Shadows That Bleed

by YamiYugiPuzzleshipper

Pure-Bloods are said to be myths, not even well-known within stories. "A specialized genetic coding of the moon and the dire," their spoken lore proclaims. They are creatures beyond the power of mortality, gifted by the gods themselves. Known as the Eternal Ones, their existence once extinguished, resurrection foretells a powerful omen.

1. The Hybrid

Disclaimer: I do not own Yugioh

Edit schedule: Varying due to limited time

Update schedule: Biweekly due to limited time

Chapter warning: COPIOUS amounts of blood and gore, HALLUCINATIONS, NIGHT TERRORS and medication, GRAPHIC depictions of veterinary surgeries

Okay guys! This is the story is the multi-chapter werewolf fic. It took three different drafts, four different outlines, and a BUNCH of cursing.

The story is going to have a VERY complicated plot. It's FULL of plot twists (but hopefully no holes). It has COMPLICATED relationships. It has TWISTED friendships. And...a lot more, actually.

The story dives into ALMOST every genre except poetry, full-on romance or horror, parody, western, spiritual and possibly crime. There are mentions of crime elements in the background, however.

So, chapters will have their own individual warnings (blood, gruesome images, character deaths, experiments, etc). EVERY character is important in one way or another, so pay them attention. Their backstories and the events which push them into varying circumstances will be more complex than up might have originally suspected. I am using the ENTIRE YUGIOH FRANCHISE to have enough characters to play with, ranging from Duel Monsters to Arc-V.

Many ships. MANY ships. There are a lot of them. They are going to be one-sided, well-established, budding, suggested, implied, past, and some that are somewhat instructive rather than real.

The biggest one-sided WILL be Puzzle (for a vast majority of the story). But their interactions will change and you'll see hints of things other than a lopsided crush and unbreakable friendship. Have no doubt. It's there. But you'll have to read between the lines more to determine for yourself when things change completely and who fell first. That's one thing I'm not going to hand you.

The biggest budding is Peach. It remains this way from the beginning of this story until it meets its end towards the middle. It has an equal importance to Puzzle, but it's far more obvious. Also, go into this with the knowledge that even though Puzzle is the end result, at no time is Peach presented as less. Even when their feelings change, they remain as important to each other as they were before.

Seeing as these are the two most impacting relationships within this long story, I will let the rest be a surprise.

And the devil of details.

These wolves aren't the same as the ones in Marrow, Gravestones and Spiral. They're extremely different in this story and violence ranges from one end of the spectrum to the other in regards to bloodshed and death. Chapters will have warnings for them. Now, as for the wolves and their fur patterns and hair colors you should be able to tell the wolves apart by that and eye colors. I AM debating making a deviantart account to have a concept of size and build for each wolf, but I'm not sure I ever will. If it gets to the point that you all would like it for general visual concepts, then I can see about doing it.

Notes for other things will hopefully be extremely shot. I don't plan to post too much about any of the things I researched for the story. It would be an entire book in and of itself.

This story will be long, complicated, and you will definitely need to pay attention to the the smallest details to get the biggest impact and best understanding. This story IS a rough draft for a manuscript which I plan to publish. The characters are mere placeholders and my style has evolved to the point where I'm comfortable in saying that, while this is being posted here, the manuscript will be full of MORE and VERY different. Prose, styles, interactions, events, dialogue, and more of my research will be applied to the manuscript than here.

I'd LIKE to keep the name Shadows That Bleed as its title for publication. Whether that can happen or not is in the air, but if it's possible, but if it is, I may change the name of this story and leave it up. The final edit will have more plot twists, complex subplots, scenes and everything within the manuscript and mythology will be more tightly tied together. In order to keep from having to take the story down (which I really don't want to), a lot of things will be changed and reserved only for the manuscript rather than this fic.

Character names are decided by where they come from and what works for the plot. So there are LOTS of Japanese names and the American names of other characters throughout the story. It's dependent on where they come from.

This story IS OFFICIALLY COPYRIGHTED. The story has been edited three to four times (hardcopy by hand, typing it up on the computer, starting to edit and put on the site, and tidbits on my phone edited into chapters) but I do not expect it to be perfect. I type very fast and it can mess up spelling.

The night the story was posted was the night of the wolf moon (which was also a super moon) so I figured what BETTER day was there to begin posting?

ALL RIGHT! SO! End of note! Enjoy the chapter~

Copyright (c) 2018 Shadows That Bleed, YamiYugiPuzzleshipper, all rights reserved worldwide. Reproduction is prohibited without written consent.

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Part I

Chapter I: The Hybrid

Work Log Entry I: January, 1990

January 10

All efforts to bring forth the ancient beast have failed. The Canis Lupus Dirus still evades us.

January 20

A healthy she-wolf has been chosen to take on the task of giving birth to the Hounds. We shall prep her until we feel she will be strong enough to survive the ordeal.

Yugi noticed there was something strange the moment he set foot inside the clinic. The atmosphere seemed unusually heavy, weighed with somberness. The hairs on the back of his neck rose into a bristle, his skin prickling with growing unease. The more serious note that existed in the building was nothing new, nor was the circumstances of their newest patient.

Animals, both wild and owned, often found themselves injured at that particular junction in Domino City. Cars did not always slow down enough to avoid a collision. When a dog got loose and jumped their yard's fence in the excitement of exploration, more often than not, they wound up at one of the clinics.

So, Yugi had not been the least bit surprised upon having answered his phone to his mom's call about this very thing while he was at school. He had left his friends at the arcade a couple of blocks away, close enough to the school that they often went there when classes were over. He had run that short distance, unsure of what to expect.

His mother had simply told him that an unknown black dog of unrecognizable breed had been hit and she needed a second set of hands, just in case. The dog had apparently come out of the collision without a fatal wound, but the damage on his left side had been rather extensive. And she'd told him the dog had gone into shock from the blood loss. He had been told that the officer at the scene had planned to shoot him, which had spurred her to adamantly argue against his decision.

With that limited information, Yugi had assumed that it would be like any other surgery he stood in on. But his skin was tingling and his mind felt alight with tension. An instinct warned him to turn away, to run, but his curiosity was all-encompassing, and the will to help an animal in need pushed him on.

But it did not prevent him slowing his steps as he headed towards one of the examination rooms. He noted curiously that the technicians were not around and it made him wonder if perhaps they were all busy with the scheduled dental at the main clinic. His mother was the only one in there with the new patient.

The moment he entered the surgical room, the tension in his body spiked. His heart raced and his blood turned cold, adopting a temperature as chilled as ice. His eyes locked on the animal, startled by the seemingly massive size. But it was more alarming that the canine kept his head up, though it nodded drowsily, and blinked at him with bleary yet penetrating golden eyes. It was backed away to the very edge of the examination table, its left back leg quaking as it lay on its stomach.

The shock was clear to the eye, visually easy to assess. The glassiness in its gaze was stunning, the way it stared with clear focus beneath the frosted glaze. The tongue that poked out of the corner of its mouth, beneath the lip of its gums, was bright white. The royal blue nylon of the restraint around its mouth stood out sharply against the black fur of its large muzzle.

The light glimmered on its thick coat and the glossy sheen made Yugi shiver. And the way the dog quivered only gave more appearance to its unique, powerful build.

He watched, relatively surprised by the lack of struggle the dog gave them. His mom moved to place the anesthetic cone over its nose, allowing it to inhale the Isoflurine that would surely knock it out. The canine blinked blearily again, breathing in so roughly its sides quaked with the effort, and Yugi swallowed hard as the impulse to flee came over him again.

Something about this immense animal on the metal table in front of him set off every desire for self-preservation his body possessed. His grandfather, more of a parental figure than he could sometimes claim his own father was due to the gaping absence in his life, had always told him to trust his instincts. In truth, Yugi assumed it was one of the most common things they talked about.

But regardless of his usual urging to never shun his instincts, Yugi knew he would have to do so now. He had never considered doing it before, but now he stared at this dog and his sense of wonderment pushed against his alarm. The war that waged between the two was nothing he could put into words. Yet, it was enough to keep him rooted there.

He didn't understand why he should run. The dog looked like any other black canine with a long coat. It was large, yes, but it had the usual coarse appearance that came with guard hairs and the softer tufts of fur which fanned its face and legs. It had a muscular frame far more powerful than Honda's German shepherd and was possibly even twice Blankey's size. It was robust in build, long-legged with what looked like delicate bones leading to immense black paws. The erect ears were the smallest bit unusual, filled with plush-looking fur where most were rather bare. The shape was somewhat unique as well, with a rounded shape, somewhat smaller and less triangular than Blankey's or those of a Doberman.

Regardless of these small oddities, it was still a dog. It hardly warranted the fission of discomfort and alarm which clawed its way along his spine and made his stomach twist. But his instincts said there was a lot of power—more than he even recognized—in the animal, more than the body even managed to fully boast.

"How old do you think he is?" his mom asked after a moment. She helped to lower the canine onto its side so that the wound was upright in the air. The breathing was long and slow, but its eyes never strayed from Yugi's face. Even as the table shook beneath its weight in gentle vibrations and a slithering, stressed growl left its throat, it was complacent.

Yugi was unable to think straight. His mom worked to pull the dog's long, thin forelimbs forward gently so that its position was hopefully more comfortable. And then she stepped back to take a better look at the damage of the wound that marred its side. But the dog growled again, and the noise seemed almost too heavy and compressed to be a true animalistic cry.

The teenager pushed away some of his initial unease, but was unable to smother it all. He moved past her to sanitize his hands, grabbing the razor where it sat on the tray nearest him. There was no hope of putting in an IV line as long as that thick fur remained.

"I would think one—possibly two, but that seems to be pushing it," he finally answered. He could see the cords in the dog's neck, the shudder of fur along its skin there, and Yugi knew it was trying to watch him again. He shivered, moving to pass the razor to his mother, and grabbed a set of bright blue sterilized gloves. As he began to slip them on, he moved to allow the dog a better visual of him.

Immediately the restlessness in its drowsy frame began to lessen. The golden eyes were heavily glazed and its breathing longer, deeper than ever. But it paid him as much attention as it could muster. The plastic of the gloves felt unusually cold and somehow sticky, seemingly caught on his flesh with glue, refusing to properly cover his fingers. His skin crawled as the dog blinked long and slow and tried its hardest to remain awake, eyes glued to Yugi as if he might be the one reason it did not wake up.

"Hmm…"

The response was distracted, easily overpowered by the steady buzz of the electric razor. But he still managed to catch it over the gentle hum. His fingers picked at the latex material of his gloves, pulling it from his skin with a practiced steadiness which helped to undo his anxiety.

Yugi wanted out of the room as soon as was possible. When the dog was stitched up, he'd take his leave as quickly as he could. But it was going to be hard to help his mother if he could not calm himself somehow.

He got a facemask for himself, but his fingers hesitated and his body seemed to rebel at the very concept of dressing himself with it. Yugi shrugged it away, rolling his eyes at himself, and watched as the razor was put to use. The thick dark fur began to fall away in clumps, as deep in shade as a well of ink, catching and entangling the blades. But his mom expertly cleaned it away again before turning it back on and working once more.

His eyes fell on one of the large clumps of fur and his mouth began to dry out. It had a very clear under and overcoat, set distinctly by a strangely even layer of silver which looked oddly like that of feathered down. The precision of its cut was so flawless that Yugi felt his skin tingle. There was not even the slightest hint of dandruff in the dense coat.

He knew of that kind of distinct coating in several long-furred breeds. The Siberian husky and the Alaskan malamutes both boasted coats of similar builds during winter. But this dog did not have the size or jaw or muscle mass to speak of these bloodlines. He could easily have been confused for a long-haired shepherd, but he recognized that the skull was unlike theirs either. The slope of the skull was narrow, almost unnoticeable, a sharp degree of a slant, and the jaw was broader, with more length and a great power which existed in the immense pouches of its oversized cheeks.

The animal demanded a sense of respect even in its unconscious state. Its deep breaths shook its frame and its ribs were so much larger when they spread to their fullest with each inhale. There was nothing to hide its denser bones, or the muscles which layered its torso.

It was large, rugged, powerful and impressive. Yugi wondered if it was as athletic as its build suggested. He imagined it possessed amazing endurance and agility if it truly was. He bet that it would have a degree of graceful elegance that would put a jungle cat to shame. He imagined that the gloss of its beautiful coat would highlight the pull of fur rolling over each and every powerful muscle like ripples of water in a shallow pool. The sheer power the canine possessed just upon a glance was enough to make him think of the wilderness, of dark nights and forests bathed in moonlight.

Yugi looked away only when she moved again, a different action from the shaving. Now he watched her tape the IV into place. The pigmentation of the dog's shaven skin was so light a shade that it mirrored freshly fallen snow. His veins must have been small for she struggled for what felt like hours, though he knew instinctively only minutes had passed.

The thought almost made him smile wryly. Everything about this canine seemed almost massive. And his veins were apparently tiny in comparison. He still admired the terribly thick, dense bone that made up the entirety of its long, powerful forelimb, the muscular prowess it exuded. He took in the mass of muscle and bone, the way that its entire body ran the length of the metal examination table. Its tail hung over the edge in a straight dip of spine covered by thick, dark glossy black fur.

The rise and fall of its side was steady, the breaths deep and long. The fur along its flanks shuddered as if stirred by drifting wind. And the light of the bulb overhead seemed to glow further where it touched the enormity of the gaping hole that stretched along its side.

Yugi winced as he considered the size of it. A smaller dog would have dropped dead from it. The sheer length of the bright red flesh and the amount of blood loss would have likely killed even a medium breed. He could see that it was soaked, all around the open wound where it clumped together so that it was folded almost completely inwards against the muscle on display. It looked as if the skin were no longer attached. The hair was caught and kept in place by wet, open muscle.

Beside it, the dog's stifle was torn open in the back of its thigh. The hock was bright red with more exposed muscle and fresh blood. The fur was slicked downwards, glistening in the dull light, matted and tied against the flesh. There was no skin to reattach the fur. They would have to stretch the flesh around it and pull it forward in order to stitch it back together.

He watched his mother turn the razor on again. His eyes settled on the way she pulled the hair seemingly caught inside of the immense gash. "Jesus," she whispered quietly. When she pulled the skin back, Yugi felt sick, flinching away at the sight of it. A thousand dead cells showed there, colored black, turning the dog's flesh a similar shade.

The hair was tangled and grotesque, letting out a strange peeling noise accompanied by soft snaps as the strands broke. Yugi was unsure of how he truly caught the noise beneath the buzz of the razor as he moved without instruction to take the flap of skin in his fingers. He held it for her inspection, swallowing hard as he looked towards the dog's face again. Thank the gods its eyes were closed as tightly as they were.

He had already seen the bottom where the fur met tendon. And he knew she would have to cut away the edges, maybe even for inches. It was disgusting to think of how much skin she'd have to peel away just in order to clean properly. The razor was put to the animal's fur again, shaving away the perfectly smooth hairs once more.

Smooth patches of the beautiful fur came away like soft down beneath a bird's plumage. He held away another piece to allow her better access and room to maneuver to shave away the fur that needed clearing away. The pale skin was as white as paper as he looked at it. Sticky, matted, bloodied hair caught the razor in place, tying it there effectively, and he watched her struggle momentarily with the task of pulling it away.

Yugi flinched at the sight of the attached skin. The strip of torn hair gave way a moment later, like paper against the sharp blades of a scissor. The flesh was blackened, nearly the same shade as its fur, and he felt sick as the smell wafted through the mask covering his mouth and nose. It was sour and decaying, with the harshness of sickening sweetness beneath it, and his stomach ached as he tried not to gag. He took the bunch of flesh from her, dropping it away into the bin next to the table. It sounded heavy yet hollow somehow all at once. It was a harsh thud that came upwards, with enough power to make him flinch once more.

"Jesus," his mother repeated softly, face growing pale as Yugi flinched once more. Her wide blue eyes flickered to his momentarily, clearly startled.

Yugi flinched a second time, feeling his skin prickle and his shoulders rise the slightest bit as if to protect himself. It was extremely odd. He had never seen cells die that quickly before, especially with how young and healthy this dog seemed outside of his initial impact with the car.

Their connection was a simple stare that was broken almost immediately again, her attention lowered to the unconscious canine between them once more.

Yugi grabbed the sterilized scissors that lay on the tray next to him. He passed them wordlessly to her, then grabbed the tweezers and handed them over as well. He had not truly been aware that she had shaved away the fur around his wound so completely before. But as she lifted the torn muscle, the pale flesh was bright like snow and Yugi's skin crawled as he looked at it.

"The car roughed him up pretty well, don't you think?" she commented scornfully, shaking her head faintly. He didn't answer but he assumed the smell and the sight of the wound itself must have been the reasoning for the officer's initial plan to shoot it.

But his mom would never have allowed that to happen.

She had known she could save him and that was exactly what she was doing.

Yugi looked the dog over thoughtfully for a moment. How was it even possible that none of its bones were broken? From what she had told him from an eye witness account, the car had been speeding and the dog had been tossed like a rag doll. Yet, when she had gotten there, the dog had been fine albeit in shock.

His gums had been bright white like his teeth. His golden eyes had been so wide that they might have popped out of his head. The veins had looked brighter than ever, enlarged against the whites of them. But, despite the obvious pain that had come with the collision and the wounds along the hock and coupling of its hind left leg and the pastern of the front, not once had it limped.

But there was so much dead tissue for her to scrape away from the pale flesh. She had just finished skimming the bottom of that flap of skin. A long line of white, sinewy muscle was clumped together like a thick strand of saliva from slavering jaws. Yugi could not stop staring. His mom wiped at the rotten flesh that lay atop the good, reddened muscle but he was still unable to look away.

Tweezers and a small scalpel were used again, scraping at the skin. The darkened purple of decayed flesh gave way to bright pink. Then a vibrant red color came forward. Yugi watched her continue to saw away at the muscle now, scraping first for a test of blood circulation. Then she would clip it away and drop it into the trash near her. A drain tube of floppy, flexible white rubber was placed in the center. She angled it briefly, checking the direction to place it. Then she moved to stretch the skin on both sides of the wound.

Her gloved hands found their way beneath the trimmed skin, tunneling and tugging gently to pull it away from the deep red muscle. She pulled both ends, let out a relieved breath, and a shaky laugh escaped her when the loose skin gave headway beneath her fingers. Blood had begun to pool at both ends of the wound.

Yugi was almost dizzy when he smiled slightly at the beautiful color.

Blood meant viable tissue.

"Good boy," his mom muttered nearly under her breath. Yugi got the needle from the suture kit, grabbing the wire and clamp-like scissors. He watched her expertly sew a bottom and then top layer of skin over the drainage tube. It ran vertically, reddened with fresh blood where it shifted only slightly under her touch. Then the liquid spread further, pooling and trailing over the pale white skin.

She wiped it away with a sanitized wet napkin and the fibers of it were stained a solid pink as if it were colored with a permanent blush. The rubber whined as she tightened the last knot of suture and clipped the end.

The largest wound taken care of, his mother drifted towards his hock. She lifted it, flexing it once. The drugs did well to make the dog remain unconscious. The muscles along its leg flexed beautifully under her touch. And the blood did not well hideously over the edges of its fur. Nor did it drip loudly onto the medical table.

She laughed softly. Yugi leaned forward, then smiled with relief. The wound was perfectly clean and needed nothing more than to be pulled together and sewn. The skin was not too tight to pull naturally. And it looked as simple and small as the one which grazed its hock, the two of them twins of mere spots of bright red healthy muscle and skin.

The paws were well-rounded, arched in an almost delicate manner. And when Yugi flexed them out and pulled the forelimbs into a straighter position to allow her better access, he wanted to shiver. The hard-padded toes were webbed, something he had not expected to find. It was strange to see it, almost like that of a water dog's foot. His mom finished stitching without a glance at him. She worked quickly and accurately, and usually she did not even have a reason to check her work more than once.

But Yugi had always watched her look it over thrice, no matter what surgery it was.

Only his face remained in need of attention. His eyebrow was cut and soaked in blood. The appearance of his face was slimy and all but disgusting. His cheek was split, his nose bruised but not torn open, and his ear was cut at the very bottom of its gentle upwards arc. The hair was stripped and the skin raw along the top but still unbroken. The two on his ears and the one on his cheek needed only to be cleaned. But the brow, he knew, would have to have stitches. Thankfully, however, the skin on either side of the laceration was loose, easily pulled back together again.

He looked the pastern over some. But it was simple and the cut would not require any stitches either. A simple clean and bandaging like the hock would be the answer to that. Yugi nodded in silent approval at the assessment, turning away to watch his mom put the suture wire to work on a wound on the knee that he had overlooked.

He was dumbfounded by the idea.

Usually he could pick up on anything that was different around him and had an excellent sense of sight when it came to unnoticed wounds on an animal. He was used to being her second set of eyes during the more complex surgeries due to this. The thought of missing this wound was unnerving. It made his cheeks heat momentarily, ashamed and embarrassed.

But then his attention flickered back to the canine's face. His body stiffened in confusion. Bright golden eyes peered back at him in a flash. Intense, burning irises stared up at him, seeming almost to look through him. A million flecks of liquefied topaz were trapped beneath a layer of ice, glimmering with the strength of a flame in the deepest darkness, a light beneath a pool of rippling water.

His heart skipped a beat, shaking. And he almost opened his mouth to say that it was awake.

But then he blinked.

And the eyes were closed.

Yugi glanced quickly towards his mom. The strength of the image in his mind burned at him relentlessly, but he knew better than to second guess his new discovery.

His unease grew in waves, however. The very thought, no matter how small it was in that moment, made him feel fallible and incredibly foolish. His cheeks were warm once more, first with shame and then with an undercurrent of frustration at his tiny moment of naivety. His mind was playing with him.

He had not slept well the night before and his day had passed in a monotonous blur. Because of this, his mind had swarmed with his nerves at work beneath his skin. He felt as if there were snakes there, writhing among his muscles. He had succeeded in pushing it away to watch. But it had rendered him nearly useless once more. A furious, constant urge swelled in him, an instinct to flee entirely.

He doubted that he would have been of much use regardless, seeing as his mother had always been one to work quickly and in near silence. She would speak only to ask for necessary equipment. He would have most likely just gotten in the way if he had tried to do much else. But it still made him more nervous than ever.

"I'm going to go get cleaned up and then I'll give him some drugs to wake him," she announced as she cut the last suture along his brow. She sighed softly and the noise was of both relief and consideration. "But, before I do that, let's check and see that I got them all, shall we?"

Yugi hesitated for a moment, trying to think of all the wounds the dog had possessed. It was something of an inventory check mentally, one of which he usually performed effortlessly. But the fact that he had missed the wound on the dog's leg unnerved him. So he looked the canine over slowly, circling the table and taking in every bit of skin and fur that was visible to him. She'd told him ahead of time that the damage was entirely secluded to one side, by some miracle. And, as he stopped at the face and looked at the cleaned brow, nothing seemed to pop out at him.

"I think you got them all," he murmured, nodding in approval once more and hoping that he was correct in this assessment. Yugi didn't want a wound to go unchecked or miss a necessary cleanse. If they became infected, he was not sure what he was going to do. But he also didn't see anything and felt rather confident in his decision now. "Yeah, Mom, I don't see anywhere else where he's banged up. I think you got them all."

Somehow the repetition did wonders for his doubts. They seemed to fall silent within mere milliseconds of speaking.

She nodded. "Good." She graced him with a small, beautiful grin. Yugi could see the pride in her eyes and he had to fight the urge to squirm. "Then I'll go get cleaned up and wake him. Then we'll fit him with an e-collar and make sure he's okay when we put him in the kennel for the night."

He nodded at her in response. That was rather standard procedure. They would watch him all afternoon and into the early hours of the night just to make sure he wasn't in pain. Then they would do blood work and see about finding its owner. A dog of that size with such a seemingly clean bill of health could not have been a stray. The very aura of power and pride that the canine projected said it was all but impossible.

He glanced at the blood pressure monitor. Then his eyes flickered over the multiple tubes that ran into the canine's broad jaws. His tongue was bright red, clamped and pulled from his mouth to allow better assessment and administration of his inhalant drugs. The muzzle had been taken off, the cone pulled away, and the antibiotics were being pumped into his veins using an artery in his hock.

He vaguely wondered how it was that he had missed his mom doing this. Had the sight of the dog truly undone him that easily? Yugi had both the impulse to laugh at himself in frustrated disbelief, and to chew his nails to the quick. He had not done so in what seemed like years, but tension made him remember it. And, for the briefest of moments, the idea of shedding blood did him well.

An animal had never put such unease in him before.

So, what about this one dog made it so terribly special? He had been around large dogs before and assisted on the surgeries on the sick animals in the zoo. His mother was young, only twenty years his senior, but she was the single most well-renowned veterinarian in Japan. Often she was contacted when an accident happened or there was a case that another vet didn't know how to approach. She was even called in to lead conferences and classes on veterinary medicine and procedures at times.

Yugi glanced towards the backroom, waiting for his mother's return through the small double-glassed window in the dark red door. Watching for a long minute, he found nothing. He turned his attention back to the dog, growing mystified for only a second. The drape beneath the dog had been spotless before. Blinking slowly, he looked at the cloth beneath the black fur.

There was blood there now.

A blink allowed the fabric to grow darker, with red bleeding into dark blue.

The stain was growing, stretching outwards as if to engulf the warm material.

He tilted his head, his bewilderment growing. There was a soft dripping sound somewhere in the room, steady but becoming somewhat rushed. It was a dull noise, easily swallowed away by the silence. But it was growing steadily louder and stronger. And now Yugi could feel his skin beginning to chill.

His spine was stiff as he watched the sheet beneath the canine take on a much darker hue. He drew his attention to the rubber tube resting in the gently rising and falling abdomen he was looking upon. The white was stained completely. Red blood trailed downward. Single droplets of thick crimson liquid fell into the dark blue material. It was so steady it looked almost like a weak singular waterfall.

Yugi felt his stomach twist. His mouth began to dry out. His eyes widened frantically. The dog had not been bleeding this much. Even when his mom had first brought it in, the blood loss had not been that extreme. It was yet another thing that the text had made note of when he had asked for more details.

Had the surgery gone wrong?

Perhaps she had worked too quickly and the dog was bleeding out in front of him.

The dripping had doubled. A wet, sharp slapping noise echoed. The room seemed to vibrate with the sound. It played a cautious, definitive interlude between each heartbeat.

His eyes trailed downwards. A pool of blood had collected against the linoleum tiles. It was thick, with an almost syrupy quality to it. The circle of red was kept mostly in shape, somehow. Yugi watched it, unable to look away. The curiously deep crater of each droplet made the pool shudder.

They came from the very corner of the examination table, he realized. It was right where the metal made a sharp angle and the bottom folded inwards an inch. Where it trailed downward the drop was highlighted by the lump of it stretched in a formation similar to a frozen icicle.

The sound of the drops was growing far sharper. The impact of the drip each time sounded like a nail clicking against the tile in growing intervals.

Yugi blinked at it again. Then he brought his eyes to the dog once more. Under the lull of its drugs, it had the same steady breaths as it had before. It was the only true sign he required for realization to creep in.

Though his spine tightened further and his stomach bundled with nerves, he refused to act on the need to quell the bleeding. There was no need for him to spring forward and try to apply pressure.

Especially not when he finally noticed it, a scalpel buried in the long fur. The light illuminated the sharp blade and tossed a reflection back towards him. The handle gleamed at him. His eyes burned from the glare, causing them to water briefly.

The light lent the fur a deep gray color, with soft highlights of gentle silver. The fluorescents made the shadows along its body a strange dark blue. The tool was embedded in raw abdominal muscles, glittering and giving off a hideous white reflection.

He could see the drainage tube, a rubbery film which cut off the gleam. For a surreal moment it looked as if the bulb projected a single spotlight to display the wound.

Of course he recognized in the corner of his mind that it was impossible. It was a trick playing before his eyes. He knew that better than anyone. His mind was unconsciously dramatizing the display.

The sharp click of the blood falling continued. Yugi watched the steady rise and fall of the scalpel. A dull throb branched outwards in a violent spike of pain, blinding him momentarily in his right eye; it felt as if someone had stuck a thorn through his temple.

"How's he looking, Yugi?"

For a moment the pain was too intense to think straight. It spiraled through him. It lanced down his nerves. It danced and pulsed and screamed beneath his skin. And his eyes were frozen on the gleaming tool. For a moment it was all he could do not to scream.

Then, voice light, he forced himself to answer.

"I think he's okay. He looks okay."

"So he does," his mom murmured at his side. Yugi watched her pull away the anesthetic oxygen tubes that connected to the pipe in the canine's throat. The cloth tie was unknotted from where it rested on the base of the dog's skull. The tube was eased gently from its throat, brought out to be placed aside on the table nearby.

The syringe she pulled out had to have been prepared earlier. He figured it must have been while she had been waiting for the Isoflurine to take effect and lull the dog to sleep. The soft brush of her scrubs as she moved joined the continuous dripping of blood on the floor tiles.

The pain in his temple grew tenfold. It streaked through his bloodstream with heat that made him dizzy. Then it disappeared as if it had never existed to begin with. Yugi continued watching the canine. The last sting of pain drifted into nothingness and he stepped aside when she pulled away the thermometer. The dog's leg was stretched and pushed inwards again.

The stitches held as she flexed his muscles and moved the limb another time. The lack of hindrance was somewhat amazing to the small teen. The second IV on its foreleg was taken away with the same careful precision only after the reversal drug was administered.

Yugi went about retrieving the e-collar where it rested in a drawer nearby. Then he returned to her side. The dog seemed to draw awareness far faster than Yugi had initially thought possible. His mother pulled its broad head upwards to support it while he looped the cone around the base of its neck. He clicked the leather collar in place, pulling it to tighten the loosened material. The cone's plastic lip popped loudly as he secured it more completely.

But, when he pulled back, almond-shaped golden eyes stared back at him. His breath froze in his lungs and his stomach ached. The dog could have lunged forward at any moment. There was such power and awareness in those eyes that Yugi knew the dog knew it as well.

But he was also more focused on the way his face shone in those dark pupils, as if reflected in the abyss they seemed to present. It could not raise its head once it had been lowered back to rest against the metal tabletop. And its eyes were darker than they had appeared before, deeper and taking on a glassy, seemingly dead gleam like molten sunlight. Again those eyes seemed to be staring both at and through him all at once.

Yugi fought away a shudder at the idea. There was intelligence well beyond the average canine. Those eyes almost seemed strangely human to him. Something about the way it peered at him so calmly behind the haze made him wonder momentarily.

Was it calculating the situation? Was it planning an escape? Or was it simply judging him, accessing him? Was it wondering about him as he did it?

The gleam there was strange, entirely too human. Its dark eyes peered at him with such precision it made him nervous. They were beautiful and terrible all at once, with a hidden and guarded message within them. It came to Yugi that he would never be able to scratch the surface of it, no matter how hard he tried.

There was too much depth, too great a strength, and it was some kind of seemingly ancient secret that only the canine knew.

---

The bottle was plucked from the cabinet unit behind the mirror. The capsules rattled loudly as he turned the container around and looked over the various side effects. It must not have been common enough to be listed. But he did think he recalled the doctor herself mentioning them as a possibility. She had said that hallucinations were possible, that they would change the prescription should that happen.

Yugi snorted at the thought. This was the only medication that did manage to hold back some of his responses to the night terrors. None of them had managed to stop them completely. But they kept him from having the usual violent outburst in the middle of the night. And he did not experience the intense frustration that so often came with each of them.

Regardless of the frequency of his night terrors, the capsules did a relatively good job of suppressing his initial reactions during or after. It was the first time in a while that he had suffered a hallucination, but it was not nearly as bad as most became. It was far in the negatives in comparison.

He moved the bottle around in his palms, gathering warmth and shaking his head. As long as he wasn't committed or taken to the hospital yet again, he could deal with a few diluted hallucinations and night terrors. As long as they did not become as they had formerly, he could deal with them by all means. He just had to know when the hallucinations began—and for the most part he could identify them with near effortlessness.

It was in the smallest details of the areas and situations surrounding him. It came to him in small degrees what it was which was impossible to fit with the horrid images which his mind often summoned to torment him with. Those were the very things that allowed his most vicious hallucinations to be steered through without attracting too much attention from others around him. It was a trick he had taught himself when he had turned eight, when the first few trips to the doctors had occurred.

Due to the lack of response to the various medications and their inabilities to put away his nightmares, he had gone numerous times. Hallucinations had begun when he was around six. Back then they had been subtle. Now they came in vivid waves of emotional and visual cues. And they had coaxed the night terrors to grow tenfold.

At six they had been particularly terrible. Many times he had been unable to tell and had terrorized his parents and grandparents without ever meaning to. He had screamed and thrown fits in his blind panic. Many of the times, the images had been so hideous that he had suffered through bouts of vomiting caused by distress and anxiety.

Seven had been a strange year in the fact that his night terrors had remained but had not triggered hallucinations of any kind. At eight he had learned—by some miracle, or perhaps a form of self-preservation—to see the inconsistencies in both situations. From eight to twelve they had been moderate and not too terrible, but at thirteen they had briefly spiked and settled halfway to his birthday. At fourteen, they had begun to slowly draw a steady and consistent buzz of near sleepless nights and anxiety. During the day, he would suffer from bouts of skittishness and seem incredibly weary and weakened, and so he had become the ideal target for bullies.

But now, at sixteen, the night terrors had become constant. The hallucinations tended to be harsher. Many times, more often than not, he was left nearly winded and struggling to find the necessary inconsistencies to ground himself.

Since the day of his sixteenth birthday, Yugi had been caught in some kind of strange loop of energy buzzing beneath his skin like blood in his veins. The hallucinations were consistently worse than they had been when he assisted his mom. The night terrors all tore him to pieces upon falling asleep, but they had thankfully been subdued faintly in the sense of emotional backlash during his nearly nonexistent sleep. He no longer felt the rush of despair or the frustration which constantly crashed through him upon waking.

And, more often than not, he failed to remember as well.

None of the night terrors were anything he truly recognized.

But he knew each of them all the same.

He had never forgotten them. He had never been able to properly push them aside and lock them away in boxes as some people said to. They lingered constantly beneath his thoughts, like water threatening to break the barrier to become his sole focus. And they influenced the hallucinations with power that nothing else could compare to. Yugi had come to know each of them as well as he did his own family. All of it was so much a part of him that he truly found himself nearly anticipating them each day, knowing they were coming and steeling himself for the chaos of it all.

They no longer managed to catch him by surprise. He could—and would—wait for them when he was alone. Even when he was with friends and family, he sometimes watched and studied and bid his time. Regardless of what greatness the day might have brought, Yugi found himself always waiting, because they lurked there with readied claws and teeth to tear into him.

And they were becoming harsher. He had suffered through his father's face looking shredded and torn all day the time that he was with him for a small holiday before returning to the states. He had watched his mother's face turn into raw flesh and exposed muscle while making pasta. During one of the hottest days of summer, he had visualized shocking himself to death when he had plugged in the fan while his grandfather watched the TV mere feet from him.

That hallucination had been so real that every nerve ending in the entirety of his arm had seemed to burn and had rapidly begun to tingle. It had been such a familiar phantom pain that he'd felt his head might explode. Physical hallucinations such as that were the worst to go through—and so unforgiving in familiarity—that his right arm had been all but rendered useless for hours afterward.

The visual of the sensation had painted his flesh white, the edges with purple and yellow like stained teeth. His lungs had even been caught in the grip of it all, aching and burning each time his chest expanded. His heart had grown shaky and faulty, his pulse shattered and burning from the phantom experience.

There had never truly been any auditory to accompany the physical and visual. Beyond what was necessary for one or both phantoms, like the vicious snap of electricity, or the crackle of fire lapping at his skin, he had not heard things that lacked sense.

There were no strange voices. They seemed to be preserved for his terrors. Because, in his sleep, he knew the words and voices well. Every detail of them was heavily engraved in his mind, like fire branded into his skull. He could recite every word said, should he be bothered to grant the idea a moment's worth of effort.

He placed the medication back and listened to the satisfying click of the magnetic locks as the weight of the wood and mirror fell against them. Yugi settled himself comfortably against the supporting walls of the corners, crossing his legs and leaning back on his palms. The mirror cooled his shoulder where he leaned against it, and it helped to slow some of his tired thoughts. He was in no need for further recall of the situation. He had no reason to. He would figure it out.

He listened to the silence of the house, the weighted yet empty air spurring a seemingly long forgotten comfort in his system. He was tired, not exhausted, but weary and uncomfortable with all of the thoughts. And the dog seemed to pop into his mind once more. It was lonely and odd in the strangeness that it brought. Those darkened, shadowed golden eyes peered at him, through him, and again he could see that ancient, powerful secret in its gaze.

Yugi shook his head faintly and jumped off the counter.

He might never find the meaning of the secret—should it truly be a secret, if it were actually possible—and that was fine. What could he do with the secret as it was? What was there to say and think if he even ever managed to scratch the surface of such a thing?

Besides, animals and humans would not and could not truly share secrets. But he imagined animals held secrets as beautiful as nature itself and he thought if there were ever a way for humans to learn such guarded pieces of knowledge, they would kill for them.

He slipped out of the door without much of a thought. He could hear some of the animals in their cages beneath the living apartment. The clinic beneath the house was the emergency hospital. His mother had converted it long before he was even a thought in his parents' heads. She had made it the place where the highest risk patients came, available at truly any hour in case an animal emergency arose.

It was rare that they were woken by phone calls—or rather, his mother was woken from them and thus he woke due to her voice—but it happened sometimes. Occasionally a pet was sick or wounded and needed immediate care and so were brought there as soon as possible. Other times the kennel downstairs was used solely for patients that needed extra care and attention throughout the day. When the situation had grown less dire, the animal was taken to the main clinic for pickup after a single night's watch and surveillance and then finally returned home.

The kennel under the house was by far smaller than the main clinic's. And it currently only housed a handful of animals—a stray kitten with a wound in its side, a male parakeet with a broken wing, and a litter of puppies alongside their mother who had been rescued from a house fire. And he guessed that, most likely, the new stray dog at the clinic would be made a resident there as well.

Yugi hummed softly, padding into the kitchen and wondering about what it was he was doing at the moment. He had the impulse to go downstairs and check on the animals but he already knew he would have no reason. A couple of workers were already looking after them, hired exactly for this reason. There were only two or three of them, veterinary technicians with great credentials and the knowledge to pass whatever final exam his mother concocted. They were there every day from six to ten and the weekends were when he and his grandfather tended to them instead around studies for school and homework.

He was not needed down there. If one of them were to call for him, then he would check, but not otherwise.

He stopped short of trying to pick a snack and froze, listening to the sound of the doorknob turning downstairs. The bell chimed to announce that someone had entered the small clinic and he listened to a familiar deep voice speaking greetings and then the sound of him on the steps. Yugi went back to picking out a pudding cup and a spoon, taking a seat just as his grandfather shut the door in the hallway that connected the two apartments of the building.

"Hey, Grandpa," he murmured, granting him a small grin before undoing the top of the container of pudding.

"Hello," he nearly sang, walking past him with a lightness that always made him seem younger than he actually was. He was like a nineteen-year-old in a seventy-six-year-old body. The thought of the situation was always funny; his grandfather often forgot how old he truly was, overestimated himself and underestimated the strain it would put on him later. He had pulled a muscle multiple times and hurt his back that many more.

Smirking at the thought and his grandfather's various cries of "Ah, my back!" Yugi dug into his chocolate dessert, biting away laughter. The taste was that of chocolate milk but with a stronger, sweeter taste that warmed and spread across his tongue. His lips pulled slightly downwards into a small frown, eyes narrowing faintly. The taste was strangely amplified, with a bit of power that was almost akin the effect vanilla had on him. It was as if, for that small moment, all of his taste buds had opened to greet the unusually somewhat bland flavor that came with chocolate.

"So, your mother mentioned you helped her with a surgery a couple of hours ago," he mentioned, turning to him with a grin.

Yugi blinked, at first studying the pudding in front of him, and then leaned back in his chair. "Yeah, but mostly I just handed her stuff. She knew what she was doing," he replied distractedly. He didn't want to talk about the dog. He may have wanted to check on it before, but he did not want to talk about it.

"So, tell me, what was the dog like?"

He bit the inside of his cheek. "Strange," was hardly the answer his grandfather would want. So Yugi pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth momentarily, the taste somewhat sour against the ridges behind his teeth. But he wasn't about to drag out his silence, because that gave his grandfather room to think about his hesitance. So instead he turned around to look at him.

"You know, I always thought you liked cats more than dogs, Grandpa?" he commented. "Anyways, Mom is probably bringing him here for the night so you'll see soon enough."

"She said he was a large dog," he prompted, disregarding his comment in an effort to make him open up some more.

Yugi forced away a sigh of annoyed discomfort, skin prickling. "Yeah, he was…uh, massive, actually. He's probably one of the largest dogs I've ever seen. He's well-muscled, has a robust build, and long legs. His tail is long, his body is lean, and he has a large head and jaws. His coat is a little shaggy and he's a long-hair. He looks athletic and like he would be able to pull a sled like a husky." He shrugged and turned back to his pudding to eat another mouthful. "There's not really much else to say."

"Okay, so what happened with him?"

"He got hit by a car."

"The usual intersection?"

"Yeah."

His grandfather nodded and Yugi could feel his stare on his face. "Are you going to tell me anything else about it?"

He put the spoon in his mouth, shaking his head. Settling back against his seat, he twirled the spoon to rest flat against his tongue. "I don't really want to talk about it, no," he mumbled, shrugging and pulling the spoon away with a loud click. "There's not really anything to say about it anyways, Grandpa."

A gray eyebrow peppered with white hair rose slowly and his moustache wiggled faintly with the beginnings of a snicker. "Too much blood?"

Yugi bit back laughter at the irony of the statement.

"Maybe just a little bit."

---

The dog limped only slightly as Yugi clipped the leash to his second collar and began to lead him out of the house. The cone around its neck made a soft rustling noise where the two leather collars brushed together gently as it moved to his side. Yugi had yet to shake away the discomfort that came over him whenever he was within close proximity to the dark-furred canine.

The dog itself was not too terribly different, however. Despite the strange glittering quality its eyes possessed that made it look as if it knew and saw things Yugi could only dream of becoming acquainted with, it seemed normal. The only thing outside of those strange, beautiful gem-like eyes that was odd in any way was the reaction the other animals seemed to collectively have towards it. Most of them made for the back of their cages or let out noises of alarm and anxiety.

The mother dog had moved each of her four pups to the back and lay with her back to them outside of nursing. She faced the door and refused to look away for more than a handful of minutes at a time. She, like the kitten, would snarl in warning whenever he pulled this new, unnamed canine out of its cage or brought it back inside. He thought that perhaps the animals would rather flee than truly face the canine, reacting angrily because they knew of no way to express their fear and had no way of getting away from the source of it.

The canine's gait was only shaken slightly as it walked. Its hind leg, hock and stifle cleaned and looking healthy enough, never wavered beneath its weight beyond the initial first few steps forward. The limp was essentially gone immediately afterwards, not even a touch of it left as it continued walking. He still wondered faintly how the massive animal managed such a feat.

The withers of the canine stood level with Yugi's waist, with a broad head topped by perked ears that touched near to the bottom of his ribcage. So the canine's shoulders themselves stood at exactly two and a half feet tall and its head, raised completely as it paused and sniffed the air, gave it a boost of another six inches.

Considering only its great height, the canine looked vicious and formidable. It made the athletic, nimble, and muscular build that much more powerful. It gave more light to those terribly long, well-developed limbs.

Yugi thought briefly that, as a dog, this animal had great power and stamina. He knew without the slightest doubt that the canine could propel itself at great speeds with those immense hind legs. He thought its lean build and long legs would do well to throw itself to speeds beyond that of greyhounds. It would never be as limber as a cheetah for that speed, but he thought for sure that it could push to at least fifty-six to sixty miles in a single bound if it were to throw itself forward. He thought it needed only use the muscles in its back legs to propel itself forward at such speeds without even a momentary pause. It looked like, in an upward spring, the animal could go over ten feet should it try.

The thought was both somewhat terrifying and oddly exciting. The sheer strength of the animal beside him was enough to make a small string of nerves and anxiety creep through him. He had met an American pit bull terrier, bred for dogfights with jaws that clamped into muscles and brute strength to throw an adult to the ground, and yet the respect he had felt towards it was not even a blip on the radar compared to this one. There was just so much strength rolling off the dog at his side that it put even the most dangerous dog breeds to shame.

He wondered at the breed but his mom had said the blood and saliva samples had been inconclusive. He had a feeling that she just didn't really want him to know for whatever reason. It could have been inconclusive for some unknown reason, but he still wondered at the odds of that. For all he knew it would say he was an oversized solid black Siberian husky and the growth had distorted some of its features or something to that effect. Whether that was common or it was so rare that it was unheard of was just as much a mystery to him.

Yugi walked forward a few steps when the dog got to the end of its lead. The canine was sniffing at a few leaves to a small honeysuckle bush that draped downwards in half-dead vines of light brown. The golden-eyed canine continued scenting the little green leaves before finally stepping aside to pee and trot ahead.

The small teen was momentarily impressed with the action, how little his left hind leg even appeared to strain, though his great weight had to have been hard to support with the multiple bruises and aches. He was still unsure of how the canine had been so well off despite the accident. Surely one of its bones should have been bruised or broken in some way.

The dog had the usual grace of a predator, power and finesse and raw strength, with cunning and senses that humans would always be envious of. Yugi watched its pelt roll and the confidence that shone in its simple gait.

The undercoat seemed like downy strands of silver, doing nothing to filter away the darker black guard hairs. There was no softened gray sheen between the dark black guard hairs the length of his fingers. Its pelt was still completely dark almost like midnight with single touches of shine from the full impact of the direct sunlight.

It was just nearing winter now but the sunlight was not too weak to paint his pelt at least slightly lighter. There was nothing to block out the sunlight with not even a touch of shade between them and Yugi was still rather mystified by the darkness in its fur. How was that even possible? His fur should have been more gray or silver or brown in the sun like this. How the hell was that even possible?

He shook his head faintly and glanced around lazily as the dog continued moving around in the grass. They were only a few yards from his house, on a strip of grass and trees with a couple of telephone poles and wires little else else to offer as far as distraction. A gentle breeze stroked at his skin and rustled the leaves softly so that they whispered softly in his ear just as the dog finished and turned back towards the house.

The moment they stepped inside the female dog was on her feet in the cage, snarling as her mottled brown, black and white fur rose along her spine and neck, head lowered and lips drawn back as fully as she could manage. The kitten's back arched like the curve of a harp's bow, each hair on its pelt rising in small spikes of black as thin and sharp as needles, her hiss loud and bordering a furious yowl. The parakeet attempted a failed launch into the air, screeching as loudly as a siren. Its beak clacked together several times, feathers fluffing up along the back of its body, wings spread though the left refused to extend properly. The canine at his side did not even raise its head, instead looking towards its own kennel without even a hint towards acknowledging the other animals. Their distress made Yugi hesitate, unsure of himself, and the dog finally turned its head to look him over.

Yugi could hardly look away from the others. The kitten was backed up to the very edge of the cage she was resting in, refusing to loosen the tension in her arched spine. The female dog had pushed her pups behind her again, with her entire body angled to rush the door in case the larger canine decided to stick its nose near the entrance. The bird's multicolored feathers were puffed outwards to make it appear several times larger than it could ever truly hope to be, its beak still clicking in threat.

Their eyes locked immediately, golden against blue-violet, and Yugi swallowed hard. The secret still lingered there, almost mocking him as it burned brightly in those deep eyes. He could see himself faintly in those dark pupils, almost as if he were staring into a mirror or muddy water or the very surface of a well of black ink. His eyes were still wide, with a touch of purple crescents beneath both dark orbs, and his cheeks slightly flushed. His skin was pale against the blackness of both pupils rimmed by those gorgeous irises like sun-baked sand, deepened with liquid sunlight and molten topaz jewels.

Yugi swallowed reflexively. A small spike of pain made his right temple feel as if it might burst with the force of the impact. The dog still had that uncanny way of seeming to stare at and through him as it always did, but he could see himself in its eyes now. It was odd how deep that blackness appeared even with his image there staring back. The canine tipped its head up slightly and he thought he could hear a faint soft beating noise in his ears, almost like a heartbeat. A soft, wet twisting noise accompanied each of these thumps almost so thick a sound that it gurgled at the end.

Abruptly the dog turned away, its eyes becoming fixated on its cage. It wasn't unusual for him to do this; oftentimes the canine did so every time it was given the opportunity to stretch its limbs. Yugi looked away as well, blinking and then glancing up at the other animals.

The image to greet him made his mouth dry. His lungs squeezed painfully for a moment. His head swam. His throat tightened. His skin prickled and burned. His blood began to pound in his ears.

The cages were all turned inside out. The doors were ripped open. The padding in each was shredded. Bits of bed strung outwards to hang against the door. Stuffing was caught in the corners of the kennel, drenched in blood. Blood covered the metal of the door, dripping downwards in large maroon strands of color against silver. The square twines of each of the cages looked as if they had been struck by something sharp, like knives or scissors. The paint was scraped into nonexistence in areas of some, with large gashes and scratch marks. The usual sliding locks were busted and torn out of place altogether. The bottom hung in a dangling position, clicking gently as if the door had just been opened. Tufts of black fur were scattered everywhere, half tucked away in the white fuzz of the padding and matted with blood both dried and wet.

A single long strand of sinewy muscle dangled downwards from the door. More blood dripped in solid rivulets of bright red. The collar holding the kitten's cone in place was draped down the front. The d-ring gleamed brightly in the light, blood smeared with tangles of black fur as soft as silk. The kitten's skull was lying near its shredded tail. Bright green eyes peered back at him, though the right was crushed in the middle, with a black, spongy clot of blood in its destroyed pupil. Its lips were curled back, jaws opened to show each of its bloodstained teeth where they still remained, though many were missing. Entrails painted bright red against pink tissue rested beneath its severed neck like a stretched snake of naked intestinal flesh. Beyond it the spine was ripped free of dark fur and lean, underdeveloped muscle. The striking white of the vertebrae was severed in several areas, bone split to show the yellow of small columns of marrow.

The ribs were broken and split upwards through shredded fur. A leg was thrown outwards towards the wall, splintered and shattered in a series of hair-thin white spikes of bone. Several paw pads had been crushed and punctured, tossed aside so that toes caught in the shredded material around it. One hind leg was thrown in such a way that a claw was caught in the massive dent of its fractured skull. Bright gray brain matter was caught in the fissure of the collapsed bone as if teeth had struck it in attack. The metal water bowl in the back corner was pink with blood and a skinned pelt from where it had been stripped from the spine.

Yugi did not look to the other cages, stomach flipping violently. He didn't need to in order to know they were just as torn to pieces, destroyed completely and utterly. But he was unable to avoid them and so still caught the mother and pups' blood-soaked fur. He still saw the bright, shed feathers of the parakeet turned a matted red and brown. They were still scissoring through the air to the ground as he glanced at the dog. The motion, caught in the corner of his eye, made his head snap towards it immediately.

The feathers were soaked and matted, littering the ground in bright silver and white with small bands of black. There wasn't truly any blood on the ground for them to swim in. but the image was still distressing all the same. He did not raise his eyes but he thought that it was probably torn apart just as horribly. He pictured its wings ripped out of its back. He imagined the wings' feathers stripped away and the fragile bones shattered into nothingness. The head was probably torn off, the legs ripped away, but oddly he thought the body was eaten. He pictured the feathers spread around, streaked with a pink mixture of foaming saliva and bright red blood from the cat and the other canines.

Yugi turned away from the feathers, listening to soft hisses and snarls that told him immediately that he was seeing things again. It wasn't necessary to hear them to know considering that he had seen them healthy just minutes before, but it did help to keep his head level for the moment.

His eyes fell upon the dog slowly, wondering in amusement at his own thoughts of whether the dog had somehow managed to impress the visual upon him. He already knew it was only his nerves that brought it on. The dog made him nervous. His nerves made him anxious. The anxiety brought on the hallucinations.

He knew how and why they occurred. But he had no idea why it was that he always remained so easily wired, why he became so nervous for seemingly no reason.

He had always been like this, however, but not to such an extent. Usually he had a very keen network of reflexes which made him react skittishly whenever he felt sick or slightly uncomfortable. Moments like these were usually rare. It took a lot for him to feel nervous, something that really only happened when he was taking exams at school or was introduced to someone important among the veterinary community. There was also always the buzz of his anxiety when Yugi was allowed to assist or watch a surgery but this nerves usually changed to small bits of excitement that died away into a calm intensity.

He knew of the ways that he might end up with anxiety pushing at his insides. But he also knew that it never truly lasted for over a few minutes, with twenty being more of his maximum. He couldn't remember a time in which he had suffered through an interval longer than that. Excitement was usually what replaced it and he knew how to shove the anticipation away in a short amount of time. Serenity was easily drawn inwards when he pushed it aside and he knew how to pull it in and hold it in place. Calmness was the only way to pull apart a hallucination.

Yugi shook away the thought of it and watched the dog. The canine was walking forward, sniffing faintly, and began to make its way towards its cage. Yugi ignored the way that the blood burned his nose with a harsh, disgusting edge like being pricked with the tip of a knife's blade. His eyes flickered momentarily towards the puddle of bright red beneath the kitten's cage and noticed immediately that the canine had stepped in it by accident. Its left front paw left a little trail of bloody prints where it had stepped in momentarily but had pulled away almost immediately.

The marks were almost perfectly cut. He could see the contours of the blistered pad, toes and nails all made bright red against white. The smear of hair made the middle of each toe soft and wispy in design. The pads had a sharper arch than the bones of the paws, with a somewhat close range between each toe and heel, and the very tops nearly melted into the print of its thick nails. Another step, as it moved forward sniffing, was smeared gently, with its toes spreading outwards with its full weight.

Yugi leaned forward, moving around the canine to slide the locks out of place, kneeling in front of it and ignoring the blood on his leash or the red liquid threatening to soak into the heel of his sneaker. He pulled the door open completely for him. The e-collar folded just enough for him to slip through and circle in his crate for a few long minutes. He watched the dog plop down and moved to undo the clip of the leash from the second collar lying around the beginning of its shoulder bones.

The dog's fur was soft and warm where his fingers brushed against it. He blinked at the smell that crept forward at the close proximity as he began to pull the leash away to wrap around his hand. Yugi's movements stopped and he swallowed harshly. It was acrid, burning, and the sour tang that lingered in his nose threatened to cut and draw blood. The air seemed suddenly thick and smothering, threatening to suffocate him. His head swam faintly, his eyes stinging and almost tearing up violently where it made his throat feel tight and closed. He looked at the canine, confused by the bitter scent that crept in to double the effect of the sourness.

The ammonia quality made his head hurt and his nose burn more violently. A soft, sweet undertone welcomed him when he held his breath for a long minute and tried again to figure out what the smell could possibly be. Following the sweet tang was a current of salt like sweat, with a strength that made him fight off a vicious recoil. It smelled almost like vomit, with a dense, cloying scent that cloaked the back of his throat to smother him. A hint of staleness and heat like a warm body and fresh blood made his stomach curl and then heave faintly as he gagged.

Yugi pulled away, swallowing hard and looking at the dog for a moment. It smelled of rotting flesh, like it had during the surgery but with a hint of difference in the sweeter freshness it possessed. He looked the dog over, narrowing his eyes as he leaned forward and held his breath. He could not immediately see any stitches that had been pulled but something had to have been infected, some of the cells dead again. His stomach twisted once more and his lungs burned.

He got up after clipping the leash back on and pulled gently on the blue nylon. At first the canine stared in what looked like human surprise and confusion before finally climbing to its feet. Yugi started to walk along towards the back where he would hear his mom moving around. The dog's thick nails clicked loudly in large taps of noise that highlighted the soft touch of its pads to the ground. The unnerving smell of rotting flesh came in small waves with each movement, drifting upwards and outwards to burn his nose and make his head swim, eyes watering.

His eyes flickered to the side to regard the canine and he swallowed weakly. The tube seemed to be dispelling something but he couldn't readily see if it was blood or pus or regular discharge, just that the bottom seemed to be shiny.

Was it possible that the wound had somehow decayed and the discharge of pus smelled of it? He really hoped that it was pus and not blood, though he still felt sick to even truly consider it.

A small shudder passed through him momentarily and the dog glanced at him. The canine's brows had risen, both of them furrowing and pulling upwards like a softly curved triangle. Wide golden eyes peered at him in confused curiosity and its head tilted, ears pricked more noticeably as they angled towards him fully. Its mouth opened faintly to show the bottom row of incisors. In another situation it would have tempted Yugi to give him a treat. Now it made him want to pull his lips back and look his teeth over to check for some kind of oral disease to explain how his wounds could smell so rotten so unexpectedly like this.

But his mom hadn't reported any illness after she had done the blood test, and he thought that she would have if only to ensure that he could give the dog more antibiotics as needed. He knew she would never have forgotten to tell him something like that. So it must not have been a case of illness.

"You reek," he announced, raising a brow and smirking at the curious canine. Its golden eyes widened faintly before its brows folded in pure disdain, its mouth closing and its tilted head straightening. A single huff spilled out as its head swung away and Yugi snickered despite himself.

He was used to seeing such facial expressions on Siberian huskies, and the thought made him smirk widely. He had always loved dogs with such powerful facial expressions, ranging from overjoyed to absolutely annoyed and glaring.

Honda's German shepherd Blankey made those faces constantly. If he visited and didn't have a treat on him, he was always given a disdainful look before she ignored him the rest of the time he was there. When he brought treats, she gave him a bunch of kisses and wore an overjoyed expression, her entire mouth open with her tongue lolling as her eyes grew wide and lit with excitement, ears pricked and her body shaking with the force of her tail wagging.

"Well, you do. You reek."

Yugi swore the dog huffed again before he opened the back door to lead him to one of the examination rooms. He needed to give the dog a pre-med before he did anything else. Then he would text his mom that they needed to take a look at him again and they would see what had happened and make sure there wasn't any repetition.

---

The dog blinked dazed, lazy eyes at Yugi as he wrapped an arm around its neck to support its head. His fur was soft and thick, warm against his skin as he swallowed roughly and blinked again. His breathing against his arm was oddly comforting as it grew steadily heavier, deeper and the weight of his chin grew more pronounced. Its eyes were oddly still locked on him from the corner of its gaze, ears flickering towards him momentarily, as if listening to his heart. Its eyes closed rather slowly and Yugi watched his mom put the IV in. He tipped the muscular skull upwards, using his free hand to part its lips, pulling its teeth apart as his mom got the endotrachial tube.

He grimaced at the way its bottom jaw opened limply, stretching almost fully before he caught its chin. The canine's head was a lot heavier than he ever would have expected to find, nearly twice as much as a rottweiler, its muzzle longer and broader. Yugi swallowed as he noticed the way its cheeks seemed to expand, puffing outwards almost like a grizzly bear's lips when it roared or snarled angrily. His mom didn't seem to notice, however, instead working to place the tube and tie the band of gauze around the back of its skull. He kept its head supported as his mom finished the task, moving behind him to help adjust the massive canine.

She placed the foam pillow for its head to rest on and moved to attach the tube to the anesthetic machine. He stood aside as she lifted the lid of its eye to place artificial tears, blinking before moving to attach the heart monitor.

"I am so sorry," Yugi murmured with a sympathetic look as she lubricated the thermometer and lifted its large bushy tail.

His mom rolled her eyes, smiling and shaking her head. "Stop apologizing to them all the time. It's for their health."

"Yeah, well, if I woke up after having a thermometer in my butt, I would think I would want a series of apologies—written and spoken."

"Yes, but you're also a wimp, Yugi. The dogs have more guts than you."

"That's only because they're so out of it that they don't even realize what's been done to them."

"They wouldn't realize it anyways."

Yugi rolled his eyes and instead glanced at the temperature being read and the heart monitor. Now would normally be the time that he would get a bear blanket to preserve its body heat if it was a dental procedure, but they couldn't do that and look over his wound. He didn't think its body temperature was going to drop as it was, however. Oddly Yugi couldn't truly picture it. After surviving that accident and barely even seeming to limp despite its numerous leg wounds, he couldn't even imagine body temperature dropping to be an issue.

"He really does smell, doesn't he?" she murmured after a moment, narrowing her eyes and glancing at him. "He smells like he did the first time…"

"Yeah, I was going to check his drainage tube but I thought maybe you should do it. I didn't want to make some kind of mistake or accidentally pull his stitches if he wasn't ready to let me look at it," he mumbled in reply, ignoring the sharp scent of decay that burned his nose violently. The sickeningly sweet undertone that came with it made his head swim faintly before he managed to push it away enough to look the canine over.

His mom came to his other side, nodding in acknowledgment towards his words as she gripped the dog's hind leg to stretch some. None of the sutures gave with the movement, and he barely suppressed a sigh of relief. He did not want to find that he had torn one, because it was highly likely from the smell alone that his wound would have to be infected.

"I'm going to have to show you how to clean this tube," she announced softly. She had not had much of a reason to show him before then. Most of the times an animal was sent home after they were given their primrose drains and awakened from surgery. They had never quite had an injured animal with a drainage tube in the clinic for Yugi to look after.

"Sure," he murmured, nodding again before reaching out to touch the canine's fur and looking over its long foreleg. Its breaths were deep and easy, comforting to watch until his eyes fell upon its wounded side. The bottom row of stitches beneath the drainage tube was pulled and loose, and when he leaned forward to inspect it some more, the scent made him queasy and his eyes watered fiercely. "He pulled one under his tube. I think it's infected…"

"So that decayed smell is coming from his side then?"

"I think so."

He ignored her soft sigh, eyes narrowed slightly as she looked at the same suture he had pointed out. The end was clearly pulled loose, dangling almost beneath its stomach, and now that Yugi was actually looking he could see just how much of the wound was actually exposed now. It was a wonder that the tube was even still in there or that the top stitches weren't dangling with them. It was a wonder that the dog's skin wasn't fully open and the entire laceration bleeding all over the place.

"How the hell did he manage that?" his mom commented in pure amazement, blue eyes wide and mystified.

"Maybe they just dissolved prematurely," he offered, swallowing hard as his nose burned once more and his eyes watered.

"They shouldn't have…"

Yugi shrugged, unsure of what else to say about it, and then watched as he began to look the wound over once more. She had barely touched the stitches when the dog's breath seemed to somehow completely pull the remaining sutures apart. No blood came from the torn stitches, the skin bright pink and a touch of purple near the center where a small, dark scab was forming in its core. The skin looked healthy beyond that, however, and Yugi nearly smiled at the realization.

But he still had to worry about the smell that persisted to taint the air and his head spun with confusion. The skin would have been black and decayed to warrant such a smell and Yugi could not understand how such a good looking wound with all of the appearance of properly healing flesh could expel that. That scab was a clear sign that the canine was not suffering any ill effects.

There was no infection from what he could see. There was no sign of discomfort or pain that he had witnessed while they were walking.

"It looks like it was pulled recently."

It was all but a mumble. She was clearly focusing on the wound now, all but forgetting that Yugi was there at the moment. But when she reached forward to run her finger over the sutures, her eyes grew huge with shock. When she pulled her hand away, the sutures were stuck to them.

Had they dissolved too quickly?

She had mentioned the possibility to Yugi before but that had been only when they were relatively new. Now, however, as Yugi leaned forward and considered, he did not think that it was sutures that had caused it. It looked, instead, as if the dog's flesh had crumbled away instead. The sutures she had in her fingers were covered in pale skin cells and dark black fur. And, somehow, in place of those discarded sutures, there was a dark red and purple scab in the center of the large wound.

"He's…healing nicely…"

Yugi nodding slightly, brows furrowed. "Should we take out the tube then? Or should we leave it?"

"I don't see why we should keep it. I don't think that he even needs the stitches anymore…"

He stared at her for a long minute before blinking slowly, eyes wide with startled confusion. "He's only been here for a day," he objected, blinking stupidly. "We literally only had him for a full day and one night before and after. How is that even possible?"

She gave him a mystified that mirrored his fully. "Maybe he heals quickly…?"

"It's only heard of hybrids healing that quickly," he said uncertainly, glancing at the canine nervously. A small voice whispered in the back of his mind that the dog's hair shouldn't have been growing back so quickly either. "Hybrids and mixed breeds, and I know he's not a pure bred but which is he? Both?"

"It doesn't matter," she said briskly, eyes flashing briefly and making Yugi stare for a moment in uncomfortable confusion. She must have known exactly what breed he was and simply didn't care to share—which almost guaranteed he was a hybrid. But unless there was someone who had bred a hybrid and brought it to Japan, then it was unnerving to consider. And if someone had brought a hybrid and abandoned it, then what was the point of having one?

He knew of only one wolf-dog species in all of Japan, a small dog breed that he thought was about the size of an Akita. And this canine was massive and probably the size of a North American gray wolf. Wolves were extinct in Japan and had been for a long time, which begged the question of this dog's being there. There was also the fact that any wolf-dog brought to Japan would have to have certification to come in the first place and odds were the dog would need to be quarantined or possibly even put down…

Yugi swallowed hard.

So that was why his mom had failed to share the results with him.

---

He was healing extremely well. The scab on his side was a bit bigger but beyond that it was nearly nonexistent, almost completely hidden by the dark fuzz that was growing in place on his shaved skin. The flesh itself was actually still dark purple, tinged gray with the black fur that was beginning to grow back. The cone around its neck still kept it from pulling the remaining sutures from its legs but it did nothing to stunt its appetite or dozing when it was in its cage.

Yugi had watched it sleep for hours around doing homework and had to admit he was slightly amazed by that fact. Normally he always thought they must have been far more energetic and somewhat unpredictable. Yet this dog barely even did more than eat, drink, sleep and walk with him. That, for him at least, just begged the question as to why someone might have abandoned him—if that was what had happened. Aside from making other animals extremely skittish, he could not understand why. He was so easy to get along with, walked well, and was so behaved it was a small bit mind-boggling.

He shook his head as he put the food bowl back in front of the wolf-dog. The golden eyes regarded him curiously for a moment before the canine jumped to its feet again. Its tail wagged lazily, ears pricked forward a bit more than usual before sniffing at the treats that held his medication. He nosed it aside, sniffing at the peanut butter-coated bread before raising his head to stare curiously. Usually Yugi would make a show of playing with him before he would give him his medicine.

"Sorry, buddy, but I have to go to school. I don't have time to play," he mumbled, shouldering his backpack and pulling on the strap lightly, watching the wolf-dog.

The black hybrid tilted his head slightly before sniffing at his medicine again before snatching it into his mouth. He swallowed both antibiotics moments later, licking his lips and digging into the kibble beneath. The chicken shreds were saved for last where Yugi had stashed them at the bottom and he watched the dog raise its head to study him with curious golden eyes.

"Back in the cage," he murmured, making a playful shooing motion that made the canine wag its tail and bow for a moment with a sloppy pant. He was about to honestly choose to play with the dog instead of go to school just before it spun around and trotted into its cage without a second glance. He circled the length of his kennel before plopping down on his pad and waiting for him to close and lock the door as he always did.

Yugi hesitated briefly, realizing almost immediately that he truly needed to get a move on if he was going to get to school on time. Shouldering his bag again Yugi closed the crate door, sliding the lock into place and heading outside. Usually his friends would meet him at right about this time near the school entrance. But he had already texted them that he might be running late and that he would meet them in their homeroom instead.

He glanced back in through the window and watched the dog momentarily as it blinked and settled its chin on its forelegs, lazy and tired. Yugi turned away again, glancing at the bus stop momentarily; he could easily take it instead of walking but it always smelled so stale. There was always the smell of dried sweat and morning breath, making the space around him suffocating and small and too hot to be comfortable. It always made him wonder how it was possible any of them could actually stand to use it in the first place. He shook his head, turning away, and continued along the sidewalk, moving at a brisk but leisurely pace towards the school quad.

The bus was unloading by the time he got to the entrance. He watched them get out, talking and chattering as always. A small twinge of jealousy pricked his insides briefly at the thought of not having the others to speak to so nonchalantly. It would definitely make the day start off better as it was because, for the moment, it wasn't so great. Pushing the sensation away, he wandered past the entrance gate to start towards the doors, stopping short only when his phone went off in his pocket. He pulled the vibrating device from his pocket, seeing his screen lit with his mother's number.

He furrowed his brows in slight confusion, blinking and shaking his head momentarily. She never called him before school unless something happened with one of the animals, but he didn't think that anything could have in only ten minutes.

"Hey, Mom."

"Where's the dog?"

"What?"

"The dog, Yugi. Did you put him back in his cage or not?"

"Well, yeah. Where else would—?"

"Then why is he not here?"

"What? What do you mean? I gave him his meds and then put him back."

"Well, he's not here. Are you sure that you actually put him back?"

"Yes, damn it. How would I have not…?" He fell silent for a long minute and a half, breathing in roughly. "Mom, I put him back. I know I did—"

"You know I'm not trying to accuse you, Yugi. It's just that…the bowl is empty and the cage is locked. And none of us have forgotten that you—"

"You're right. None of us have," he snapped, spinning on his heel and starting quickly back through the gate. A couple of bystanders paused to glance at him, surprised by how upset he appeared to be. Others watched him simply because of the fact that he was on the phone, hoping to catch a snippet of conversation. One or two simply looked because he was headed the other way and turned back again without a second glance. "But that's not what happened this time, okay? It's not!"

"Then where is he, Yugi? Dogs don't just disappear! And the cage is still completely locked. The bed is cold, the bowl is empty—"

"I don't know what happened, okay? But I didn't lose him anywhere and he's—"

"Fine, fine, Yugi. Just get back over to the house so that we can figure out what the hell happened, all right?"

"Yeah, fine, Mom," he snapped, picking up his pace and sidestepping a small group of students. Stomach twisting with momentary fear and uncertainty, Yugi picked his way along towards the house again. The first thing he saw when he rounded the corner to face the entrance was that the lights were on, bathing the windows in clear white. The second was that his mom and grandpa seemed to be arguing again. The final thing was that the air smelled strangely sour, with an undertone of something almost burning.

Nothing appeared out of place, however, and when he stepped inside, ignoring the other two who turned to face him immediately, he could not see anything different.

The cages were locked and the other few animals had turned towards him to see what was happening. The leash on the hook next to the door was completely still and untouched where it hung there. The bowl was where he had left it on the floor and he could see without much effort that the kennel was still locked as he had left it when he had started off for school. The only difference in those ten minutes that had passed was the dog's presence.

His heart skipped and faltered, eyes widening as his stomach twisted violently. Was it possible that he had repeated his mistake from two years ago? He swallowed hard as he pocketed his phone slowly and refused to take his eyes off the cage. He hadn't been hallucinating when it had happened or even more than that one time with the mutilated pets that he had seen the first time he had walked the dog two days before.

"Are you sure that you—?"

"I—"

"Leave him alone, Kasumi," his grandfather cut in softly, shaking his head sternly when she began to object. A look passed between them, one so terribly common that Yugi did not have to see it in order to know what it was. She wanted to push and make him buckle but his grandpa would fight her until she backed down. He had witnessed that look often growing up and he had never been very keen on having it appear on their faces.

The silent challenges in their eyes and the way they sized each other up always made him nervous but he had never attempted to stop them when they argued. Their spats had always scared him growing up and never once had that changed. Their arguments were theirs, even if most of them circulated around him.

"Fine, you talk to him. I'm going to check to make sure it isn't somewhere loose nearby," she snapped, giving Yugi a sideways glance of pure frustration. He barely managed to keep himself from flinching or bowing his head in shame by backtracking mentally to consider it all.

He had to remind himself that he was right, that the last hallucination he had experienced was before they had removed his stitches. Since then he had been free of them despite his night terrors growing a bit more vivid and numerous. So, no, he had not lost the dog like he had the cat when his hallucinations had been almost hourly two years before.

He stepped away when she passed him for the door and finally glanced at his grandpa, swallowing hard and chewing his bottom lip.

"Relax," the elderly Motou murmured in an effort to comfort him, smiling a small bit as if it might ease some of his growing tension. "You know she's just worried about the dog."

Yugi nodded slightly and looked back at the crate again. How the hell had the dog managed to escape like this? The locks were still held in place and the bed still had a soft imprint where the canine had rested. A few small strands of hair, several seemingly perfectly straight and the others wavy where they would have rested against the skin, lined the surface of the pale cream pad of foam.

"Do you see anything?"

Yugi hesitated briefly, swallowing hard and finally shaking his head. "There's nothing there—a few stray hairs but I don't think there's anything else," he mumbled, a dejected note creeping into his voice.

"Nothing on the floor?"

He blinked, uncertain of himself for a moment before looking at the tiled floor. The light that was reflected there was a bit harsh but he could see a small touch of something almost smeared across the top of the black-specked white linoleum, almost akin the shape of paw pads. There almost seemed to be a touch of something perhaps akin dust, but there was nothing to be seen. And there was definitely nothing to tell him how the dog had gotten loose or where it might have gone.

"And do you smell anything?"

He stopped short, blinking, and then slowly turned to stare at his grandpa in exasperated annoyance. Narrowing his eyes, Yugi shook his head sharply. He had not just said that. He knew he had not just said that. He couldn't have.

"What?"

It was a simple, low warning of a question, demanding that he confirm that Yugi had heard him wrong.

"Do you smell anything?"

He bristled violently, annoyed out of his mind. How dare he even ask that—especially so nonchalantly.

"Grandpa, we lost a dog and you're asking me if I smell anything?" he snapped icily, eyes sharpening with anger.

The elderly Motou didn't blink. "Yes," he replied simply.

"Can't you take anything seriously? The dog is missing. Mom thinks that I hallucinated putting it into its cage, and you're over here asking me if I can smell anything! This is serious, damn it! Mom thinks that I fucking lost the dog and right now I almost agree, because the crate is obviously locked and nothing is different from how it was when I left for school fifteen minutes ago! If I actually did lose that dog and it winds up dead somewhere, that's on me." He shook his head furiously, scowling at him as his blood seemed to flare with a painful heat. "This isn't the time to start playing games. We need to find the dog, not make a game of seeing if I can smell anything."

"Yugi—"

"No," he spat, a small bite of desperation creeping through him. "I don't have time for you to test me like that. We have to find out what happened to the dog, okay?"

His grandfather stared back at him with calm plum-colored eyes, studying him before he nodded silently in response. Yugi was grateful that he knew to heed his anger at the moment. He couldn't stand it if his grandfather had said anything else at the moment, especially if it was meant to calm him down. He was sure he would have lost his temper and snarled at him in his frustration. Yugi shook his head and crouched in front of the cage again, narrowing his eyes and looking at the two locks on the door. He could feel his grandfather's eyes on the back of his head. And he felt his heart racing in his chest as he struggled to comprehend.

He didn't understand, staring at the shiny black metal as if it might hold some kind of answer.

---

Feel free to ask me anything and everything pertaining to the story. And especially to leave constructive criticism (I LOVE it). If it won't ruin the plot I'll answer. If it will, I'm going to simply say that it would spoil things. I like to respond to each review so if you'd rather not have an answer, just put an asterix (*) in it somewhere and I'll make sure not to reply to it.

Anything medical terms will be explained at the end of each chapter, so that no one ends up too confused. I believe I have all of the terms listed in this chapter. If I missed something, feel free to point it out.

Medical terms:

Isoflurine (Isoflurane) - name of anesthetic drug used in veterinary practices on dogs and horses

Hock - the back of an animal's hind leg where it comes down into the paw

Wither - top of shoulders on animals

Stifle (Stiffle) - the knee

Pastern - between the wrist and the dew claw

I would LOVE to hear who you guys think the hybrid is and who it is that's writing the work log entries as well~ I'm so curious about what everyone thinks of them. Remember the smaller details cause they're actually the more important ones for this story, including where the hybrid is involved, the writer of the work log entries, the creature that IS "Canis Lupus Dirus", etc.

The work log entries have no impact on the date in the story. The year for the story is 2012, but the work log goes farther back than that in record keeping.