In a European city, the last sun rays of a cold winter day shone on two young men slowly walking down the street. On this saturday Mito and Andiel were on their way to Andiel's flat to hang out. On their way they stopped at a grocery store to pick up some alcohol.

Two hours later in the flat, the slightly drunk Mito asked Andiel “Do you ever have the feeling that you don't belong here? That your existence is kinda wasted here? I don't even know how to describe this feeling, I am not even unhappy, but it's just this strange feeling.”

Andiel looked at him with feigned contempt and snorted “You of all people, talking about a wasted existence here, many would kill to have your life. You have the looks needed, you are smart, have a well paying job, many friends and lots of girls who want to be your girlfriend. You have absolutely no right to complain.”

“Tch, I’ve never complained. I just wondered if this is a unique feeling. But it seems that way.” Mito answered with a smile.

The room went quiet for a while and both sipped on their Whiskey.

After that pause Andiel broke the silence and said “I thought about this and maybe this is kinda unique. I never felt that way. I'm exactly where I want to be with my wife and my life.”

A few hours and drinks later. Mito stepped out into the cold night and made his way towards home. As he walked home, he thought about the conversation earlier ‘I have almost everything someone can hope for and yet I still feel unsatisfied. It feels like I am meant to do more than this, destined to be much more. But then probably everyone thinks at least once that way, nothing special about that.’

As he was walking, deep in thought, he saw a hopscotch on the ground. He remembered playing this game in his childhood. He stepped on the first square but didn't feel like jumping, which is what you are supposed to do. He moved forward square by square. As he was about to step onto the fifth square, his view focused on his foot, he suddenly stepped onto grass.

‘Grass? Wait, what happened. I’m supposed to step on asphalt?’

‘Everything is dizzy, I have a sky splitting headache and I can't think straight. What is going on?’

As he looked around he saw a beautiful landscape. To his left grassland as far as the eye can reach. To his right a deep forest as old as time itself. In front and to the back of him a street winding along the forest into the distance.

He simply stood there in daze and didn’t know what to do except staring dumbfounded and pained at his surroundings.

After a few moments he regained his composure and looked at himself just to get another shock. He looked at his hands, feet and body. But they weren't the same as before. They were way too small, more like the body parts of a child. He simply couldn't understand what was going on.

As soon as the initial shock faded away and the headache got better he took a few deep breaths and sat cross legged on the ground to recap what was going on.

‘I walked through the hopscotch game and right between a step forward I landed here. But where am I? It looks like Earth but somehow I know it is not Earth. And I have information in my brain that I have never learned. Really advanced physics. I was always good at physics and have good foundations but this knowledge surpasses what I was taught by leaps and bounds. And I have one sentence burned into my mind “If you end the calamity, I will grant your wish”. But what do I wish for? And what calamity?’

‘I am pretty sure that I am no longer on Earth and I feel that something happened in between leaving Earth and coming here. But it seems this part is missing from my memory. Only the feeling that some of my memories are gone is still there, same as after a hangover.’

‘The fact that I am in the body of a child is really disturbing as well. But as hard as I try I can't remember. So I should focus on what to do now. First comes the three essentials of survival: Water, food and shelter. Also some kind of weapon would be good.’

For this Mito went to the edge of the forest and found a small tree which would perfectly serve as a spear. He proceeded to tear it out, remove the small branches and make it as sharp as he could without any tools.

After that he adjusted his clothes which were way too big for his small body and started to walk straight ahead. He didn't even make a hundred steps as in front of him three wolves jumped out of the forest. The problem about them was that they were about three times the size a normal wolf would be on earth. Mito froze, too scared to take another step. ‘If they attack me, there is no way I can survive this with just a stick.’ After a few moments the wolves started to walk towards him. What puzzled Mito was that normal wolves would never walk towards a person. They would just jump on their prey and tear them apart. Mito prepared himself to fight for his life, aware that he would never be able to run away.

Suddenly the wolves stopped and growled at him. Mito, already scared to death, almost peed his pants. Upon a closer look, the wolves, all about two meters in height, appeared majestic with white fur glimmering in the sunlight. The cold blue eyes directed at Mito and huge silver fangs ready to tear him apart. All three started to growl and make sounds similar to howls. To Mito it almost looked like they were talking to him. ‘They look intelligent and I can't shake off the feeling that they are talking to me. I should take the risk and try to talk to them, let's see what happens.’

Mito took a deep breath and said “If you are trying to talk to me, I am sorry I can’t understand you. Maybe we can use some other means to communicate”. Upon those words all three wolves tilted their heads to the left in what looked like a wondering facial expression. A few seconds later all three wolves shone in a white-blue light and they transformed into a human shape right in front of Mito. Mito stood there completely shocked with his mouth so far open that almost two fists could fit in.

The three humanoid wolves had long white hair, clear blue eyes and big pointy ears. Their faces still had some wolfish features which made them look pretty majestic. The clothing they wore looked like it would be from their fur, and the skin beneath was pearly white. One could definitely describe them as beautiful.

The tallest of the three raised his hand to his mouth and gathered some kind of light in his palm. Then he began to speak in a deep, echoing voice “You who dares to destroy our sacred forest we protect, where are you from and what language did you just speak?” Mito, who still was in a shocked state, suddenly snapped back at these words that he all of a sudden could understand. He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself, then he answered apologetically, “I wasn't aware that this forest is sacred. And therefore I want to apologize for ripping out that tree.” Still not sure if they can understand him, he continued. “The other two questions are rather hard to answer. I am from Earth and the language was the common European language: english. I don’t know what happened and how I got here, at one moment I was in my hometown and the next moment I stood here on this grassy road with a splitting headache”.

The three of them looked at each other and started to discuss in the wolven language “Can we believe this?”

“Hard to tell, but it is definitely strange that a child is alone in the middle of nowhere. The next town is 50km away.”

“Yes, either someone left him here on purpose or his story is true and he got teleported here.”

“Teleported? As in time space magic? This is supposed to be lost magic?!” “At least, he apologized and he probably won't harm our forest again, so I think we can just leave him be.”

“Even though I am curious, you are right I don't want to waste more time here, let's go.”

The leader looked at Mito and said “We accept your apology. We will leave now and won't pursue this matter any further.” The three of them turned around and were just about to leave as Mito stopped them and spoke with a little bit of panic in his voice “Please wait, could you please help me? I don’t know where I am and I have nothing on me, no food and no water, just these clothes.”

Again the three of them looked at each other and were wondering what they should do. They couldn't leave a child to die. They are warriors from the spirit wolf tribe, the value of lives is above anything else. One of the smaller wolves asked the tall one “Warrior chief Ewu what should we do? Should we escort him to the next city? Or should we bring him with us to our city?” As a warrior chief he had the authority to bring people from the outside to their city, but this is normally only for high ranking outsiders, like diplomats. But bringing him to the next town was not an option, that would take way too long. The only thing they could do was to bring him along, if they didn't want to be responsible for his death. For that reason Ewu asked Mito “What is your name?” Mito replied “My name is Mito Sirova, pleased to meet you” slightly bowing. “Allright Mito we decided to help you and if you want, you can come with us. My name is Ewu Raiwo, to my left is Cram Gontros and to my right Ramoc Arbawny. We are from the spirit wolf tribe. If you decide to follow us to our home you need to abide by the laws of the spirit wolves.”

Mito didn’t even hesitate, he had no other chance if he wanted to survive. He accepted the offer and walked up to the three humanoid wolves and said “I have a lot of questions and you probably have a lot of questions for me too, but I hope we can postpone this until we are at a better place to talk”

Ewu and the other two agreed and under the astonished gaze of Mito they transformed back into their wolf form. Ewu told Mito to climb onto his back and then the four of them rushed into the forest. During the trip Mito, tired and exhausted, fell asleep.