No one
looked behind us anymore. We knew we were being followed
by the wolves, but running was out of the question.
We were too afraid of them giving chase. It was
Albin who stopped first. His legs gave out on a
patch of uneven snow, and he dropped to one knee.
He didn't curse or complain. He just stayed there, shoulders
rising and falling. The rest of us gathered around him
without deciding to. We had reached our limit. The clearing
we stopped him was only a small gap between the trees,
with the slope leveled out for a few meters. It
wasn't much, but it was enough. Marcus set down his
pack and began unpacking the tent without waiting for agreement.
There was no discussion this time. We were all feeling
the pressure. We didn't split off into separate tents. We
needed to be in one place. We didn't cook. No
one gathered firewood. We opened vacuum sealed meal packs and
chewed through them without warming them up. The food was
dense and cold. My teeth ached with every bite. Will
passed around a canteen of melted snow mixed with sugar tablets.
Four bodies pressed into one space with barely enough room
to stretch out. Our bags lined the edges, our boots
remained on. Each of us kept a knife in our hand.
The fabric walls moved faintly whenever the wind pushed through
the trees, and I watched the seams, with a growing
certainty that something stood just beyond them. I woke up
sometime in the early hours. My body throbbed from the
awkward angle I'd been lying in in the air inside
the tent had cooled into something sharp. My breath turned
into mist and faded just above my face. I remained
still ears, straining. Something had woken me up. There was
movement outside. I heard the sound of paws pressing into snow,
one step, then another, slow, measured It moved in circles
around us. Once more I could hear it, or them sniffing.
I turned my head. Will was awake, so was everyone else.
Their eyes were wide, their faces expressionless. Marcus had his
knife in one hand, held just beneath the sleeping bag.
His knuckles had gone pale. We all turned our heads
in unison as a tearing of cloth rang out in
the tent. Cloth was pulled tight, threads separating. A line
opened along the corner, slow at first, then wider. The
cold surged inward. A shape pushed through the tair. The
wolf's head appeared. At first, its eyes caught what little
light came through the snow, reflecting a dull liquid yellow.
Its muzzle opened, I saw the teeth just before it lunged.
It clamped down on my shoulder with sudden weight, and
heat exploded across my collar bone. My scream rang out
in my own ears. The tent collapsed into chaos. Everyone
moved at once, arms flailed, blades flashing. I stepped through
the dark with my free hand, the knife barely penetrating
through thick fur and skin. The wolf snarled, its body jerking.
Albin hit it in the side. Marcus drove his knife
into its ribs. Will stabbed at the shoulder and trembling.
The cuts were shallow, but they came fast and wild.
The wolf twisted, trying to pull back its legs, kicked,
its jaw loosened. I kept stabbing until my arm gave out.
Blood covered the floor of the tent, soaking into my
shirt and pulling in the folds of the sleeping bag.
Then the animal fell. Its body went limp, its mouth
hung open. I couldn't tell if it was breathing. As
we waited for another one of them to enter the tent,
all of us shaking from adrenaline, we turned our attention
to a noise we hadn't noticed during the scuffle, but
was present all throughout, thrashing, thumping, then whining, then silence
again side the tent. We did not speak. We waited.
No one moved For several seconds. After the wolf went silent.
My breath came in short burst, each one shorter than
the last. Blood soaked the left side of my jacket,
hot where it had spread cold in some places. The
knife in my hand felt heavy, slick, and unsteady. Albin's
arm trembled beside me, the blade in his fist still raised,
though his eyes were locked on the tent wall, waiting
for another sound, but nothing ever came. Will leaned forward first.
His fingers reached out, hesitant and gently pulled at the
corner of the torn tent wall. The flap peeled open, slowly,
held together by threads that had not fully ripped. He
peeped through just a narrow glance at first, then widened
the opening with both hands. He did not speak. Marcus
leaned over and looked. Alban moved next. I stayed still,
pressing one hand into the bite of my shoulder, the
other gripping the tent pole for balance. When they stepped
out into the snow, I followed the ground surrounding our
camp had been torn apart. A single branch lay at
the ground at the edge of camp one that wasn't
there when we got here. Wolves lay scattered across the
snow in every direction. Some had been thrown against trees.
Others were collapsed in contorted positions, limbs bent at angles
that suggested violent force. Fur was matted with blood and
patches of ice. One had its rib cage split open.
Another lay without a jaw. A third was missing its
front legs entirely. Their bodies stretched beyond the perimeter of
our camp. The snow around them had been trampled. Massive
prints stamped into the crust, some deeper than others, forming
erratic patterns. They were roughly human in shape, though the
spacing and depth made no sense. Some stood close together,
others stretched meters apart. Albin stood near the edge of
the clearing Markers paced in a slow circle around one
of the larger corpses. Will just stood with his arms
hanging at his sides, the knife still dangling from his hand.
I sat on the packed snow and pulled my jacket
off slowly. The wound throbbed beneath my shirt. The skin
had been punctured in three places where the teeth had
broken through. Albin knelt beside me and opened the medkit.
He poured water over the bite, wrapped goree around the arm,
and tied it in place with strips of clean fabric.
Marcus stood guard without speaking. We didn't even wonder about
the human footprints around. We had no more energy or
will power to ask questions. We just started moving solemnly again.
We left our tent there. We just walked without a
clear direction for what felt like ours. We saw something
familiar in the snow. Ahead of us. A narrow set
of footprints ran parallel to our path. Human, the edges sharp,
just as the last ones had been. Hope did not
need to be acknowledged. It passed between us at a
shared current, carried by the possibility of someone ahead, a
trail to follow, a direction to believe in. We stepped
into the line of prince and followed them through the trees.
We didn't even ask one another what another human was
doing here, or how the footprints just appeared in the
middle of nowhere without any prior tracks. The trail curved
slightly ahead, then narrowed. We walked for fifteen minutes, maybe more.
The prince continued in a clear path. Then they stopped.
The ending came abruptly, just like before. We paused for
a moment, contemplating our next move. It was Marcus. We
saw it first. His arm rose slowly, fingers stiff, and
he pointed upward. We followed his gaze. There so spended
between the highest limbs of a pine several meters ahead.
Something watched us. Its forms stretched unnaturally broad through the chest,
its shoulders round it with thick cords of frozen muscle,
completely frostbitten. The surface of its body was torn and pitted.
Segments of skin looked burnt or blistered, with patches missing entirely.
Coarse fir clung to sections of its frame, but most
of it had been rubbed away or never grown at all.
Long antlers covered in moss, and what looked like veins
of black frost jotted from either side of its head.
Its eyes met mine. They were green, unmoving and wide.
Its legs hung beneath it, short and pale, but unmistakably human.
They swung slightly in the breeze, too small to support
something of that mass, as if borrowed from something else,
and crudely attached. The branches creaked beneath its weight. Then
they broke. The thing dropped. It struck the ground with
a blunt thud that sent snow upward in a ring
around it. The limbs absorbed the fall, then flexed. The
body shifted towards us. It reached out with both arms,
gripped Marcus by the waist, and lifted him into the air.
He didn't even have time to scream. The creature slammed
him into the snow once twice, then flung him against
the tree trunk. His body folded and broke at the base.
We ran in different directions, each of us, driven by
the instinct to survive, moved before my thoughts caught up.
The air tore past my face, thick with snow and
the sharp scent of blood. I did not call out
or checked to see where the others were. Branches tore
at my sleeves, The terrain blurred, trees passed in rapid succession.
I tripped once, fell into a bank of snow, then
scrambled out without feeling the pain. My shoulder burned from
the wound, every cholt, sending a wave of nausea up
to my neck. I could not stop, I could not
breathe without hearing the echo of that thing hid in
the ground. At some point, the slope began to descend.
The snow thickened underfoot, and the trees opened into a
familiar pattern. I recognized the broken trunk on the right,
a line of disturbed snow running through the clearing. I
knew the scorch marks and the tree the first fire
had been built. I had returned to the first camp.
The tent still stood in fragments. Blood had frozen in
streaks along the entrance. The bodies of the wolves had
begun to settle into the snow, their outlines softened by
frost and time. Nothing moved. I dropped to my knees
beside the tent and crawled inside. The sleeping bag remained
in a heap, twisted from the fight. I found the
one I had used and pulled it around me. The
zipper barely functioned, jammed from the torn lining. I shoved
myself deep into the fabric, got into the warmest shape
I could manage, and tried to slow my breathing. Outside
the forest remained silent. I waited in the shadows until
my muscles refused to respond. The first sound I heard
came with a crunch of packed snow and the low
hum of an engine. I remained still, at first, unsure
if I had imagined it. Then I heard voices, one male,
one female, speaking German, Moro Austrian. Then a second engine closer.
I pushed my head from the sleeping bag and looked
toward the torn edge of the tent. Two figures approached
on foot. The jackets bore patches mountain patrol. Behind them,
a snowmobile idle near the edge of the trees, its
tracks buried in a swirl of powder. One of them
knelt beside the tent, then leaned back and called over
a radio. The other moved toward me, Crouching low. He
spoke to me, calmly, asking my name, asking if I
was alone. I nodded. He asked if I was injured.
I pointed to my shoulder. I tried to speak, but
the words came out hoarse and correct. I started to explain.
I told him about my friends, about the creature and
what it had done. He listened, but his face did
not change. He placed the hand of my wrist, told
me to stay still, and wrapped a blanket over my back.
Later I would learn why they had come. The wolves
we had encountered belonged to a monitored pack. Each carried
an implant tracker used by conservation authorities to study movement
and behavior. According to the data, the signals all stopped
within the same thirty minute window. That kind of mass
failure had never occurred before. They assumed poachers. They dispatched patrols,
and they found me. I somehow ended up getting a
lawyer who spoke and clipped English, told me to cooperate
and say as little as possible. An article would come
out later. Taurus, accused of a legal wolf killing, faces
sentencing on Friday. They said trauma had distorted my memory
from what they theorized. Cold and blood loss created hallucinations.
My judgment was fractured after experiencing a traumatic event. The
conversation laws were strict. Wolves in this region were protected
under the national and EU policy. Killing even one carried
prison time, and I had been found in a camp
surrounded by corpses. My story was never considered. I served
twenty months