The girl ran for all she was worth, which at this point was getting hard. Her short legs taking her as fast as they possibly could. Her throat hurt so bad from running so fast for so long, she could hardly breath anymore. Her already sore throat was burning to the point she wasn't sure if it would ever be able to heal properly. She couldn't even stop, she could hear the feral pack behind her. If they caught her she would not come out of it unscathed and be sent back to the place. She would not go back there, not ever again. She heard the howl of one of the pack closing in on her and she sped up which she didn't think that was even possible. She suddenly heard running water and her ears perked slightly and shifted her direction toward the direction of the water. If she could hide her scent she could get further away before they caught wind of her again. She kept running until she swiftly came to a skidding stop, almost falling off the edge of a tall cliff. She collapsed onto her knees and let out a silent sob. Her one chance at freedom was more than a fifty foot drop away. She knew she could fall long drops without dying but she wasn't sure if she could survive such long of a drop. Tears streamed down her face as blackness started creeping into her vision. It seemed that her stopping had made her body realized how completely exhausted she was. She let out a raggedy breath as she very wobblily got to her feet.

Her eyes went wide as she heard a step and a breath behind her. In a split second she made her decision and threw herself forward. At this point she would rather die than go back to that place. All she wanted was freedom! She let out a silent scream of agony as she felt one of the feral's claws catch her side before she escaped it's reach. She closed her eyes as she plummeted, not knowing if she was going to survive this or not. It really all depended on how deep the river was. She felt the breath get knocked out of her as she smashed into the water. Her eyes shot open wide in panic as she brought a mouthful of water. She quickly expelled the water and clawed her way frantically towards what she hoped was the surface. She was in full panic mode as she realized the darkness was closing in on her fast, she couldn't breathe but she had to so badly. The current was dragging her down the fast-moving water and away from the surface. Her entire vision was almost encompassed by the blackness as she fought as hard as she could toward the surface. She wasn't dead, not yet. At the moment she was away from those awful people so she was determined to stay alive. People had died to help her escape from that horrible place. Throwing her life away would be throwing those that helped her away as well. To her extreme joy she breached the surface of the water and brought in a huge lungful of air.

That didn't help her overall situation though. Her vision was still almost completely dark, she was having a hard time breathing, and her side was in complete agony. She had no idea how bad her side was from where the feral had clawed her, what she did know was that it was bleeding really badly so she was currently losing a good amount of blood. Her situation was not good, not good at all. She felt herself go under once again and forced her head above water. She needed something to hold on to before she passed out. A log, or even a rock she could climb on top of; something… ANYTHING! She could barely see though which made searching for something to save herself about a hundred times harder. Suddenly her back smashed into something hard. She made her hand shoot out and grab onto whatever she had ran into.

A small smile appeared on her face as she realized she had a decent grip on what she was assuming was a log of some sort as she was still moving down the river. She hoisted herself a bit more onto the log before letting herself succumb to the begging darkness.

The next time she came to she was on the edge of the river, her mind extremely groggy. The first thing she noticed was the horrible ache in her side. She pushed herself up and listened as closely as she could to see if anyone was around, her ears twitching in every which way. She heard a lot of noises a bit of ways away, but there was nobody close to her. Once she realized that she was alone she pulled up her dress and looked at the severity of the claw mark. It must have grazed her with two of its fingers as two deep gouges lined her side. She let out a quiet hiss as she realized her healing wasn't kicking in, she was simply too tired. She looked down at her ripped and bloodied dress and realized that there really was no saving it. She took her claws and ripped off the bottom of her dress, but kept it long enough so the edge landed in the middle of her thighs. A bit shorter than she would like, but she really needed the bind her side to stop the bleeding. It wasn't bleeding as bad as it originally was, but it was still slowly bleeding. She ripped up and tied the strips together to make a makeshift bandage and wrapped them around her side as best as she could.

She got to her feet, which she now realized were bare. She must have lost her shoes to the river. She let out a sigh and started slowly walking towards all the distance noise she was hearing. It took her hours, going achingly slowly through the forest. As the trees got thinner and thinner she realized that she was getting close to a large city. As she got to the edge of the city she paused as she saw the sheer amount of people. She had never seen so many people in her live, ever. At the facility there had only been twenty people at one time, the people changed sometimes but there was still the same amount of people. She did know however that she would stand out immediately and that was a bad thing. She needed to blend in and hide as best as she could. Having a long tail and dog ears were going to make her stand out right away. She needed to blend in as much as possible. She made her tail wrap around her stomach making it hide under her horrid dress. Then she pressed her ears down tight to her head, it didn't make them disappear, but it would make them less noticeable. She quickly made her way into the town and kept hidden in the dark alleys and occasionally roofs when somebody turned down the alley she was in. Once it got dark she could move around with a bit more freedom, she was going to have to find something to eat soon. She was starving, but everything smelled so bad that she couldn't make herself eat anything that she came across so far. She wasn't sure if anything that she ate wouldn't poison her. She had never had to find her own food before, the people at the facility very carefully kept their diets under check.

Hours passes and finally it was dark enough out that people wouldn't panic the moment they saw her all the blood stains on her dress. She let out a wince as her side throbbed with pain. The wound had long ago bleed through her makeshift bandages. She trudged tiredly through the alleys until she heard a series of loud bangs that made her jump in place. Her eyes went wide in fear at the familiar sound. That sound had killed someone that she cared very deeply for. She quickly made her way to the roof and against her better judgement went towards those horrible sounds. She peered carefully over the edge of the roof, making sure to press her ears as tightly to her head as she could. Her ears were very sensitive and the loud bangs hurt. She watched as a man with a red helmet fight a group of people with black masks over their faces. She watched carefully at the red helmet man was shooting at the people, but not in fatal spots. Mostly at their legs and arms. The black masked men were trying their best to kill the red helmet man, but he had great skill and miraculously avoided all of the shots. Well either that or the black masked men were very bad shots. She watched them as the red helmet man quickly took out the black masked men and left them tied up in front of the building with the broken windows.

The red helmet man was clearly a good guy, maybe he could help her? Once the idea popped into her head it consumed her entirely. She had no idea if this was a good idea, but she was going to run with it. She wouldn't be able to follow him around the city in the condition she was in so she quickly took in his scent and committed it to memory. She watched the man disappear before she silently apologized to her nose. She took a deep breath and suddenly hundreds of different scents assaulted her nose. Most of the day she had been breathing through her mouth once she realized how extremely bad this entire city smelled. It took her a few minutes to filter through the hundreds of scents before she was able to isolate the red helmet man's scent. She followed it as quickly as she could so she could give her nose a well deserved break. It took a few minutes making her way over a good amount of roofs before she found herself across from a tall building. The man's smell was all over one of the different rooms within the buildings. She steeled herself before she jumped across to the metal ladders outside the windows of the building. A gasp escaped her as her side screamed in pain. She felt the wound start bleeding once again. She went to the widow that connected the room that smelled like him. She tested the window and a small smile appeared on her face as she realized that it was not locked. She snuck into the room and looked around.

There was a small living area, which is where she was now. Connected to the area was a tiny kitchen. She saw two closed doors and moved to the first one. She opened the door and saw a bathroom. Her eyes lit up as she realized that she could finally relieve herself in a bathroom. She had been holding it all day. Once she finished with her business she moved onto the other closed door. Behind this door held a bedroom. That was what consisted of the man's house. She decided to wait in the bedroom area. She was going to stand for until the man got back to the house but exhaustion hit her. She climbed onto the bed and sat on the edge of it. She didn't want to get his blanket dirty, but she simply couldn't sit any longer. After a while her eyes drifted shut and she started dozing off. She didn't completely fall asleep, she just let herself rest a bit. Her eyes snapped open as she heard the window that she herself came in open up. He was back.