The 22nd Fire: A Tale of Dogs

I like dogs, I like all animals, really. I like the idea that we're their protectors and guides, that we're supposed to be bringing them up with us. Instead we seem to just want to dominate and rule them, like we try to do with each other. Here is the opposite to last week's fire, A Tale of Gods.

Bred

He ran. Through the thick brush and prickling burrs, he never lost his pace. Only an unseen branch could stop him in his stride.

Or a well-placed, long-forgotten cord.

As he felt his left leg snag on the old hunter’s trap, he tried to cover his face from whatever horrors lay on the ground at the half moon glow of night. All he felt was more earth and debris of the trees as he unavoidably let out a loud “woof” of air escaping his lungs impacted by his body being so violently stopped.

He held his breath and listened.

Nothing.

That was bad.

He felt his backside begin to fill with warmth that seeped into his sides and started pooling around his chest.

He was already dead, his body just hadn’t caught up with the concept.

Struggling to push himself off the dampened earth, his palms sliding around in his own blood, he didn’t want to die. Not like this. Not like in anyway.

A rushed hustle in front of him, the leaves and debris tossed and brushed, the quickened panting of a beast.

It was nearly identical to the speed and ferocity of the pitbulls he used to breed. The ones that became so powerful that they tore through the fence and ran out into the woods, more than twenty years ago.

He should have checked them. He should have spent weeks and months and years hunting them down.

Instead he waited, forgot. He choose to continue breeding without them, without his once prized beasts.

The first runner was just grabbing the rest of the pack. He could now hear growls and snarls coming from all directions in the darkened forest, the starry outline showing the tips of timbers and pines, the half moon beginning to disappear from sight and light.

The first attack was now more than a 3 days ago. A lone child, gone missing and not yet known to be a victim.

Since then, 23 people had been mauled and torn to death, dragged from their mountain homes and either engorged on by the beasts in the streets, or dragged off, screaming into the forest, silenced soon after.

People did not scare them. He had spent 10 generations breeding fear out his dogs before they escaped. They held no fear of flame, no fear of light, of man, of anything.

As they closed in on him, their teeth bared, his weapons long-spent, he felt only one thing swell within him, replacing his fear.

One emotion that was so powerful, he was blissfully distant as they tore at his stomach, spilling his intestines and guts that were greedily chomped, torn, and swallowed in loud gulps by the ravenous dogs.

He was proud of them.