PokemonHero
I can see the future
Ah yes. The Light in the Darkness. I have so many fine memories of this story. I first posted the story here in December of 2008. Over three and a half years later, I've gotten only twelve chapters (and a prologue) done. Hell, the latest chapter took me a year and a half to write. So instead of updating the old thread, I have decided to repost the story and make some much needed changes. This will also introduce the story to a new audience who may not have read it during the initial run or on FF.Net.
As it stands right now, I plan on reposting at least one chapter a week until I'm caught up. This will give me time to begin work on Chapter 13, as well as giving me the opportunity to go back and make changes to the original content as I see fit. Please note that this schedule is subject to change, as I am preparing to enter my junior year of college.
So for those reading this for the first time, welcome. And to those who are returning, welcome back. Please note that this is a mature story which may feature language and some darker themes at times.
I hope you enjoy this story. I welcome all kinds of comments, suggestions, and criticisms. So please don't just read and forget. Join in the conversation. I will also have a PM List going, so state in the comments if you want your name to be added to it.
Table of Contents
Prologue: Escape
Chapter 1: Never Say Never (Coming August 28th)
And now, as I said all those years ago when I first posted this fic, let the madness begin:
C-Cold…S-So cold…
I slowly awoke, my body shivering from the cold. My vision was blurred from misuse and my senses were taking their time to warm up. But I knew instantly that something was wrong. As my sight grew clearer, my greatest fears were confirmed.
I was in a cage.
But…this isn’t possible, I thought to myself. I cannot fit into a cage. Can I? I peered through the bars of my enclosure. Numerous other cages, one stacked upon another in an orderly fashion, lined the walls. I could not see the other occupants in their cages, as they were either covered or enshrouded in darkness. Somewhere in the room, something was wheezing, sounding as if it was nearing its final breath of life.
Solemnly, I withdrew my eyes from the scene outside and into my own personal prison. All sides were made of a sheet metal, explaining the chill that awoke me just moments before. There was not much room. Heck, if I tried to stand up, I would have probably bump my head.
Just then, I heard footsteps walking across a tile floor. The other occupants took notice of this new sound. Groans and cries for food, water, and other essentials could be heard as it walked across the room. However, these calls went unheeded. Suddenly, the door to my cage opened and two bowls were placed before me at the entrance. I tried to say something, but I could only manage a whimper.
“Shut up, you mangy mutt,” a gruff voice responded. The cage door was shut and locked with authority.
Mangy mutt? I thought angrily. I had been called many things in my life. But mangy mutt? For a moment, I refused to go anywhere near the bowls that sat before me. However, my stomach pained me with hunger and my mouth was dry. Reluctantly, I gave in to my body and crawled over to the bowls.
The first bowl was filled with some sort of kibble. I recognized as the sort of food that you would give to a Pokémon. What do they think I am? Somewhat disgusted, I turned away from the first bowl and approached the second. It was filled with water, some of which had splashed onto the cage floor.
I sighed. It wasn’t the most dignified way to have a drink, but it would have to do. I leaned over the bowl, hoping to quench my thirst. But before I could take a sip, I gasped and recoiled in fright. No way! It can’t be… I looked frightfully about my cage, as if I were afraid that someone else had noticed me. With utmost reluctance, I leaned over the bowl again, afraid of what I might see.
I was expecting to peer in and see my long, raven hair draped over my shoulders; my emerald eyes twinkling in the reflection. Instead, brown fur covered my entire face. A pair of dark brown eyes stared back at me morosely. In addition, I now had long ears and small black nose. The reality slowly began to sink in. I wasn’t no longer the teenager that woke up this morning
I was an Eevee.
Frantically my mind tried to figure out how I came to be this way. The whole thing began a few days before, at my parents’ house. It started out pretty ordinarily. I was preparing to graduate from high school in about a week or so. Seniors no longer had to report to class, so I got to sleep in. By the time I had gotten up, my parents had already gone to work.
After getting some breakfast, I went out on the front porch. As I stepped out, I nearly slipped on something. I looked down to find a letter, addressed to me. I immediately recognized the handwriting on the envelope to be that of my brother, Kyle. It had been a while since we last talked. From what he told me during that last conversation, he worked for a pharmaceutical company that was working on new cures for diseases. However, he mentioned that he couldn’t talk about what he did specifically; it was company policy.
The letter seemed harmless enough: Kyle’s company—Gilroy Pharmaceuticals—was looking for some volunteers to test a new product. He wasn’t specific about what it was, but he assured me that it shouldn’t have any major side effects. The trial was scheduled for two days’ time. I had graduation practice that day, but it was early enough in the day that I could easily make the trip to the company, which was about an hour from where I lived on the outskirts of the nearby city.
Two days and one graduation practice later, I arrived outside of Gilroy. The building itself was a large, gray concrete two-story building, not unlike most of the other buildings surrounding it. I couldn’t imagine working in such a dreary place.
I walked in and asked the receptionist about the product testing. She obliged and took me to a waiting room. I had never seen such a sterile room in my life. It made the doctor’s office look like a garbage disposal by comparison. At one end of the room, three chairs sat awaiting occupancy. There was also a small coffee table with a few old magazines to keep the tenants stimulated as they waited.
As I sat there for what seemed like hours, I thought about my brother. I had never really had a great relationship with him. He was always so secretive and untrusting of others. This was especially true after he joined Gilroy Pharmaceuticals. My parents did everything they could to get him to open up--sports, clubs, group therapy--but none of their attempts worked. I often wondered why he was so distant from the rest of the world.
I also began to wonder what kind of product I would be testing. After all, I was healthy teenage girl, at least as far as I knew. Perhaps I was part of a control group or something. Or it was some kind of vaccine that could prevent a disease. Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be a large test, as I was the only one in the waiting room.
At last, two men in white lab coats came into the room. Both men had surgical masks covering their face, as though they had just left the ER to meet me. They asked me to follow them. Like the lemming that I am, I followed, unaware of what waited for me. That’s the last thing that I could remember.
And now… I looked over my new body. Small paws instead of hands and feet. A mane of brown and cream fur around the scruff of my neck. A long puffed-up tail. I had always thought that Eevee were cute, but never had I imagined being one.
Just then, I heard footsteps coming down the row of cages again. The pleas for food and water began again, only for one of the men to rebuke them angrily. I crawled back in my cage a little, afraid of being seen in this form. Two men in white lab coats stopped outside my cage door. Once again the pleas for food and water began.
“Here we are sir,” the first one said, a little frustration in voice as he spoke over the clamor. I recognized the voice as belonging to the man who brought me the food and water.
“So this is it?”
“Yes, Experiment EV-005.”
It? Experiment EV-005? I felt my anger building. “Hey!” I shouted at them. “Who are you calling it?”
For some reason, though, they didn’t seem to understand me. One of the two turned back to me and looked into my cage. He wore dark glasses and the same kind of surgical mask that the two men who escorted me out of the waiting room wore. For a minute, he just stared at me, silently. It was very unsettling. Then he stood up and whispered something to his accomplice. The man wrote down something on a clipboard before biding his comrade farewell and walking away, leaving me alone with the man in the sunglasses.
He turned back around and looked at me again. “So, sister…” he drawled slowly.
Sister? No, it can’t be. I crawled further back, trying to get away. You can’t be…
He just smiled and laughed. But it was unlike any laugh I had ever heard. Cold and sinister, it seemed to suck out all the warmth left in my body. In an almost calculating manner, he reached up and pulled his dark glasses from his eyes. Now he stared at me with icy blue eyes. Kyle’s eyes.
“Yes, Amber, it’s me, Kyle,” he said coldly, causing me to further draw back away from him. “What’s wrong? You’re acting like you’ve never seen your brother before.”
I felt a strong pang of anger building in my chest. “You sick bastard!” I shouted angrily. “What did you do to me?”
He simply laughed. “Now, now,” he said mockingly, “mean words won’t get you anywhere, especially if I can’t understand them.”
I was confused. He can’t understand me. Why…? Then it hit me. It’s because I’m a Pokémon. I smacked myself in the forehead with my paw. It should’ve been obvious to begin with.
“So you’ve finally figured it out,” Kyle continued in the same mocking friendly tone. “I guess you’re not as dumb as I thought you were.” Then, to my surprise, he reached down and unlatched the door. It swung open, creaking eerily as it did so. “Now come, sister. You don’t want to be late for your first tests.”
I continued to stay pinned against the back of my enclosure, refusing to move. Whatever these tests were, I wanted no part of them, especially if my new form was the result of the first one. I shook my head.
“You don’t seem to understand. You are coming with me.” His voice was beginning to shake with anger. It had long lost its friendly tone that may have coaxed someone who was more naïve than I out into the open. Once again, I shook my head, refusing to let my brother take further advantage of me.
I noticed a glint of anger in my brother’s eyes. I had never seen my brother get angry with anyone, even at home. So to see this flare of anger was a great surprise. “Goddamn it, Amber, you’re coming with me!” he shouted.
He thrust his arms into my cage, knocking over the bowls of food and water. His right hand latched onto the scruff of my neck, causing me to yelp in pain. “Let go of me!” I shouted at him, trying to break free of his grasp. He dragged me out of my cage, leaving me flailing in the air. The rest of the room was silent, the prisoners watching the proceedings with great interest.
“NO! You’re not going to ruin this for me!” he shouted furiously. His eyes burned with such anger it frightened me. At that point, I almost succumbed to my brother’s will. There was nothing I could do to resist him. He was going to lead me to what I believed to be my inevitable destruction and there was nothing I could do about it. But deep inside, I knew I couldn’t give up. I had to break free from my brother’s iron grasp.
I continued to flail around in his arms, causing Kyle to lose his grip on me. Cursing under his breath, he brought his other arm around to get a firm hold. Seeing my chance, I bared my teeth and bit down into his forearm as hard as I could. Letting out a cry of pain, he lost his grip on me and dropped me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t prepared and I landed awkwardly on my back right leg on the tile floor below. A tremendous pain shot through the nerves on my leg, causing me to let out a yelp of pain. Doing my best to ignore the pain, I pulled myself to my feet and limped toward the door.
Unfortunately, Kyle was quick to recover and cut off my escape route. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked forebodingly, slowly stalking toward me. With each step he took forward, I stepped backward. “Come on, Amber. Let’s get this over with already.” He reached out to grab me, but I was just barely able to sidestep him.
Frantically, I looked around for some way to get past my brother. It was then that I spotted a large lever up on the wall right behind Kyle. Hmm…I wonder what that switch does. Considering that my options were limited, I decided that it was worth a shot.
I charged at Kyle, catching him off-guard. He reached out to try and snatch me off the ground. However, I was prepared for this and jumped, smashing headfirst into his sternum. The force of my attack sent my brother sliding across the floor into the wall. His head jerked back from the sudden impact, knocking him, at least for a moment, unconscious. As his body slid the wall, his arm caught on the lever and pulled it down.
Suddenly, an alarm went off. All the cage doors swung open, releasing their occupants into the room. Numerous creatures staggered out of their cages, surprised to find that they were, at last, free. Most weren’t in that great of shape, showing signs of starvation and neglect. In all, I would estimate that there were about fifty of us.
Just then, I heard a groan nearby. Kyle was stirring. Panicking, I looked toward my fellow inmates whom I had just freed. I could recognize many of them, from the yellow fur and lightning bolt tail of a Pikachu to the white-and-red fur and the sharp claws of a Zangoose. “Come on!” I shouted to them motioning toward the doors. In my head, I prayed that they could understand me.
Whether the fates were with me at that time, or if everyone just had the same idea, I do not know or care. With one loud unified cry, all of us charged toward the door. Kyle stood up and attempted to block our path of escape. But we were not to be denied. We were more than enough to overpower him, and thus we surged forward, on our way to freedom.
I, injured leg and all, led us through that damned building, searching for some exit. We encountered some of those white lab coats again, but we scratched, clawed, and gnawed our way past them when at last we discovered a way out. As soon as we hit the dark outside world, we scattered in many directions, some heading for the suburbs, while others headed toward the lights of the city. I held back, making sure that every one of the inmates escaped and was on their way. After I had made sure that everyone else had escaped, I ran toward the city, hoping to find shelter for the night.
As I ran, I felt a rain drop land on the tip of my nose. Great, I thought to myself. Just perfect. The heavens slowly began to unleash its rains upon the earth, thoroughly soaking my fur.
Running through the unfamiliar alleyways, I searched for somewhere that I could rest. The pain in my leg had substantially increased as the rush of adrenaline from the escape wore off. Cursing silently under my breath with each step, I found a large cardboard box next to a trash can.
Well, it’s better than nothing, I thought to myself. I hobbled over to the box and checked inside. Nobody’s home. I knew that there was a risk that I could lose my shelter halfway through the night because of the rain. But at that point, I was desperate for any cover. I crawled into the box and curled up as tight as I could, hoping that my body heat could keep me through the night.
It was at this point that the weight of all that had happened began to sink in. I couldn’t help it anymore. I broke down and cried, cried more than I had ever cried before. Gradually, my crying ceased and I fell asleep, cold, soaked, and alone…
Things couldn’t have been any worse.
<End Prologue>
As it stands right now, I plan on reposting at least one chapter a week until I'm caught up. This will give me time to begin work on Chapter 13, as well as giving me the opportunity to go back and make changes to the original content as I see fit. Please note that this schedule is subject to change, as I am preparing to enter my junior year of college.
So for those reading this for the first time, welcome. And to those who are returning, welcome back. Please note that this is a mature story which may feature language and some darker themes at times.
I hope you enjoy this story. I welcome all kinds of comments, suggestions, and criticisms. So please don't just read and forget. Join in the conversation. I will also have a PM List going, so state in the comments if you want your name to be added to it.
Table of Contents
Prologue: Escape
Chapter 1: Never Say Never (Coming August 28th)
And now, as I said all those years ago when I first posted this fic, let the madness begin:
Prologue: Escape
C-Cold…S-So cold…
I slowly awoke, my body shivering from the cold. My vision was blurred from misuse and my senses were taking their time to warm up. But I knew instantly that something was wrong. As my sight grew clearer, my greatest fears were confirmed.
I was in a cage.
But…this isn’t possible, I thought to myself. I cannot fit into a cage. Can I? I peered through the bars of my enclosure. Numerous other cages, one stacked upon another in an orderly fashion, lined the walls. I could not see the other occupants in their cages, as they were either covered or enshrouded in darkness. Somewhere in the room, something was wheezing, sounding as if it was nearing its final breath of life.
Solemnly, I withdrew my eyes from the scene outside and into my own personal prison. All sides were made of a sheet metal, explaining the chill that awoke me just moments before. There was not much room. Heck, if I tried to stand up, I would have probably bump my head.
Just then, I heard footsteps walking across a tile floor. The other occupants took notice of this new sound. Groans and cries for food, water, and other essentials could be heard as it walked across the room. However, these calls went unheeded. Suddenly, the door to my cage opened and two bowls were placed before me at the entrance. I tried to say something, but I could only manage a whimper.
“Shut up, you mangy mutt,” a gruff voice responded. The cage door was shut and locked with authority.
Mangy mutt? I thought angrily. I had been called many things in my life. But mangy mutt? For a moment, I refused to go anywhere near the bowls that sat before me. However, my stomach pained me with hunger and my mouth was dry. Reluctantly, I gave in to my body and crawled over to the bowls.
The first bowl was filled with some sort of kibble. I recognized as the sort of food that you would give to a Pokémon. What do they think I am? Somewhat disgusted, I turned away from the first bowl and approached the second. It was filled with water, some of which had splashed onto the cage floor.
I sighed. It wasn’t the most dignified way to have a drink, but it would have to do. I leaned over the bowl, hoping to quench my thirst. But before I could take a sip, I gasped and recoiled in fright. No way! It can’t be… I looked frightfully about my cage, as if I were afraid that someone else had noticed me. With utmost reluctance, I leaned over the bowl again, afraid of what I might see.
I was expecting to peer in and see my long, raven hair draped over my shoulders; my emerald eyes twinkling in the reflection. Instead, brown fur covered my entire face. A pair of dark brown eyes stared back at me morosely. In addition, I now had long ears and small black nose. The reality slowly began to sink in. I wasn’t no longer the teenager that woke up this morning
I was an Eevee.
Frantically my mind tried to figure out how I came to be this way. The whole thing began a few days before, at my parents’ house. It started out pretty ordinarily. I was preparing to graduate from high school in about a week or so. Seniors no longer had to report to class, so I got to sleep in. By the time I had gotten up, my parents had already gone to work.
After getting some breakfast, I went out on the front porch. As I stepped out, I nearly slipped on something. I looked down to find a letter, addressed to me. I immediately recognized the handwriting on the envelope to be that of my brother, Kyle. It had been a while since we last talked. From what he told me during that last conversation, he worked for a pharmaceutical company that was working on new cures for diseases. However, he mentioned that he couldn’t talk about what he did specifically; it was company policy.
The letter seemed harmless enough: Kyle’s company—Gilroy Pharmaceuticals—was looking for some volunteers to test a new product. He wasn’t specific about what it was, but he assured me that it shouldn’t have any major side effects. The trial was scheduled for two days’ time. I had graduation practice that day, but it was early enough in the day that I could easily make the trip to the company, which was about an hour from where I lived on the outskirts of the nearby city.
Two days and one graduation practice later, I arrived outside of Gilroy. The building itself was a large, gray concrete two-story building, not unlike most of the other buildings surrounding it. I couldn’t imagine working in such a dreary place.
I walked in and asked the receptionist about the product testing. She obliged and took me to a waiting room. I had never seen such a sterile room in my life. It made the doctor’s office look like a garbage disposal by comparison. At one end of the room, three chairs sat awaiting occupancy. There was also a small coffee table with a few old magazines to keep the tenants stimulated as they waited.
As I sat there for what seemed like hours, I thought about my brother. I had never really had a great relationship with him. He was always so secretive and untrusting of others. This was especially true after he joined Gilroy Pharmaceuticals. My parents did everything they could to get him to open up--sports, clubs, group therapy--but none of their attempts worked. I often wondered why he was so distant from the rest of the world.
I also began to wonder what kind of product I would be testing. After all, I was healthy teenage girl, at least as far as I knew. Perhaps I was part of a control group or something. Or it was some kind of vaccine that could prevent a disease. Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to be a large test, as I was the only one in the waiting room.
At last, two men in white lab coats came into the room. Both men had surgical masks covering their face, as though they had just left the ER to meet me. They asked me to follow them. Like the lemming that I am, I followed, unaware of what waited for me. That’s the last thing that I could remember.
And now… I looked over my new body. Small paws instead of hands and feet. A mane of brown and cream fur around the scruff of my neck. A long puffed-up tail. I had always thought that Eevee were cute, but never had I imagined being one.
Just then, I heard footsteps coming down the row of cages again. The pleas for food and water began again, only for one of the men to rebuke them angrily. I crawled back in my cage a little, afraid of being seen in this form. Two men in white lab coats stopped outside my cage door. Once again the pleas for food and water began.
“Here we are sir,” the first one said, a little frustration in voice as he spoke over the clamor. I recognized the voice as belonging to the man who brought me the food and water.
“So this is it?”
“Yes, Experiment EV-005.”
It? Experiment EV-005? I felt my anger building. “Hey!” I shouted at them. “Who are you calling it?”
For some reason, though, they didn’t seem to understand me. One of the two turned back to me and looked into my cage. He wore dark glasses and the same kind of surgical mask that the two men who escorted me out of the waiting room wore. For a minute, he just stared at me, silently. It was very unsettling. Then he stood up and whispered something to his accomplice. The man wrote down something on a clipboard before biding his comrade farewell and walking away, leaving me alone with the man in the sunglasses.
He turned back around and looked at me again. “So, sister…” he drawled slowly.
Sister? No, it can’t be. I crawled further back, trying to get away. You can’t be…
He just smiled and laughed. But it was unlike any laugh I had ever heard. Cold and sinister, it seemed to suck out all the warmth left in my body. In an almost calculating manner, he reached up and pulled his dark glasses from his eyes. Now he stared at me with icy blue eyes. Kyle’s eyes.
“Yes, Amber, it’s me, Kyle,” he said coldly, causing me to further draw back away from him. “What’s wrong? You’re acting like you’ve never seen your brother before.”
I felt a strong pang of anger building in my chest. “You sick bastard!” I shouted angrily. “What did you do to me?”
He simply laughed. “Now, now,” he said mockingly, “mean words won’t get you anywhere, especially if I can’t understand them.”
I was confused. He can’t understand me. Why…? Then it hit me. It’s because I’m a Pokémon. I smacked myself in the forehead with my paw. It should’ve been obvious to begin with.
“So you’ve finally figured it out,” Kyle continued in the same mocking friendly tone. “I guess you’re not as dumb as I thought you were.” Then, to my surprise, he reached down and unlatched the door. It swung open, creaking eerily as it did so. “Now come, sister. You don’t want to be late for your first tests.”
I continued to stay pinned against the back of my enclosure, refusing to move. Whatever these tests were, I wanted no part of them, especially if my new form was the result of the first one. I shook my head.
“You don’t seem to understand. You are coming with me.” His voice was beginning to shake with anger. It had long lost its friendly tone that may have coaxed someone who was more naïve than I out into the open. Once again, I shook my head, refusing to let my brother take further advantage of me.
I noticed a glint of anger in my brother’s eyes. I had never seen my brother get angry with anyone, even at home. So to see this flare of anger was a great surprise. “Goddamn it, Amber, you’re coming with me!” he shouted.
He thrust his arms into my cage, knocking over the bowls of food and water. His right hand latched onto the scruff of my neck, causing me to yelp in pain. “Let go of me!” I shouted at him, trying to break free of his grasp. He dragged me out of my cage, leaving me flailing in the air. The rest of the room was silent, the prisoners watching the proceedings with great interest.
“NO! You’re not going to ruin this for me!” he shouted furiously. His eyes burned with such anger it frightened me. At that point, I almost succumbed to my brother’s will. There was nothing I could do to resist him. He was going to lead me to what I believed to be my inevitable destruction and there was nothing I could do about it. But deep inside, I knew I couldn’t give up. I had to break free from my brother’s iron grasp.
I continued to flail around in his arms, causing Kyle to lose his grip on me. Cursing under his breath, he brought his other arm around to get a firm hold. Seeing my chance, I bared my teeth and bit down into his forearm as hard as I could. Letting out a cry of pain, he lost his grip on me and dropped me. Unfortunately, I wasn’t prepared and I landed awkwardly on my back right leg on the tile floor below. A tremendous pain shot through the nerves on my leg, causing me to let out a yelp of pain. Doing my best to ignore the pain, I pulled myself to my feet and limped toward the door.
Unfortunately, Kyle was quick to recover and cut off my escape route. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked forebodingly, slowly stalking toward me. With each step he took forward, I stepped backward. “Come on, Amber. Let’s get this over with already.” He reached out to grab me, but I was just barely able to sidestep him.
Frantically, I looked around for some way to get past my brother. It was then that I spotted a large lever up on the wall right behind Kyle. Hmm…I wonder what that switch does. Considering that my options were limited, I decided that it was worth a shot.
I charged at Kyle, catching him off-guard. He reached out to try and snatch me off the ground. However, I was prepared for this and jumped, smashing headfirst into his sternum. The force of my attack sent my brother sliding across the floor into the wall. His head jerked back from the sudden impact, knocking him, at least for a moment, unconscious. As his body slid the wall, his arm caught on the lever and pulled it down.
Suddenly, an alarm went off. All the cage doors swung open, releasing their occupants into the room. Numerous creatures staggered out of their cages, surprised to find that they were, at last, free. Most weren’t in that great of shape, showing signs of starvation and neglect. In all, I would estimate that there were about fifty of us.
Just then, I heard a groan nearby. Kyle was stirring. Panicking, I looked toward my fellow inmates whom I had just freed. I could recognize many of them, from the yellow fur and lightning bolt tail of a Pikachu to the white-and-red fur and the sharp claws of a Zangoose. “Come on!” I shouted to them motioning toward the doors. In my head, I prayed that they could understand me.
Whether the fates were with me at that time, or if everyone just had the same idea, I do not know or care. With one loud unified cry, all of us charged toward the door. Kyle stood up and attempted to block our path of escape. But we were not to be denied. We were more than enough to overpower him, and thus we surged forward, on our way to freedom.
I, injured leg and all, led us through that damned building, searching for some exit. We encountered some of those white lab coats again, but we scratched, clawed, and gnawed our way past them when at last we discovered a way out. As soon as we hit the dark outside world, we scattered in many directions, some heading for the suburbs, while others headed toward the lights of the city. I held back, making sure that every one of the inmates escaped and was on their way. After I had made sure that everyone else had escaped, I ran toward the city, hoping to find shelter for the night.
As I ran, I felt a rain drop land on the tip of my nose. Great, I thought to myself. Just perfect. The heavens slowly began to unleash its rains upon the earth, thoroughly soaking my fur.
Running through the unfamiliar alleyways, I searched for somewhere that I could rest. The pain in my leg had substantially increased as the rush of adrenaline from the escape wore off. Cursing silently under my breath with each step, I found a large cardboard box next to a trash can.
Well, it’s better than nothing, I thought to myself. I hobbled over to the box and checked inside. Nobody’s home. I knew that there was a risk that I could lose my shelter halfway through the night because of the rain. But at that point, I was desperate for any cover. I crawled into the box and curled up as tight as I could, hoping that my body heat could keep me through the night.
It was at this point that the weight of all that had happened began to sink in. I couldn’t help it anymore. I broke down and cried, cried more than I had ever cried before. Gradually, my crying ceased and I fell asleep, cold, soaked, and alone…
Things couldn’t have been any worse.
<End Prologue>