2252 AD. Near Tok, AK

Frost crystals drifted out of Saira's mouth with every shallow breath her lungs exhaled into the cold night air. Small puffs of white lingered momentarily at eye level before being picked up by the breeze and carried away, leaving soft tendrils swirling in their wake.

Squinting from an awkward angle at best, unable to clear her eyes of the fog of sleep, Saira could barely decipher the shadows of a pack of wolves as each member slinked through the forest in search of prey. They'd come within inches of her, unable to recognize her for what she was. The smallest wolf in the pack, an adolescent, nuzzled the pile of clothing lying next to a large tree. Saira's body responded, neurons firing, muscles prepared to launch, instinct taking control. Her frozen form kept her from accomplishing what her mind begged to do. She wanted to run with them, pound the forest floor with her massive paws, be a member of the pack.

Her heart raced from the adrenaline rush, and excitement heightened every sense in her body, causing the hammer in her chest to ignite thousands of miles of neuropath ways and blood vessels into fight-or-flight action.

Her breath caught in her throat as she fought the confines of her chosen form. She shifted her eyes from side to side and studied the glorious creatures as they moved away, disappearing into the forest.

Saira slid once again into quiescent consciousness. It was the only way to regain her strength to make the transition back. Her body was much too weak to change, tempting the certain fate of death or permanent disfigurement. Getting stuck between one organic form and another, unable to complete the entire transition, might cause the loss of limbs or something worse.

Perhaps hundreds of years had passed before she'd realized that each human soul had a predestined purpose and was capable of taking lessons learned in previous lives into the next. Using what she'd learned in the past to guide her actions in the future had become ingrained in her very DNA. All humans played a part in their collective futures, even though most people's minds never extended beyond the material world to awaken their true souls.

Her mind wandered, drifting through hundreds of years of her soul's memories, instinctively searching for the happiest of times, drowning out any recollection of the daily atrocities that had occurred on the planet. Glimpses of lives come and gone and pictures of Daniel flickered in and out of her mind like flashes from an old camera. Daniel's handsome face was smiling at her in such a way that her heart melted and her mind became more resolute in wanting to change the direction humans had taken.