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            I grabbed hold of the cable and felt something pierce my hand. I cried out and let go. I lost my footing and fell to the ground. The soft earth cushioned my fall, but the impact pushed the wind out of my lungs.

            I lay there in the grass, looking at the puncture wound in my hand. Everything was against me. Escape seemed hopeless. For what seemed like forever, I lay there and stared at the stars. I was tired, so tired.

I had little will to go on. Why bother? I had no idea where I was. I didn’t know how to get home. I had never been more that a mile away from the village. The only knowledge of the outside world I had was of maps I had seen from time to time. There were mountains in the east, and I believe some swamps a little south. Or was it plains? God, I didn’t know.

            Quite whining, I scolded myself. Get up. Bahaumut wouldn’t lay here and give up if he was in your position, now would he? Get up!

            I picked myself up. My wet fur had soaked the back of my shirt, and the faint wind sent a chill down my spine. If I couldn’t get over the fence, then I was going through it. I pulled a dagger from its sheath and slashed the fence. Several links broke. I slashed again, and again. Soon, I had cut away a large enough of a piece out to crawl through. I discarded the useless piece and wormed through the hole, careful not to cut myself on the edges.

            I was out. There were no more visible barriers to cross. I crouched low and looked for anyone coming. There was some sort of steel wagon sitting a few yards away. Beyond it, past a road of made of black rocks, was the beginning of some woods. Safety seemed to lie there.

            I moved towards the edge of the woods quickly but quietly. Before I could reach them, I heard voices behind me. The wagon was the closest cover. I dove down and crawled beneath it.

 “Jesus Christ. I was supposed to be home hours ago,” someone complained. “My wife is going to kill me. Terra Corporation doesn’t pay me enough to stay late.” Two men walked towards my hiding spot. I understood what they said, but they both had strange accents. They wore clothes I had never seen before. My mind put the accent and the attire together and registered the possibility that I had somehow ended up in another country. The idea frightened me.

“Ever since that thing they got in the lab downstairs woke up, they’ve had everyone working double shifts,” the other said. “I’ve seen it, and I have to say, it kinda gives me the creeps. I can’t wait until they move it to a more secure lab, so then it’ll be someone else’s problem.”

They must be talking about me. They called me a thing! How dare they? They were probably among those humans who see themselves as superiors over demons. There was people like that on both sides of the lines.

“Yeah, I hear you on that one. What the hell do you think it is, anyways?”

What is it? I was unusually perturbed by the question. It’s a demon, you fool! Don’t you know what that is?

Then a thought struck me. Was it possible that these people had never seen a demon before? If I was in a different country, was it possible that there were no demons here? If this place was absolutely isolated, it was a possibility. But what was I doing here? What had happened while I was unconscious?

 “Hell, I don’t know. I heard that it was a government experiment that got loose. Terra’s experimenting with those human augmentations for the military, remember?”

I no longer had any