Chapter 9: A Stroke of Luck(y)


"Detecting multiple leviathan class lifeforms in the region. Are you certain whatever you are doing is worth it?"

The all too familiar voice of the PDA's voice rang out after I entered this new area. It had only been yesterday when I had received my survived belongings from Andrew. The day went pretty normal other than Bandit and Chilli often giving me extra support and comfort whenever they could.

And after waking up not too long ago and having breakfast, the girls and I decided to have a bit of a lazy day which gave me the perfect opportunity to continue with my current play through of Subnautica with Bingo sat next to me and watching me play with a mix of curiosity and fascination whilst Bluey kept herself occupied with one of those fidget toys.

Said area I had just entered in the game was only slightly dark with the seabed being pretty bare unlike the other biomes I had encountered, save for a few flora. Though occasionally there were that few stone structures here and there including some volcanic tubes with smoke slowly trailing out of them like nature's chimneys. The atmosphere itself was rather quiet, a little too quiet other than the resonating hovering noise the Seamoth I was piloting made. Seconds later however, I soon found a fairly large crevice in the ground surrounded by some more of those volcanic geysers.

As soon as I was just above the entrance to this ground cave, I exited the Seamoth and swam into the hole to investigate. There didn't appear to be much in regards to collectables at the bottom, but there was in fact a sea creature egg I had not yet seen before. Intrigued, I picked up the egg but as I soon as I did that, me and Bingo froze as we heard something.

It was a distant roar, like the bellow of a huge beast who was nearby that sensed that something foreign had trespassed into it's territory and was already on the path of ridding of that trespasser. I remembered that roar unfortunately however after having heard it once before in another region. That region being where the huge ship known as the Aurora had crash landed.

Stopping for nothing else, I immediately jammed my thumb on the left joystick upwards to ascend back up to the Seamoth with the intention of leaving the area as quickly as possible before the source of that roar could make it's presence. I felt a little wave of relief wash over me as I re-entered the vehicle with the Seamoth's digitised voice welcoming me with a "Welcome aboard, captain." as I began to take off for the nearest neighbouring biome.

That was when one of them grabbed me as I was now face to face with my most hated creature in the game, the Reaper Leviathan as it's mandibles had a firm grip around my Seamoth and shaking it vigorously, dealing a huge chunk of damage whilst it roared at me, trying it's hardest to destroy my vessel and claim me as his next victim. Whilst I held back a yelp from the unexpected jump scare, Bingo gasped in terror at the sight as she clung tightly to my arm, I swear I could almost feel the side of her body shaking like a leaf as the monster finally but only temporarily lost interest in me and let go, giving me the chance to escape. I didn't let my guard down until I recognised the patches of red grass of biome I was familiar and knew was much safer, having made sure none of the other leviathans had spotted me on the way.

"That was scary..." Bingo said, still a little shaken by that encounter as I paused the game to rub her back to help ease her.

"Maybe I should play something not as scary if you'd like that instead." I offered to which she responded with a nod so I saved and exited the game and returned to the Switch's home menu to look through the library of games I had to see which one would be suitable for Bingo.

"Hey Nate, can you come with me for a moment?" Bandit suddenly got my attention as I looked up to see him standing at the bedroom doorway. I nodded and stood up off the floor, telling Bingo that she could play on my Switch but just remember to keep watch of it's battery to which she agreed to do as I followed the adult Heeler whom lead me outside to the family car as we both stepped inside. Since it was only me and Bandit, I took the front passenger seat as we were soon off down the road.

With Chilli at home, I wasn't too concerned about Bluey and Bingo as the question I've been wanting to ask finally came to mine.

"So where are we going?" Bandit smiled in response as he glanced at me.

"Well, you know how Chilli told Wendy about you? Well, I did the same thing with one of our neighbours and he has a kid who would actually like to meet you!"

Well, I wasn't expecting that for an answer. Had this neighbour of the Heeler's gotten as curious as Wendy had and had coaxed the truth out of them? Regardless, this was a positive for me as it seemed that very slowly, more of these dog citizens were actually starting to see that I'm not as bad as they probably assume me to be, even if it was just the neighbours for now.


Eventually, we arrived at our location, which appeared to be a modern looking building with a kid's playground next to it. As we both entered said building, the sight of possibly a million books stacked on many bookshelves was what gave away what this place was. A library.

Bandit and I continued further into the library presumably on the search for this neighbour of his, all the while, I tried my best not to notice the many stares I was getting from the countless other patrons within the building until I finally heard Bandit's voice again.

"Over here, Pat!"

I looked ahead and blinked as I noticed an adult Labrador with all of his fur golden save for around his muzzle which was more like a beige colour. What made me blink was the fact that he looked… Almost like the Labrador I had spotted on that fateful day when I met Stripe and Trixie's family. Was this the same Labrador and thus the neighbour Bandit was talking about?

"Bandit! Was starting to think you had gotten lost on your way here, mate!" Pat returned Bandit's greeting before noticing me almost behind the Heeler.

"Is this the "human" kid you were talking about?" Pat asked as he pointed at me, looking at me with an arched eyebrow.

"That's right. Meet Nathan! Nathan, this is our other neighbour, Pat!" Bandit introduced us to each other as we both faced one another again until I instinctively held my hand out.

"It's nice to meet you, Pat." I said as politely as possible, Pat's curious look didn't change and after a few seconds of no response, I was about to pull my hand away after feeling like I had made this meeting awkward when Pat's expression turned into a smile and shook my hand.

"Quite charmed, mate! Dog or not, any one who's a mate of Bandit is a mate of mine!" That made me smile as I noticed a smaller Labrador join Pat. He looked to be around Bluey's height and possibly the same age and unlike Pat, his fur was more golden. The smaller retriever looked up at me curiously before walking over to me.

"Sooo, you're Nathan?" Lucky asked me as I nodded in response, earning a smile from him as he shook my hand. "Nice to meet you, I'm Lucky!"

So this was the neighbour's kid Bandit was talking about. Have to admit I wasn't expecting this to go safely as possible considering none of the other dogs would even go near me.

"Well it's nice to meet you too, Lucky!" I said, still with a smile.


For the majority of the day, Bandit and Pat conversed with each other whilst I did the same with Lucky. Though most of it was of Lucky asking me what it's like to be human and how I had been with Bluey and Bingo since I first arrived at their home. I did get to know him a little bit however and I learned that he liked sports, especially American Football and Cricket.

After we got ourselves more familiar with each other, he then asked me if I would like to visit him and Pat one day so the latter could teach him a few sport-related tricks. Even though I wasn't big on sports, I accepted the offer as practising those tricks could not only be useful but develop a bit of extra muscle on me. I knew all too well that other patrons were still staring at me especially since I was essentially talking to a younger child but it didn't bother me at all because of how engrossed I was with making friends with Lucky.

The time came for us to decide to do a little reading with Lucky as he obviously went for books that talked about sports and while I should've expected such, I was a little disappointed that the library seemed to have no shelves of manga anywhere. That was when I noticed a few history books on a specific shelf as I retrieved one and opened it. If I'm to get fully comfortable with possibly living here in this world then it's more or less a good idea to learn of this area's history.

What I learned so far according to the book was the dates of when specific landmarks and areas were erected and open to the public such as a statue that resembled some sort of bird and another statue that looked like a giant shrimp resting on top of a building.

I turned a page to find a page that talked about the CPIA, or as I now knew from the book, meant "Canistralia Personal Intelligence Agency". So this group that Andrew was working with, it was like their own version of the CIA. I still remember when I was being interviewed by Andrew back at their headquarters when he mentioned Canistralia. Was that the name of this region?

According to the written sources, the agency had long existed since possibly around the early 1900s where they cooperated with the Cansitralian government. Knowing that now gave me a possible epiphany: If the CPIA was intending to help me gain the trust of all the dogs in this world, then perhaps the government itself may actually register me as an official citizen and I will no longer be an outcast!

I smiled at that glimmer of hope before looking at the next page where a photograph occupied it. The photo had to have been taken in the late eighties or nineties due to it's quality, but what really got my attention was what was in the photo. It was the entrance to the CPIA headquarters itself with a group of dogs looking at the camera. One of which I noticed was a German Shepherd who seemed to possibly be the age of a young adult.

...Was this Andrew?

Standing next to him was another dog which I had not seen before, though the sagging cheeks and stocky build gave me the idea that they were possibly some kind of bulldog. Weirdly, I didn't see them when I was in their headquarters, perhaps they had retired or something some time before?

Wondering what else this large book had to offer, I flipped back to the glossary to see if anything would interest me as I scanned the columns of topics marked with a page number next to them until I saw something odd.

One of the titles of the topics had been completely scribbled over in black ink, like a child at school had vigorously scribbled over a mistake they had made on their workbook, making it impossible to read what the topic was. I had noticed however that the page number had been spared from the scrawls as I flipped through straight to the page before them and turned the page before blinking in confusion.

In between the two pages was a rim of paper with the outer edge looking ripped, like someone had ripped the page out of the book. Looking down at the bottom right corner of the following page showed me the page number that should've been after the page that was torn out. This was odd. Why would someone go out of their way to not only rip a page out of the book, but also scrawl out it's title in the glossary?

Regardless, I knew what I had to do. I got up from my current seat and looked around for the reception desk, finding one just near the entry gates, so I approached the desk to find a brown dog that resembled maybe a retriever.

"Excuse me, but I think this book has been vandalised by someone. There's a page missing and a part of the glossary has been scribbled over." I said truthfully before holding the book out to the receptionist whom as I should've expected gave me an uneasy look upon seeing me as she hesitantly took the book out of my hands.

"U-Um… Thank you. I'll be sure to look into it." She said, her tone sounding like she was having a hard time trying to register what it was that was talking to her. At least she hadn't reacted aggressively.

I walked back to where Lucky was as I noticed him looking up at me with a book in his hands. The look on his face was like one you make where you seem to have realised something that you wouldn't have expected to known and it was even more evident from the next words he said to me.

"...Nathan? You might want to look at this." Arching an eyebrow, I took the book and looked through it to find it was about war and crime which told me that even this world wasn't safe from warfare and other nasty situations. I kept flicking through the pages until I noticed this one had a few pages torn out as well strangely. However, one of the pages hadn't been fully torn away out of the book as the remaining fragment on it had only the title.

'New Zealand War of 2015'

Wait… New Zealand? What was this doing in a book from this world? This revelation alone was filling me with so many questions I couldn't even think of one possible answer for. Was I really still in my own world? Was Canistralia charted off the world maps? How had I or no one else even heard of it?

And that was when I remembered back when Bluey snuck me to her school and how Chloe reacted upon seeing me for the first time.

"Apparently, there used to be humans living with us a long time ago!"

So it was true. Canistralia really did have history with humans but what had happened to make every other dog in the world besides Chloe, her dad and the CPIA not know what a human was to the point of considering them a possible threat? Did this war have something to do with it?

I felt dizzy. Like everything I had learned and try to figure out was mentally overwhelming me, my head hurting like someone had deliberately shoved a knife through my skull. Before Lucky noticed that something was wrong, he had apparently told me something but it only came out as faint mumbles as the dizziness started to affect my hearing.

The last thing I saw before I collapsed was the horrified look on Lucky's face before he ran off, yelling as his voice briefly came clear.

"Dad! I think there's something wrong with Nathan!"

As I slowly drifted into unconsciousness, the questions wouldn't stop flowing inside me. It was like trying to solve a puzzle you had no experience with prior to the point where it felt like you were just never going to solve it.

I tried to recall what Lucky had said to me before running off, trying to translate what the mumbles came out as until at last, I finally figured out what he said just before everything went black.

"...Mackenzie is from New Zealand."


TheAGames10 asks: "Is it possible to have Rad and Frisky pop up for a chapter in the future?"

I won't spoil much, but yes, Rad and Frisky will make an appearance in this story in a later chapter.