That was the day everything changed.

I awoke to a strange sensation on my stomach and limbs. I opened my eyes to find myself lying on warm, white sand; something I'd never felt before. But I knew I liked it, so I rolled over only my side and purred as the sand shifted with my movement. I looked just ahead, and caught sight of what looked like a giant pool of water.

...Wait...No...Not pool.

Ocean.

I knew what it was; I just didn't know it had a name until now. What puzzled me was how I figured out it even had a name. Nobody ever told me what it was called, and I never picked it up from anywhere. I just...

...knew.

I knew a lot of things now; so much that it almost made my head feel like exploding once I realized it. I was on a beach, and I saw small waves crashing onto the shore. I watched the foaming ripples as they were drawn back into the sea, only to return just mere moments later. The sight of it was mesmerizing, and almost hypnotic.

It was only until then, upon staring out at the blue water for so long, that I realized just how thirsty I was.

How long had I been lying there? It must have been a while. The sun always felt good on my cold skin, but if I was in it for too long it would dry me out. I licked my parched lips and shifted my feet back onto the ground, then pushed myself up so that I could make my way to the shore and have a drink, not caring how salty it might be, or how I even knew the ocean was salty at all. And then...

Pain. It stabbed me right in the side like one of my sisters' huge, curved claws, ramming all the way through to my insides. I let out a gurgle of a scream, hoping someone would hear my pained cry. The metallic taste of blood began to fill my mouth, and I screamed again. Was I dying?

Would I die alone?

No.

Something heard me. I caught the familiar scent of those strange, skinny creatures that had been around me and my siblings our whole lives, raising us, teaching us, training us.

Humans. That's what they were called.

Two of them came, both clad in white, one considerably bigger, and slightly darker than the other. They towered over me, gasped and exchanged glances, quite obviously shocked by their discovery, then began speaking to each other.

For the first time in my life, I actually understood what they were saying; word for word.

"I've never seen anything like it!"

"It looks terrifying! Do you think it'll try to eat us!?"

"I don't think it'd be able to eat much of anything right now, it's bleeding so much. Let's get an X-ray and see what's causing that."

"Oh, we're not going to bring it inside, are we!?"

"Well, we can't just leave it here! It'll die, probably!"

Although I knew they meant to help, I'd never been so scared in my life. What if they only made me worse? What if they couldn't help in time? I wanted to get up and run, or perhaps muster the strength to fix whatever was wrong with myself, but I couldn't. I was completely paralyzed with fear, no part of me moving except for my shifting eyes and my pained side as it rose and fell with each sharp, agonizing breath.

"Easy, there. Just relax, okay?"

The bigger one reached out his hand and held it in front of me. What did he want? His hand was open and empty, so he wasn't holding out a treat for me to take; I probably couldn't have eaten it anyway. Was it a warning sign? Was it a peace offering? I did understand their vocal calls, but not so much their gestures.

He told me to relax...Easier said than done, but there was no harm in trying.

Hesitantly, I inched my snout closer to his open palm until we touched. He reached out his other hand and ran it along my lower jaw, the first one stroking my snout and moving up to my head. It felt nice, helping me to forget about the searing, burning pain in my side. I lowered my head, using what little strength I had to do no more than keep my eyes open, making sure I didn't slip away.

"That's it. Everything's going to be just fine."

Finally, I gave in to the overwhelming fatigue that plagued my head, and my eyes shut. I listened in as the two humans exchanged words.

"Is it..."

"No, it's still breathing. Let's get it to the lab and see what's wrong. You mind picking up that end?"

"Oh...Alright, Professor."

I guess I must have gone to sleep, because I only felt them lift me up for a split second before my mind succumbed to complete darkness.


...


When I woke up, I was greeted by a vast amount of new sights, sounds and smells. The room I was in was dimly lit, and the whirr of the nearby machinery gave off a strange ambiance. I smelled lots of metal. There was metal all around me, metal wiring, metal gadgets...metal ground? I was lying on something metal too; the surface beneath me was a raised metal platform, smooth and cold to the touch. It smelled of several different creatures that had been there before me.

As I sniffed the dull air, I caught a whiff of the familiar scent of blood.

I looked over onto my side to find that it had been wrapped in some sort of white cloth, which was stained bright red where I had felt the terrible pain. I was quick to discover that I also had several smaller patches lining my neck and the base of my tail.

In terms of pain, most of it had subsided into a dull ache. I didn't feel like I was on the verge of death anymore, so I supposed that was a good thing. I breathed deeply and let out a shaky snarl of a sigh, wanting nothing more than to relax my still shattered nerves.

The sound of footsteps caught my attention. I peered at the staircase to see one of the humans from earlier descend into the room.

"Up already?"

His voice was bright and cheerful. "Glad to see you awake. We were afraid we were gonna lose you for a while there. It was messy work; two broken ribs, a punctured lung and at least a dozen smaller puncture wounds along the edges of your torso. It looked pretty grizzly at first, but we got you all fixed up, and it looks like you're gonna be fine."

They'd actually managed to saved me. I don't think I could ever have thanked them enough for what they'd done, especially this one, who still had the faintest scent of my blood on his hands from his work. I was extremely grateful. To think, just the other day I had almost...

What happened the other day?

It was extremely fuzzy. From what I could pick out, a human had tried to steal our food, and me and my sisters got angry at him. Very angry. But we never got the chance to...

I didn't want to think about it. What had gotten into me that day? Trying to harm one of the creatures that I knew raised me.

That I knew had rescued me.

"You were dehydrated, too," the human continued. "We fixed that a bit with an IV, but you still seem a little dried out. Can you drink anything?"

I let out a raspy screech in response, my dry throat still begging for something to wet it.

"I'll be back with some water and we'll see how you do with that," he told me. "Hang in there."

He disappeared back up the stairs, leaving my to myself.

So I thought, that is.

I saw the other human, the smaller one, come in right after the former. She looked nervous; she came down slowly, and I could hear her rapid heartbeat.

"Um..." she stammered. "Hi, there."

I didn't make any noise; I just sat where I was, staring at her.

"I...I hear you're doing a lot better. Is that right?"

{I am,} was what I attempted to say, but all that came out was a low growl. Something I knew she couldn't make sense of, since she stepped back upon my answer.

"I was just curious...I-erm-We found this while we were patching you up."

She held up something in her hand for me to see. It wasn't a treat; it was big, white, hard, pointed...tooth.

"Did you get into a fight? The Professor says, judging by the smaller marks, you were bitten by something; something big...with teeth like this."

Bit by bit, I pieced together what I knew. I had indeed been bitten, but then I was in the air, then I crashed into something before running away, and that was all I remembered. But how did it all happen? And how did I end up near the ocean? The human seemed to read my mind.

"Were you in a fight?"

That's when it all came back to me. The memories of that terrible day flash-flooded my brain in an instant. The escape, the chase...the monster.

The big, white monster, bigger than the four of us combined. What it had said to us was bone-chilling.

{I am your Alpha now. They are weak. Kill them.}

{I don't want to...}

{Then you are also weak. If you don't kill them, I'll kill you.}

We had reluctantly obeyed. It was terrible; we weren't even using them for food. We were just...

"Are you okay?"

I looked her in the eye, ignoring the peculiar sensation of moisture I felt on my face. She stepped a bit closer, seeming more concerned than afraid.

"I don't know what you went through that made you end up like this," she said to me. "But I don't think anyone should ever have to go through whatever happened, and we think you must be really strong to have survived something like that."

Strong? Me? She had to have been kidding. I was the runt of my pack; small, scrappy...weak. My sisters let me hear it all the time about just how weak I was, and how I never stood a chance against Beta. I figured the human was only telling me such a thing to make me feel better.

"Finally warming up to each other, eh?"

The other one had returned, holding a metal bowl in his hand.

"Oh, Professor! I...Sort of, I suppose. It hasn't eaten me yet, so I guess that's a good sign."

She let out a half-hearted chuckle. I wasn't happy that she thought I was going to do such a thing, and I was determined to change her mind when I got the chance.

The bigger human-"Professor," I guessed his name was-placed the bowl in front of me on the table I was lying on. When I saw the water shift inside of the metal dish, I plunged my face into it and gulped down whatever splashed its way into my mouth; you can imagine that most of it ended up on the floor, though.

"Wow...You must have been really thirsty, huh?"

I gave him a happy chirp in thanks, then shifted my legs to the edge of the table and pushed myself off with my arms. My legs became a bit sore upon standing, but they still worked well enough, and I was glad of it.

"You sure look a lot different now than when we found you last night. But don't get too riled up; Lillie and I still want to run a few more tests before we let you go."

Tests? I didn't know what they meant by that. I was well on the way to recovery, so why would they need me for anything else? The smaller human, who's name was apparently Lillie, spoke up.

"We just want to learn more about you. We've never seen anything like you before, so we'd like to do a bit of research."

It sounded fine enough. I wasn't in any hurry to leave, anyway; I had no idea how far away home was, and I enjoyed the humans' company. I curled up on the floor beside the metal table and shut my eyes, feigning sleep.

"Should we leave it?"

"Yeah, let it get some more shuteye. Some studies show that more sleep can speed up the healing of wounds, did you know that?"

"No, I didn't."

Their conversation turned into an incoherent muffle once they reached the top floor. My eyes shot open and I quietly stood back up. There was so much to explore in this new place, I couldn't possibly relax. I walked around a bit to catch some new sights; a stiff bag that smelled like leather, a cluttered bookshelf, a giant tank of water that housed two odd, pink fish(both of which quickly darted into hiding upon seeing me,) and...

My eyes locked onto a large, glass display case. I stepped over to it and peered through the glass, looking to see what was inside. Behind the glass were...things I'd never seen before; red and white spherical objects, each of which had a white button on the front of it. The possibility that I might get into trouble for messing with things was pushed clean out of my head by my curiosity. I tried to push the glass cover off with the edge of my snout; it didn't budge. So I tried pushing it with my hands; still nothing. I turned around to look for something I could push it with, and my tail brushed against something on the case; something that made the glass cover unhinge with a 'hiss' and rise open.

I took note of the red button in the center of the frame. Maybe that was what opened it.

I grasped one of the round objects in my clawed hand and pulled it right out, bringing it up to my face to examine it more closely. It had a bit of weight to it, but not enough to be a solid mass; it was hollow on the inside. That gave me a bit of a clue as to what it was.

The first thing that came to mind was that it was one of those food puzzles. I remembered occasionally coming across those strange objects in my old home. Neither me nor any of my sisters knew exactly what they were, but what we did know was that they had bits food inside of them, and it was always a challenge to get them out. Whenever we did manage to get to the hidden treats, we felt very proud of ourselves; it always seemed harder for me, though. Beta especially made it look so easy.

I smelled something through the small cracks in the ball that I was almost positive was a piece of food, just waiting for me to snatch it up. Surely, it was a food puzzle; what else could it be? I was determined to get it out, so I threw the object across the room, expecting it to crack open and drop some of what it had inside.

What actually happened, though, was beyond me.

The ball did split open when it hit the wall, but instead of meat, it released a swirling red light. I instinctively ran behind the fish tank for safety, and watched as the red mass materialized on the floor, and became...

A bird?

But this wasn't like the brown thrushes I'd frequently see flying overhead back home, though it was brown-and white, and green, and much rounder than a thrush. It had large, black eyes and a blunt, orange and white beak.

"Koo?"

It stared back at me, looking just as surprised as I probably did. The thoughts I had of food evaporated, and all I wanted now was to try and interact with it.

I stepped out from behind the tank and peered down at the bird. It waddled closer to me, it's black eyes looking right into mine. I gave him a raspy greeting.

{Hello.}

"Roo."

The creature was awfully small; not even the size of my head. I was surprised at how undeterred it seemed in my presence. Then again, I wasn't making myself out to be a threat.

I decided to experiment; see how this bird would react to my movement. I stepped forward some-it fluttered behind me. I walked some more-it followed me. I turned to face it-it stepped back and bowed its head a bit. I turned in a circle-it did the same. I bent down, almost sitting-it sat itself down all the way. It was almost like this creature was...

...Following my commands.

Something clicked inside my head. I'd always been at the bottom of the pile, following orders, being nipped, and getting fed last. Now I had something that would obey my orders, do what I told it, when I wanted it to. I never thought I'd see the day.

I was exhilarated.

I motioned for it to back away some, which it promptly did, before making my announcement.

{I am your new Alpha.}

"Koo hoo."

It bowed its head in submission, and I knew immediately that it accepted my authority. I almost screamed, I was so happy. My mind flooded with plans; what could I make this creature do for me? Could I get it to hunt? To defend me? To track down the others? It was incredible.

First things first; I had to properly communicate with this creature. It's language was incomprehensible to me, just as mine was to he humans. But I could understand the humans; maybe it could understand me? I didn't know, but it was worth the shot.

{Do you understand me?}

There was a flicker of wisdom in the bird's eyes as it bobbed its head up and down. Now, I did know what that meant. Me and my sisters nodded our heads whenever we understood something. We'd seen the humans do the same on occasion with one another, which is where I guessed we picked it up from.

The creature nuzzled against the outside of my leg and cooed, and I bent down and chippered to it in response. Then, it flapped its small wings and flew to the ball I'd thrown at the wall. It took it in its beak and fluttered back over to me, placing it at my feet.

I had no idea how the strange device worked. I knew that the bird had been inside of it, because I had witnessed it come out when it opened. But as a red mass? I was confused.

It gave me one more nod before tapping the ball with its stubby beak and returning to the glowing red form I'd first seen it as. I watched in awe as it was sucked right back into the red and white sphere.

He was gone; inside of the strange ball. How it happened, I had no idea. How was it even able to fit inside of that thing? It was barely half the bird's size. I was bewildered.

"Something happen down here?"

I jumped a bit. It was the Professor. I hid behind the fish tank, afraid that he'd be mad that I tampered with the things under the glass.

"Heh heh...I see you've been exploring the lab some, huh?"

I ducked back even more, overwhelmed with guilt.

"Hey, it's fine, it's fine...Well..." He picked the red and white orb up off the floor and examined it. "As long as you didn't hurt anything in here."

The Professor opened the sphere and rereleased the strange bird.

"Howzit, Rowlet? That thing over here didn't scare you at all, did it?"

"Roo?"

The bird-"Rowlet"-turned to face me, then immediately ran to my side, and I greeted it with a light chuff.

"Hey, now hold on. Did you two...form a bond?"

Bond? Yes. I supposed we did. We both nodded in response to the question, and I demonstrated by giving Rowlet the same commands I had before.

"Wow...Now this is something to study. Erm...You," He pointed to me. "...I'll need a blood sample from you for testing."

Blood sample? The term buzzed in my brain, and the fuzzy memories came back. Yes, yes...Someone once came into our paddock to take a "blood sample." Twice actually...three times? I wasn't sure how many times it was, but it was definitely more than once. He was a human in a white coat...just like the Professor's. He poked me something sharp and cold, and it broke right through the skin. He did it to all four of us while we were strapped down onto a metal table, similar to the one in the lab...It wasn't a pleasant experience.

Beta had claimed that it was a strength test; something the humans did to see how well we could endure pain. As expected, I was always the first one to cry out in agony.

{You're pathetic, Omega,} Gamma had said one time after the blood samples were taken. {This is why you're at the bottom.}

I didn't like it when they scorned me. I didn't like that I was at the bottom. It made me mad. It made me want to prove to them that I could be just as strong as them.

I stiffened myself, marched to the metal table and climbed back onto it, readying myself for the test. I told myself that this time, I would pass it, and I wouldn't even so much as flinch when the metal needle pushed its way through my hide.

"Wait, you wanna do it now? Not while you're asleep?"

I nodded.

"Um...Well...Okay."

He slipped on a pair of plastic gloves from his coat pocket, then pulled a clean syringe off of one of the shelves before making his way over to me. He poked and prodded my uninjured side; it seemed like he was looking for something.

Then he stopped, sighed, and pointed the needle at the spot. I knew what was coming, so why was I shaking so much?

"Koo roo."

Rowlet was on the floor, watching from below. I gave it a reassuring purr, letting the bird know that there was nothing it should worry about.

I tensed up when I felt the needle break the skin and push its way through. I thought that was bad, but it really hurt when I felt the needle begin to suck the blood out of my vein. All the time, I strained to keep my mouth shut. Don't scream, don't scream...

Don't.

Scream.

Then, all of a sudden, the pain was gone, as though I'd never felt it.

"Alright, all finished," the Professor said. "You did pretty well there."

I stood up off the table and swelled with pride. I'd done it. I'd endured the test without so much as a grunt.

"I'll go ahead and analyze this. Shouldn't take anymore than a few hours. In the mean time, can I get you anything to eat?"

I only realized how hungry I was when he said the word "eat." When was the last time I'd eaten anything? I barked in response.

"I take that as a 'yes.' Be back in a sec'."

And he was gone again. Rowlet nuzzled my leg again and flew to the top of the table from the floor, fluffing his feathers upon landing.

"Koo, koo roo."

He spun around in a circle, then fluttered onto the top of my head, which surprised me at first, but I decided to let him stay there for the time being, at least until my food arrived. Rowlet was a strange little creature, but I was glad to have him as my underling. After all, he was my first underling, and one of my first companions in this new place. I wasn't keen on the idea of losing him.

And I wasn't keen on being torn away from him by the white monster, if I was unlucky enough for it to show up again.