3/19/2026, 9:26 PM
The path that may ask everything of you, the Visitor says, but Midge is already lunging for the Third Door. Her survival is paramount. But sometimes, the riskiest option is the most direct line to that end. The danger of this door doesn’t mask the likelihood of it being the source of all of this, the year-long crises that had gripped this world that had kidnapped her. The huntress’ paws hit the ground on the other side of the Door, and magic surrounds her. It is so thick here, it is as if she has been plunged deep underwater. Her lungs struggle to fill, her bones feel leaden, her ears fill with cotton.
At the epicenter, a wolf is bound.
His teeth are bared. His eyes clouded with agony beyond words. He has been abandoned to this fate. Given up by his pack to endless silence, endless torture, endless claustrophobic imprisonment. It is the fate that haunts her deep as her marrow, the living death that Midge would commit atrocities to avoid. Once, she was in his place. Caged unwillingly, unfairly, only freed by the compassion and courage others would muster.
It might kill her. It might kill everyone in this world.
The huntress’ paws were already in motion, her instinct spurring her to action long before her mind had determined her conclusion. She surged into action alongside the other gathered wolves, pressing her pelt against theirs to shore them up. They were pack for now. They would move as one. And if the Bound One chose to burn this world to ash when he was free, so be it. She clasped her jaws around a burning chain with a strangled snarl, lifting her gaze to the bound wolf’s. She had broken her chains. She’d break his. He’d feel the sun on his skin, the wind in his fur, the reach of his limbs without limitation.
He was one of her own, now.
