Dogs Book 3 - Cold Nights

Chapter 2: The Coldlands

After five more days of travelling, attacking many other animals, like Slithers (snakes) and thousands of Crawlers and Creepers (insects and arachnids), we finally entered the Coldlands. The Coldlands were magnificent, beautiful, wonderful, amazing, and unbelievable. The white patches of snow, the crystal-like ice, and the light blue sky. As we were enjoying the scenery, a herd of caribou ran toward us. It was a beautiful sight to see since the caribou looked like Canis's reindeer, and they also looked really big and strong. I bet the caribou like the ice and the snow a lot when the wind blows cold, I thought. So maybe that's why they live up north with the polar bears. Unexpectedly, a few of the caribou leaped at me, which made me fall into a coma.

After a while, I woke up, dazed. I heard the sound of birds chirping, but then I didn't hear anything else. I saw twinkling stars, but then I saw nothing. I heard nothing, saw nothing, smelled nothing, and felt nothing. I just tasted fresh blood. Why can I taste fresh blood? I thought. I didn't see Skipper or Risley either. I only saw white snow and transparent ice, nothing else. I was starting to feel dizzy, and then everything went black and I saw a small white light in the distance. Is this what dying feels like? Or is it some kind of strange hallucination that happen because of unconsciousness? I knew I was lying down on some cold snow... and I drifted to where heaven was.

Skipper's point of view

When I came back from fetching the blood-leaf to heal Brisly, I noticed he was not breathing. Risley was mourning over Brisly's dead body. I felt very much sorrow for Risley, as Grey was sick, and now Brisly was dead. I was really sad too, as Brisly and myself had been friends for a long time. We've overcome many obstacles together, along with Grey and my friend Whine who disappeared.

Many days and nights passed while we were still travelling, it was a sad, sad time. The next night, I heard a dog yelling in vain. It sounded exactly like Brisly. But it couldn't be Brisly, because he was already dead! 

Unless... "Hey Skipper, what are you doing out there?", Risley called. His voice gave me a shiver because Risley seemed even more like his older brother Brisly.

"Nothin' much," I replied. But Risley had also heard the barking sounds.

"Is- s-s-s-s-...that Bris-ss-sly?", stammered Risley.

"Maybe, or..." I started.

"Don't kill them! Don't! No........." The voice sounded like Brisly's. Brisly was alive? What had happened? Without warning, a strange wolf-like troop of dogs appeared and pounced directly as us.

Brisly's point of view

After the severe fight, I (Brisly) saw Skipper was dead. It was nighttime now. It started to rain heavily. Risley was mourning over Skipper's great big Dane body, which had many wounds and blood, and I was in silent vigil. There was no laughter that night. I had found Skipper's body along with four dead wolf-like dogs from the enemy troop. Skipper had fought bravely, as it was one against too many. We buried Skipper and put some casablanca flowers, Skipper's favourite flowers over his grave. Even though it was almost midnight, Risley was still eager to hear my story.

"There was a wolf-like dog from the enemy troop, Team TIC. He looked just like me and he died to pretend I was dead. But actually, Team TIC had captured me to use me to answer their questions. Though luckily, I had escaped from Team TIC and found you guys." I said.

The next morning, we decided to continue our journey to find the saxifrage. But it was hard without Skipper. Risley and I kept meeting obstacles, like giant rocks, pathways of frigid water, and ice patches. It was our greatest challenge we've met. After many unsleepable nights, Risley and I decided to continue our journey. We caught some white rabbits and scavenged on some polar bears' food. We suddenly saw a polar bear ahead of us. We started to run the other way, but the other part of the ice broke off from the section of ice we were on. Now, one way was to go to the polar bear, the second was to go into the water, and the third way, though it was bad too, was that we had to go straight into a No-Fur structure. But suddenly, rectangle-triangle like stuff (that looked like No-Furs made them) shot into the bear's back. And a white dog appeared. It was Whine in the No-Fur structure! We entered the warm and cosy No-Fur den, with so many comfy places to sleep in.

A tall No-Fur with brown hair said to us: "Caem otu tis huose. Theeire aeore manury treasts heree." I took it as 'came octopi tis' house. Their aero manure feast herring.' Risley told me it was called 'come out this houston. We walked to a blue rug, talked for awhile there and we finally figured out what the No-Fur had said. 'Come to this house. There are many treats here.' I was also trying to find Whine, who had been here like a few minutes ago. As we were chatting, the No-Fur started to laugh in an evil way. Immediately, the floor started cracking and we fell down to who knows where.