A Dog's Life

Don Isaac

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His wounds ached. The pervasive taste of rotting flesh filled his mouth, every exploratory prod of his tongue dislodging a necrotic scrap of skin or muscle from between his teeth, spitting filth every few stumbling steps. He rasped a curse as he fumbled around a corner, blood-stained claws leaving crimson trails upon the neon-streaked concrete. One more pigment to the urban mural- though he was unsure if the grey creeping in at the edges could be attributed to colour blindness, or blood loss.

The situation was dire. After battle, there would be the Waykeeper's talents, in a cool hole away from shell fire and the crushing treads of the Union men. The stench of blood nearly- but not quite- forgotten beneath the robes' watchful eyes. Here, there were no such comforts. He trudged through the back alleys of this seemingly endless city, a fresh stench creeping into his nostrils with every step, desperately searching for any sign of salvation. So far, the closest he'd come were discarded syringes, dirty glass and rusty needles promising tetanus, at best.

He clasped at his ribs, wincing as he felt his bruises and cuts beneath his ragged uniform. A few more steps- the sound of wheels blazing through shallow water, the verbal bric-a-brac of everyday life. Yes. He could manage a few more steps. He pulled himself around a corner, furrowing his furred brow as he squinted through the rain.

The downpour was acidic- the bitter tears of a smog-strangled sky, trying to wash away the sins of the city. But it was ever-pervasive, bright glyphs in dozens of languages advertising goods and services he had neither the time nor inclination to try and understand. His jaws trembled as he scented grilled meat, rain sizzling against distant coals, and his legs brought him closer to the source without conferring with the rest of him, nearly sending him sprawling into the street. He pressed his claws into his palm, striving to focus himself- and there, across the street, hanging inside a dingy alley, a crimson beacon of salvation shone.

The medic's cross.

His people did not have a surfeit of civilian vehicles- which left him unprepared for the shrieking of horns that rattled his skull like a howitzer firing next to his ears. Tainted rain splattered against his legs as cars swerved around him, shouted obscenities reaching his ringing ears as he pushed on, suppressing a growl as a spike of anger briefly dulled the pain. Injured as he was, he could take these hairless men to the butcher's without a second thought- he shook his head, banishing the violent urge as his paws touched the sidewalk, carrying him out from the disastrous series of near-misses that was his pedestrian efforts.

King's bones, it hurt. Without the adrenal rush of combat, he had spent the past half hour taking a full account of his injuries- cracked ribs, lacerations, a savaged arm and leg. Nothing good, to say the least. But even in this flatface den, filled to the brim with rampant cynicism and degeneracy- there was a healer. He could smell the antiseptic solutions, a foul reek of formaldehyde trying, yet not quite succeeding, in drowning out the clarion call of blood beneath it all.

It was an easy smell to follow- he could chase it to the ends of the earth. He slumped against the wall, giving a quiet whine of pain as he felt the ragged cut across his back open up, adding a fresh smear of blood to the well-stained staircase. He was not the first to make this painful pilgrimage, attempting to balance himself as each step brought another jolt of pain. Another turn- fluorescent lighting flickered ahead, illuminating a mostly-clean surgical theater, cast in a crimson glow. Past a folding latticework of cheap steel, another flatface sat on a ratty leather stool, preoccupied with inspecting a series of gleaming surgical instruments strapped to his hand.

It was with the distant crash of thunder, lightning arcing down to illuminate the distant spires of other, wealthier men in this strange realm, that Rhodri pressed himself against the gate. In his least bloodied hand, he held a tightly-rolled band of bills, pushing it through the iron as he affixed the startled man in his gaze, panting heavily through the haze of pain.

"Medic. Have money."

He was dimly aware of the gate rattling open as its absence caused him to fall, the world fading to black as he crashed into the cool, unyielding concrete.
 

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Unconsciousness was hardly objectionable. Young soldiers, their ears still bleeding from their tags, laid back in the trucks rattling through the deep roads, eyes closed to the world. Those who survived to earn their scars, to add another braid to their mane, lacked such luxury. Rhodri could not remember the last time he had managed to rest while he still smelled cordite. To drift through this empty blackness was a small blessing, compared to the misery of existence. There was no hunger, no pain, no blood.

In his dreams, he walked fully upright, and smiled with teeth that shone like pearls, rather than baring yellowed fangs.

But those were mere fantasies, and they were-

"-Fading!"

Lightning coursed through his chest. Every muscle in his body spasmed wildly, struggling against a series of leather straps that bound him to an operating table. His jaws clamped down around another leather bit, shearing through the worn material, snapping as he greedily swallowed it on instinct. Worry about indigestion later.

His heart bounced off his ribcage, aching within his chest as his blood pounded through his veins- luminescent eyes snapped open as he beheld the room before him. The flat-faced doctor had rolled back on his stool, some device still crackling with electricity as the man watched him cautiously from behind a pair of shaded glasses.

The Doctor. Your wounds.

His recent memories poured back in, like a bucket of iced water over the burgeoning flame of adrenaline. He sagged in his restraints, muzzle lying against his bare chest. He couldn't meet the healer's gaze.

"Thank you."

He hated how the words sounded in his mouth. Even beyond the aches of his body, and the shame of his recent behaviour, it was not his native language. His tongue felt slow and thick, the speech of the flatfaced men demanding motions his fanged jaws were unaccustomed to. Was he even speaking the right language? The trade-cant that enabled one to buy and sell street food was a world apart from a real tongue.

At the very least, the doctor before him seemed to understand, dipping his head slightly and setting down his paddles- and a scalpel he'd scrambled to grab at some point. "Hey, just the job," he said, standing from his stool as he brushed himself off- an arm was covered in tattoos, a sleeve of various patterns ranging from words to smiling women. He reached over Rhodri, unfastening the leather belts that had pinned him to the table.

The Lupar leaned up as the Doctor stepped back, working at the bands strapped his feet to the cold steel surface. "Mind you- I'm not a veterinarian, but stitches are stitches. 'Least you didn't have any hardware to go haywire during the shock-job," the flatface said with a chuckle, a ring through each ear jingling as the man flashed him a smile.

He bit back a growl at the Doctor's joke. It wouldn't do to be uncivilized at a time like this. "Haha," the wolf-man replied, rubbing his wrists, noting the lines of stitches cavorting across his wounded flesh. "Yes. Animal Doctor. For animals." It was good work, the scent of singed fur marking where his cuts had been cauterized.

At least the surgeon had the grace to give a sheepish, embarrassed smile. "Apologies. Cevanti's a strange place, but I don't get many similar to you on my table. Shapeshifters, wolf-men, werewolves- someone out there's put a list together. Shame I don't happen to have the index on hand- best I can do is avoid using the silver-plated scalpel."

Rhodri cringed at the thought of being cut apart with such a blade. "Yes. Thank you. I broke your table- here," he said, prying free a few more wadded bills to offer to the doctor, who simply shook his head, hair cropped short above his ruddy face.

"You overpaid to start with- been in town long enough to get mauled by feral zoids, by the looks of it, but not long enough to learn the value of a credit, eh?" He chuckled, prying a slip of paper from the wad that Rhodri had already given him, and passing it back to the grateful Lupar. "My advice- keep out of the periphery of the city. The machines that creep in aren't the worst thing out there. Seen a few gangs turn into cults, these days," he said with a sorrowful shake of the head.

Machines and mad cultists. There was a reason his people weren't exactly renowned for making pilgrimages to Bada Gadou to plead with the rotting God-brain for salvation.

"Thank you for your help and your-" he fumbled over the words for a moment, trying to translate his thoughts into the tongue of man. "-talking-help," he settled on, sliding off the table and staggering only slightly, drawing his discarded jacket from the floor and throwing it over his broad shoulders. His strength was returning.

"It's what I'm here for," the Doctor laughed, brushing off his pantlegs as he stood, extending a hand to shake. It wasn't a common practice among Rhodri's people, but the merchant-men that used to travel the rivers before The War began always sealed a deal with a shake, his grandfather said. Gingerly, he clasped the man's hand, giving it shake he hoped wasn't bone-crushing.

"Victor Vektor- cybersurgeon," the doctor smiled. "If you're in the market for a few upgrades, I can promise you my wares are fresh."

Rhodri's hackles raised as he examined the room for the first time. Steel arms, nervous systems forged of wires laid across plastic stand-in bones- myomer cables caught in the act of crushing a chunk of concrete in the grasp of a hand. Machines hung like choice cuts of meat in a butcher's shop. Carefully, he pulled his hand back, giving a slow nod to his saviour. "I will keep this in mind," he said, looking to the stairwell and the neon glow beyond. He still had to rest- he still had to find answers as to just what was going on.

He had to get out of here.

"Stay safe. Hate to see you limping back to my table soon," Victor said, an armature descending from the ceiling and starting to spray disinfectant over the table that Rhodri had recently abandoned. Agreeing wholeheartedly with a firm nod, the Lupar took the stairs three at a time, loping out into the alley beyond.

He had unfinished business with his erstwhile employer.
 

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He fumbled with the key and the lock. Victor had done good work, and his kind were not easy to keep down- but there was a fury coursing through his veins, one that demanded that he rip the door open and hurtle inside, rather than leave his own door intact. He could smell cologne inside- the masked man clearly had no compunctions over privacy, and that damned desk clerk had no issue in selling him out. He started to snarl- he could feel his lips pulling back over his fangs, a growl starting to rise in his throat. He could feel the haggard eyes of a mother clutching her rag-clad child close as she skirted down the corridor behind him.

He was a monster among men. His shoulders sagged as the key finally clicked home, the tumblers turning in a dance only he could hear as he opened the door wide, stepping inside into the shadowy confines of the room. Torn strips of towel were still strewn across the bed from his earlier wound-dressing, the scent of blood only a fading memory here, overpowered by the perfumed reek of the man reclining in a chair that had been drawn out from the corner. Two more figures flanked him, but they weren't there- he couldn't smell them, couldn't hear the rise and fall of their chests, the hearts softly hammering in their chests. Some trick, perhaps?

"A mixed result," said one of the figures- a horse's face superimposed on their own, their form translucent. A spirit, perhaps? Given the dead he had to quite literally chew through earlier tonight, he'd hardly be surprised. A woman's voice, though- soft. But so was the toxic moss that bloomed around the trunks of the sky-scraping trees of the forests of home. "But it's not easy to survive the Unmaking- let alone take a bite out of it." Her form flickered, her horse-head turning blue as lines like static on a television screen ran lengthwise through her visage, looking towards the only present partner of this dark coven.

"A better investment than the last volunteer we had- too much fury, not enough sense," the chicken-man purred, a cigarette held loosely in his gloved hand. "It's a delicate balance to strike, and I am immeasurably pleased that those scales were even enough to walk through an Unmaking and- well, limp out the other side," he said with a smooth chuckle. "And what do you think, Rasmus?" The name is said with a hint of irony as he turns his gaze towards the final member of the trio, an owlish face- complete with feathers and beak- shimmering through an orange haze.

"I hate it," the bird-man spat- a futile effort, given his mask, but the disdain was evident. "He's unstable, unreliable- if you had all just listened to me and my Zoid proposal, we could be running the city by now- but you always insist on a fallible, human element." Baleful eyes grew all the larger, some hidden border masking the edges of his face as the mask atop a placid, empty suit glared at Rhodri, burning with an undirected fury. "And now, I see, we decided to replace it with a canine element. I don't know why I bother attending these meetings, Richard."

Rhodri tongued his fangs as he thought- hardly the man's real name- but laden with some hidden meaning. Richard? Rick? Di- the Cockerel's head.

Well, at least he was honest.

Richard clucked in reprimand, raising an immaculate hand to halt Rasmus' impending rant, his speech halting even if the furious movements scarcely visible through the feed did not. "On the whole, Rhodri, we have found your performance… adequate. You have faced the enemy at the gates, as it were."

"Yes," Rhodri said, voice thick- how long has it been since he had last spoken? Their constant babble seemed to fill the room, such that he could scarcely fathom getting in a word of his own. "The enemy. Let us speak of the enemy. The dead that do not die," he growled, folding his long arms before his barrel chest.

"An interesting question," Horsehead said. "While our mute associate is the resident expert, I can offer an explanation myself," she said, cocking her head slightly as she examined Rhodri closely. "It is the manifestation of an entity known as Darkseid's will. He works primarily through cults, breaches in reality, and subtle manipulation of indigenous fauna and flora. For example- feral zoids turned into berserking siege-machines."

"It is the End," Richard said more ominously, a hush falling over the room. "It is the Unmaking- the piecemeal destruction of reality, at the behest of a mad god. A foe that requires more than a standing army to face. It needs troubleshooters. And you have proven yourself quite exemplary at shooting trouble," he said, spreading his hands beneficently.

"Would you be interested in pursuing this partnership further, Rhodri?"

His tongue rolled about his mouth as he sunk down slightly, his large frame sinking into a squat to meet the masked man, face to face. Was he telling the truth? Rhodri could hardly tell. He'd rarely spoken to the flatfaces, and it was impossible to read the man beneath his mask and his cologne, not to mention his practiced demeanour. What was he being sold? The hairless men always did their business in his world, plying the rivers in search of profit.

Money? No- that was hardly the lever being pulled here. They'd not showered him in riches or wealth, simply a mattress, enough money to afford stitches, and a single cigar. And facing the apocalypse was hardly considered to be a profitable business.

The answer hit him like a slab of ice slamming into his stomach.

A war.

They were offering him a war.


The chance to wear a uniform with pride, to kill in the name of a cause- the salvation of the world! What could be nobler?- and to feast on the fruits of his labours. Nothing more. Nothing less. Did he even need something more than the taste of blood in his mouth and the smell of gunsmoke in his nostrils?

A shudder ran through his body as he affixed him luminous eyes upon the mask before him.

"Yeah," the Lupar nodded slowly. "Tell me what needs to be done," he said, keenly aware of the weight of Mitra slung across his back.

Perhaps the mask smiled. He could hardly tell- but the pact was sealed, and it was far too easy to imagine a devil's grin on that beak.
 

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The sun rose through a smog-choked sky, filtering its crimson light through the yellowed, cracked glass of Rhodri's room, illuminating his sleeping form. The masked man had long since departed, and the lupine soldier was curled in a circle upon the sheets, slumbering through the night with little else but the errant twitch of a leg betraying his dreamless sleep. The last time he had spent the night in a bed that had been more than a plank and a flea-ridden rag had been before he enlisted- and even then, that was scarcely much better. This verged on luxury.

Unfortunately, the walls were too thin to drown out the shouting of the neighbouring hairless folk- petty arguments over money, love, or love exchanged for money. A screaming match between a pair of harpies pierced through the thin pillows he had pressed to either side of his skull, rousing him from his limbo. He failed to care enough to listen closer, simply growling as he crawled out from the comforts of the bed, stretching as he felt the aches of yesterday's exertions slowly fade. The ragged wounds that had been stitched tight just the other evening had faded to scars and sutures- he knew better than to try and claw them out himself. He wasn't certain he would be able to stop once he drew blood.

He leaned against the window's ledge, scowling out at the world beyond through the soot-stained glass. Through concrete veins, the lifeblood of industry crawled like sludge. Just how many lived here? Even with the train carriages of pork-flesh shipped from distant farms kept guarded from ever-hungry opportunists, his people could never sustain an acropolis of this size. Wherever he looked, there were men, small as ants as they scurried about the cyclopean structure of the city. With a shudder, he looked away- there were more pressing matters on his mind, in any case: there was a flickering red light on the answering machine.

He lifted the receiver to his ear- the other end was far too short to reach his mouth, but that was irrelevant. This wasn't a conversation. It was only an address, and an unspoken expectation.

Orders were orders. Who was he to question them? The blanket, tossed over Mitra, still smelling of cordite and gun oil- the ragged mask, torn at the jaws, shoved down his jacket. It was a senseless affectation, a mockery of what laid beneath.

But it was the uniform of whatever esoteric army he had been conscripted into, and no commissar would condemn Rhodri for such a simple failure of discipline. With parade-ground grace, Rhodri slipped out of his door, straight-legged and stiff-backed as he marched through the dilapidated halls. A mission and his machine gun- what else could he ask for?

Better company, for one. His pride in his purpose lasted as long as it took the gaggle of the resident hairless folk to side-eye him and snicker to themselves. Slumped shoulders- a shifting of his improvised cloak, to become just one more of the downtrodden horde. One more grudge to the tally against this wretched land. He passed by the open doors with the ever-more tired looking whores, the hollow-eyed children, and the tattooed gangsters who tried to meet his eyes beneath his rags, offering a universal, primitive challenge.

He felt almost pathetically grateful for the mask hidden on his person, and what it promised. War. The opportunity to stop pretending to be one of these rabble. He stepped past the inattentive attendant, not even a grunt of acknowledgement passing those sparsely-whiskered lips, walking into the lambent light of the sun. Its glare was oppressive, but that was simply a sideshow compared to the acidic tang of the atmosphere, a thousand smoke stacks pouring toxins into the sky.

Another chequered cab, another noble 'Chariot'. He slid inside, the stench of tobacco and cloves serving to scorch his nostrils clean of the city's singular aroma. The flatface at the wheel didn't even glance backwards, cruising off down the street towards whatever destination the man who held his leash had already arranged. Leash. He scowled as he rubbed at his throat, where he might expect a collar to be clasped around his throat. Was he becoming some sort of tamed shaveback, a dog beholden to a man's will?

What was the alternative? Hunting his meals in this strange city, holding out hope to meet another of his people within the concrete spires, forever remembering how easy it would be to turn these people into a meal? No- better to be a tool than a beast. He gave a shudder as he looked out the window, watching the streets pass by as he clutched his precious package close, the weight of his weapon the only comfort he had left in this world.

Fighting his persistent disgust of the city he had found himself in, Rhodri turned his gaze to the rearview mirror, trying to lock eyes with the driver, their dark face focused on the road in front of them. "Been doing this work long?" The Lupar attempted, shifting in his seat as he tested the limits of his language. His reward for this foray into the murky waters of the human tongue was a noncommittal grunt, the driver clearly not hired for his skills at conversation.

Well fuck you too, then, he cursed internally as he turned his snout to the window again, staring out at the world beyond as he cruised past a blur that was a million lives condensed into a concrete cage.

He couldn't help but salivate at the thought of being let loose into it. He still had to find breakfast, after all.
 

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The Phreaks, they called themselves. They'd traipsed the network, run the wires of the medium, and eked out a territory within the not-quite-abandoned districts at the edge of the city with the help of their deckers. Amos leaned against a heavily graffitied wall, the concrete invisible beneath the neon colours as a stim-filter burned between his fingers, the furred collar of his jacket gently blowing in the breeze. He wasn't one of the brainiacs- but that was fine by him. He'd seen the glittering chrome in their skulls, and he knew damn well that it would ruin his perfectly coiffed hairstyle. In any case, as brilliant as his bosses were, they weren't as handy with a tire iron as he was, and so, his stim habit was breezing along. Hell- after they broke up that drug ring over on seventh street, it was downright booming. Though his paymasters didn't care much for the chem trade, they also didn't complain if their muscle indulged and slipped some loot into their pockets. So long as they did their gig, that is- some beggar was shambling down the street, a ragged cloak serving to obscure their drunken gait. "Oi! Shove off," Amos shouted, slipping his tire iron from his shoulder and slapping it into his palm, ambling on to see the wretched bum left beaten in a ditch- and whatever they might have left in their pockets reappropriated.

---​

"I don't know why you're calling me, dickhead," Massif synthesised, his avatar coursing through the medium as he skimmed across the backdoors he and his crew had installed through the neighbourhood. A rooster's wattled head bobbed at him in the corner of his eye, the frustratingly calm and collected voice of the crime lore slithering into his consciousness. "Just to give you a chance, Damage." He mantled over an I.C.E wall, cheap glacier-ware that was too slow, too cumbersome to threaten the greased lightning of a decker at play. "You've been hitting my operations, lately. Making a name for yourself. I can respect that. I respect it enough to offer you a job. We all know the Crystal Ball Network has great potential- anonymous mercenary work distributed across the entire system- we just need geniuses like you to turn it into something more than some feel-good crowdfunding campaign for the defence of the city."

Massif simply gave a scoff as he sank his digital digits into the firmament of the corner store's CCTV system. "Like hell. We all know that there's no space for your sort anymore. I'm not putting any strings on me, and I sure as hell aren't interested in letting the city get strangled in them, either. The days of the puppet master are over- it's all about action, old man. Me and mine aren't going to rest until we get these blocks cleaned up, and there's plenty of fat to cut from you inner city pricks to keep us eating good," the hacker chuckled. "Did you ring me up just to convince yourself you've still got the charm, Dickhead? Or did you just need to hear the sound of your voice?"

"Give me some credit," came the response, just as slick, corruptive, and dark as oil spilling into clear waters. "You're a man of principles. You don't bend to the winds of change when they start blowing, my friend."

"But you'll break before the tempest. Do check in with Amos, would you?"

---​

Blood was dripping from Rhodri's mask. He was still gnawing on the gristle of the thug's throat as he raced through the corridors of the tenement, eyes wide with adrenaline as he took in the scents and sounds- it was a struggle to discern anything beyond the pounding of his heart and the murderous melange clinging to his snout, but he was far from a novice at this brutal work. He bounded around a corner on all fours, sighting an obese flatface meandering around in casual clothing, a bagel held halfway to his open gob, only starting to shout in alarm by the time Rhodri descended on him. His cries were swiftly cut off as he was borne to the ground by the Lupar's weight, crashing in a heap as claws and teeth ripped and tore him apart- he was no killer. He was simply meat, greedily devoured in still-living gobbets before Rhodri moved on. He needed more: more death, more blood, more meat. He'd spotted arcane script on the walls- vaguely mathematical sigils wrapping around nonsensical snippets- he didn't know what an Array[x] was, but he didn't care to find out.. This cult hadn't metastasized into monsters, yet- he was cutting out the tumour while it was still small.

Footsteps, racing through the adjacent rooms, shouts of command- resistance. He could hear half a dozen men stomping towards him, heedless of noise discipline- he could smell the suppressed fear and the gun oil of their sidearms as they made ready to put down a beast.

Bloody spittle hung from his mouth in great glutinous strands, breaking and reforming with every bounding pace he took towards the door, claws closing around the handle of a familiar blade- where did it come from? No time for questions, now- his thoughts came slow, like he was drunk on blood. But he didn't need to think, not when he could hear every desperately beating heart stacked up on the steel door he was currently careening towards.

The solid slab was practically blown off its hinges as Rhodri slammed into it, his strength, speed, and weight all contributing to the door cracking against a thug's skull, sending them flopping bonelessly to the floor beneath.

Fear. Cordite. The crack of pistols. Blood.

Rare was the man who could maintain control of himself and his actions in a brutal melee. Rhodri didn't even bother. A machete the length of a man's arm swung in brutal arcs, shearing through muscle and snapping bone as mere men howled in pain and terror. He could feel a series of bullets impact into his side, knocking him off balance as he staggered into the wall. More like the stinging of insects, the playful shoves of his litter-mates than any true threat. He was howling, screaming, laughing- a hellish cacophony of noise as he threw himself at the man who made him bleed, stained his fur crimson with his own blood. Another stroke of his blade- another splash of sweet-smelling sanguine.

There was no sense of time passing- nothing but the satisfying thwack of his blade sinking into meat, the hunger gnawing in his gut slowly being sated, mouthful by mouthful. But still- all things came to an end.

His first sensation was pain, enough to buckle his knees as he hissed through his fangs, staggering. The fact that his machete, still stamped with the familiar sigil of the Ebon Forest, was currently embedded in a man's ribcage and lodged into a device behind him, only registered in his mind as something saving him from fully collapsing to the floor. Clasping a claw to his side, he prodded at his wounds, wincing and whimpering in pain as he felt the holes bored into his flesh. "King's bones," he cursed, spitting a well-gnawed knuckle bone to the floor as he slumped against the fresh corpse, the flatface's skull adorned with chrome sockets and rubber tubes, their face frozen in a visage of confusion and fear. He'd lost his appetite- and he didn't savour the prospect of picking plastic out of his teeth after sinking his fangs into the carcass.

With his hunger, at last, sated, Rhodri's claws dug into his abdomen, gasping in pain as he wormed the tips of his claws into his wounds. The stench of fresh blood was nothing new to his nostrils in this charnel house, and the roiling need within his gut had been quieted. He'd seen a man disembowel himself trying to tend to his own injuries without sating or sedating himself, and he was in no hurry to join him. Dark, nearly black blood bubbled out around his prying fingers, staining them indelibly as he wrested out a lump of lead with a grunt of effort, letting it clatter to the floor.

He wrapped a hand around the handle of his blade as he rose, wrenching it free and spilling cooling innards across the floor, starting to limp away from the slaughterhouse, traveling through the halls he had rampaged through. Smashed skulls, torn throats, a man messily bisected. All of it by his own hand, though the memories of the fight were hazy, a stupor of slaughter that had required more effort to leave than to sink into. An indulgence, he cursed, shaking his shredded mask as he dragged a pained leg around a corner. He was free of the structure of the army, and this was the result. He had to get a hold of himself, before he sunk deeper into depravity. There would be no Waykeeper to drag him out of the depths of his bloodlust, no forest to become lost in- simply a seemingly endless city packed with fresh meat.

He swallowed, trying to ignore the drool that came unbidden at the thought.
 

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It always seemed to rain in this city. The deluge was tainted with pollutants, streaming down from massive hab-blocks dominated by glass facades or oppressive concrete battlements. It washed the blood from his fur, replacing it with a chemical singe that burned his nostrils and stained his hide. It was like the tainted run-off from the manufactories had been directed into the clouds, poison rising with clouds of smog and falling back to earth.

He was truly starting to hate this strange realm. He leaned against a worn barrier, overlooking the seemingly ceaseless streets beneath, gnarled tributaries of lifeless stone and asphalt criss-crossing over and under each other in a rat's nest of industry, great complexes rising up between them like the grasping fingers of dead men. With a disgusted snort, he pushed himself away, accepting the ache in his side as an acceptable price to pay for freedom from the wretched sights of the city.

He missed the Waykeepers' tender mercies, the cool dank caves that let the hunger fade as their dexterous claws bound what wounds their own flesh could not. Here- all he had was the dull ache as his meat knitted itself back together beneath his uniform. He missed his comrades around the campfire, the rations of salted pork soaked in whatever home-brewed sump water the territorials would barter away.

There were many things Rhodri missed. Trees, for example. He walked beneath boughs of iron and buzzing electric lamps that hung like over-ripe fruits, claws stuffed deep in the folds of his makeshift poncho as he ambled along, cars whipping by in the night as sprays of glistening, oil-laden water splattered against the heavy fabric, each and every driver heedless of his proximity.

He quieted the growl burgeoning in his throat. He was fighting to save these flatfaced cretins from some kind of unholy evil, and he could hardly bear to stand being in the same city as them. He was culling their unruly herd, filling his pockets with the pay from some unseen taskmaster, and now-

He shivered, shaking off the water streaming down his back. The distant smell of spiced meat wafted over from some outdoor marketed shielded from the rain, but his stomach was crammed with the flesh of the cultists he had massacred. He didn't know if he was proud or disgusted of that fact- if he was doing something good, or simply indulging himself. He frowned, looking to both sides of the street as he ambled across it.

He needed someone. A wise man, a comrade, a brother. All he had was a gun, a machete, and a list of targets. With a sigh, he looked skywards, flashes of lightning and the blinking lights of aircraft sailing overhead, nature and man alike indifferent to his internal plight. The artifice of man reached from horizon to horizon, great pillars of manufacture seeking to strangle the sky. Would it be so bad if it were to crumble?

His head shook as he rounded the corner, stepping into the somewhat familiar block of his makeshift den. The clerk still ignored him, the tenants let their gaze fall before they brought a complication to their already complicated lives, and the money still appeared on his table after every act of butchery. He cast his lambent gaze to the shadow of the alley, and what lay within. Men and stranger creatures lingered in rags, huddled around the waste-heat from generators and ventilation systems, clutching cloudy bottles in hands, claws, and- was that a tentacle? They swapped tales of woe and scant triumph, mumbling to each other within the dark alley. Cynics, men without purpose or drive, wanderers that cared for little but a full stomach.

He was halfway into remembering the parables of his people warding off such an aimless, self-destructive path before the realization hit him like an artillery shell.

These were his people.

With a heavy heart and a leaden step, Rhodri shambled into the alley, tail tucked between his legs as he sought whatever slivers of solace he could eke out from this cursed city.
 
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