Dread. Dread immediately seeped into every cell and sinew of the canine, chewing through his nerves and coiling around him like a venomous, hungry snake waiting to swallow him whole. His chest began to ache, his breathing becoming faster as his eyes stared listlessly through the window, the serpent squeezing him harder and harder, making each breath more shallow than the last.
It wasn't a sensation he was used to; Fear, panic and anxiety? Yes, they were practically bedfellows at this point, but not this. Not this. Every part of him screamed a silent scream that threatened to pull him to pieces, and if he didn't know better he could have sworn that death itself would come to take him in mere seconds, but even then he wasn't quite sure that wasn't the case; Courage's torso ached, his breathing shallow as his mouth dried out, each rapid exhalation that wracked his frame making the sensation worse. His pads and nose glistened with sweat, and his heart thrummed like a hummingbird in his chest, his eyes almost glazed over as the world seemed to run in slow motion.
He was acutely aware of his own body at this point; each breath constricting and inflating his lungs, each bead of sweat that seeped from his nose and paws, each ache that overtook every nerve in his body. He felt like he had been lit aflame from within and was feeling himself be emptied out by roaring fire and choking smoke. And it still hurt. It was a type of pain he'd never never felt anything akin to before; visceral and seething in ways no other physical pain he'd ever been inflicted with could hope to compare. It chewed and bit and stung and clawed and gnashed at his very essence.
'Where's Muriel? Where? Where? Where?'
It was the thought that overtook everything else, shoving any meaningful or productive ideas out as it filled his skull like an overwhelming white noise, reverberating in an echo chamber that grew louder and louder with every passing moment. He felt sick and weak and nauseous all at once, the coiling serpent of dread constricting him further still. He wanted to vomit, he felt so sick to his core.
He didn't even register the front door open and close again, nor the Farmer's black shoes stepping across the floorboards toward the kitchen. He barely even registered those gnarled, old hands fall on top of his head, moving through his pink fur slowly and gently, until reality itself crashed back down on Courage's entirety, his eyes widening as he realised what was going on. The farmer was… petting him? The very action seemed impossible for anything he had ever known; all the pain, names and torment thrown at him made the mere concept of the Farmer ever being kind something impossibly alien to Courage.
And yet here he was, patting Courage's head like someone who actually cared. The change in the Farmer's demeanor was only serving to make Courage worry more, but the hand was a comfort that helped begin to alleviate the serpent's coiling, slowly pulling it away from the dog and letting his lungs fill with air, though the breaths were still wobbly and shaky, uneven things that still made his torso ache. And so he stayed, like the loyal dog he always was to his masters, letting the Farmer do the kindest thing he had ever done without ever realising he'd done so.
Courage turned to tilt his head slightly, letting out a gentle whine up at the Farmer, who glanced down at Courage in return. His sallow face looked even more so, and even behind the glasses Courage could see some deep seated tiredness chewing away at the man. It was like something had scooped away the rotten sourness he always showed and left only some sort of misery that hung over both of them like that cursed cloud Shirley had summoned so long ago. Courage almost didn't believe it was the same person who so enjoyed tormenting him.
They stayed that way for a few minutes more, before the Farmer pulled his hand away from the dog and paced off back to the living room, taking a seat in his armchair as he always did. Courage, on the other hand, stayed on the seat where he'd been stood the whole time, barely remembering to swing the dumplings he'd made off the heat of the stove as he waited.
Waited for what, though? He wasn't sure himself. A call from the hospital? To wake up and for this to all be a nightmare? Muriel to come through the front door? He didn't know. He was just compelled to wait by some unseen force. And so he did. He waited. And waited. And waited. All until silence fell upon the house and the Farmer's loud snores echoed through the building. He moved gingerly; each step deliberate and slow as he dodged past planks he knew would creak, slinking toward the stairs like a pink-toned thief in the night, moving upward toward the attic, and toward Computer. He had to tell the machine at least.
He needed to find Muriel. He didn't care how. And so he had to tell Computer he was leaving for at least tonight. The snarky machine would understand, right? He was Courage's closest confidant and the closest thing he could think of as a permanent 'friend', after all. He had many other friends, that much was true, but they were so sporadic in their appearances it made keeping in touch hard; so it was Computer that he considered his closest friend.
He reached the attic quietly, immediately being greeted by the machine with that same disregarding, British voice that belied the machine's true thoughts on things and made reading him next to impossible. Courage didn't even bother with a witty reply, going straight into typing what he planned to do, paws meeting the keys as they always did.
"That's a terrible idea, Twit."
The PC's response was quick and concise, cutting through Courage's plan like a knife through butter. The machine regarded the dog's presence in its subtle ways that Courage had only picked up on through years and years of interacting with the living machine, and it was practically oozing concern for the canine. "I've got to see her! I told you something was wrong!" The pink hound snapped at the machine, though reigned in his temper seconds later with a hushed apology. Computer was just concerned for his safety, after all. Snide as the machine was, he did care, and Courage knew that. The machine had taught him everything he knew, after all, and certainly was a kinder presence than the Farmer had ever been, even if that kindness was often soaked in dripping, scathing sarcasm.
"Muriel means everything to me! I don't want to leave her all alone…" Courage whined, his expression pleading as he stared into that green-blue monitor and his own reflection within the glass. There were already tears stinging the edges of the pink pooch's eyes as his mind repeated the same terrible thought of Muriel being frightened and alone, withering away from some awful sickness.
There was that dread again, rearing up and threatening to crush him in its squeezing coils, imaginary venomous fangs glinting as it opened its maw to swallow him whole, that ache in his lungs seeping in once more. He was quickly pulled back into reality by Computer before the serpent could take hold this time, the machine letting out a synthesised exhale before responding, that yellow text filling the screen as it always did.
"Very well, Twit… Take this map of the roads at the very least."
The machine hummed as the nearby printer clunked to life, slowly extruding out a sizable piece of paper that Courage soon enough pulled away from its opening, folding it and holding it close to his chest, giving his long-time confidant a thumbs up (an impressive feat considering the lack of an actual thumb). "...And of course, good luck, kid."
The pink pooch nodded, smiling at the little ':)' at the end of Computer's words, hopping down off his little bucket-chair for what would be the last time for a long while. He quietly began to creep downstairs, avoiding what creaking wooden planks he could with each carefully decided step of his purple pads. He stared at the wallpaper, and the grain of the wood below his feet, each photograph he passed being etched into his memories to call upon if he missed home. He stopped for a moment in front of a photo of himself and Muriel, the pair a painting of contentment and happiness, and let out a quiet, soft whine, his paws reaching up to slide the photo out of its frame, slipping it into the center of the folded map for as best safekeeping he could manage.
He slinked as quietly as he could across the flooring, once more avoiding any creaking planks that could potentially disturb the Farmer, heading toward that old, green door he knew so well and taking in the scent of the building one final time, grasping at the door and cracking it open.
The cold night air was oddly welcoming, his eyes adjusting quickly to the dark as he gazed toward the road nearby, taking his steps down onto the dusty soil below, letting the icy coldness of the night soak in to his hindlegs, the stars glittering above in flickering twinkles… It made his memories wander to the Starmakers up there in the cosmos, and part of him wondered if he'd ever see any of them again, or if they'd even remember him. He eventually shook the memories away, focusing back on the present and what he was now setting out to do, his paws beginning to carry him forward and away from the farm, away from home. But was it really home without Muriel? He didn't think so. To him, home was a place that made you feel loved and wanted; More a conceptual place than an actual house, and wherever Muriel was is where he considered his home to be.
He walked along the dusty, frigid soil below as he let his mind wander slightly, keeping his focus on his surroundings just enough in order to register if there was anything of concern nearby; thankfully for the dog, there didn't seem to be, and he sure hoped it stayed that way for his impromptu journey toward and into the town. He'd never taken much notice of how long the journey took in the truck, but the fact he was walking it and couldn't see so much as a roof on the far horizon made him extremely worried for just how long this would take, exactly. But he had to persevere. He had to, for Muriel.
And so he walked. And walked. And walked. Following the long stretch of nothing but tarmac and dirt that spanned between the town proper and the farmhouse, his eyes darting to and fro as he remained ever-vigilant about anything that could have potentially been some sort of threat, but nothing greeted his sight except for the flat dust bowl that he'd grown up accompanied by, and the black tarmac road that seemed to wind on without end. He was already regretting his decision immensely, but he had to keep moving; it couldn't take that long to reach town, otherwise their farmhouse wouldn't be classed as part of Nowhere, right?
At least, that's what Courage repeated to himself in a sort of madness mantra as he kept walking through the frosty night, still watching every single thing he could focus his gaze on for the fear that some nightmarish horror would jump out at him from some tiny crevice in the parched, frozen soil or from out of the very few, hardy shrubs that grew throughout Nowhere. Walking this far away put him on edge enough; in the middle of the night? It made it all terrifying. But he pushed forward anyway, powering through that urge to flee in terror that nestled itself in the depths of his spine, fueled only by that borderline need for Muriel, though even that bravado that currently used Muriel's visage to fuel the dog was running out of steam, and the fear of being mauled by some were-monster in the middle of the night was being extremely persuasive with its arguments that they should probably turn tail and run back to the farm.
But again, hard as it was to do so, he rejected it, rejected the notion that anything mattered except seeing his dear owner again, and wrangled that creeping fear down once more, continuing to force himself forward step by step, paw by paw, trying to use the sensation of cold soil on his paw pads to distract himself from those nightmarish thoughts as much as possible; they were just products of his imagination, after all. Why would some colossal creature be out in the middle of nowhere? Nobody ever passed through, and the most you'd see is maybe 8 or 9 cars a day heading down this road, so if some huge creature somehow did exist, it would be starving (and thus weaker, he hoped) from the lack of any real meat heading down into its gullet.
It offered him little comfort to think about regardless, but at least it gave his mind something to focus on that wasn't just the barren stretch of land both ahead and behind of him, undisturbed except by the light tapping of his claws against the road. Did he really live this far out from any sort of civilization? It never felt that long via the truck. And sure, the truck was much faster than his little tippy-tapping feet, but this felt ridiculously long. Had he walked in the wrong direction? He couldn't have. He knew the farmland like the back of his paw, and he knew what way he had walked. Something here didn't feel right, at all.
He stopped, ears tilting about him as his eyes darted around, the dog in full guard mode as his pink fur, almost purple-looking in the dark of the night, bristled at some almost-imperceptible change in the air. He suddenly felt very, very afraid, the feeling of being watched crawling up his back like a swarm of spiders, and his eyes continuing to survey the area in a rapid fashion. He'd seen nothing, heard nothing, so what was this sudden and intense feeling that leached into his very bones, chewing away at the edges of his sanity? A panic attack building up again? It sure felt akin to the thrumming terror that bit at his heart earlier, but it was different too; it had no cause, and felt less like a constricting serpent. Maybe walking alone in the dead of night hadn't been his best idea, and his frayed nerves were now completely undoing themselves.
He felt sick, a pit of bile crawling up his stomach as his head thrashed from side to side, searching for whatever external threat could be blamed for this sudden feeling that had overtaken him, but there was nothing. This was all his own body's doing, and it churned his stomach, heaving gags and dry heaves escaping his frame as the panic set in. Even the cold air offered little in the way of reprieve from his meltdown as he shook, that dampness dripping from his nose and paws once again as a gutteral sob wracked his body, his entire form collapsing in on itself on the side of the road, shuddering and shaking as the panic attack took its grisly toll, his torso aching again as that familiar coiling began anew, snaking around his chest again, squeezing the air from his lungs. Why? Why? Why did he suddenly feel so sick and achy and terrified of a dusty field and some plain tar? Where did this dread that threatened to crush the very life from him come from?
He curled up tighter on the side of the road, his lungs fighting against the vice grip of unabated terror that squeezed him as that sick feeling worsened, the sensation of vomit in the pit of his stomach that never came upward making his throat ache more. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be here. He wasn't here. He wasn't here. He was back at the farmhouse, snuggled up to Muriel's lap and feeling her hand slip through his fur, patting his head and stroking his ears in the way that he liked. Yes, he was back home, with Muriel, and not wandering down some barren landscape at four in the morning.
He was with Muriel, like he always was, her rocking chair creaking as she rocked back and forth in it, Courage settled on her lap as she hummed those soothing songs of hers, still petting at his achy body… Yes, he was at home, nowhere else. He was happy, content, and warm. He held on tightly to those thoughts, pushing back against the serpent of fear that squeezed at his every inch of being, visualising that happiness Muriel brought to him: that sweet chuckle of hers. Those sweet and savory chicken dumplings. The creaks of her armchair. The warmth of her chest when he needed a hug. Every memory of her played on loop, fighting against the coils of Courage's dread, wrestling it down and allowing the pink canine to gulp down air again, until again he was alone on the road, shaking like a leaf in a storm.
He stayed in that hunched position for a little while longer, letting the aches of his intense panic fade away before he tentatively stood up again, that feeling of being watched having faded away and left him with that same sensation of emptiness and loneliness, letting the cold of the night seep into his body again. He tilted his head upward slightly, staring up at the stars again as he continued to loop those comforting memories of Muriel, adding in the memory of the newborn Starmakers too to help drive back the unnecessary terror he could feel still bearing down on him. There was nothing that could hurt him here, so why did he feel so afraid? He wished he knew.
Eventually, he began to walk again, once more following the road toward the unknown, trying to ignore the feeling that had caused him to break again; the feeling that the road would never end. The truck was old, sure, but it was still a truck and Courage's paws couldn't hope to keep pace with it in a straight line. Trying to remain logical toward the situation (something he most definitely wasn't very good at, unlike Computer), Courage repeated that thought over and over alongside the memories of Muriel, keeping the metaphorical serpent driven as far away as he could. Sometimes he wished he did have that logical coldness that Computer displayed (apart from that one time the machine seemed genuinely afraid in the face of death by electricity), but he didn't.
He wondered how Computer was, actually, sitting up all alone in that attic space where the Farmer only ever trod to find out about some sort of scheme or scam he could pull with any relic or even pieces of junk Courage found in the backyard. If the machine could feel loneliness, the pink dog was ninety percent certain he'd be feeling it about now. That also made him wonder how long he'd been walking down this strip of road, or how long he'd wasted having that meltdown a bit further up it. The moon above certainly seemed to have shifted a little in the sky, he was sure of it, but not so much he was worried he'd been gone for something ridiculous like six hours.
He definitely felt he should have brought some snacks regardless, though, which his stomach corroborated with a gurgle. He pondered if Jean Bon's was open or not, his sudden awareness of his own hunger pushing down any other feelings, including that lingering anxiety and dread that hung over him like a curtain. Jean Bon's… He couldn't remember if he had ever apologised to the porcine butcher/diner-owner about the whole sculpture debacle a while back, and it was something that he still found very awkward to even think about. In his defence though, sculpting busts of people out of ground beef wasn't exactly the most normal of pastimes, even for Nowhere's standards. Still, he felt somewhat bad for not giving a proper apology to the pig-man.
But that was for dealing with in the future, and right now he was still following the main road with nothing else in sight in either direction, all too aware of the hunger in his belly now he'd brought it to the forefront of his mind. At least hunger wasn't going to set off a panic attack, he thought to himself, weirdly thankful for the need to eat making everything else a secondary thought, even if it made each step more overbearing to deal with.
He kept walking on regardless of his hunger though, and soon enough he finally spotted a building in the distance. He chose to ignore his gut's protests and got onto all fours, bounding toward the structure like he'd never seen civilization in a hundred years, watching as it got closer, and closer, and closer.
Immediately his happiness and elation turned sour as he skidded to a stop outside a closed, shuttered door, catching his breath and swearing mentally to all the deities he could think of (the whole two of them) that he'd gotten excited for no reason. It was definitely Jean's place, the sign reading 'Burgers, Really Cheap!', but it looked like it had been out of business a while, a note of closure plastered on the shutter. Of course it would be too good to be true, of course it would. The dog sighed, raising his nose to the air and sniffing about for anything he could potentially chomp down on nearby. Maybe Sweet Stuff was open? He sure hoped so, turning to face the road again with a renewed sense of hope now he was near town, wrestling down that pervasive hunger as he started to trot again.
He had to walk for a bit longer (seriously? Was the town really always this far from the farmhouse? was his main train of thought,) before he finally came across Sweet Stuff, and upon noticing it was, in fact, open, he all but threw himself through the doorway to get something to eat. The clerk barely seemed to even register the fact Courage was a dog (probably didn't get paid enough to care.) and soon the pink pooch was back out the door, chowing down on a sandwich and a box of donuts he'd used the last of the change he'd had tucked away in his fur to buy, picking his pace up again now he didn't feel he was going to be digested from the inside out.
Of course, that pit in his stomach being filled meant that creeping anxiety was now at the forefront of his thoughts again, and getting closer to town seemed only to worsen it, rather than alleviate it; Courage's thoughts were racing with all sorts of nightmarish imaginings about what was happening with Muriel, and nothing that actually made sense that he tried to convince his own mind with seemed to work at all; but anxiety wasn't always exactly a logical thing, was it?
And so, even as he continued his trek, Courage was left in a mental wrestling match with what was actually reality and what his anxious mind was believing was reality, heading forward as the road finally met with a more concentrated bunch of buildings; he'd finally reached the town itself!
And so Chapter 2 finally closes out with Courage heading into town whilst his anxiety and stress goes ape.
We'll be getting more of our favourite sasspot of a Computer and the actual story soon enough; never really was the best at introductory stuff but it's gotta be done unfortunately.
I also totally forgot Jean's is after Sweet Stuff, whoops