The puppy whined weakly. He wasn't sure what had gone wrong. Something must have, somewhere along the line; he was cold, and it was dark, and the tiny forms of his brothers and sisters had stopped wriggling. He still didn't know what any of them had done.
He felt like something was missing.
He was used to things being… not good, but not too bad either. He and his family would obey orders and would be fed. If one of them didn't do as they were told, they didn't get to eat or play. That was how it was, but considering the fact that the orders were the same day to day, it could have been worse. His parents explained to him what to do, sort of. He just had to follow their lead, and he had.
So why had the humans flung him and the other dogs out into… wherever this was? This cold, dark, cramped place?
He wished humans were nice to dogs. Maybe that was the something missing.
He was stirred from his thoughts by an increase in light. It was a slight difference, but accompanied by the creak of whatever had been above his head, it was enough to rouse him to awareness. The little brown puppy lifted his gaze weakly towards the darkened sky, and instead saw a human.
This human was smaller than the other humans he had seen, and its face was doing something different. There were tears welling up in its eyes, as if it had some sort of sickness (like his littlest sister once had). It pawed gently at the still bodies of the other puppies, then zeroed in on him and lifted him from the cold place.
To his dismay, the cold feeling didn't go away. He had been hoping it would fade, like the hunger that came before it, but it felt like it was only getting stronger.
The puppy felt a dull flash of fear when the human pulled him in close to its fabric-covered chest, but it died off after a moment when he realized that the human was being careful with him. He didn't understand why, but this human was being nice to him. The puppy sighed heavily, relaxing into the loose grip.
The human began murmuring something, sounds that the puppy didn't recognize from the orders of other humans. These words were soothing, though the puppy wasn't sure they were supposed to be. The human's voice was high pitched, and the words were going faster than Cujo was used to hearing them. Then again, he couldn't be sure; his hearing was starting to go all fuzzy, for some reason, and the cold in his bones was overwhelming.
For a fleeting moment, the puppy wondered if the human would want to play with him when he was feeling better. All he needed was his toy.
Oh, was that the thing that was missing…?
