“Prelinsa! Prelinsa, wake up!”

Prelinsa eyes popped open as she felt someone shaking her. It was Marianne, who had an unusual look of urgency on her face.

“Come on, we have to get moving.” She spoke in a hushed voice.

Prelinsa could hear a big clamor going on in the Commune outside the shelter. She nodded, not questioning anything. She promptly rose, shivering a bit as she yawned and her fur fluffed up, her breath condensing in the cold, nighttime air. As was typical, a bright and powerful aurora shone overhead, its lights shimmering in a variety of colors.

She clambered after Marianne and out of the shelter. A light snow drifted down a scene of absolute madness. The campfires burned brightly in the night as some of the Commune dwellers fought off a bunch of strangers, trying to keep them from entering the Commune. Others were fleeing from the scene, but most were getting run down by the intruders, who wielded weapons such as stun guns and stun batons.

“Marianne! Prelinsa!” Missus B. shouted, as she wielded a staff against two people.

“Missus B!” Prelinsa cried out.

“There’s too many of ‘em! Ya gotta run!” Missus B. urged. “I’ll hold ‘em off! Go! Go now! Move!”

Prelinsa watched the scene, torn about the situation.

“Hurry, Prelinsa!” Marianne said. She turned and raced silently down a dark alleyway, her bushy red tail trailing behind like a flame in the wind. Prelinsa followed quickly, her eyes able to see quite well under the sickly crescent moon and the aurora. She looked back just in time to see Missus B. get beaten down from behind by a third attacker with a stun baton, her body twitching and spasming from the electric shock. Wincing, she turned around and kept running. Behind them, there were voices shouting. Even in the absence of wind, Prelinsa’s human ear couldn’t make out the words, but her fox ear could hear them over the noise of the fighting.

“Shit, some of ‘em are getting away!”

“Don’t waste your breath, the others will deal with them!”

The mother and daughter pair ran through the streets and alleys, making sure to avoid large snowdrifts where they would leave footprints. The shouting voices got fainter and fainter with each turn they made. At last, when they were a good distance away, they stopped by some collapsed buildings to catch their breath. Then Marianne spoke.

“Slavers,” she whispered.

Prelinsa grimaced. She had heard many stories of slavers. They would kidnap people off the streets and sell them to rich people who didn’t even think of slum dwellers as human, just goods to be taken advantage of. Anyone who got caught would be forced to work until they died from either sickness or exhaustion. It was a much worse fate than living your whole life in the slums.

“Are you alright, Prelinsa?”

“I’m fine for now, mom. But I-” Prelinsa suddenly coughed up blood, which splattered onto the wet ground and stained the snow. She thumped her chest with her fist a few times, taking deep breaths.

“Ugh…”

Marianne rushed to Prelinsa’s side, gently hugging her and helping her stay upright.

“Oh, sweetie, I’m sorry! Don’t talk for now, okay? Sit down, let’s rest for a bit.”

Prelinsa nodded silently as the two of them slowly slumped down to the wet, cobblestone path. The two of them waited in tense, agonizing silence as the seconds passed by, each one feeling like minutes. Prelinsa shivered as she closed her eyes for a moment and took breathed slowly through her nose, trying to ease her lungs and chest while keeping her fear from eating away at her. All the while, she kept listening carefully for danger.

Meanwhile, Marianne pulled off her coat and crouched down on all fours. With a crackling noise, like bones grinding against each other, her human face elongated into a long snout with whiskers and canine teeth. Her fingers and toes shrank into paws, her limbs stretched and gained a coating of black fur, and unkempt scarlet fur enveloped the rest of her body, which expanded into a longer, quadrupedal form. In seconds, she had transformed from humanoid into a huge fox, just big enough to ride on. She lay down low for Prelinsa to climb on.

“Get on.”

“Mom, you know this will slow us both down,” Prelinsa said in protest. “And you’re still hurt, too.”

“I won’t leave you behind, and you shouldn’t be running right now.”

Marianne’s ears twitched, and she swiveled her head as some faint yelling could be heard.

“Hurry!”

Prelinsa nodded, and clambered onto her mother’s back, hanging on as tightly as she could. It was a bit slippery due to Marianne’s compression top, so she wrapped her arms around her mother’s torso. Marianne stood, and galloped through the streets, though at a slower pace than before. She paused at a junction, frowning as she scanned each path, before turning right. By this point, the shouting of the slavers was getting louder. Prelinsa looked back over her shoulder. There were three of them, giving chase. She didn’t get a good look, but they were rugged looking men and women, carrying weapons of some kind.

Something small whistled past them from a side alleyway, barely missing Prelinsa. She could hear it whoosh by her head. It wasn’t any sound she was familiar with.

“Keep low, Prelinsa!”

Prelinsa did so, holding tightly against her mother’s back as they raced around another corner and into a narrow corridor. Suddenly, Marianne turned sideways and skidded to a halt. Prelinsa peeked up to see a huge, bald man built like a tree, one eye missing and replaced by a scar. He carried a thin but nasty looking stun baton in his left hand, its shaft crackling with electricity. Marianne let out a low growl and took a few steps back, her ears flattening as she took a defensive stance.

“Hey, hey. Easy there, missus fox,” he said, an ugly smirk on his face. “We don’t wanna do this the hard way.”

Prelinsa looked back, hearing footsteps. The other slavers had caught up, trapping them on both ends.

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Marianne surveyed the situation, weighing her options.

“…At least let my child go,” she finally said. “She’s terribly sick, so she won’t be of any use to you.”

“Mom, no! I’m not going anywhere without you,” Prelinsa insisted.

The big man snorted, then laughed, shortly joined in by sniggers from the other slavers. “Ha! You’re not in any position to negotiate here.”

He brandished his baton menacingly. The next few seconds were a blur. Marianne lunged at the big man, who easily deflected the fox with his baton. A sharp, tingling pain coursed through both Marianne and Prelinsa as the stun baton connected, causing both of them to tumble to the ground in different directions.

“Aaaaahh!”

“No! Prelinsa!”

“Better not take your eyes off me, missus fox!” The big man warned, swinging his baton. Marianne rolled over, narrowly avoiding it.

One of the other slavers grabbed Prelinsa, still stunned, holding her tightly from behind. As she regained her senses, she squirmed and thrashed violently to try and escape, coughing several times. One kick loosened the slaver’s grip enough, allowing her to bite down hard on the slaver’s forearm, drawing blood. The slaver shrieked and recoiled, letting go.

“Eaarrgh, you little bitch!”

She kicked Prelinsa from behind, sending her falling forward. Prelinsa hit the ground hard, yelping as she scraped her arms and knees.

“Animals like you need to learn some respect!” The slaver hissed, drawing her club and raising it. Prelinsa looked up, bracing herself to be struck. But before it could connect, Marianne kicked off of the big slaver and dove into the way, the club smacking into her head with an awful cracking sound. The big fox crumpled to the ground, landing on her side, unmoving.

“Olga!” The big slaver roared. “The big one was the more valuable of the two!”

“…Mom?”

Prelinsa quickly crawled over to Marianne’s body. As the slavers argued, Marianne slowly and painfully turned to look at her daughter, her breathing badly labored as a pool of blood collected around her head. She reached out one of her front paws, which Prelinsa held onto desperately with both hands.

“Prelinsa, sweetie… I’m sorry,” she said faintly, her voice full of regret. “This… this is it for me. Sorry… I couldn’t be a better mom for you. Sorry I couldn’t protect you until the end…”

Prelinsa frantically examined the wound on Marianne’s head, tears welling up in her eyes. She pulled off her scarf and tried to tie it around the injury, but the bleeding just wouldn’t stop.

“Mom! Mom, please, hang on,” she said.

“I… I love you, Prelinsa. More than anything else in the world. I’m… so sorry you never got to live a better life. I’ll always…”

Marianne’s body went limp.

“Mom!” Prelinsa wailed.

“Shut the kid up, will you?” One of the slavers said.

Not even being given time to mourn, something sharp prodded into Prelinsa’s shoulder, and she felt her consciousness rapidly slip away into darkness.