Chapter Text
I am so sorry, my friend.
I had made him mad again. I wanted to apologize but all I could do was whine, the noise made him throw things harder at that. My friend, my friend, please forgive me. You are everything to me. Even if I am nothing to you, you will always be my world.
I crouched in a corner, muscles tight against my skin. Pleading, begging, for him to stop. He grabbed my ear and
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I yowled. Voice pink against the dark sky. Blood ran crimson. He leaned close to me, his breath laid heavy with sweet metallic anger. My breath was dirty and panicked. I didn’t want to be here. I wanted to run, but I had to be strong, I had to comfort my friend.
I reached a tentative foot forward to rest on some part of him. He slapped it away, I screamed a horrible noise, I hated myself at that moment, I was so weak. I would never be mad at him though, it would always be me first.
Eventually he grew tired or sad or guilty. Then he laid a hand, too heavy on my head and cried and cried making terrible choking noises. When I best thought it was safe I reached a paw out and stepped closer, leaning against him.
He didn’t push or hit. I wagged my tail. I love you my friend. But I didn’t say that I just sighed.
I love you so much.
…
The rain is cold and I can’t move too far. There is a rope keeping me in place. I shiver, my spine arched against the torrent of icy water, thrown from the sky, not needed anymore.
Like me.
He didn’t want me any longer, I was to stay out here until I died. At least that's what he said. If he didn’t want me I would rather die than let another person have me. I will do everything to be taken back.
A little girl in a bright rain coat and small boots ran ahead of her parents calling with joy.
A dog! All alone! So cute, can we have him? She seemed to say. I don’t know exactly.
The parents looked a little more hesitant but still sympathetic. They looked at their child as if to say be careful. But I was just a sleepy dog. I didn’t look harmful. No. I won't have them take me. I’ll do anything.
The little girl reached a small, cherubic hand towards me.
I snapped. I growled. I jumped at her.
She screamed. It was horrible. I will always remember it. Her parents grabbed her back from me quickly. I would never have actually touched her, but her parents looked at me like I had just taken her whole arm.
I’m a monster.
I didn’t end up dying. He took me back. I am so very grateful. Only my dear friend could love a monster like me.
…
I am hungry. My stomach sits and growls at me with teeth, it bites at me. I am tired. I can't move from where I am. He stands in the doorway. He seemed to pause, he moved slowly then, breathing hard.
I stand to go to him. He must feel bad, but I am greedy. I scratch at the floor to tell him what I feel.
I am hungry my friend, can you help me?
He kicks my ribs. I fall to the side, it throbs, I sob. I am just so very tired. When will I be free of this?
He sighs into a chair and rubs his face with brown spotted hands. I have spots too. But his looked sick while I was born with mine.
I stand and nuzzle into his leg. I lick at the spots to help him clean up. He smells wrong. He tastes wrong.
He screams at me. I flinch back. I am sorry my friend, should I have not done that? I walk towards him again. I shouldn’t have done that though, I should have done better, known better. Because when I did, he threw a cup at my head. I ran out the open door. It smashed behind me. He yelled.
I cried. I am a coward.
…
My friend has been slower these days. He doesn’t move that much anymore. Only getting up to remove bottles from the fridge, they smell sour. And sometimes to feed me.
And I love him for doing that. The hunger isn’t as bad anymore, I can ignore it. It will stop soon. Just like he does.
I am sitting with him on the sunken couch when his hand sags like our seat against my fur. I look up and it falls off me. His head hangs forward. What's wrong my friend? I sit up. He doesn’t respond.
His heartbeat has left us. He has left me. He is quickly growing cold, I move close to him to try and warm him up again, he’ll come back, right?
My stomach growls, but that's not the worry right now, he needs help! I need to wake him! I howl at the roof, hoping someone hears me, hoping he wakes from the noise.
I yell and howl until I hurt and nothing changes.
…
I am so very hungry. But that is not the problem, Friend has not moved and he has begun to emit a stench. I shuffle around for my food. He keeps it, kept it, in a cabinet. It is shut fiercely in my face, I cannot nose it open or get a grip on the handle. I scratch at it but even that annoying and loud noise does not wake him, it always did before.
My friend, help. Help me. He remains cold and lost. I eye his body, it is meat, right? It's wrong, yes. But… he isn’t in there anymore and I am just so very hungry.
I start to worry at the fur on my leg, biting dully until it begins to hurt. It distracts me from the dangerous angered head of my hunger. The thoughts running through my mind. But I was just so, so hungry.
I nosed my way over him, searching for a soft spot on his skin to sink my teeth in. My nose warms and wets his skin. The exposed bones of my teeth drag along his under-arm. It leaves a running line, like the skin is folding in on itself from beneath the wax lining of his loose skin. My friend, where are you? This might be his shell, it might be where he lived, but this was just where he sat. He wasn’t in there anymore.
...
In the house nothing else moves but me.