I died at my desk after thirty hours of overtime.
My company badge was still hanging from my neck.
On the screen was the email I'd just finished but never sent:
"This is everything I can do. Please give me one more chance."
At twenty-five, I'd staked all my dignity on one stupid belief:
"If you work hard, someone will notice."
In the end, I used my life to prove something else:
some companies only see your effort as a disposable resource.
Use it.
Burn it out.
Throw it away.
When I opened my eyes again, I was no longer in the human world.
I was lying in the cold wind of the Kekexili plateau.
My body was covered in grey fur. My gums were full of sharp teeth.
I had become a wolf.
A male wolf.
The day I died at my desk was my thirtieth straight hour of staying up.
When I opened my eyes again, there were no office lights. No building. No city.
Yeah. I had become a wolf.
A male wolf with a broken leg, thrown aside at the edge of a blood-stained patch of ground.
The wind was so cold it drilled straight into my bones.
My left hind leg felt like someone had brought an axe down on it over and over. The pain was so deep it had gone half numb.
At my nose was the heavy stench of blood.
The wild yak we'd hunted for a full day and night lay not far away, eyes rolled white. The pack ringed its body, tearing, snarling, ripping meat from bone. The sound was so loud it made the stones tremble.
Only I was outside the circle.
Like a stripped-clean bone kicked away into the dirt.
I had just dragged myself a little closer when a grating voice hit my ears.
"Well, well. Still moving?"
One-Eye swaggered over to me.
He was missing one eye. The old wound had pulled the socket into a twisted scar, but the remaining eye was bright and cold, sharp as a blade.
That eye ran over me from top to bottom like it was looking at a piece of meat about to rot.
"Broken leg, and you still want a share of the meat?" he drawled. "You think you deserve it?"
I clenched my teeth and forced myself upright. Three legs barely held me. The injured one shook uncontrollably. For that one second of standing, I was living purely on willpower.
The pain in my bones burned like fire.
"I… can still fight," I squeezed out. My voice was all ragged breathing.
A few young males around us burst out laughing, open contempt in their voices.
One-Eye didn't bother to laugh. He tilted his head and called toward the carcass:
"Ashfang, you hear that? He says he can 'still fight.'"
The alpha finally moved.
Ashfang walked over.
He stopped just behind the ring of wolves. His fur was a cold silver-grey, different from the others, and his eyes were different too—calm, steady, and completely emotionless.
He didn't speak right away.
He just lowered his head and looked at my leg.
Those ten-odd seconds of silence felt more like a verdict than any roar.
I tried to stand a little straighter, to make him remember at least one thing—
"The day the golden eagle dived down, I was the first one to rush in and save the pup," I said with difficulty. "You said I was 'not bad.'"
The memory hit me all at once.
That day, a huge shadow had dropped from the sky.
The eagle's talons went straight for the back of a cub's neck.
The other wolves flinched aside on instinct.
Only I had jumped, back turned, taking the strike head-on.
Blood exploded across my fur.
I clamped my jaws around the bird's leg and refused to let go until the others reacted and piled on.
That night, I lay at the cave entrance, my back wound throbbing with every breath. Ashfang walked past me, paused for a heartbeat, and said quietly:
"Not bad."
That was the first time I'd felt even remotely "not bad" in this pack.
Now, I threw that pathetic little chip on the table and realized how light it really was.
One-Eye laughed before Ashfang could speak.
"So you saved a pup once. So what?" His voice turned cold. "With that leg you can barely walk. Who's going to charge the yak next time? Who's going to take the horns? Who's going to chase the wounded?"
He dragged out the last word on purpose:
"You?"
He made that single syllable sound like something he wanted to grind under his tongue.
"We're wolves, not a retirement home," One-Eye said, stepping in closer, voice dropping lower. "The pack doesn't feed useless wolves. And it sure as hell doesn't keep broken ones."
The last sentence he practically whispered in my ear.
The young wolves howled with laughter. One pointed his paw at me. Another simply turned back to the yak, chewing, too lazy to even look my way again.
I tried to search Ashfang's eyes for something different.
Even a flicker of hesitation.
Even a hint of something not quite so cold.
Nothing.
Ashfang finally spoke.
"Leave."
Two syllables. Flat. As if he were saying, "The wind is strong today."
"…What?" For a second, I thought I'd misheard.
"Leave the pack," he repeated. "Now."
No explanation.
No comfort.
Not even a fake "you can come back someday."
One-Eye snorted. "You heard him. That's from the alpha himself."
He lifted his jaw and called to the others:
"Make way. Don't block his path. We wouldn't want anyone saying we don't respect our 'hero.'"
The wolves stepped aside in perfect cooperation, opening a narrow lane.
It wasn't an honor walk.
It was the road of exile.
I dragged my ruined leg forward. Every step sent a dull, crushing pain up the bone, making my vision swim. I bit down hard, refusing to fall in front of them.
As I passed One-Eye, he bent closer and twisted the knife one last time:
"Die wherever you want. Just don't die too close to the pack. Rot smells bad."
His tone was light, like he was stating a biological fact.
And just like that, I remembered how I'd died in my last life.
That night, I'd been slumped over my desk, chest so tight it felt like something was sitting on it. The proposal on my screen was finished. The email still sat in the drafts folder. My manager's voice echoed in my ears—
"Negative attitude, poor ability. People like you should just get out."
I'd wanted to argue. To explain. To slap that complaint letter in their faces.
But I didn't even have the strength to stand up.
Now, it was the same.
Last life, the company used me up and tossed me out with the trash.
This life, the pack used up my leg and tossed me out of the circle.
I'd thought that changing species might at least get me a different kind of ending.
Turns out, what I really got was the same kind of abandonment.
The wind rose behind me, pushing the chewing, the laughter, and the stench of blood farther and farther away.
Only one cold sentence stayed with me, spinning in my ears:
—The pack doesn't feed useless wolves.
I dragged myself away from them.
At some point, I looked back at the ring of wolves around the yak and suddenly understood a simple, brutal truth:
Whether it's a "team" in an office
or a "pack" on the plateau—
When they keep saying "we're like a family" and "we all trust each other,"
the knife they're going to use on you
is usually already sharpened.