AUTHOR'S NOTES: Yeah, Chris is back. Hooray. Whatever...
Now, sarcasm aside, this is going to be a re-write of a fic I started almost a year ago called "Katie's New Life". I began to struggle with it at around chapter 4, and I struggled since. Why? Because I had issues with continuing the plot, and that snowballed until Chapter 12. Chapter 13 ended up being unwritable, so I decide to put the story out of it's misery and start all over again. I have an entirely new plot, although certain plot elements from the original will be retained, and in retaining those elements, the first few chapters (this one and likely chapter 2-3) will be quite similar to early chapters in the original. The cast for the original remain relatively unchanged, but with a few minor characters added on.
ANYWAY...enjoy. And reviews are way more than welcome.
~Chris
It was a cold, blustery winter evening outside the Alaskan town of Nome. Outside the town could be found a young, stray two-year-old dog by the name of Katie. She was famished, as her last meal was an arctic hare she had hunted three days before. She was seeking shelter for the night, as it was cold, and when she heard a voice call out to her.
"Is anybody there?" the voice called out.
"I said is anybody there?" the voice called out again. All Katie could think to do was to stand where she was. All of a sudden, a wolf-like figure appeared from the snow. Katie then went into a defensive figure. As the figure got closer, Katie noticed that although the figure seemed wolf-like in structure, it looked more like a dog.
"If anybody's there, I don't want to hurt you" the voice called out again. Katie then growled harder, not knowing who the figure was.
"Well what's your name?" the figure asked.
"My name's Katelyn." Katie aggressively responded. "What do you want?"
"Nothing," the figure replied back. "Katelyn…that's a nice name, but I'll call you Katie if it's okay with you." responded the figure.
"You can call me Katie if you want to" was all Katie said, calming down a bit.
"My name's Kodiak, Kodi for short. I came only because I had a feeling that one of our kind might be outside, freezing in the cold." he responded.
"Well it's nice that you felt concerned enough to go outside in this terrible weather" Katie calmly replied.
"Come with me. You look like someone who needs something to eat and somewhere to sleep," offered Kodi.
"How am I supposed to know that you're going to try something on me?" questioned Katie.
"Look. I want to take you to where I live. No tricks, games, other stuff, anything," replied Kodi. Katie thought for a little bit before reluctantly responding, "Okay, I'll go with you, but no funny business, okay?"
"That's good enough for me," said Kodi. The two then headed towards Nome, where Kodi lived. After half an hour of mostly silence, the two canines arrived at Mr. Simpson's house.
"Hold on a minute Katie. I'm going to call Mr. Simpson," explained Kodi.
"Who?" wondered Katie.
"Mr. Simpson. He's my and a couple other dog's then howled loudly to get Mr. Simpson's attention. Within a couple of seconds, Mr. Simpson opened the door.
"Where have you been for all this time, Kodi?" wondered Mr. Simpson. He then looked and saw an unfamiliar black dog next to Kodi.
"So I see you found yourself a girlfriend, I see," chuckled Mr. Simpson. Kodi gave him a blank stare while Katie growled. Mr. Simpson then looked at Katie and saw that she had no tags.
"No tags. Must be a stray," thought Mr. Simpson. "Guess I have to take her in for now." Both dogs happily barked at the idea. Mr. Simpson then opened the door wide so both dogs could go through. Once both dogs got inside, Mr. Simpson left the post office in order to retrieve a bag of dog food. Right as that happened, a group of dogs entered the post office, each carrying a sizeable amount of food.
"Hey Kodi," said a grey female dog that resembled Katie. "You missed out on quite a buffet today.
"Yeah," said another dog, a large malamute with dark-grey fur. "The butcher had quite a bit of meat leftover for us today."
"Quite a bit of meat even for you," said a brown dog who himself was a bit chubby.
"Hey' you're not exactly lean yourself" said another dog, a female dog vaguely resembling the first grey female next to the malamute.
"My man isn't fat, he's just fluffy," responded a female dog resembling Kodi.
"Guys," interrupted Kodi. "This is Katie. I found her when I wandered away from you guys."
"Well hi Katie," said another dog in the group, a male resembling a tan German shepherd.
"Um…hi," responded Katie, not knowing anything about the dog.
"Katie," said Kodi. "He's my friend…well they all are. They won't hurt you."
"Well okay then…," mumbled Katie.
"You mind if we introduce ourselves to you?" asked the Kodi-resembling female.
"Well honestly, I would, but I'm a bit tired from being a stray, and I haven't slept well in a long while," responded Katie. "Perhaps tomorrow, okay?"
"Okay then," said the female dog.
"Well, would you at least like some of our meat?" asked another one of the female dogs.
"Sure," replied Katie.
Everyone in the group of dogs gave Katie some their meat, and Katie ate all of it in delight. When she was finished eating, the group of dogs left to go to their various homes. Kodi however stayed behind with Katie.
"Katie," said Kodi.
"Yes?"asked Katie.
"Mind sleeping in the boiler room tonight?" inquired Kodi. "It's a warm place to sleep at night."
"Sure, why not?" replied Katie.
Kodi then led Katie towards the boiler room, where Katie picked out a warm spot close to the furnace and began. Kodi picked a spot on the opposite side of the room as to not beg for outside questions. Kodi began to sleep as well, woke up just to see if Katie was asleep.
"You asleep Katie?" asked Kodi.
"I was starting to," responded Katie tiredly. "Why do you ask?"
"Just wondering," replied Kodi.
"Okay…" said Katie as she drifted back to sleep.
As the two began to fall asleep, Kodi began to have thoughts about Katie. Who was she? Where did she come from? How did she survive in the wild? Kodi put these thoughts aside as he decided it was better to get some sleep than to keep himself awake asking these questions. He'd likely find out tomorrow anyway. But for now, it was better for Kodi to get some sleep.
And sleep he did.