hELLO EVERYONE! I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE SONGS I USED IN THIS CHAPTER! Ok, carry on.

'. . . What will the future hold. . . How will I be rewarded? . . . How have I the right to riches, in a world where there are no prizes? Who makes the clock tick by? WHEN WILL MY FATE BE READY? DO I GET PRIOR WARNING? AM, I TOLD THERE'LL BE NO SUPRISES?'

In the distance, I see a street light.

'. . . A SAINT BRENARD SITS AT THE TOP OF THE DIVEWAY. YOU ALWAYS SAID HOW YOU LOVE DDDOOOGGGSSS, I DON'T KNOW IF I COUNT, BUT IM TRYING MY BEST, AS IM HOWLING AND BARKING THESE SOOOOONGS.'

' . . . Pat, pat, pat. The sound of my paws on asphalt. Lighter than my old feet for sure. I guess that's a pro.'

Here comes that street light.

'What would a con be? . . Ah, easy.'

"Nucleon."

'Losing my human voice. All those countless hours singing in the car and shower, wasted.'

An oncoming car reminds me I'm not alone out here, and I decide to continue the mental deconstruction of my new existence at home.

The grass feels better than asphalt anyway.

'Ok, when I hit Highway 72, which way; left, or right?'

'Right, yes, right from here, where's the sign-? Ah! Shaw road. Sounds vaguely familiar, alright, just,. . . walk.'

I am very tired, I haven't gotten this tired in a while, just from walking.

I'm going to have to condition this body from. . . almost scratch, aren't I?

The thought makes me squint in annoyance,

'Ah! Well, this is gonna be good practice.'

Hmm, cross country all over again. I walk without thought for a bit, or a while, I can't tell. I pass a few houses on the way, and probably give a few people some heart attacks.

'Glowing blue eyes, glowing green shapes, at least as big as a Great Dane, and definitely thicker~!'

I decide to randomly pose and flex my muscles, strutting down the road, cat-walk! Cat-walk! I strut my stuff past about three houses before I get bored.

'. . . The sky is beautiful.'

This is trippy. Larger field of vision, but, in a vertical way? The area where my vision converges.. . ..

Three different angles,. . . trippy.

A new dimension with which to view the world. . it's, starting to set in now . . . .

I blink consciously, it feels weird, and normal. Which is my new normal.

"AT LAST, HONEY I'M HOME! THREE VOICES COME, ALL ALONE!"

That screech must have been fucking terrifying for anything listening, but I don't fucking care. My life is up-side-down, and I don't know how to right it. I just keep walking, just keep walking, keep looking into the night, into the small part of the world around you that you can actually fucking see. Try not to think of all the things that could be waiting for you. The chirping of crickets and crunching of grass under paw feels so loud all of a sudden. The smell of nature still stinks, I want to smell plastic, metal, and sweet fissiable materials~.

My train of thought is interrupted by the sight of a restaurant, Geezburger? I blink at the odd name. Taking my eyes from the sign, I see a person. A regular human person. They see me, jump, yell something I can't make out from over here, and, run.

'Ow. Why does that hurt?'

I start walking again, not sure why I stopped. Nothing else happens during the night, no other encounters, no more, . . self-reflection, just me using the mental skills I learned from the highs and lows of coffee to think happy thoughts, no matter what the world keeps trying to put in my mind. Music helps too. The sharp jumping thrills of JT Stebbin's Touhou Eurobeat always brings me joy, no matter the lyrics, no matter the tempo, they always pull some deeper, beautiful, meaning from my mind.

"Lost within a dream, can I float anywhere?

Or am I, just, spectating a scene?

Is this the tranquility, I've fought so hard to find,

Or has the end been found inside of me?!

I've seen the lengths the depths and sides,

The ocean's flow, while deep and wide!

A blackened canvas to an empty sky!"

I don't know how long I lose myself in the beautiful pressure of music, but by the end, I'm sore and satisfied.

'Alright, that's enough music for now, getting a sore. . . throat? Voice? This body is weird.'

The sunrise is beautiful, orange, pink, yellow, painting the clouds and morning mist with color. I hate it.

'. . Ugh, the fucking sunrise. . . I've BEEN HERE all, . . . oh, I'm too tired to get upset. . .'

Eight. . ish? Straight hours of walking. . I'm not even halfway home yet. I'm stumbling along at this point, almost ready to pass out from exhaustion, the ground sure looks comfortable. . .

'NO! I can't keep walking like this, it's not fast enough. . I need to sleep.'

Where's a good place to sleep? Not the ground, too exposed, some animal might try its luck. Nothing in town, no money, and, . .. people might be too jumpy? Ugh, I can't think. .

My eyes wander around the small strip of houses and businesses that periodically pop up along the highway, and I remember; most retail and restaurant buildings have ladders on the back to get to the roofs!

Looking around the smattering of buildings, I see a McDonalds,

'That's open, not gonna risk the cameras.'

A couple trailers and houses, gas station,

'No, those don't close.'

I notice a seemingly abandoned building, looks like it's a gas station, looks intact enough. I walk around to the back, and find a ladder.

'Roof access! How to get up?'

First thing is to remove the metal security covering on the bottom of the ladder. I squint in what I hope are anime smile eyes and fire up my tail buzzsaw, the lock doesn't last ten seconds. The next and hopefully final challenge is the ladder. It's a ladder, and I'm a dog-thing. It takes at least five nerve-racking minutes to climb. Once I'm up, I find the clearest part of the roof, and just, . . crash.

- -The rain is constant. The rain brings many things, small amounts of life, energy, and a curtain of noise.

Patpatpatpat

An endless deluge of sameness. Stepping through the wreckage of the world I used to be part of, I think on what's been forgotten, wonder what's become of the small creatures that look so familiar, what happened to all those that have sheltered under my collectors from the endless rain? They are gone now. I don't know where.

Thud Thud Thud

Shapes, shaped like squares, piled up on themselves, mixed with mushy colors that coated and grew on and, in these squares, . . . I know the word for this mix of shapes and color, but the meaning has escaped me.

Thud/Crunch

. . . I used to be able to fit inside these things. Now one of my paws can crush most completely, with just a step, no effort at all.

Looking at my paw, it still feels like it's not really mine sometimes.

Shelters, Den's, Gathering places. Yes, all those words mean 'building'. . . but they don't mean enough, building means more. It has more meaning packed into it,

I start moving again, I have decided on where to go today; to the place everything changed.

The charade is over, I make no effort to avoid the 'buildings'. Nothing lives in them. Nothing has lived in them for a long time, and wandering this dead fake forest has given me nothing but emptiness.

On a whim, one of the few 'buildings' that approaches my height is slammed by one of my collectors. There is only a slight feeling of resistance before it is split in half and begins to topple. There is no point in stopping to watch. It's nothing I haven't already seen.

The noise of my step's changes from the crunching of fake trees, to the softer squelching of dirt and mud. All the while the rain continues.

I don't think I like the rain.

I still have some time before I reach that crackling orange glow on the horizon, so, let's see if I can move the clouds before I get there?

[Tsubasa wo Kudasai Tribute to 'Sound of Music' Extended version 2012]

My third eye directs itself to the sky, an endless expanse of cloud cover. What do I want with this view?

I want to see the sky. I want the clouds to move, I want to feel the warmth of the circle that I know hides behind them. Focus on that twisting pulsing knot inside your chest, compress it, rearrange it, twist it with your intention of clearing the sky. . .

It, almost works.

*CRASH*

For just one brief infinitesimal instant of time, you saw the sun, and tasted it. It tastes like, like, . . Something delicious, but not filling.

The hole closes quickly but I still saw what was behind it, ow. Not worth it.

Now your defenseless while you put your cracked reactor-heart back together. Great. Good thing almost everything that would care is dead, no-one around to witness me with my rump in the air and face in the mud.

Hmm. My face has fallen next to a building. I think it's the type that's a den. Wow, so many shapes, it's been a long time since I've looked at one of these from such a close perspective, now if only I could enjoy this moment without looking like a female in heat.

Or fixing my cracked reactor-heart- ah, almost done, good.

'Let's see,'

*SQUELCH~*

Slowly, ponderously, I start to right myself. My front paws make new craters in the land that quickly turn into lakes from the rain. Standing again on all fours, I release the waste energy I've accumulated from my ill-attempted sunny day.

*FwIshshsshssssssssssssssshhhhhhhh~*

Immediately I'm surrounded by a steam cloud. I emerge like a~* Turning my vision to the ground, I add whatever that thought was to the endless list of things I've forgotten. Striding through the muddy fields of this dead and dim world, I reflect on what I do remember of it.

Color. There was a lot more color in the world. A lightning bolt strikes me, mmmm. Delicious. There wasn't an eternal cloud above everything. There used to be more living moving things besides me, and the others that adapted and fed off the crackling green/orange light. Most of us are gone now, we ate each other. Those of us left just talk to each other and lay around. We are lonely, I am lonely.

One of my paws smashes a rectangle to pieces, I keep walking. The storm clouds start to get pushed further up into the sky, unable to be fully banished, but unable get the rain to the ground without evaporating. The ground turns from mud to dirt to hard cracked stone. The heat in the air rises drastically, I walk on. My body is built for temperatures like these, and the energy in the air, . .

*"mMmM$$ -*

Delicious. It takes a lot of self-control to not indulge in the feast floating around me, as fun as growing is, . . I think I'm big enouph. Hmm. For just a moment, I saw some other creature; it was a two legs, they built the colorful rectangle dens. He, (ah, I remember he was a he!) was afraid, I was looking down on him, I was bigger than him and happy to be big, but sad at the same time? I'm still kind of sad. That's okay though, it almost doesn't mean anything to me now. I walk on, on, on, . . through the hazy dry land, cracked of earth with a weird dome of steamy mist above, lit by the light shining from the crater where this all started.

I think I want this to be spectacular.

Above my back, I form pylons, emitters, repulsers, they all make the shape of a sphere, and in that sphere, gathers the heat, particles, waves, and intention of me, the surrounding air, and all those I've eaten. The crater is visible now, spewing every color I can see, and it all turns orange. Fuzzy orange, I think I hate that color. It took my memories from me. Took my reason for existing.

Ah, my attack is almost ready. Walking up the side of the crater, I see the ground gets weirder and weirder the closer I get. I do to, some parts of me sprout feathers, some become metal, I briefly see in all directions at once, the energy on my back is destabilized, I crest the edge of the crater/lake/sky-

Oh. So that's what everything looks like. . .

The containment field collapses, the verdant orb of power tainted by a billion licks of other forms of potential. . .

I open my eyes.