A/N: By Lillith.

Dear readers, words cannot express how happy I am right now. Fellow Sony Vegas Movie Studio users may be able to empathize. You see, Vegas just took an hour to save a minute and a half long file and I was horrified it would freeze at 99 like my Vegas is prone to doing, but it did not. So I am happy now. As a result, you get fanfiction.

Summary: Ghoul gets soaked, pisses off some stoners, and nearly gets mauled by a half human, half hyena hybrid.

Chapter One

Rain and Spliced Hyenas

Ghoul, formerly known as Stewart Carter Winthorp III (and how he hated that name and all it stood for), looked up at the dark sky with a scowl as a raindrop landed in his outstretched palm. Rain was honestly the last thing he needed, what with the whole running away from home and having no money and no place to stay thing already on his plate. He was beginning to wonder why he ran away again.

Oh yeah. Everyone in his family was a bitch who couldn't handle even the slightest bit of imperfection. That was a pretty good reason. But maybe stealing a little of his dad's cash would have been a good idea. All he had with him were the clothes on his back and his basket full of tricks.

Ghoul shook his head. Instead of moping about it, he decided to find some place he could wait out the rain. Stupidly, he ducked into the first alley he saw, momentarily forgetting that this part of the city was heavily populated by cocaine and methamphetamine addicts.

He was quick to remember the fact when he was standing face to face with two such people, holding crowbars and looking rather pissed off.

Now, Ghoul had never been a particularly athletic person. Technology was more his thing. But if there was one thing he did know, it was how to run for your life. He'd done it plenty of times before, and he was quite ready to do it again.

As the stoners started spewing off slurred curses, he felt the muscles in his legs tense, preparing to help him run like all hell had broken loose. And Ghoul was a fast little bastard when he wanted to be. There wasn't really anyone who could catch him when he didn't want to be caught.

As the stoners went to swing their rather bloody looking crowbars at him, he darted out of the alley. Unfortunately, the druggies weren't content with merely chasing him out of their alley, oh no. They had to make an example of the guy who was idiotic enough to run into their territory. Or they were just high and bored. Either way it meant he really had to book, ignoring the fact that he was knocking people down as he went.

Out of breath and starving, he found himself in the industrial district. Many of the warehouses on the east side where he was were abandoned, the businesses having long gone under. The one he was standing in front of, as the rain poured down and soaked him through, making him freeze, seemed to have been abandoned for many years. The letters on the sign were so faded he couldn't read them, although he was fairly sure that the first letter was L.

His continuing flawless sense of logic lead him to waltz into the warehouse without any sort of plan or investigation.

The building was large and covered in a fine layer of dust, with rotting boxes laying everywhere, styrofoam peanuts covering the floor like a new winter's snow. Rust had snaked its way onto every metal surface, coloring the dull grey red. All in all, it wasn't much, but it was druggie free and not the street. It was the best place he'd found to spend the night yet, even if it was damp and drafty.

He wandered to the far corner, away from windows and doors, where no one could see him. Setting his pumpkin down beside him, he let himself slide down the rusted wall until he was sitting. He rested his head on his shoulder, the days events manifesting in a migraine, but he didn't go to sleep; this place was too big, too empty for him to be able to sleep. He knew he'd have nightmares. Then again, he always did.

Eventually, though, he must have drifted into the smothering darkness of REM, a place past nightmares where he rarely ended up. Because when he woke up, it wasn't out of fright.

No, it was more the loud snarling noise coming from the rafters above him that had cut his nights sleep short. Definitely not a nightmare.

Not a sleeping one, at least.

His eyes widened as something leapt at him. Grabbing his pumpkin, he dove out of the way, causing the thing to collide with the wall instead of him. This didn't hinder it at all, and just seemed to make it all the more angry.

It was some kind of twisted half human, half dog monster. Its eyes were pure white with no iris or pupil and its teeth were large and sharp looking and neither looked very pleasant at the moment.

The creature slashed at him, trying to tear him to shreds. Not expecting it, Ghoul's dodging was a bit slow, and the claws left violent red scratches across his stomach. As the creature tried to do it again, Ghoul's hand darted for his pumpkin and pulled out a low impact grenade. Pulling the pin, he tossed it towards the creature, but it fell far and the creature leapt out of the blast radius. Ghoul cursed as the small explosion did nothing but graze the crazed beast with shrapnel. He dove behind a group of boxes, which gave him time to pull out something that he thought would be slightly more effective; a flash-bang. He threw it and it landed perfectly, directly at the feet of the monster. While it stopped for a second to see what he had thrown, Ghoul threw himself behind a post and covered his ears, turning his head from the flash. He heard the loud yelp of the creature mingled with the powerful exploding noise. When he looked back, he saw it meandering around in a daze, crying pitifully. He almost felt sorry for it. He realized now that it was probably just trying to protect its territory, but his actions seemed justified by the fact that he'd nearly had his intestines ripped out.

The creature whined pitifully and rubbed its eyes...like a human. The creature did look a little bit like a human; human like proportions, and a face with vaguely human features; but until now, its manneurisms were like those of an animal. But the way it rubbed its eyes reminded him of the way someone would rub their eyes just after they've woken up. Was there any way that this...monstrosity...could still be human somehow? And what had made him into a creature like this?

Curiousity getting the best of him, Ghoul walked out from behind the pillar. The creature couldn't hear or see him, the flash-bang having taken its toll.The creature continued to whine pitifully, and eventually Ghoul made up his mind that it would be safe to approach the thing that had just tried to rip his face off.

He took a few cautious steps forwards, maneuvering around the pile of rotting boxes he'd hidden behind a few seconds ago. The dog-man-thing didn't seem to notice him. As he continued to whine, Ghoul began to feel a little bad about what he did. Which was odd, because remorse was an alien concept to him, having never had the need to feel remorseful.

"Uh...umm.." Ghoul's words caught in his throat. Did this thing even understand english?

Regardless of its understanding of the universal language, it did seem to hear him, and threw its head around and snarled ferociously. Ghoul fell backwards into the boxes with a yell, scattering stryofoam peanuts everywhere. Trying to get back up in order to be able to run away, he ended up nearly burying himself in the white packaging material. When he managed to sit up again, he spat out a mouthful and looked up to see the creature...

...laughing.

The creature was chuckling quite heartily at him. His face reddened, but he was actually relieved. Somewhere behind the monstrous appearance was a human conciousness; how strong it was, he didn't know, but it was a relief all the same.

"Yeah, yeah...very funny..." he mumbled, standing and trying not to slip on the peanuts. The creature only laughed at him harder. He winced as the scratches across his stomach started stingin, and suddenly remembered the cut the shrapnel from his grenade had given the creature. Grabbing his pumpkin, he approached him. The grin dissappeared from his face and he snarled at Ghoul again. Ghoul put up his hands.

"Easy now. I just wanna look at your arm." he said. The creature snarled a little longer, but when he saw that Ghoul didn't seem to mean any harm, he relaxed. Ghoul on the other hand was feeling quite tense with the knowledge that one little mistake could very well kill him. After all, this creature, whatever it was, seemed to be a loose cannon.

Nervously, he walked up next to the creature and, with shaking hands, moved the fur matted with blood out of the cut. It didn't seem to a very deep gash, but he knew enough to know it had to be bandaged. He had once gotten a similar cut from one of the many people at his school who believed he was a good target, and he had left it, because of course his family didn't care at all about his injuries. It had become infected and he might have lost the use of his arm had one of the housekeepers not noticed (Coincidentally, the same housekeeper lost her job the next day). After that, he was careful to get proper medical attention for all of his injuries, and when he'd left home one of the things he'd thought to bring with him was a first-aid kit.

He pulled out the kit and found the disinftecting alcohol. He poured some onto a cotton ball and gently applied it to the cut. The creature yelped but didn't do anything; he seemed to understand the premise of what was going on. After the disinftecting alcohol was applied, he pulled out a roll of bandages and tied them tightly around the wound. He was glad that he'd decided to learn some medical practices instead of continuiously going to the school nurse for every injury.

When he was finished, the creature examined the bandage and nodded, as if in approval. He gestured to Ghoul's own injury.

"They're barely scrapes. They shouldn't get infected as I long as I don't rub anything in 'em." he replied, still not knowing if the other could understand him. He seemed to, though, and turned and made his way towards a set of stairs towards the back right of the warehouse. He stopped and looked back at Ghoul, as though waiting for him to follow. Ghoul did so, following him up the narrow staircase and onto the small platform that wound around the entire warehouse.

Although bare rafters decorated most of the upper area, at the very back, in the opposite corner from where Ghoul had been sitting when the creature had attacked him, there was a landing of some sort. It looked like some kind of machinery had once been here, which had probably been torn out after the company had gone out of business. In its place was a book case, and two subjects dominated its shelves; animals, and genetics.

The creature sauntered over to the shelf and took a rather ratty looking edition. He bounded over to the wall, where a makeshift bed had been set up, and sat. He looked at him as though once again waiting. Ghoul followed once again and sat down beside him. Very carefully, the creature opened the book, careful not to tear the pages with his sharp claws. He opened to an article on splicing and pointed. Then he grabbed another book, returned to the same spot, and opened to an article about spotted hyenas. Ghoul shuddered. He had figured that it had been something like that, but still...it was rather unnerving to know.

Splicing, the process in which a human was combined with animal DNA, had been outlawed months ago. Now he could see why.

"I guess you can't talk...so what'll I call you?" In response, the creature merely barked. It was throaty and scratchy, but still a bark at its roots.

"How's about Woof?" he asked. The creature nodded in acceptance.

"My name's Ghoul." he said. Woof grinned at him.

Ghoul decided that Woof wasn't really bad after all.

He should have known better than to go to sleep again. REM sleep was a rarity that only graced him after weeks of sleepless nights, and it had been barely an hour since he'd woken up. But watching Woof sleep soundly had lulled him into a tired stupor.

It was no surprise that he woke up screaming.

Ghoul had begun having nightmares shortly after he started school, when people had started to beat him up. And not just a push to the ground or shoved up against the locker, but broken bones, bloody noses, and whole big patches of skin stained black and blue by bruises. He had been 6 at the time.

Since then, he'd had nightmares almost every night. Every night he slept, at least, and he mostly gave up on sleeping once he learned that his parents didn't care that he woke up screaming every night. It was why, aside from the whole 'skull' thing, that he wore makeup around his eyes. Only when he became so exhausted that he could no longer force his eyes to stay open did he usually sleep.

But he'd erred today, and his nightmares were his punishment.

He bolted up out of the makeshift bed that Woof had allowed him to share, covered in a layer of cold sweat, panting as though he'd run a marathon. Woof had been startled and had leapt into the corner, but now approached him, whining worriedly. Ghoul put his knees together and rested his head on them, gripping it tightly. For several minutes he was very silent, but soon enough he raised his head and looked appologetically at Woof.

"Sorry. Just a bad dream." he said weakly, his voice sounding raw from the harsh scream. "Happens all the time. Just go back to sleep." Woof didn't seem convinced, but he did as he was told and curled up on the bed again.

Ghoul spent the rest of the night watching him sleep.

"Are you ready to go?"

Woof, with a worn shoulder bag filled with a few important things from his little hideout, spared one glance back at the landing before following Ghoul towards the exit of the warehouse.

When Ghoul had told him that morning that he was leaving, Woof insisted (in his own way) to come along. Ghoul had no objections. He was tired of being alone all the time, and Woof was pretty cool. He also seemed smart, even though he didn't seem to be able to speak. And he wouldn't have to worry about being bothered with Woof with him, since he doubted anyone in their right mind would try to attack, or even get near, Woof. Of course, he would, but he knew Woof. Nobody else would try to get to know him.

Woof didn't spare another look at his former home as they walked back towards the city. Just like Ghoul, he didn't have anything to mourn leaving behind. Neither of them had anything, and they were sure that the only direction they had to go in was up.

They were wrong.

Next Time: Ghoul has a run-in with his druggie pals, Woof gets chased by rabid Doberman's, Ghoul gets run over twice and steals a car, and Bonk and Chucko join the party.