Read the following extract from a non-fiction account.

For nine weeks, my mornings had begun with the young fox. Before answering messages or making tea, I carried his food across the yard and listened for the impatient scrape of his claws. Now, at the edge of the wood, the key to his travelling crate felt strangely heavy in my hand.

When he first arrived at the wildlife centre, he had been a bundle of muddy fur beneath a blanket. He would not eat while anyone watched. Gradually, the blanket disappeared, then the medicine, then the cautious silence. By the final week, he was racing around his enclosure, scattering leaves behind him like sparks. Each sign of strength had seemed like a small victory. I had not considered that every victory was taking him further away from me.

I placed the crate on the ground. The wood was quiet except for the dry tapping of branches overhead. My colleague stood several steps behind me, giving me the privilege of opening the door.

The latch gave a small, ordinary click.

Nothing happened.

Through the narrow opening, I could see one bright eye. I whispered, 'Go on,' as if I were encouraging a nervous child through a school gate. Secretly, shamefully, part of me wanted him to remain where he was. If he stayed, I could carry the crate back to the familiar yard and begin another morning with the scrape of his claws.

Then his nose appeared. He stepped out slowly, placing each paw with care, and looked towards me. For one foolish second, I imagined that the look was a question. I tightened my hands around my coat sleeves.

'Go on,' I said again, more firmly.

He sprang forwards. The careful creature vanished, replaced by a streak of red-brown movement between the trees. Ferns shook. A branch snapped. Then even those sounds were gone.

I stared at the space he had left behind. The wood seemed larger without him and I felt, unexpectedly, smaller. Yet beneath the ache was a rising warmth. He had not looked back. That was not rejection; it was success.

On the journey home, the empty crate rattled in the back of the van. I kept turning towards it, expecting to see his face behind the bars. Each time, I saw only darkness. The emptiness was exactly what we had worked for.