Vivid, shining and massive. New York at night. Max hadn't gone out at night in quite a while. However, he was conflicted. He was regretting leaving Duke back at the apartment, but he had already climbed the fire escapes, and he was at the top of the building, gazing at the bright lights and the speckled sky. It was massive.
Still, the thought of Duke getting into trouble was still in Max's mind. A couple of months passed since Duke had moved in, and they were fast friends. They had formed a deep, solid bond. After all that happened with the Flushed Pets, Max knew he could trust Duke. But Duke was very hyper and was prone to accidents. He had already gotten in trouble with the other pets owners because of noise complaints. He was often restless, romping around in the apartment. He was often very obnoxious to Max and to everyone else in their group. Max considered this, and decided to head back down. Enough star-searching tonight.
Max treaded carefully down the steps, so as to not disturb any pets. He passed Chloe's window, and found the chunky cat dozing with a partially eaten chunk of ham hanging out of her mouth. Passing by his friend Mel's window, he saw him quietly growling and kicking. Max remembered how perceptive Mel was, and pictured Mel chasing squirrels and other pests in his dreams. Buddy, a short-haired Dachshund, was muttering to himself, quite upset about something.
After reaching his window, Max climbed over the windowsill. He leaped to the floor, and settled into his bed.
"Duke buddy, you awake?" he whispered. No response. Max sighed and sat up. He walked behind the kitchen counter, but found Duke's bowl spilled. He saw that the cabinets were opened, and shook his head in disappointment. There was water all over the floor, and a very strange, sweet scent, and paw prints leading to Katie's room. He followed them, hoping to find Duke and make him clean up, instead finding even more mess. He found Katie's closet a mess, and her clothes in tatters. It really looked like there was more than just chewed up clothes. It looked like there was a struggle.
Max called his name again.
"Duke! Get in here and clean this up!" Max's voice boomed through the apartment. There were claw marks on the carpet in the living room, and the bathroom was wet, with the toilet bowl opened and shower curtains tangled. Max was boiling with anger, disappointment and confusion. But at heart, he was very worried. The more he looked at the clutter, the more chilling it was to him. It looked like there was a vicious struggle throughout the apartment, and Max was very shaken.
He looked into his friend's apartment, hoping that she wasn't asleep as well. On the TV, playing was what looked like a dog styling infomercial.
"Your dog can look like this today! Call 917-491-9336 right now, and hope your dog isn't already here, missing!"
"Gidget!" he called anxiously. He heard the familiar quick pitter-patter of Gidget's paws, and soon her head poked out of her window, with a smile that Max was happy to see.
"Hi Max! Are you alright? You look-"
"Gidget! Thank goodness you're awake! I need you to get over here now! Hurry!" he said quickly.
Gidget crawled out of her window and darted up the steps. She went up the first set of stairs and ten climbed onto the railing. She dropped down to Max's fire escape, climbed up his railing and lept to the window and onto the floor
"You do know you could have just walked over to my steps and climbed up that way, right?" Max said. "You didn't have to do all those fancy jumps."
"I know.. I just thought it would look cool!" she said. "It did look cool, right?"
"I guess.." he said impatiently. There wasn't time for any show-off acrobatics.
"You know you liked it Max!" she persisted. He did like it. It was impressive how a dog of her size could jump so far.
"I did like it.. It was very cool." Max finally admitted, defeated.
"Knew it! So what did you call me over here so late for?" Gidget asked.
"I cant find Duke! I'm really worried, I looked everywhere and the whole apartment is a huge mess!" he said quickly. Gidget listened, and she too looked worried.
"Well, lets look for him!" she jumped down and started sniffing around. Max followed, but was getting frustrated. He could not smell Duke, which was very surprising. Almost no dog could miss Duke's scent. It really could not be compared to anything. It was terrible!
A shrill scream broke the silence.
"MAX!" Gidget wailed. Max dashed out of Katie's room and ran beside Gidget. Max saw something absolutely terrible.
"Oh no.." Max uttered. In one of the opened kitchen cabinets, Duke's body rested. Deep gashes were all over his body. Deep crimson was pooled up inside the cabinet and leaking out onto the floor. There was blood everywhere. His mouth looked like it was bound. Max quickly cut the ropes holding his mouth shut, and shook him.
Duke's eyes were rested on the deep gash in his chest. He struggled to say anything. Coughing up blood, he said with a pained voice, "M-Max.."
"What kind of monster would do this!" Max screamed in rage. Tears were spilling out of his eyes. Gidget cried with him, her faint sobs tearing at Max's heart.
"Duke.. say something.."
"G- li-bl." Duke struggled to say, and coughed up a large amount of blood.
"What Duke?" Max said anxiously.
"Gullible.." Duke in a high tone, stifling
"What!" Max growled. It was all a prank. A sick minded, terrible prank. While he didn't want anything to do with it, hope and joy were building up inside him. He was just glad to see Duke alive, although a massive amount of rage built up inside of him. RIght now, max had wanted to cuss Duke and Gidget out, to tell them to never speak to him again. But he knew he couldn't do that, or else neither of them would forgive him, and he would never live it down. THey would tell all his friends, and he would be ridiculed by Mel, Buddy, Chloe, and everyone else that knew him.
"You fell for the oldest trick in the book! We used red food coloring for blood, and Katie's lipstick for the cuts!" Duke explained breathlessly.
So Max suffered through their laughter brimming with rage. He heard Duke's rumbling laugh and Gidget's timid laugh, although Gidget's was dying down quickly. At the time, Gidget had thought it would be a good idea to prank Max. But now she was regretting it. She wanted to hug him tightly and tell him sorry, but would he really forgive her for such a sick joke? She was angry with herself for only seeing now it was a bad idea. She heard Max and Duke nearly screaming at each other and it only added to her regret.
Head hung low, she remorsefully exited the apartment and hopped over to her fire escape, and went to sleep filled with sadness and regret.
(A/N: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. I have a "schedule" planned for this story. But I started it at the worst time possible :/. I have plans tomorrow and Wednesday, and hopefully I can work again on Thursday. I will try to stick to a schedule of a chapter every 2-4 days, if I take longer something is probably holding me up. I'm not sure how many chapters this story will be, but I have a rough outline of how it is going to pan out. Anyway, reviews and constructive criticism is welcome. I do want to improve over the course of this story, but I need to know what I need work on! Thanks guys, bye!)