After the Howl

The silence arrived the way a bad idea does—suddenly, completely, and with no clear instructions on what to do next.

For a long moment, no one spoke.

The atrium still steamed where ice and heat had annihilated each other. Shattered lights dangled from broken cables like exhausted decorations. Frost clung stubbornly to the edges of ruined metal, refusing to fully melt, as if unwilling to concede defeat.

Captain Hayes remained standing, rifle raised, because lowering it felt premature. Mason was crouched behind a chunk of collapsed concrete, breathing hard, eyes still tracking the space where the Amarok had vanished. Lin sat on the floor, back against a wall, counting her breaths like someone who had once read a pamphlet about trauma and was now testing its claims. Nova stared at her tablet, even though the screen had gone dark, as if waiting long enough might convince it to come back on.

No alarms sounded.

No footsteps followed.

No howl echoed in response to their presence.

The building, at last, seemed done.

Mason broke the silence first, because of course he did.

“So,” he said, voice hoarse, “that’s it?”

Lin frowned. “That was the climax.”

Nova nodded slowly, as if checking a mental list. “Monsters fought. One died. The other left dramatically. Yes. Structurally speaking, we’re in falling action.”

Hayes finally lowered his rifle. “I don’t trust falling action.”

No one argued.

They stood up carefully, testing their weight against the damaged floor. Every step produced a sound that felt louder than it should have, the echo of boots against wreckage amplified by nerves that had not yet accepted survival as real.

They moved together—deliberately now, almost ceremonially—through the remains of the facility.

The arena where the two creatures had fought looked smaller without motion, like a stage after the audience leaves. The Budget Cutter lay in pieces, cooling rapidly, its violence already transitioning into debris. Steam curled lazily upward, carrying with it the faint, unpleasant smell of burned insulation and something biological that no one wanted to identify.

Mason stopped a few meters away from the remains.

“Should we… I don’t know,” he gestured vaguely, “confirm it’s dead?”

Hayes shook his head immediately. “No.”

Mason raised an eyebrow. “Because it might not be?”

“No,” Hayes said. “Because it earned the courtesy.”

That answer surprised everyone, including Hayes.

Lin glanced at the scattered pieces of alien anatomy, then back toward the wide, broken opening where the Amarok had exited. “You’re assigning honor to an organism that froze people to death.”

Hayes didn’t look at her. “It followed rules.”

Mason nodded solemnly. “Rules matter.”

Nova opened her mouth, then closed it again. There were arguments to be made here—ethical, scientific, very long—but none of them would improve the moment.

They left the arena untouched.

The corridors beyond were a mess of melted ice, warped steel, and flickering emergency lights that had clearly exceeded their intended lifespan. The facility felt hollow now, like a place whose purpose had been revoked.

Nova checked her scanner. “Secondary exit stairwell is theoretically intact.”

Mason winced. “I hate when technology says ‘theoretically.’”

Lin sighed. “Everything here has been theoretical.”

They reached the stairwell door.

It opened with surprising ease.

The stairs descended into shadow, illuminated only by intermittent red emergency lights that pulsed slowly, like a tired heartbeat.

Hayes gestured. “Single file. Slow.”

They obeyed.

As they descended, the adrenaline finally began to drain, replaced by the awkward weight of retrospection.

Mason cleared his throat. “You think the Amarok judged us?”

Lin replied without hesitation. “It evaluated outcomes.”

Nova added, “And compliance.”

Hayes paused halfway down the stairs, gripping the railing. “That’s worse.”

Nova shrugged. “It’s more honest.”

They continued downward.

The railing was cold beneath Mason’s hand—too cold for a building that was no longer freezing itself on purpose. He leaned slightly, more out of habit than necessity.

The railing detached from the wall with a sharp metallic snap.

There was no dramatic musical cue.

No slow-motion realization.

Just the abrupt, deeply unfair sound of failure.

“Oh,” Mason said.

Then he was gone.

The impact echoed up the stairwell—once, then not again.

Silence followed, immediate and absolute.

Lin rushed forward, heart pounding. “Mason!”

No answer.

Nova’s scanner chirped, traitorously calm. She looked at it, already knowing.

“…Vitals negative.”

Hayes stared down the stairwell, face rigid, jaw clenched.

“How far?” he asked.

Nova swallowed. “Far enough.”

Lin sank to her knees. “He survived everything.”

Hayes nodded. “And died to deferred maintenance.”

No monster appeared to mark the moment.

No ice crept forward.

No howl acknowledged the loss.

Just gravity, doing its job without symbolism or restraint.

They retrieved Mason’s body in silence.

It took longer than it should have, not because of difficulty, but because no one was in a hurry anymore. Lin noticed the inspection tag on the broken railing, its text faded almost completely.

LAST CHECKED: PENDING

She laughed once, weak and involuntary.

Nova glanced at the tag. “Non-load-bearing rail,” she said quietly. “Used in a load-bearing moment.”

Hayes closed his eyes. “Write that down.”

They emerged onto the surface just as dawn crept across the tundra, pale and indifferent.

The frozen trail was still there, stretching away into the distance, already softening at the edges as the world reclaimed itself.

Lin stared at it. “Do you think it knew?”

Hayes replied, “It didn’t need to.”

Nova added, “It finished its task.”

Lin swallowed. “What task?”

Nova looked back at the ruined facility. “Balance.”

Rescue helicopters arrived late.

As expected.

Questions followed. Explanations failed. Evidence was categorized, minimized, and sealed.

Mason’s death was officially recorded as:

Cause: Structural Failure During Evacuation

No monsters.
No rules.
No honor.

As the helicopter lifted off, Lin looked back one last time.

The ice was gone.
The arena erased.

Only a faint, fading line remained, pointing toward the horizon.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

The wind carried the words away.

Whether they were heard—
or judged—
no longer mattered.

The paperwork began before the blood dried.

They were separated immediately.

Not aggressively.
Not cruelly.
Procedurally.

Hayes was taken to Debriefing Room A.
Lin to Room C.
Nova to a windowless space that smelled faintly of disinfectant and old coffee.

No one explained why.
No one needed to.
The questions were gentle.
This made them worse.

“Can you describe the meteor’s optical irregularities?”

“Was the facility compliant with standard cold-environment regulations?”

“At any point, did personnel anthropomorphize the anomaly?”

Lin blinked. “Anthropomorphize?”

The interviewer smiled apologetically. “Assign intent. Motive. Honor.”

Lin swallowed. “Yes.”

The interviewer nodded and made a note.

Nova was shown a slideshow.

Graphs. Heat maps. Sensor logs with conspicuously missing data.

“This is the moment you claim two organisms interacted,” the analyst said.

Nova leaned forward. “They fought.”

The analyst clicked to the next slide. “Thermal overlap.”

“They fought,” Nova repeated.

The analyst nodded sympathetically. “Stress can cause pattern recognition.”

Nova stared at the screen. “So can giant alien wolves.”

Another note was made.

Hayes’ debriefing was shorter.

“That facility failed catastrophically,” he said flatly. “Non-OSHA compliant. Redundancy neglected. Structural negligence.”

The official across from him nodded. “Yes. That will be the focus.”

Hayes frowned. “Good.”

The official added, “We’ll remove any references to non-terrestrial involvement.”

Hayes paused. “That wasn’t what I meant.”

The official smiled gently. “It never is.”

The report was drafted quickly.

Too quickly.

It was titled:

INCIDENT SUMMARY: PROTOCOL ICEFALL

Cause of failure:
- Meteor-induced electromagnetic disruption
- Infrastructure degradation
- Human error

Casualties:
- Personnel loss due to structural collapse 
- One fatality due to safety rail failure

Anomalies:
- None verified

Lin read it twice.
Then a third time.

“There’s no Amarok,” she said.

The clerk shrugged. “Unsubstantiated folklore reference.”

“There’s no second organism.”

The clerk nodded. “Equipment malfunction misinterpretation.”

“There’s no fight.”

The clerk hesitated. “Thermal discharge coincidence.”

Lin laughed.

No one joined her.

They were asked to sign.

Nova hesitated.

“If we don’t?” she asked.

The clerk’s smile thinned slightly. “Then the report remains incomplete.”

“And?”

“And incomplete reports attract scrutiny.”

Hayes signed first.
Lin followed.
Nova signed last.

The pen felt heavier than it should have.

Far north, beneath drifting snow, sensors flickered back online.

Not because anyone fixed them.

Because something cold passed nearby.

A frozen trail crossed the satellite image.

Then another.

Intersecting.

Balanced.

Somewhere in the tundra, the Amarok moved on.

THE END