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Morning came. All of his effort was for naught. Whoever was here would be miles away. Peter kicked a nearby tree in frustration, suddenly grateful for having put on boots before heading out. It had been a couple of hours since it happened, and he had yet to find a trace of the culprit. It happened inside the tool shack, that's for sure. There was no way in or out the small space other than the main door, which he had been watching since it closed. He had checked inside and there were no bullet holes to be found anywhere. Not in the walls, and not even in the small glass window at the back. Yet, there was nobody else inside. It's like whoever did it appeared and then disappeared right into thin air. It was baffling, and Peter would have been utterly fascinated by it had he not been completely swallowed by blind anger and hatred. He still couldn't believe that somebody would do that. Why would anybody, ANYBODY, go into the woods and shoot a little girl? Perhaps that was even more baffling. Peter couldn't decide on which.

There was one thing he could decide on though. That would be going back to his house and be with his daughter. It actually pained him to leave her to find the aggressor, even though she had passed out from the pain and he had made sure that the shot hadn't hit anything important. Luckily, it was only a flesh wound and would heal given time. That didn't change the fact that it hurt. Both her and him. When he heard her scream from inside the shack, it made his heart wrench. It wasn't a scream of shock. It wasn't a scream of surprise. It was a scream of pain. It's the kind of scream that with utmost clarity sends a very blunt message. Something is very wrong. It became even worse when he opened the door and saw her. There was blood on the floor, smeared from the direction where the door was. It almost looked like an arrow. A red arrow pointing towards the nearest source of pain. Almost as if the universe WANTED him to see what it had done to her, like some sort of sick achievement set up for public viewing.

While thinking of his daughter, the otter unconsciously picked up his pace, the sounds of snapping twigs and dead grass crunched under his steps the only sign of any living being in the vicinity.

It would probably be a while for her to wake up, and the bandage he dressed her arm with wouldn't need replacing until even later. Still, looking for whoever did this out in the woods would be a waste of time by now, and he wanted nothing more than to be with her when she woke up. Tell her it's going to be all right. He tightened his grip on the hunting rifle he held with his right hand. All of his anger was almost gone by now, though in its place was a sense of dread and worry. He left her alone to find someone that couldn't be found. Great. Now there was some guilt sprinkled in. When his vision started blurring he noticed that he was tearing up. He could now see the clearing the house stood on.

By the time he reached the house, his speedy walking had turned into a brisk jog. As cruel as it sounded, he hoped that she still wouldn't be awake. Waking up alone after passing out from pain from a completely surprise gunshot by who-knows-who out of the blue can't feel incredibly amazing, and Peter didn't want that piling up on his plate. Unfortunately, the cosmos didn't sympathize. As he walked up to the door, he could hear her voice. She was talking. He couldn't make out what she was saying. Then he heard another voice, definitely not Jale's. It sounded male, and that's all he could tell from it. A sudden fear made his heart sink. Had the attacker come back?

He twisted the doorknob and burst in his... tool shed?

The sudden disconnect in expectations made Peter stumble a bit. He looked behind him. It was outside. He could see the shed a ways back, but its door was closed. Yet, he was inside it.

He took a couple of steps back and closed the door. He reopened it. It was still the inside of the tool shed. He stood still for a bit, trying to wrap his mind on what he was seeing.

"Leave me alone!"

The voice of his daughter brought him back to his senses. He would sort out the shack-in-his-house problem later. He went back outside and dashed around to the front of the house. If he couldn't get in the house through the back, he would do it through the front. As crazy as it sounded, it did the trick. Except that not in the way he would expect, even if he didn't know what to expect. Through the front door, he could see a familiar hallway. It was the hallway on the second floor of the house. It was the hallway that he would see from this exact angle when exiting the bathroom. Completely baffled and without a trace of an idea of what was going on, he went in. Two doors on the left wall would be Jale's room, where she would be in right now.

"You're not taking me anywhere!"

The panic in her voice was too much for him to bear.

"Jale! I'm coming!"

"DAD! HELP!"

From the sound of it, she would be on the far side of the room, away from the door. He kicked it open. There was no Jale. There was no assailant. There was no room. Instead, there was a very grassy and very green field. He had no way of getting in the room. This vast expanse of SOMEWHERE was in the way.

That wouldn't stop him.

He ran down the hallway, in the bathroom door, and consequently out the front door, around the house, in the back door, into the tool shack. He grabbed a ladder from the back and set it on the wall beside the back door. If he couldn't go in through the door, he would do it through the window. He started climbing, and halfway up he heard a door shut. He peeked up over the edge and saw nobody inside. In a panic, he vaulted over the window's rim, knocking down the lantern on the small cabinet besides Jale's bed. He rushed to the door and yanked it open. There was no hallway. Instead, the same grassy field greeted him. This time, however, the field was not empty, and he did not want the field to get out of the way. A couple of paces away from the door was a red worn-down pickup truck. At arms length from the truck was a gray wolf wearing some sort of black uniform. In the arms of said wolf was a limp and unconscious Jale. Peter immediately raised his rifle.

"Don't. Move."

The wolf froze.

"Any sudden moves and you're dead."

The kidnapper's ears folded back, and Peter could see his tail curling downwards, almost between his legs. Whatever his plan was, Peter was definitely a costly oversight.

"Turn around."

"She's not safe."

"Shut up! Turn around!"

"They're coming."

"Shut up!"

He fired a warning shot on the ground, very, very close to his foot. The wolf flinched, shifting his right foot a bit. Slowly, he turned. Peter hadn't taken a good look at him until now. The wolf looked young, maybe in his twenties. His fur was a dull gray, but not a gray of age. From what little fur he could see, he expected it to be the same all over his body, even though he couldn't see much of it. He was wearing a black jacket. It had pockets. Many pockets. He could count at least eight on the front, and he might have noticed a couple more on the back before, but he couldn't be sure. He also wore pants of the same color, also riddled with pockets. He had a cap on, and for some reason it reminded Peter of military. On his feet he wore a pair of black leather boots. Black, black, black. It was all black.

"Set her down on the ground."

"I need to take the bullet away from her."

"You will put her down and you will not lay a single finger on her afterward!"

"They're tracking the bullet!" The wolf took a menacing step forwards. Peter decided that one warning shot was enough and fired at the offending foot. If Jale fell she would only get bruises, and he was not about to play games with this kidnapper.

The wolf yelped loudly, and gasped as he regained his composure. Surprisingly, he remained standing, now shifting his weight on his good foot.

"I said no sudden moves. I don't know what your game is, but in any case there is no bullet. It went right through."

The wolf's eyes went wide. If the bullet wasn't in her arm, then...

The ground jerked sideways violently, causing the wolf and otter to fall on the ground. Before they could get their bearings back, there was a sudden wind pushing backwards with incredible strength. They both managed to find purchase by digging their claws in the ground, the wolf hanging onto Jale lest she be dragged away. As sudden as it all started, it stopped. Before the otter could do anything, he heard the wolf's voice.

"Crisis averted. The girl lives. I repeat. The girl lives."

The otter looked up and saw him talking into some sort of communicator, like a walkie-talkie. Then he saw Jale lying on the ground beside him. As he got up, he tried looking around for his dropped rifle. He heard the click of a gun.

"Get up." The wolf said.

A sense of dread overcame him. He failed. Just like that. One moment, he was going to get Jale to safety, and then he is at the mercy of the man that intended to walk away with her. From one day they were having a peaceful life in a house in the middle of the forest, and the next he was likely to be killed and his daughter was to be taken away for god-knows-what. This kind of thing doesn't happen. Right?

"I'm really sorry. The bullet was supposed to still be in her, or in the very least very near her. That's why we intervened."

His words didn't matter anymore. It was over. He failed to protect his daughter. Now he feared that she might have a fate worse than death.

"Turn around."

He vaguely recognized the command, thinking that if he complied maybe he could get more time to fix this. Stall a bit. He turned. His thoughts quickly stopped at what he saw.

A mere couple of meters from the door frame, which he now noticed that was free-standing, yet lead into Jale's room, was the edge of a crater. A perfectly smooth and spherical crater. A perfectly smooth and spherical 100-to-150 meter wide crater. That wasn't there a moment ago. Wha... What did that?!

"We couldn't let her be in that."

Again he was thinking back to Jale. Again he was thinking back at his failure. Again he was thinking back at how he HAD to fix this. He wouldn't let them take her.

"Keep her away from doors until it comes under control."

Then everything went black.