Humphrey woke up in a strange place. As he opened his eyes and looked around, he couldn’t figure out where he was. He couldn’t even remember how he had gotten here. The place was fairly large, but enclosed. There were various weird items sitting all around him and he was laying on something soft and fuzzy. Slowly, it all came back to him. It was a little less than a month ago when he, along with Kate, his pups, Garth, Lilly, Daria, Marcel, and Paddy had set out to find his parents.

After finding out they were dead, the group had learned that the valley had been taken over by the Rogue Wolves and they rushed back to help. During the battle, a group of humans had shown up. Then Humphrey remembered him. The General. He had been aiming his gun at Kenya, so Humphrey intervened and the two fought. In the end, Humphrey had jumped in front of a knife that was thrown at Kate and after the humans retreated, he…

Wait, he thought. I should be dead. He tried to get up, but as he rolled onto his stomach, he was hit with an intense wave of pain in his side. He grimaced as he looked down at his side and saw that his entire upper body had been tightly wrapped with white bandaging from the bottom of his ribcage to the back of his shoulders.

While he still didn’t know where he was, he knew that he was alive, although how remained a mystery. As he tried to stand up again, the door to the room he was in opened and a middle-aged woman stepped in. Despite her age, she looked very fit and healthy. Her blonde hair was tied up behind her head and she had a concerned look in her eyes.

At the sight of a human, Humphrey instinctively panicked and tried to get up as quickly as he could. He stood up right away when he saw her, but immediately fell over in pain. He scrambled to his feet again, the adrenaline in his body helping him to ignore the searing pain in his side that was telling him to stop. Humphrey backed into a corner, wanting to get as far away from her as he could. Humans were bad news. They always were.

“Whoa, whoa, calm down!” the woman exclaimed, putting her hands out in a calming gesture. “You’re still healing.”

Humphrey didn’t relax. He didn’t care about his wound right now. He was terrified of whatever this human was going to do to him. As she calmly approached him, the grey fur on his back that wasn’t being held down by the bandages began to stand up and he began to growl. The woman stopped her approach and just looked at him. As much as Humphrey wanted to stay focused and not let his guard down, his body wouldn’t let him, and he eventually collapsed back onto the floor.

The woman rushed over and kneeled down next to him. Humphrey tried to muster the strength to get up or growl or do anything that would get her away from him, but his body was completely spent. All he could do was lie there as she gently put her arms under his body and picked him up off the floor.

She brought him back over to the bed he had been laying on and put him down on it. It was then that she noticed blood seeping through the bandages on his side.

“Oh no,” she said, “you’re hemorrhaging again.”

She quickly got up and rushed out of the room, returning moments later with a towel that she tightly wrapped his side with and picked him up again. She hurriedly carried him through a couple of different rooms before they reached an open door that led outside. Humphrey was carried to a truck parked outside the house and placed inside of it. The woman got in the front and began to drive away, every now and then, looking back at Humphrey.

“Don’t worry,” she kept saying. “You’re going to be alright.”

She sped through the forest as fast as she was daring to go. They reached the western border of Jasper within twenty minutes and not long after, they entered a town. The woman drove to a fairly large building and stopped. She then jumped out of the truck, grabbed Humphrey out of the back, and rushed him into the building.

As they entered, a sudden onslaught of new and unusual smells flooded Humphrey’s nose. Some animals smelled somewhat like him; others smelled completely different. Humphrey began to feel tired and found it increasingly hard to keep his eyes open. As the woman brought him up to a desk, he passed out.

“Whoa!” the man at the desk said when he saw what had come through the door. “What are you doing with that?”

Several people sitting in chairs suddenly jumped out of their seats when they saw the wolf being carried into the building.

“He needs your help!” the woman said quickly.

The man rushed around the counter and Humphrey was taken back to a white room with a table on it.

“Wait,” the man said as he recognized the woman, “weren’t you two just here a few days ago?”

“Yes,” she replied.

“What happened?”

“I startled him when he woke up and he tore it open.”

The man pulled back the last of the bandages and a shocked look came over his face for a moment.

“Oh, he certainly did,” he said before calling two other people into the room.

After the towel and bandages were removed, Humphrey’s reopened wound began bleeding more heavily. The bleeding was eventually brought under control and he was stitched up and bandaged again. He was brought over to a cage with a bed in it and placed inside.

“We’ll monitor him closely for a few days, and then we’ll transfer him to a place where he can heal up properly before being released,” the man said.

A few days passed and Humphrey’s wound continued to slowly heal to the point where he could at least lie on his stomach without too much pain. Eventually, the day came when Humphrey was supposed to be transferred. The woman who brought Humphrey to the building had come to see him before he left.

“How do you plan on moving him?” she asked.

“Well,” the man replied, “he’s still too injured to move on his own and he’s been fairly calm these past few days, so I don’t think we need to sedate him. We just have to be careful.”

As they opened the cage and set Humphrey on a gurney, he looked at the woman and began to whimper.

“Shh,” the man said, “I know it hurts.”

“I don’t think that’s why he’s whimpering,” the woman replied as she realized Humphrey’s gaze never left her.

The man noticed too and stopped pushing the gurney.

“It looks like he likes you,” he said.

Humphrey rolled his eyes internally. To be completely honest with himself, he didn’t know why he was doing this. Maybe this woman really didn’t mean to hurt him. Maybe she really did care about him. Whatever it was, he had a strange feeling about her. A good feeling, like everything would be alright. He didn’t know where these people planned to take him, and that thought was more terrifying than returning to this woman’s house. And besides, her house was closer to the pack, which was comforting.

“Well,” the man said, “do you think you could handle him? All he really needs is bed rest and to stay hydrated.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” she replied.

“Alright then.”

Humphrey was wheeled out to the woman’s truck and carefully put in the back and the two returned to her house. Humphrey reluctantly relaxed and took it easy for the rest of the day. The next morning, the woman checked in on Humphrey to find him trying to stand up. He ended up falling over again and let out a growl of frustration.

“Hey, you have to take it easy,” she said. “You’re still healing.”

“I’m not helpless,” Humphrey said to himself.

“I know you’re not.”

Humphrey suddenly raised his head and looked at the woman in shock.

“You-” he began.

“Oh, sorry,” the woman apologized. “I didn’t mean to surprise you. But yes, I can understand you.”

“H-how?” Humphrey asked.

“I work as a park ranger here in Jasper,” she replied. “I’ve been around animals my whole life and I’m especially fond of wolves. Needless to say, I picked a few things up.”

“Oh,” Humphrey said. “So, um, w-what’s your name?”

The woman laughed a little at his awkwardness before answering.

“My name’s Leyla. Leyla Johnson. I imagine you have a name too?”

“Yeah. I’m Humphrey.”

“Humphrey,” she said. “That’s a nice name. It means “peaceful warrior” if I’m not mistaken. Is that why your parents gave you that name?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” he replied. “To be honest, I never really knew my parents. We were separated when I was very young.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Leyla said.

She then paused for a moment.

“Would you...like to talk about it?” she asked carefully, sitting down next to him.

“I don’t mind,” Humphrey said. “It helps to talk about it.”

He then spent the rest of the day telling Leyla about his puphood and how he and Kenya were taken from their parents when they were young. He told of how his crate had fallen off the truck and how he got lost in the woods. He told her about Arnold and the prank they played on Gerald. He told about when Arnold got caught in a bear trap and Humphrey had to leave him when he smelled a human approaching.

He told about how he was caught in a storm and how his tail was pinned down by a tree. He told of the wolves that rescued him and then he told of his banishment from their pack, only to be found by the Western Pack the next day. He then told of Kate and how he grew up with her. He told of their accidental trip to Idaho and how they fell in love along the way. He told of the adventures their pups had led them on and eventually told of how he went searching for his parents. How he found Kenya and Adam and how the pack was attacked. And how he had sacrificed himself to save his sister.

“Wow,” Leyla said, “no wonder you freaked out when you saw me the other day.”

“Yeah, humans and I don’t really mix,” he replied.

Leyla suddenly smiled and laughed to herself.

“What?” Humphrey asked. “What is it?”

“Oh, it’s just...I’m sitting here having a conversation with a wolf,” Leyla answered.

“And I’ll bet that’s not something you do every day?” Humphrey asked.

“No, not one bit,” she said. “It’s weird though. I...I don’t mean to offend you but, I don’t know, it’s almost...humanizing.”

“What is?”

“All this,” she replied. “Knowing your name, talking to you, getting to know you. You don’t seem like just an animal anymore.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Humphrey asked.

“Yeah, definitely, it’s just…strange.”

“I get it,” Humphrey told her. “I mean it’s not like I've ever sat down and talked with a human before either. But to be fair, every human I’ve come across has tried to kill me.”

“Well, not all humans are like that,” Leyla said.

“So, how did you find me?” Humphrey asked. “I mean, how did I get here?”

“I found you unconscious on the ground with that wound in your side, so I grabbed you and took you up to that animal hospital in the town a couple miles west of here,” Leyla explained. “They bandaged you up and turned you over to me because they didn’t have the room for you. They told me to bring you back once you woke up, but I never really planned to. You know you’re very lucky to be alive. Not only did you survive a knife wound, but they also said that they found a bullet lodged between two of your organs, but they were both perfectly intact. It’s a miracle you survived that.”

She looked at the time on a clock on the wall.

“You should get some rest.”

“Leyla I, uh,” Humphrey began.

“What?”

“Aw man, this is embarrassing,” he continued.

“What is it?” Leyla asked again.

“I, uh. I have to go,” Humphrey whispered.

“Why are you whispering?” Leyla whispered back.

“Because I’m embarrassed,” Humphrey said again.

“Oh,” Leyla said, finally understanding. “Are you sure you can’t hold it?” she asked.

“No, I can’t,” Humphrey replied.

“It’s okay. I’ll help you up.”

“That’s not the problem,” Humphrey said.

“Don’t worry,” she reassured him. “I won’t look.”

Humphrey hesitated.

“Look, this is how it’s going to be before you can stand on your own again, so you better get used to it,” Leyla said, smiling.

She helped Humphrey up and out the back door into the woods. She kept her promise and looked away as he did his business. She then helped Humphrey back inside and onto his bed.

As the weeks passed, Humphrey slowly began to heal. The bandages were removed a few days after he and Leyla had their talk and by the end of the month, he was able to stand on his own again. A few days later, he was good enough to walk again, and as the next month passed, Humphrey continued to get better and better. Over the course of his recovery, he and Leyla had formed a strong friendship and she was beginning to get afraid that when the time came to release him, Humphrey either wouldn’t want to go or wouldn’t be able to survive on his own after months in captivity.

One day, she made the tough decision to send him to a nearby zoo instead. That night, Leyla drugged his food and after he passed out, she drove him up to the zoo and left him there.