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I wake up naked on a cold metal floor. That's usually a sign that something is very wrong, so I scramble to my feet. I'm in a tiny metal room, empty except for another nude wolf in the middle of the room. Cuffs on his wrists and ankles chain him spreadeagle to two vertical metal poles on either side of him. I'm not sure what to make of this.

The wolf catches my speechless stare and interrupts my train of thought.

"What do you want from me?" He shoots me a vicious glare.

"Nothing?"

"Then why'd you kidnap me?"

"The heck?"

"You kidnapped me and chained me here, didn't you?"

He struggles against the chains, making them clink.

"Hell no?"

"Then why were you staring at me like that? Bet you get off to--"

"Boy, I have no clue what you're talking about. Last thing I remember is getting drunk at the bar, and then I wake up here naked."

He sneers suspiciously at me.

"Look, we're both not supposed to be here. Let's see if I can get you free, and we'll get out of here, alright? No need for pointless squabbles."

He doesn't reply. He still doesn't trust me, but at least he's not protesting. I go over to him and examine the cuff on his wrist. There's no latch or keyhole; the cuff is a solid piece of metal welded shut around the wrist. I follow the thick chain up to where it's attached to the pole by a D-ring that's also welded on.

The wolf's eyes follow me as I squat and examine the chain around his ankle. It's attached in the same way. In fact, all four restraints are made of solid steel that has been welded into place. I stand up and bite my lip.

"Can you get me out?"

I shake my head.

"It's all welded shut."

"Ugh!" He's trying to hide the frustration in the voice as he tugs on the chain desperately. "There has to be something. I don't know, is there a saw somewhere you could use?"

He turns his head to look behind him, but his restraints provide little give. I look around in his stead, giving the room a closer examination. The room isn't huge: I can cross the room in just 5 paces. Steel panels, each one about one pace wide, form the four walls of the room. The floor is made of an unpainted metal slab. The only source of light is a translucent light panel built into the middle of the ceiling, right above the wolf.

"Nothing?"

"Nothing, unless you count the speaker there."

He tries to turn again, but he still can't see it.

"There's a speaker built into the corner ceiling."

It's a white, circular ring with a mesh in the middle, almost blending into the ceiling. It's just out of my reach, even if I jump.

"How about that doorway?" The wolf nods towards his left, where a wall panel has slightly bigger gaps along its edges.

"Hmm."

Even if it were a door, it doesn't have a handle. I put both hands on the door and push. It budges by a fraction of an inch, but no more. Whoever built the door didn't intend for it to be opened from the inside.

"Can't open it."

"So we're trapped here?"

"Looks like it."

"Maybe there's some lever or something--"

"Nothing there. I've checked."

"There has to be something! Whoever trapped us here might've left some tools behind, or maybe a puzzle that we need to solve--"

"Shut up!"

His ears flatten and his tail curls up at my outburst.

"Look, this isn't some stupid escape room game, alright? If someone wanted to keep us here, there wouldn't be some super secret exit or some magical puzzle box that'll open the door. There'd just be a latch on the outside that keeps the door closed, and that's it. All your pathetic whining won't do shit. We're at the kidnapper's mercy, so all we can do is wait until they show up."

I lean against the wall, slump to the floor, and massage my temples. There has to be an explanation for this. We were kidnapped, but what for? A ransom? My guess is that the other guy comes from a wealthy family, which would make him a high-value target. Me? I'm barely scraping by with my job, so I don't think I'm a viable hostage.

Why would they kidnap me, then? Another explanation would be that this is the work of some psycho. That would explain why the other wolf is tied up like that, but that also means the kidnapper has something messed up planned for me, too.

I sigh. That's not good, but it's not like there's anything I can do about it.

The wolf is sniffling, so I look up. His head is turned away, but I can still see the tears streaming out of his eyes and staining his fur.

I immediately feel bad for snapping at him. Waking up chained like that must've been a distressing experience, especially for someone as young as him. He looks to be about 20 years old, maybe 25 tops. And if I'm honest, his well-toned body would make younger me jealous.

"What's your name?" I ask.

"H-huh?"

"Your name."

He sneers. "Why do you care?"

"We're both in the same boat. If there's a kidnapper who locked us in here, then the best chance of us escaping is if we work together."

He still looks suspicious of me.

"We got off on the wrong foot earlier, but let's put it behind us. We can talk like civilised men instead of snapping at each other's throats. What do you say?"

He ignores me, so I shake my head and lean back, cursing beneath my breath.

"Decro." He finally says.

"Hmm?" I open my eyes.

"My name. Decro."

"Ah."

At least we're getting somewhere now.

"And your name?"

"Waldorf."

"Nice... nice to meet you, I guess."

"Yeah, not the ideal circumstances to meet, eh?"

"No."

I hastily search for another conversation topic.

"So what are you doing?"

He gives me a look of confusion. "Nothing?"

"I meant like, are you working? Studying?"

"College, senior year. You?"

"Working. Freelance adventurer and researcher."

"Oh."

There's an awkward silence again, though this time Decro breaks it.

"So... what do you remember before... you know..."

"We ended up here?"

"Yeah."

"Like I said, I was drunk. Don't remember much, but I usually end up playing mama bird to the toilet until the janitor kicks me out to the street. But instead of waking up in the gutter, I find myself here."

"I'm... sorry to hear that."

"And you?"

"I was headed back home from class. Some people jumped me from behind and pulled a bag over my head. Next thing I knew, they pulled me into a vehicle, hit me with chloroform, and I wake up here."

"Oh. That sounds nasty."

We sit in silence for a while until he breaks it.

"Any idea why we're here?"

"Not a clue. There doesn't seem to be a connection between our kidnappings, since we were both taken from different places. Family connection, maybe? What's your last name?"

"Castor."

"Jeffcoat. Guess not. How about--"

"Greetings, contestants," a male voice announces through the speaker with a flat voice. "Your goal is to survive the next 24 hours."

"The heck? Is this some game to you?"

The announcer ignores me, or maybe there isn't a microphone to pick up what I'm saying. Either way, he continues, "If both of you survive, you will walk out with a million dollars each."

"Survive?" Decro repeats.

"If only one of you survives, the survivor leaves with only a hundred thousand. And if neither of you survive, then there will be no cash prize for either of you."

There's a beep and the speaker goes dead.

"Hey! You! Get back here!" I scream. "What's this all about?"

There's no reply.

"And what's this about surviving? You're going to try to kill us, huh?"

Still no reply.

"You don't give a shit if we live or die, do you? This is all just some sick game for you."

I ramble on for a while more, but my verbal rampage is only met with silence. I turn to Decro. He's scared and shivering.

"I'm going to die, aren't I?"

"What, no! Look, we're both going to get out of here alive, alright?"

"Then why did the guy say we need to survive?"

"I don't--"

"I'm chained up. If anything happens, I'm completely helpless."

He's in tears.

"Okay, okay. Let's calm down and assess the situation. What are our threats?"

"I don't know."

"Well, I don't see anything dangerous here. Maybe he thinks we're going to go crazy out of boredom and kill each other. Well, that's not going to happen."

"But what if--"

"We'll take things as they come, alright? No point worrying about hypotheticals that might not even happen."

He shivers.

"Relax. I'll make sure everything is fine, alright?"

He nods, but he's still trembling.

"Hey, we'll make it through. Don't be scared."

"I'm not scared. It's just... I'm cold." His chains jingle as he shudders.

"Yeah, without clothes, it's going to be--"

Wait.

The metal beneath my feet is sapping the warmth from my feet.

"It... it is getting colder."

"But why--"

Icy-cold water sprays in my face, interrupting our conversation. I stumble back and hastily wipe the water off my eyes.

"Ugh!"

I look up. The spray is coming from tiny holes in the two vertical metal poles, spritzing the wolf with a heavy mist. Decro's eyes are squeezed shut, trying to keep the water out of them. I dash over to him and start wiping the water off his face. His fur repels water easily, so most of the water drips off to the floor. However, it's only a matter of time before the spray soaks him through. He shivers, and I hear a soft sob.

"You alright?"

Decro shakes his head. I cup my hands around his face, shielding him from the water.

"Open your eyes. Relax, alright? It's just water."

He opens his eyes gingerly. When he looks at me, I see pure terror in his eyes.

"They're freezing me."

The whimper in his voice breaks my heart. I open my mouth to tell him he's thinking too much, that he's being paranoid, but I realise that he's right.

"No, no. I won't let that happen to you."

The room is getting colder. Water is seeping into Decro's white fur, turning them a dull grey.

"Close your eyes."

I bring my hands away from his face and step back. He's thrashing against the chains, trying to shake off the water.

"Please, don't leave me.

"I'm not, I'm not."

I flick the water off my wet hands. Then I return to the cold shower to help Decro. I circle my hands around his left wrist, pulling downward to squeeze water out of his fur. It helps, because a stream of water flows down his torso. I do the same for his other arm, before scraping the water out of his chest fur. His body shivers beneath my touch.

The drenched fur on his head is hanging over his face, so I comb it up and wipe the water away from his eyes.

"There, you'll be fine."

"T-thank you."

But the sprays of water are relentless. It's only a matter of time before he's soaked to the skin. His fur is already clumping into soggy tufts. I step back and take a deep breath. It's not a pleasant task ahead of me, but the wolf needs me. We'll make it out of here alive.

---

"Argh!" I scream and jump back in agony from the freezing pain.

The icy spray is like tiny knives against my skin. Every droplet of water pelts my fur with its piercing frost. I can barely feel the tips of my frozen fingers, so I rub my hands together to keep warm. Decro was right. The temperature has dropped below freezing, turning the sprays of water into a shower of liquid droplets and ice shards. Decro's shivering has turned into trembling and convulsing. Keeping him dry is taking a lot out of me, but I'd hate to imagine what he's going through.

I scrape the ice off my fur before planning my next move. The gaps in the floor panels allow some of the water to drain away, but the remaining puddles have turned the floor into a slipping hazard. I step forward carefully and continue drying the wolf's fur. When he's dry enough, I go close enough to press our chests together. I pull him into an embrace to keep warm.

Geez, he's cold. It feels like I'm hugging a bag of ice. I take deep breaths and focus on his heartbeat. He's alive, and I'm here to keep him that way. But god, it's taking so damn much out of me.

How long have we been here?

I've been telling myself that it's almost over, that any time now, someone is going to open the door and tell us we've won. Five more minutes, I tell myself each time I step back. Five more minutes of keeping him dry and it'll be over. But nothing. I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.

I slowly extract myself from the embrace, prying apart our tufts of fur that have frozen together. Decro looks at me weakly as I step back.

"I... I don't want to die." His breath condenses into a puff of mist as he speaks.

"You won't."

"They won't let us die, right? Maybe it's an experiment or something, and if they see we're in danger, they'll stop the experiment."

"Maybe."

But unlikely, I think.

I'm not sure what to expect. Who even knows what to expect? There isn't anything else I've experienced that compares to this situation.

"How much longer?" he asks.

The physical exertion makes it feel like I've been here for days. My guess is that we're barely at the 12-hour mark. Another 12 hours of this ordeal to go.

"Maybe a couple more hours? Just hang on, alright?"

He nods. "You okay?"

"Hmm?"

"You're swaying."

"Feeling a bit dizzy. A nap sounds tempting."

"No!"

"Why not? I'm working my ass off here trying to keep you alive, while all you have to do is hang there. Why don't you be grateful for once--"

I stop myself. The guilt is already setting in. He didn't choose to be tied up like that. Heck, we didn't choose to be in this situation.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that."

Decro looks at me with scared eyes and ears flat. "I just meant... like... if you fall asleep when it's freezing cold... you might not wake up again."

"Oh."

"You... you need the rest. But keep talking to me. Don't fall asleep."

I try to sit down, but there's a searing frost as my rump comes in contact with the floor, and I jump to my feet. I tuck my tail under me and sit down on my fur. It's wet, but still a far cry better than the freezing floor. I try to lean against the wall, but it's cold too, so I sit upright. I need to conserve my body heat. In my position, I get as comfortable as I can, take deep breaths to calm myself. The air in my lungs is cold and biting, and my vision is starting to blur...

"Waldorf! Stay with me."

My eyes snap open. "I'm not falling asleep."

"I've been trying to wake you up for the past five minutes."

"Oh, shit." I get up to my feet. "You know what? I should keep moving."

I start trying to warm Decro up. Some of his wet fur is already freezing to his skin, and I have to carefully scrape it off. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't have a strategy. I don't know if we'll make it out of here alive. But the best I can do now is to keep moving.

---

"Waldorf!"

I wake up, staring blankly ahead of me.

"Waldorf? Please wake up."

I'm awake. Why is it so damn cold?

"Oh god, please, don't be dead, don't be dead."

I'm hugging the crying pup. I try to move, but I'm stuck.

"Huh?"

It hits me. I was hugging Decro to keep warm, but a thin layer of ice has formed over us. He's sobbing frantically.

"Okay, okay, you're awake." He sounds relieved.

"Yeah."

I try to step back again, but the ice has frozen our bodies together within its rigid grasp. I lift my hands, and the ice tugs on my fur. It hurts, but I keep pulling until my arms break free in a burst of ice shards. I hold the wolf's sides, trying to push him off me.

"Oww, oww."

"Bear with me. We can't be stuck together like this."

He nods. I scrape at the ice around our chests and abs, chipping away at it until we're free. I step back and heave a sigh of relief. Decro is still crying.

"I... you were hugging me, then you fell asleep. I couldn't tell if you were breathing. I was so scared you..."

"Okay, yeah, relax. I'm still here, alright?"

No more hugs, I tell myself silently. I can't afford to fall asleep again.

The sprays are still going relentlessly, as if their sole mission in life is to turn their helpless prisoner into an ice sculpture. Decro's legs are already encased in a thick layer of ice, where all the water has been flowing down. The fur on his arms, body, and face is already encrusted in a thin layer of ice crystals. I grit my teeth and work towards freeing him from his frozen fate.

---

I'm done! I'm done, I'm done, I'm done.

"I can't do this anymore."

My hands are freezing. If my fur isn't wet, it's frozen with chunks of ice. Decro looks like his body is about to shut down any time, so I don't even know why I'm doing this. The wolf looks at me with a tired gaze.

"Is... is it not over yet?"

"No, but I can't do this anymore."

"But... you can't let me freeze over."

"I'm tired. If I keep doing this, I'll run out of energy, and then I won't have any left to keep warm."

"No, please! I can't do it myself."

Fucking ingrate.

"You'll just have to figure it out. Shake it off or something."

"The ice sticks to me. I still need your help. Maybe every 5 minutes you could--"

"This is no longer my problem--"

"Please! I don't want to--"

"Enough! Look, if I continue trying to help you, I'm going to collapse from fatigue and die."

"But--"

"You're a gone case either way. The only difference is if I get to live or not, and I choose to live."

I feel guilty about this, but it's me or him. I didn't choose to chain him up; whoever set this up did. Whoever set this up is responsible for this. Still, I can't face his pitiful gaze. I move to the corner of the room behind him, where he cannot turn his head to look.

"Please? Just every 10 minutes."

Prize money be damned. Risking my life isn't worth a million bucks. A hundred thousand is still pretty good. I scrape the last of the ice crystals out of my fur, curl up on the floor, and huddle for warmth. It feels so much better now that I'm out of the cold shower. If I knew Decro was a lost cause, I'd have done this from the start.

"It doesn't have to be my whole body. Just get the ice off my face, please?"

If he were in my position, I'm sure he'd have left me for dead, too. Maybe he wouldn't even have tried to save me for as long as I had. My feet ache. My arms ache. My body aches. I have already done so much for Decro. So much more than he could've asked for. More than he could've begged for.

"I don't want to die, please."

Neither do I, buddy.

"Give me one more chance. I'm sorry if I did anything wrong."

I try to drown out his voice as I close my eyes, but his voice keeps worming its way into my chest and tugs at my heartstrings.

"I'm sorry I was suspicious of you at the start. You've been helping so much. I'm sorry."

Not listening, not listening, not listening.

"I don't want to die."

He's just a broken record now.

"Please. I'll do anything, please!"

I pretend to be asleep. He'll stop once he realises I'm not budging.

"I want to go home."

I just have to block him out. As I exhale, I focus on the mist that escapes my nostrils.

"I'm scared."

His pleas go on for a long time, getting softer and weaker, until eventually there's just the sound of spraying water, and I fall asleep.

---

There's a loud hiss that startles me awake. I look around in alarm, but everything is fine. I'm still in the metal room, but something's different. For one, the room is no longer freezing cold. The ice on the floor has melted into puddles. The torture is over, and I'm alive.

Decro, however, hasn't been as lucky. I don't know why I expected him to be gone from the middle of the room, but he's still there. Or at least, his corpse is. I get up and circle to the front. The frozen wolf still stands spreadeagle in his chains. His head is bowed down and his expression is one of hopeless agony. An inch-thick layer of clear ice encases him, although it's starting to melt as the room warms up.

I step closer to examine him, looking for signs of life. There's none. Water had frozen over his face, blocking off his nose and suffocating him in his frosty prison. I take a deep breath. I can tell this is going to be on my conscience for a while, but what was I to do? Try to save him, only to have us both die in the process? No. Living with this guilty burden is better than not being alive to experience the guilt at all.

To the right, a wall panel has been swung open to reveal a bright doorway. I consider trying to free Decro. Maybe I can bring him home to his family. Or at least I can take his body outside to experience freedom from this place. Then I remember the welded chains, and I know my efforts will all be wasted.

So I leave him there and head out the door.

---

~ End ~