I staggered up to my feet and looked at the mess that I had created. It had managed to break one of my arms in two places. I was out of warmth so I couldn’t heal it either, but I was numb to the pain and tired out of my mind. The screamer was there and so was the sweet-invigorating-shard in its brain, but I hadn’t the strength to break through its impossibly hard skull. Unfortunately, I couldn’t do anything about it and gave up on healing myself for now.

Ginger…

She hadn’t woken yet. So that’s the first thing I did, right after checking on the pups. They were asleep, really. I stumbled to Ginger, licked her face, and woke her. She came awoke in a frenzy, pulled away from me, and hurried toward the crate. She glanced at the screamer before bending over the crate and stood motionless.

Are they all alright? I asked her in worry, even though I had just checked upon them.

Her tail started waving. Well, that was a good sign.

She didn’t ask me about the screamer, but I asked her to drag the crate, because I obviously couldn’t.

We needed to get going. She followed me without any hesitation and before I knew it we were out in the open and under the rumbling clouds. And we were together. That’s what mattered.

You go first. I told her at the gate, which caused her to hesitate. She turned and told me something, but I couldn’t hear. However, I could see that she was worried.

Don’t worry I’m right behind you. I whimpered, and reluctantly she agreed.

The pool of blood covering the pavement outside distracted her, but she was a tough girl and knew her priorities.

She pulled the wheezing pups out through space one by one and then I followed. I feared the worst, but none of them came through. No screamers tried to stop our escape, and nothing was waiting for us outside.

I could even see the hu-mans up the road. For some reason or another, they were all standing outside. Kali was in a shouting match with the short-sweaty man, while the nurse and her partner were doing their best to hold her back.

Ginger nuzzled me suddenly. She licked my face and asked me something, but my hearing still wasn’t back. All I could hear was a droning sound from someplace far away.

We are going to them. I gestured toward the hu-mans. She didn’t want to. She was afraid. I could see it in her eyes. She believed that because Kalki was screaming like a raving screamer.

That’s Kalki. I told her, which caused her to have doubts. Ginger Knew about Kanti, and I had told the rest about Kalki, the girl Kanti fancied. Rusty used to taunt me, saying Kanti would leave me since he already had a mate, and Ginger used to defend me.

I believe in her. I told her and Gingers stood a bit straighter.

She didn’t stop me when I gathered two of the larger pups and picked them up from the tail. They woke up, started fidgeting and crying, but what other choice did we have? Ginger wouldn’t leave her pups behind and I wasn’t going to let her stay, not there in front of the bread factory.

I slowly made my way toward the hu-mans and Ginger quietly followed behind me, carrying the rest of the pups in her jaw.

Kalki had stopped fighting the short-sweaty man and was solemnly staring in the direction I had run off to after the horde. It was the old man with the stick who noticed us and told Krishma’s mate.

Things developed rapidly from there. Kalki ran toward us, pushing the short and sweaty uncle out of her way, and Karishma followed right behind her. I noticed the short uncle acting suspiciously, but the old man stood in his path, pointed fingers, and raised his stick, and the uncle backed away.

I dropped the pups at Gingers' feet with the rest of them because I knew things would be getting messy. And I was right.

Kalki dropped to her knees in front of me and hugged me.

She spoke to me in a hurried fashion. I didn’t hear a word of what she said, but I felt her trembling and that made me feel warm inside. She was surprised to see the pups and looked confused, but for some reason, my left eye concerned her more.

She gently rubbed her thumb over it and called Karishma forward as if something was wrong with it. The way the nurse acted though, I guess there really was a case of concern. That’s when I realized that half of my sight was still scarlet, and the droning sound in my head suddenly intensified, not to a mind-numbing level, but it was irritating for sure. I reacted to it by shaking my ears, hoping that would help —it didn’t.

Tears appeared at the edges of Kalki’s beautiful brown eyes. They streamed over her cheeks and down her rosy lips. She rubbed my head and hugged me again, and kept at it until Karishma tapped on her shoulder and pointed behind me. Finally, the hard-headed girl realized that I wasn’t alone. They both knew each other, and it didn’t take her longer than the blink of an eye to realize why I had left her and chased the horde.

Karishma’s reactions were a delight to watch when Kalki told her the truth. Kalki was over the moon to see the pups, but Ginger lunged at her when she tried to touch them.

Believe her. I whimpered, but try as I might Ginger refused to bend. So in the end, I picked the pups again and we started walking toward the wheeled beast. It was still slumbering, but that was for only a short time. Before long the hu-mans would wake it and we would fly out of the community at a speed that no dog, hu-man, or screamer would ever hope to achieve. I hoped the last one would hold true.

Everyone was happy to see that I had returned, excluding the short uncle and his son. They snarled at me and the others, pointed fingers, and gestured to throw everyone off, opening his mouth and shouting as if he had forgotten all about the screamers.

Perhaps, his loudness would have had some impact if it wasn’t for the stunt he had pulled to save his son. By choosing to close the gate on Kalki he had but sealed his fate.

After trying for a minute the short and sweaty uncle finally gave up, stomped, and entered the slumbering beast. With that sorted, I thought we could finally be leaving, but Ginger was adamant about not letting any of the hu-mans touch her pups. That changed when Kalki brought a cardboard box out of the shop and placed it right next to Ginger.

Ginger looked inside when Kalki backed away. I looked too. A warm pink towel covered the bottom. She sniffed the box and after a long silent minute started putting her pups inside one by one. The humans cheered; Kali rubbed my head and talked to me before going ahead to pick up the box.

Ginger watched her intently, and almost looked like she would jump at her

Don’t, I barked, sharply. You know her. She is not like most of hu-mans. She’ll take care of them.

As it turned out Kalki had brought treats with her, one of which she gave to Ginger, who smelled the small brown bit and instantly bit on it. I also received one, which happily ate. Ginger wolfed it down and licked Kalki’s hand afterward, asking for more. Her tail swished and swooshed behind her, and that was that.

Kaki rubbed her head as gently as she could, then slowly picked up the box and paced toward the slumbering wheeled beast. Ginger followed her with shaking hips, keeping a close eye on the box. Kalki climbed the narrow steps into the beast’s stomach and Ginger entered it right behind her. She was a street dog, climbing a bunch of steps was not a feat worth celebrating, but the hu-mans sure were delighted about it for some reason.

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I wondered how they would react to my wall climbing skills. Well, my broken leg was enough to put a damper on my plans.

Karishma helped me inside and then asked me to stay still as she checked the condition of my arm. I let her do her thing. The hu-mans sat on raised seats, and to my surprise, the man I had bitten on the leg was also among them. I had forgotten about him. He gritted his teeth upon seeing me but didn’t physically react otherwise and kept his distance. That was awfully kind of him. Ginger had pulled the box under the raised seat and lay right next to it. That was a good place to hide.

Karishma asked me something in a worried tone. I guess she didn’t like the state of my arm; it had gone numb and looked blue and swollen. I didn’t worry much about it since I knew I only needed to eat to heal it. Now if only Kalki could be kind enough to give me a bag of treats so I could celebrate the birth of the pups… that would be wonderful. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. She was busy talking with Krishma’s mate, who was sitting on the other side of the pile of boxes.

Finally, the old man closed the back door, slapped the roof, and shouted something and the slumbering beast came awoke. It started shaking. It didn’t stretch, gave out three loud growls —I felt them— and started moving.

Karishma tied two pieces of thin sticks on my broken leg and wrapped a bandage around it. She announced something to Kalki, which caused her to look at me sadly. I wish I could tell her to give me something to eat, and then she would have any need to be sad.

The beast slowly picked up speed and soon we were slowly moving down, toward the bread factory. From there we were to go left onto the long, snake ways, and away from the screamer infested comm. The humans looked solemn as they peered out of the glass windows, giving a silent farewell to the place they had spent their entire lives at.

Ginger stared at me.

It’ll be alright. I told her. We are safe now.

She kept staring.

It made me queasy. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that, because as soon as the words left my mouth I sensed a disturbance in the air. Something disturbingly vile was targeting us. I stood up and jumped up on the seat to look out of the back door just as something absolutely massive struck the beast and sent it hurtling to the side. I saw the humans screaming, but could not help them anyway as all of us were thrown to the floor.

Everyone was screaming, but I was panicking inside. It was here. The roarer had come to take me.

Suddenly, the beast crashed into a pole, and we all got thrown into the pile of boxes stacked at the front side. They saved us from serious injuries, but everyone was groaning and moaning by the end of it.

I was the first one up and stumbled forward toward the back door. Something heavy landed right outside, sending shock waves and causing the wheeled beast to shake. I stood my ground, but not for long. Two scarlet eyes stared directly at me from the back door windows. Our eyes locked and it let out a roar so loud all the windows broke and rained glass over us. Someone moved, and as if that was the signal, the Roarer punched right through the closed door, grabbed hold, and tore it from the hinges. Then he proceeded to throw the door panels to the sides, sending liquid shivers down my placid spine.

Then it gave me a toothy grin with its lipless face, pushed an arm into the compartment, and tried to get Kalki. Everyone shied away from it, but I knew I had to do something. I looked at Ginger. She was scared but had hidden the box behind her to protect the pups.

We should have never left the factory. There was enough bread to last us for days, if not weeks. I could have killed the few screamers that there were and we would have been safe. I—

NO! Who was I kidding? The Roarer would have found us, and then we wouldn’t have any way to escape. While with the humans there would always be ways to getaway. But for now, they needed protection, and I knew what I had to do.

I bit the arm and it pulled back, pulling me along. It was already tall the last time I had seen it, but it had grown even taller since then. At close to eight feet tall, it was almost a giant. The white bone that only covered its hands had grown to cover the entirety of its arm, making so that my bites produced no result. A similarly thick armor covered its chest and legs. Only its head was unprotected for some reason. However, it didn’t scare me. Maybe I had given up. I guess I had decided to sacrifice myself in order to save the others.

The Roarer tried to slap me off its arm, but I let go before it managed to hurt me more and feel to the ground. That hurt. Pain erupted from my broken leg and the droning sound in my mind intensified. The pain was jarring, but it caused my eyes to open wide and allowed me to see an armored fist growing bigger toward me. I rolled away just in time as the punch struck the road and left cracks. I escaped death there.

I got on my feet, staggered but held my stance. My head pulsated with the droning sound that seemed to be rising in frequency.

The Roarer ignored the screaming humans and came for me; obviously, it was after the shard in my heart. I tried to get some distance between me and the wheeled beast, but it got a hold of me before I could act.

It held my jaw as I tied to bite its neck and pulled them apart. My jaw hung loose and I howled a guttural sound. It then proceeded to punch me in the face, breaking my nose and basting my bad eye. It smashed me to the ground and tried to squash me like a bug, but I found some strength and managed to roll away. I tried to get back on my feet, but it was not having it.

It had no claws, but it scrapped the flesh off my chest with its bare fingers.

I dripped scarlet red sweet scented blood onto the road and it laughed with its booming voice. That was the point I lost all hope. I had managed to kill myself and not gained an iota of time for the hu-mans to get away. It kicked me in the chest but controlled the strength so I would not die. It wanted me to get up and play with it. Maybe it believed I had caused the explosion that had brought it to the brink of death? Whatever the case, it didn’t squash me like a bug and extended my feeble existence by a few more minutes. And I was thankful for the pain that I felt in those moments, because it reminded me that I was still alive, could still move and try to hold it back.

However, no matter how I tried to move, I couldn’t. I wasn’t dead yet, but it was the end of me. I believed it. However, then the Roarer did something that horrified me. It started walking toward the wheeled beat, toward Kalki and ginger and the pups.

No—

The Roarer looked back at me and smirked.

NO!

Come back here! I barely wheezed out of my throat. He wanted me to watch as it killed those I loved. NO! My blood boiled. Anger flared and heart throbbed, but the warmth I was looking for didn’t travel down my veins. There was no warmth.

MOVE! I told myself, but my body didn’t budge. I think I had broken my spine. I growled and groaned, but that didn’t help.

I’ll do anything. I cried. Just let me protect them! Nothing happened, but I cried again and again until someone or something heard me.

Suddenly the droning sound that had been ringing in my mind disappeared. The Roarer stopped moving and the world turned still. Everything froze. And then the voice came again, loud and clear as if spoken by someone standing right next to me.

Join me. It said. I couldn’t understand what was happening.

Join me. The voice repeated, and a feeling of terror washed me asunder. Tried as I might I couldn’t move. I feared for myself, but I feared more for my family whom I could see frozen in time and space, with terror-filled eyes reflecting the Roarer’s smirk.

A shadow extended from the Roarer’s feet and stretched till it was right in front of me. A dark figure rose from it, the impossible was occurring and I had no choice but to be a part of it.

I could feel its eyes at me, and then it spoke. Do you want to protect your family?

The voice was calm and flat; it was almost human, though it lacked the emotional highs and lows of a hu-man voice.

I looked at the figure and the Roarer behind it. It was clear to me what I needed to do. I knew the repercussions of joining hands with the darkness would be bad, but if it meant saving Kalki and Ginger then nothing else mattered.

The figure extended a dark, shadowy hand toward me, and spoke the words I had been hearing ever since I had first eaten the sweet-scented shard inside Cob.

Join me,

No hesitations. My arm moved when I willed it. I shook the devil’s hand and my world changed forever.

The figure broke into gaseous darkness and entered my body through my nose, my eyes, my nose, and my ears. I gagged as it pushed deeper and deeper inside my veins and settled inside my heart, painting the shard black and changing me forever.

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You have formed a pact with the Master of Envy and become Envy’s vessel.

Envy has awakened in you.

A neural link has been created between you and the all-encompassing system.

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[Envy’s vessel][Title]

[Chosen by the master of Envy, you are now a vessel that can share the powers of your master.]

[Cost: Envy will take over once the pact is fulfilled.]

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I guess I wasn’t going to meet Kanti, after all.