It was dark; very dark. The floor was cold, and the walls were thick and soundproof. Everything smelled of death and decay. The air was so disgusting, I could barely breathe. It was dead quiet, and the silence was so deafening, I wondered if I had lost my hearing too. For all I'd known, my right back leg was in pain. Now, I could only drag it around like a useless branch stuck to my body. Suddenly, I heard a noise; I didn't lose my hearing after all. It was a loud clunk, and it came from an entrance. It was opening, and out came the giant. I immediately backed up against the wall; away from the entrance. The giant came closer, and peered at me through the bars. I heard a small jingle and saw the giant holding a strange ring of metal instruments in his hand. Suddenly, he put one of the instruments in the bars, and it swung open! As fast as he opened it, he laid down a bowl and swung it back shut. The giant then left through the same entrance with a slam.

Everything was dark again. Slowly limping up to the bowl, I lowered my nose and sniffed it. Whatever was in the bowl smelled just as awful as the room. A loud groan came from under me. It was my stomach; I hadn't eaten anything in hours. Hesitantly, I lowered my tongue into the bowl and tasted it. It was soft and chewy; making it edible, but it had no taste. My stomach continued to groan, and I decided that no taste was better than bad taste. Before I realized what I was doing, I had gobbled down the entire bowl in less than 3 seconds. After licking the bowl clean, I lied down and licked at my injured leg. Ever since the giants shoved me into one of their Monsters, my leg has been unmovable, and the scar running down it hasn't had any change. With a small whimper, I fell asleep.

The entrance opening again made me wake up. I had lost track of the time; I didn't know if it has been hours or days since I fell asleep. As I squinted through the bars, I was surprised to see a new giant. This one was shorter than the other one, and seemed much more docile. As it neared me, a new scent ran through my nose. This giant smelled a lot nicer, and as I watched, acted a lot nicer too. As it opened the bars, it laid down a new bowl of food gently and prompted me to come forward. Cautiously, I limped up toward the hand. It moved to the top of my head and stroked it repeatedly. The feeling of it made me instinctively wag my tail. After a few minutes, the hand stopped and moved back behind the bars. Saddened, I started to whine, but the hand didn't return. Instead, I found himself moving. The giant had picked me up and they we now traveling towards the entrance. Excited, I watched as the giant opened the entrance and walked inside.

What happened next was very overwhelming. Noise. And lots of it too. It came from everywhere. It was also very bright; I had to squint in order to see. As my eyes started to adjust, I could see that the room was full of others like me. They were the source of the noise. As the giant continued across the room, some of them attempted to sniff me. Their noses came through the bars and sniffed my pelt. Surprised yet curious, I started to sniff them as well. This led to even more excitement from them and the room got even louder.

Finally, the giant set me down on the floor. The hand came back and opened the bars once more. Shockingly, the bars continued to stay open; the giant didn't close them. The hand gave me a friendly gesture to come out. Slowly, I limped out from the room with tiny bars and into the light. As soon I took a step out, I was greeted a little too friendly by a bunch of licks and sniffs. Some of them smiled at me while others crouched down, wanting to play. I smiled timidly back at them all and wagged my tail.

Suddenly, the giant whistled and everyone perked their ears. Its hand pointed to something in the distance. With barely enough time to move out the way, my new friends rushed to the other end of the room. As I took a closer look, I saw a long row of bowls similar to the one in container I was in; it was lunchtime. Already full from my recent meal, I stood there awkwardly with nothing to do. Suddenly, I noticed someone approaching me.

"Hi! I'm Sally!" She said with a squeaky voice.

"...Name's Windhowl." I replied.

"You're new here aren't you? You were in the Newbie Room."

"...The what?"

"The Newbie Room; that little room with the bars?"

"...Oh, ya. Are you new here too?"

"No, I've been here for months."

Startled by her answer I asked, "You mean they won't let you leave?"

"Nope, not until a giant picks you."

I gave her a puzzled look. "Pick me? What does that mean?"

"Every once in a while, giants come to this room and point at one of us. If you're chosen, you get to leave with that giant. Simple."

"Ok...so what about the giants here? One of them seems nice, and it's picked me up before."

"Well not those, they stay here, and they only keep us for a certain amount of time."

I tilted my head. "But I thought you just said we stay here until a giant picks one of us?"

"Well yes, but if you stay here too long, you'll..." Sally trailed off for a minute and her eyes glazed over.

"I'll...?" I encouraged her.

"You'll end up like Old John." She whispered.

"And who's Old John?" I asked.

Sally averted my eye contact. I sensed this might have been a bad question to ask, but she still answered anyway.

"Old John was my best friend; he was very old, and stayed here for a very long time. No giants ever picked him, and one day, the giants here took him away, and no one ever heard from him again."

An awkward moment of silence went between the two of us as the others were padding away from their bowls.

"...Sorry..." I finally said.

"It's fine." Replied Sally.

As we followed the others back to the other side of the room, the giant came back. It was carrying a large container in its hands. It dumped the items in it in the middle of the room and left. The room was filled with noise again as they sniffed the new objects scattered about. I glanced at Sally and saw she took no interest in the objects. She returned my glance, and signaled with her tail for me to follow her. We padded to the right side of the room, where bunches of tiny containers were carved inside the wall. These containers however, had no bars. Sally signaled me to come sit. As we both got comfy, Sally was the first to speak.

"Ok, I'm going to be straightforward with you, is that ok?"

"Umm ya, sure."

"We're getting old, not too old, but old enough for the giants to not want us anymore."

I stared at her, confused. "...Where are you going with this?"

"What I'm trying to say is, we need to get out of here. As soon as possible. Maybe tonight. We need to escape this place before it's too late."

My jaw slightly dropped. "Escape? Tonight!? How!?"

"Don't worry, me and Old John came up with a plan right before he was taken away, we just have to move quickly and quietly and we're free."

I nodded slowly. "So what do we do?"

Time went faster as Sally explained to me what she knows. The giants have an eye hanging from the ceiling of the room that is always watching us. When it beeps and glows red, a giant would come and open the entrance. However, the eye only beeped when there was conflict. We would start fake fighting in order to get the eye's attention. Once a giant came in, it would take both of us to an isolated room. This would be when we wait for the perfect time to strike. The isolated room contains one large hole that seems simple to open. It has a clear, but thick material covering it with a platform. At midnight, both of us would climb up to the platform and open it. Then, without making a sound, we'll leap outside and never look back. I was a bit nervous about this plan, but if Sally was right, we didn't have much time either way.

By the time we were done talking, it was suppertime. Another giant came and refilled all the bowls. Me and Sally ate our food for energy we would need tonight, and then padded to the corner of the room near the eye. While the others were still eating, both of us crouched down and glared at each other. Sally started to growl and raise her fur while I barked super loud and made foam-spit come from my mouth. Both of us started to swipe at each other, giving fake blows with our claws. We got louder and louder until the eye finally glowed and beeped. A giant immediately opened the entrance and headed straight for us. We continued to fight one other until the giant grabbed each of us by their scruff and separated us. It then turned back to the entrance and left with the two of us in its hands.

In a few seconds, the giant opened a new entrance. Inside was the hole Sally was talking about. At the back of the room, the floor was split in half by white, mini walls. The giant laid each of us down in a separated area and started to make noise. Whatever it was saying was in a very angry tone and it continued to speak in that tone for a solid three minutes. Finally, it made the room go to nighttime, left, and shut the entrance. Me and Sally looked at each other and smiled; so far, her plan was working.

As hours went by, giants came into the room and occasionally checked on us; other than that, we were all alone; patiently awaiting for the moon to rise. By real nighttime, Sally and I slowly gazed up at the mini walls. They were not too high, but still looked difficult to jump over. At first, I was puzzled on what to do, and glanced at Sally. Shocked, I saw her already half way up the wall. She had placed her paws in the conveniently small holes and climbed upwards to the top.

I started to do the same, but found myself stuck very quickly. I was able to stick all my paws into the holes, except for my back right one; which was still stiff and sore. By this time, Sally had reached the top of her wall and was already on the other side. I started to panic. How was I going to get out? Sally peered at me through the holes.

"What's wrong?" She asked me quietly yet urgently.

"I can't do this, my leg..."

I tried to move it again, but the muscles were stiff from its lack of use. Sally looked at me sympathetically.

"Oh right, I'm sorry... Hold on, I'll help you."

Awestruck, I watched as she made her way up my wall. She leaped down and helped me guide my bad leg into each of the holes of the wall. It got more difficult as we got higher, but Sally's drive and my determination made us get all the way to the top again. As we leaped down, I landed awkwardly on three legs; trying to put as little pressure as possible on my bad leg.

By this time, it was moon high, and both of us agreed to move faster. We looked up at the hole; it was decently high. As Sally pondered whether she could make the leap, I looked around the room. I spotted some brown objects in the shape of cubes stacked on top of another. As I limped over to them to examine them more closely, I realized they would be perfect to jump on.

"Sally, look!" I whispered loudly from across the room.

Sally turned around and saw the cubes. She bounded over to me and we began to push them. They slid smoothly across the floor, but they were very heavy. We used all of our might to get them to the hole, while also avoiding the risk of them all toppling over. When they were finally in the right position, both for us easily jumped all the way to the hole's platform. Just like Sally said, the hole's clear material was easy to open; we just stuck our noses underneath an object and lifted it with our heads.

The cool night breeze ruffled our pelts. The moon glowed brightly from above, shining down on the soft grass below. Simultaneously, we took a giant leap from the hole and landed outside.

Just when we thought it was all over, a loud sound suddenly made both of us flinch. It was high pitched and coming from inside the building. Suddenly, we saw the lights turn on and giants move about. In less than a few seconds, they saw the first few emerging from the building, holding long sticks with tied, white strings at the end. The two of us backed away from the building and turned around. There, a large field of grass extended a distance to a small, but dense woods. As the giants got closer, I looked Sally in the eyes.

"Run."

We turned around and started to run. In that moment, I ran harder than I ever had before. All of the pain from my leg seemed to temporarily vanish. I looked towards the woods and started to take ginormous strides. My heart pounded through my ears, and my breath was short and fast. As I got closer, I ran even harder; the giants' voices began to fade and I sped past Sally in a heartbeat.

Finally, we both made it to the woods. Gasping for air, we both started to pad off our run. I turned and looked back. The trees easily hid us from the building, and only one giant managed to go no more than halfway across the open field.

Smiling, I looked back at Sally; her eyes were flooding with tears. It hit me that Sally hasn't seen the outside in months, and now, she was outside for the first time in a while.

I watched as she started to eagerly sniff everywhere along the ground. I instinctively did the same, and soon we caught our first meals. As I bit into my prey, the taste gave my taste buds goosebumps; it was so delicious.

Soon, the sun began to rise, and we sat beside each other.

Today marked a new horizon; a new life; a new beginning.

We escaped.

And we were finally free.

The End