“Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia
Day 0: A New Period
A light sleeper, especially in a warm environment as she was in now, Dextra woke up yet again in the middle of the night and yawned. Sniffing the air half-heartedly, she lifted her head slightly and turned it and her ears slowly from one side to the other, not really expecting to pick up anything unusual, but just doing an extinctive check.
Dextra’s masters were sleeping soundly in their warm queen-sized bed, tucked under layers of sheets, blankets, and a comforter and quilt. Herself behind the hard oak foot board, only their slow deep breathing of slumber gave away their presents and well-being, and she thought about hopping up there and laying between their bodies, taking in their warmth, smell, and touch, and comforting them with hers. Their blanket was warm and soft, but her natural husky fur was more so.
“No, Dextra! Bad girl”, they would scold if she did so and they were awake, “Off the bed!”
Sadly, Dextra dropped her head again and rolled onto her side on the hard wood floor, leaning her back against one of the bedposts. The radio on the male master’s nightstand, possibly also the source of her sleeplessness, was on and playing music quiet enough so as to be barely discernable to human ears, but was at a casual listening volume to Dextra’s acute canine ears. It never bothered her and though she didn’t understand the language, it always provided a nice sensual input when there was nothing else to do but wait for them to wake up as well.
It was bad to wake the masters from their slumber, but then they were getting old and though they never seemed busy doing anything, it always seemed to be a bad time to do anything with them. This of course, also made her restless.
Dextra wasn’t exactly whelped yesterday herself, but she wasn’t ready to just lie down and watch the world pass her by either. They were her masters, though; her alphas, so their word was law. They fed, sheltered, and cared for her basic needs, and she protected and watched over them.
R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World” softly started playing on the radio, and Dextra perked up her ears momentarily, it just being an insignificant change of sound from the last song, and then laid her head back down and closed her eyes again to try to go back to sleep.
Suddenly, instinct and sixth sense sent a tinge down her spine and she perked up her ears to pick up the intrusion. After a long, silent, haunted scope of the area around her, she found she couldn’t really find anything wrong in her immediate surroundings but that it didn’t ease her fears, so she got up and started pacing the room to get a different prospective of the area and possibly narrow down the point of interest. It didn’t help either, so she then went to the window to sniff the air coming in through the half-open window, and possibly see what was outside.
Still nothing unusual caught her senses and now Dextra wished she was outside with those enticing earthly scents, but the bedroom door was closed all the way, and even if it weren’t, the door to the outside world would surely be. For some reason, her masters wouldn’t let her go anywhere without being tethered to them, and if she tugged and whimpered when she was outside, or ran around inside the house to exercise herself, it was, “bad girl, Dextra”.
The radio’s song was over now, but now there was a new unfamiliar sound not coming from the nightstand, or the bed, but from above and in the direction of another section of the house altogether.
Was there an intruder in her masters’ domain?!
Dextra started barking loudly and intently. She knew, intrusion on their peaceful sleep or not, her masters would want to be woken up if there was someone or something invading their territory. Plus, barking a warning might hopefully drive the intruder away, because she didn’t really think she was in any shape anymore to battle with a trespasser.
“Dextra? Dextra? What’s wrong, girl?” the elderly male asked as he sat up in the bed and fumbled for the lamp switch and his glasses on the nightstand with the radio.
Dextra stopped barking momentarily to hear if it, whatever it was, was silent now. No, swiveling her ears found that the sound, which was much like the static on a radio station that won’t come in, was now unfortunately closer and louder, and slowly and steadily getting more so. Could her masters hear it? She didn’t want to wait and see. She started barking again and added to the immediacy of the situation by scratching at the bedroom door.
“What’s going on, Fester?” the female master asked, somewhat annoyed and not wanting to waken up. To show this, she decided to hide from the lamplight by sliding her head down and the warm covers around her, farther up.
“Something’s spooking, Dextra”, Fester replied matter-of-factly as he got up, slipped his bare feet into his slippers, and shuffled over to and opened the door for his eager guard dog. As she dashed out the door, barking intently, he rooted, “Go, girl! Bite that burglar!”
Dextra navigated to the other side of the house, stopped and stood there silently for a second to get her azimuth.
It was above her, and getting louder and closer! Fast! Now surely her masters could hear it. It made her hackles rise.
Sudden, Dextra realized she wasn’t aware of any way to get higher up in her masters’ domain, and so she’d need one of them to either let her out or guide her in what to do next. Her master’s house was a one-floor house. She’d been in the basement a few times, sometimes as punishment, sometimes because they wanted to go somewhere and didn’t want to take her with them, but she’d never been in the attic, if it was accessible at all. In panic, Dextra tore back to her master’s bedroom and practically leaped into Fester’s arms.
Reeling backwards to get his balance after his husky came bursting through the door, barking and whining like mad, Fester quizzed nervously, “Dextra! What’s the matter, girl? Berta, call the-“
At that moment, the cause of Dextra’s anxiety, in rapid succession, came bursting through the roof, the ceiling, and then the floor before exploding upon impact with the concrete basement floor below them. Like a landmine explosion, the bedroom floor detonated upwards, mixed with bits of concrete and meteorite fragments. Dextra and her male master went flying and tumbling down the hallway, and her female master went crashing out the window of the weakened far wall into the yard. Seconds later, the bedroom ceiling caved in on itself.
When Dextra came to, her masters’ domain was ablaze and caving in on itself bit by burning bit. Her body, lacerated and riddled with shrapnel, dripped blood as it ached with white-hot pain, and her ears rang deafly with white noise. The heat and smoke attacked her other senses, but her mind was on the whereabouts and well being of her masters. It hurt to move, but Fester, for good or bad, was partially and limply on top of her and he would be buried, cremated, and die if she didn’t do something to get them both out of there, soon. The front door was before her, seemingly a disheartening distance away and still locked close, but she just had to get over to it. She didn’t know where her female master was, but she’d surely use all the strength she had left to search for her once she had this one safe.
Digging her claws into the floor and wiggling, bringing up new pinpoints of pain, she worked her way up and out from under the half-conscious weight over her. Then, hobbling around so she was facing her visible master’s head and her rear was to the door, she seized his undershirt collar in her teeth and started pulling backwards. Though frail by human standards and possibly maneuverable under normal circumstances, her efforts seemed too little too late, and so she made a rash decision she would have never done under normal conditions.
She bit him. Not fiercely, but hard enough to draw blood and wake him from his shocked state. It worked and in his surprised awakening, he moved a few inches towards the doorway.
Fester came to with a start, a momentary surge of pain pressing briefly on his neck, moaned, and then tried to reach over to rub the spot as he blinked and coughed. Snapped to reality, he looked around himself in fear as he felt Dextra trying again to pull him by his shirt collar. It took one look at her, his surroundings, and the door to get the idea, much to Dextra’s relief, and he started backpedaling with his legs and pushing with his arms in assistance, not bothering to waste time turning over to crawl out properly.
They might make it out alive yet.
When they’d gotten to the door, Fester turned over painfully, got up to his knees, and, choking and coughing from the smoke, fumbled around the door blindly to unlock and unlatch it. He was in pain, there was blood in his eyes, and deadly smoke in his lungs, but all of that was moot if he could just get the door opened up and both of them to the yard. Even in the disorientation he could hear the telltale siren of the fire truck.
Once open and their path unbarred, Fester wrapped an arm around his loyal pet’s heavily heaving chest, and helped her drag him to the front yard before slumping down and passing out on his back, taking in the clean, cool night air. Though she really wanted to and it mentally pained her that she didn’t have the strength to, Dextra wanted to get up and sniff out the whereabouts of her female master. Though she knew he would want to be with his mate, she was almost certain she heard him tell her, “Good girl, Dextra” and pet her even though she remained unmoving. She would rest a bit longer, get her lungs clear of its gurgling liquid contents, and then go look for Berta back in the house.
By this time, the local fire truck had arrived and was just starting to scout the area and deal with the fire. The firefighters found Dextra partially on Fester’s body, her muzzle under his chin, weakly licking at blood oozing from a wound across his face as she tried to keep him conscious, company, and warm with her presence. Only moments later, another found his wife in the backyard equally clinging to life, but out of harms way, more by luck than anything else. A short moment after that, a steady jet of water was taming the flames that’d engulfed the sinking house.
. When the fireman that came to start CPR on Fester, pulled Dextra off him none too carefully, it cause such pain to her that she went into shock and then a coma. This serge of pain also jumpstarted something else inside her, and the fire and body heat melted meteor fragments started fidgeting about. This too would have been painful if she wasn’t already out.
By this time the local hospital’s ambulance had arrived and the emergency response crew took over in attending to the couple’s vitals as they loaded them carefully on stretchers, and it in the ambulance. In hindsight, as the two landowners were being secured in the emergency vehicle, one of the firefighters noticed Dextra’s limp body still lying there unattended to.
“What about the dog?” he yelled to the people around the ambulance as one of the ERT crew started to close the rear hatch.
“I think it’s dead. Doesn’t matter. You’re the ones that deal with pets”, the ERT member yelled back tersely.
“Cats in trees, yeah. Not dead dogs. You sure it’s dead?” the fireman replied, looking agitatedly at Dextra.
“Well, no, but look at it. It’s either dead or close to it. Hey, why don’t you be noble, pick it up, and take it to the vet?” the ERT responded with his arms crossed challengingly as he leaned against the ambulance’s closed and locked rear. “They can tell you if it’s dead or not.”
“Hey! What’s the hold up? We got two bodies in a state of emergency, remember! Shut up about the dog and get in”, the ambulance driver butted in, ending the spat. Beating from the cabin speakers under his voice was Queen’s “Another One Bites The Dust”, but if he had anything to do with it, that wasn’t going to happen.
“Yeah, yeah. Well, it’ll be dead by morning. The firemen can take care of it”, the ERT snickered loudly over his shoulder as he went around to the passenger side and hopped in.
“Oh, hell no! It’s dead. Animal control can deal with it in the morning”, the fireman retorted as he went off to see if his co-workers needed any help with anything, the fire having successfully been contained, but the house now a smoldering rubble.
As the smoldering ashes of her master’s domain made dark smoke wisp into the air and the yard became scarce with human population, “It’s dead”, repeated innumerably in Dextra’s mind. As she came to again in a greater world of pain than before, for some reason she found some comfort in that statement. It had a placid ring to it as her body went into convulsions. This was caused by the fact that, by burying themselves deeper into Dextra’s body, the tiny blackish slugs of kinetic saturated ooze were involuntarily tripping nerves and muscles en route, and so sending painful and violent spasms throughout her aching body.
Finally, Dextra remembered where she’d heard something like that before. Her master had told her to “play dead” countless times and she’d never understood what it meant, or why. It’ll always been a command done purely out of loyalty and subordination. Now she realized it was a state a rest and relaxation on command, and she wished for it to be invoked on her.
Though evolved enough to sense and register the feedback of discomfort, the invading organisms, as of yet, couldn’t, didn’t know how to peacefully put her to sleep. It had, on the other hand, already witnessed that if their host was in intense enough pain, that she’d go into a coma and that state was close to the same thing. “Play dead”, more out of Dextra’s searching and wishing than from the parasites’, whispered in from her memory in Fester’s command voice as an excruciating shock went like lightning up her spine and she was out again, sleeping a dreamless sleep.
"She calls me Goliath and I wear the David mask;
I guess the stones are coming too fast for her now."
Day 1: Resident Canine
(Excessive energy output, pure. Bad and mutually unwanted. Proved damaging and inefficient, and should be avoided regardless of intent. Previous action done in error. Current state can be caused as well as maintained by minimizing energy output below normal levels. Total denial causes self-distruction of host. Bad and mutually unwanted. Denial of energy, pure or heat, should be avoided regardless of intent. Safe minimal output to mental nerves proven most efficient for host repairs and alterations. Current alterations suggested; none. Continuation of repairs; primary.)
As the first rays of the warm morning sun started peaking through the treetops across the street, life buzzed busily within as well as around the off-white and smoke gray husky laying as chaotically as the house-size burn pit behind her. More like the ants crawling through her fur than the flies buzzing around her body, the microscopic black alien slugs oozing between her muscles and around her bloodvessels were working as a collective to collect and transport food, exam the areas around them, and communicate what they’d found and done to be recorded and used by the others of themselves.
(Host still usable for breeding. Breeding at secondary status until host efficiently maintainable. Current status of host; weak, but mobile. Mobility report untested, accuracy unproven. Host’s recovery system learned. Further leaks and damage can be prevented with proper resources. Resources; critical to none. Warning; current priority requires stripping of host for further healing. Statement illogical and unacceptable. Locating exterior resources; primary. Continuation of repairs; secondary. Location of exterior resources unknown. Awaken host? Involentary control may prove distructive and irrasional. Awakening of host required.)
Dextra was aroused from her empty slumber by a different kind of music than she was used to. Birds chirped, insects buzzed, wind whispered, and wild and tamed critters called in greeting to a new morning. There were many strange and mildly interesting smells around her as well, from the dew wettened grass under her body to the medley of odors from the neighbors’ uncollected garbage bags on the street corner, to the feint hint of critters from the woods beyond. Right now, the most pressing sense to her was that she was stiff, itchy, and achingly hungry. She groaned as her stomach growled, and when she tried to shift her faminely lithe weight, her bones popped followed by a surge from pinched nerves.
Whimpering, Dextra absent-mindedly tried to reach her hindleg over and scratch her neck, but what shot up her spine then made the pins and needles feel like a light scritch. Her body ached and her head throbbed, but most of all her stomach relentlessly ached and growled irritably with emptiness. Her mouth was dry and when she yawned, it cracked her chapped lips and further irritated her dry throat. Her nose was also dry and chapped, and the flies buzzing around and biting at her blood stained and irritated parts only made the environment worse, and so in her simple mind, she thought of something like, so this is why her master’s didn’t let get sleep outside.
Her masters!
For a brief moment before the trauma of the previous night’s events caught up to her, Dextra thought that she should see if her masters were awake and get one of them to feed her. She’d surely never felt this hungry before, but then it all came back like a choke chain; the noice, the heat, the terror, and struggle. It all replayed in rapid succession in her mind. Unnerved and disoriented, the undernerished canid sprang to her feet and her wounds tore open anew, bringing her back down to the ground yowling in white-hot pain.
Paralyzed, Dextra desperately looked at the rubble where the house used to be and whimpered to it pleadingly. Where were her masters? Where was their shelter? What was wrong with her body? Were her masters okay, or were they like this as well? She needed them, so surely as she knew they needed her, too. She had to find them, and make sure they were okay.
Driven by the compulsive thought that she needed to locate her masters and find out how they were doing, Dextra tried again to get up, but it only caused more pain. Pain that wasn’t just the pins and needles of muscles waking up from being slept on wrong, but an intense pain that made her curl up into a helplessly whimpering ball of fur.
(Status of host critical. Poor. Solution. Absorb energy. Too much for host.)
Much to her relief, Dextra found the aching in her joints had disappeared, but now her body, or maybe it was the area she was in, was getting noticeably warmer as she stretched, rolled, and worked the tightness out of her muscles. Her throat was scratchy as she panted, but it was barible for the moment.
The symbiots could drain the energy and convert it, but without anything to do with it, it just became heat, and without the proper amount of fluids in her body, could prove just as fatal in the long run, running her up to feverish temperatures until she finally collapsed in a stroke. The symbiots could sense that what they had done was a temporary fix at the best, adding insult to injury the more reasonable outcome. For what it was worth, or maybe to put a silver lining on the increasingly dark cloud of Dextra’s situation, this total body heat inside and out also included that sensitive area between her loins, which then went back to her brain to awaken a different sensation, and, herself having been neutered since puppyhood, it was a new and aggravating feeling altogether. She moved her head around and tried to moisten and thus relieve the strange feeling in her crotch, but again her mouth was dry and her nose was warm and irritated even more so than her loins. In her distress, something instinctual told her that she had to journey and find another, for she alone couldn’t appease that itch.
For what it was worth, things could have been a hell of a lot worse for the husky. For the most part, Dextra dehydrate originated from the fact that most of the fluids outside of blood and the level needed to keep her from dying from dehydration in her sleep had been defused into her bloodsteam and other areas critically in need of cooling and a temporary protective layer of fluid as she regenerated. She’d lost a lot of blood the night prior, and, having no other way for the symbiots to readily recover that, and even the waste water in her bladder had been recruited to make up for critical body fluids.
Dextra’s busy nose found that there was dew on the grass and Dextra started licking it off, licking her nose to moisten and better tune it, and then added to the trace intake by munching the grass and other weeds themselves. This seeming like a reasonable solution to her hunger and thirst, the ailing canine started crawling around munching the vegetation that made up the yard. Once she got to a point though, this triggered another instinct in the back of her mind that hinted to her that maybe her choice of entrée wasn’t a good idea. She hesitated momentarily, but then resumed mowing the lawn. Her stomach was twisting, but she was desperate and ravenous. To her immediate thinking and the symbiots’ current view of things, it was edible, slowly filling her shrunken and still fairly empty stomach, and semi-wet.
What was the problem?
Suddenly Dextra’s stomach had had enough and it turned on her. To her distress, she choked, coughed and gagged, and then all the herbivorous contents was forced back up and out onto the ground in front of her. Caught off guard and not knowing what was wrong or what to do, all the symbiots could do was step back and wait for it to stop, and when it was over Dextra remained dryheaving over the mulsh.
(Not food. Edible, but not proper for host. What is? Where is it? Unknown, but previous examples located in shelter. Shelter gone. Possibility of food survival; minimal to none. Will have to migrate to find compatible food source, preferably readily available. Host too hot, weak, and situation worsening. Need at least liquids from current food choice to find compatible. Host will need to be comprimized to sustain adequate food to water supply.)
Dextra, devoid of pain, a feeling of fullness, and a couple other internal senses that would hopefully keep her from rejecting the vegetation again, testingly ate the grass she’d puked up. Once it settled with success, she then moved on to eating more of the same from various areas of the yard lethargically until her undersized belly was as tight as a drum. After debating between stretching and possibly tearing her stomach and stopping and possibly overestimating the nutrients of this “food, the symbiots chose to avoid any further internal damage and finally shut down her urge to eat.
There were other houses nearby, and if Dextra had been more street savvy, she might have instead headed for their garbage bags, and rummaged them for nurishment. If she hadn’t stuffed herself painfully with weeds, now that she was a bit more level-headed, she might have wandered over to them at that moment, but she was uncomfortably stuffed and the last thing on her mind now was looking for more food, so she pricked up her eats to the sounds of the woods, and started wandering to them. Compared to her masters’ tattered domain, there was something inviting about the smells and sounds of the distant creatures lurking in the woods. Being a swampy area in some spots, and the fringe of the woods being located only a short ways off the other side of the street, her nose also enticingly picked up the mildew smell as well, since she’d still only managed to wet her thirst.
Dextra’s movements and thinking became more and more numbed and lethargic as the nature of her digestion system moved blood from elsewhere in her body, including her mind, to try to digest or at least take what could be taken from the roughage as it’s passed through each stage of her digestive system. Before she finally stopped, she was practically sleep-walking the trees, scents in the breeze, and crackle of leaves and twigs under the paws of her feet, things of her waking dreams. Finally the roughage reached its end and she stumbled drunkenly to a stop. Hunching her back, lifted her tail, and grunting, she eliminated the vegetarian meal, and then panted happily as the fog lifted from her mind. For what it was worth, she was able to get a comforting bit of water, oils, and sugars from the compost, but still wasn’t worth a sniff to check her health .
After comparing the nutrients gained to the amount eaten and the work and energy that had to be put in to draw it from the roughage, the vegetation was deamed by the symbiots as a last resort food, if not inedible.
She was a bit better well off, but her stomach was now achingly empty again, as were her intestines, and she was again racked with loud and painful hunger pangs. In her hunger, she again thought of her masters and the food they would have served her. Food that would have sustained her for days if need be, but plentiful enough to be served to her by them multiple times a day. Again she wanted to find them, but now she was completely lost, every smell an unfamiliar one, and she barked and yowled in uneasiness.
Woods full of sounds and smells of other creatures and it draws up a suppressed instinct in her. She goes in, spies movement of animals, and goes deeper.
Discovers, roots out, and eats bugs, like ants and termites in woods. Stumbles on a yellow jacket hole and symbiots think they’ve hit the insect jackpot, until Dextra’s throat swells up and she passes out from inflammation and asphyxiation. Learns of allergic reactions, but reverses it and strips insects of proteins. Revives Dextra and she ventures on. Encounters small animals (squirrels, chipmunks), but they prove elusive and wary. Finally finds a small pond, and drinks greedily.
Dogs tracking her heated scent appear and alpha approaches her to mate. Symbiots see him first as a threat to her life, then briefly a possible food source as she sniffs and licks him and it brings up an unknown urge in her. She finally settles on thinking him as a companion and realizes she’s one of them as she mimics him and sniffing each other, and then he mounts her. Dextra had seen herself in her masters’ mirrors from time to time, but for a long time until a moment ago she had never thought about finding others of her kind.
She and symbiots have different opinion on the situation and she wails and squirms, her nerves reenergized as symbiots migrate to her sex and womb. Hunters hear Dextra’s yowls of pain before she becomes zombied so the male can successfully fill her with his seed. Symbiots realize there are no eggs readily available for insemination. Male’s knot aids the symbiots in spreading themselves over to him like a reverse spooge, working and lubricating his dick before injecting themselves into him.
Growling lustfully, the male humps Dextra blissfully as other dogs scatter from the advancing humans. Dextra is slumped half-dead on the muddy ground with manged fur, blood oozing from reopened wounds, and glassy eyes, so the worst is thought of the male. One of the hunter’s, the male’s master, yells at the male and the male completely ignores him.
His privates are so sensitized by the actions of Dextra’s passing invaders that the male cums into her when the other human swings his rifle like a baseball bat and cracks the male against the head. The owning human yells at the assaulting one, but his dog, though bleeding, seems unaffected and as intent as ever to hump the female. Symbiots intent on completely abandoning Dextra and making male new host, having already learned his make-up from being in Dextra and him being much healthier and stronger than her.
Ed accuses male dog of going mad, possibly rabid, and swings at him again. Not completely transferred from Dextra, but seeing that life threatening action must be taken against this human before that male ends up like the female, symbiots make male try to forcefully dismount Dextra and snap and claw at Ed. Owner butt strokes his dog and it snaps and snarls and slashes at him as well. Owner agrees that male is beserk and possibly rabid.
Male gets Dextra off him, jumps at owner tooth and claw, and gets shot as Ed fumbles in pocket and switches the round in his rifle. It’s nerves deadened by the symbiots, it jumps back up to all three’s ignoring the limp limb from the shattered shoulder blade, and turns on Dextra. Digging its teeth into her neck and shaking her, it starts sucking the blood out of her in huffs and tries to sear some meat off of her. His master interrupts that quickly by shooting him in the side. He’d intended on shooting his dog in the head, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
The male dog soaks it up and retaliates by rearing back in its hind legs, and jumping for the dumbfounded master’s throat. Closest of the two, and can sense growing fear in them. As well as killing him to stop the attack, it also sees him as a source of food to repair himself. To even thinks out, the symbiots try to revive Dextra and sick her on the other human.
As symbiots jumpstart Dextra’s body and mind yet again, she whimpers and opens her eyes in time to see Ed blow the male’s head clean open. The male falls to the ground, fidgeting, squirming, and gushing bodily fluids spasmatically until the symbiots finally called it quits. There was still a chance another animal would come along and ingest the corpse and almost-corpse that were now their decreped homes.
Dextra watched the two humans mournfully, half-expecting to get the same treatment, having never found her masters. The owner, out of fear and anziaty, unloaded one more round into the male’s chest, and then Dextra watched them approach her. Whimpering, she closed her eyes and tried to ball up as she waited for the next thunderclap.
“Jezzus. She’s still alive.”
“Think we should move her. She was bitten remember.”
“Zeek was insane. I’ve never heard of rabies doing that to an animal. I mean, he just wouldn’t go down… speaking of which, what the hell did you shot at him?”
“It was in case of bears”, Ed said sheepishly as he produced another hollow-tip round from his pocket.
“For the last time, there are no goddamn bears around here… but thanks. But as for… Oh shit! This is the Williams’ dog. The one’s that were in that house fire last night.”
“Damn. Well, better get her to the vet then.”
They fashion a stretcher, put on gloves, carefully carry her (on the stretcher) and the male (in a sack) back to the truck, throw the male in between the seats as the other dogs climb into the truck bed, the two cover the back seat, and put her on it.
Dextra keeps watching them with her big, attentive light blue eyes and Ed is tempted to give her a reassuring pat on the head.
“She’s definitely a strong one, that’s for sure. Pity to see her like this.”
“Yeah. It would be a waste if she turned rabid, too. I could have sworn Jeez got his shots, and he’d seemed perfectly fine before.”
“Yeah. Hopefully the vets can fix her up and find out just what did happen. Jeez was a good dog, Doug. I’m sorry I had to kill him like that.”
“I know, Ed. I understand. It was him or me. I’ll manage. I have other dogs.”
Crashing through the woods and tearing down the street, Doug and Ed made it to the vets in record time. It not having an emergency entrance or a gurny to wheel her on in like a hospital, they carefully cradled Dextra into the lobby, the employs took one look at her, and an emergency surgery room was ovened up for her. The group of skilled vets chosen hastily to examine and patch her up, gingerly washed her wounds, checked her pulse and temperature, and start thinking it’s a miracle that Dextra was still alive. Considering the fact that previous wounds have healed, though badly, they also grow suspicious of her life at the Williams’.
Her old collar is cut off as they put her on the examination table, wash off the blood, remove the debree and splinters on and in her body, and inspect her. Her wounds seem older than they really are. Gashes have sealed, reopened, and started to heal again. X-rays show her bones have fractured and knitted. She’s starved and dehydrated to the near fatal point. Their first impression of Dextra is as being a victim or animal abuse.
Ed, having the available expenses to do so, Dextra’s owners not available, and the owner’s siblings tending to the owner’s, takes temporary ownership of her and pays for her bandaging, surgery, splinting, transfusions, and general caring for.
Passed out by drugs and weakness, Dextra is fed intravenously and every drip and bag of blood is used by the symbiots to its fullest to put he back together. Dextra passes out, being fed intravenously as the angelic instrumental of Electric Light Orchestra’s “Fire On High” plays on the ceiling speakers.
Before the night is up, Dextra’s heartbeat is regular and strong again. Transporting nutrients through her bloodstream as and where needed, the symbiots use her DNA from health cells to clone new ones and heal her body.
(Stronger hostmate killed but weaker host saved and nurtured. Concept backwards. Does not make sense, but will use situation to advantage. Mating environment may have proven wrong. Hostmate possibly unwanted and inadequate. Dictating beings around host proving vastly powerful and advanced. More research and input needed.)
Day 1 Dream:
Dextra dreams in clips of her younger years with Berta and Fester and their visiting children and grandchildren. Dreams of playing in the yard and, in winter, the snow. Dreams of resting with her head in people’s laps, getting her head scratched and her belly rubbed. Dreams of watching them converse, eat, play, and sleep; their varying smells, and the melody and tones of their voices.
Then she dreamed of panic of the previous night and the rescue that day. The determination and intent in both incidents and the scent of the humans that had brought her here as they fought off the dog that had attacked and violated her.
It was all fuzzy and segmented, but it showed how much she wished for the life she had a few days ago.
“You know I'd like to believe this nervousness will pass;
all the stones that are thrown are building up a wall.”
Day 2:
(No close contact with other beings like itself in memory until mating. Strange slave-like existence, but not slave. Willing servant. Regards known beings of superior creature as leaders and protectorite. Did not know saving being, but gained near instantaneous trust without action. Enough to attack hostmate for host’s rejection and dislike for hostmate. Host has power to manipulate will of creatures other than its own from a distance. Host may prove greatly effective to cause if power can be transferred.
Problem. Hostmate seed dying. Host has been compromised physically before time of host’s mental retention. Original layout of host’s breeding system unknown. Research and input vital for proper counteraction. Complete uncompromised sample host ideal.)
Dextra awoke slowly from a peaceful sleep to find she couldn’t move her body. Her muscles worked, but she had been restrained and covered up with hard material. She sniffed and wiggled her ears in an effort to pick up some beast, any beast that might be able to help her. There were a medley of foreign smells in the room, and trace scents of previous creatures and a group of alphabeasts, but there were none with her right now. There were voices and sounds of creatures, including active alphabeast, but they were oblivious to her predicament. In an effort to call attention to herself, she barked sharply, and though she somewhat startled herself at how it reverbed off the walls, it did little if anything to get anyone to enter the room.
Realizing she was alone and racked against her will, the smoky gray and off white husky rolled her bright eyes in anguish as she struggled in her casts and straps, whimpering helplessly. There was a hard table underneath her, though slightly padded so as not to be too stiff for her to sleep on, and a set of fluorescent lights above her, or as she was, beside her. Both only added to her misery in their artificial and ominous presence. When a click was caught by her keen husky ears, she whimpered and struggled harder, fear of the unknown and helplessness driving her to the point of going into a seizor. She hadn’t noticed it before, but the steady, though fast beeping thing out of her range of sight increased in its tempo.
The door opened and a figure, called to the room by an alarm tripped by her excited heartbeat and thinking the worst, stepped in hurrily, checked the machines, and then looked at Dextra. She tried to struggle and get up again and the human shook her head sympathetically. Tisking, the female human, walked over to the machines again, nodded in satisfaction, and then went over the counter and started scanning through Dextra’s medical records.
“Heard you’ve been having a run of bad luck lately, girl. Luckily, the other one didn’t have rabies. Pour soul. Only Lord knows what came over him. Doug says he just went nuts. He’d always been his favorite hunting dog…”, the vet reflected distantly as she laid the folder down and looked at the fidgeting canid from where she stood at the edge of the small room.
By the tone of her voice, the female alphabeast seemed to be concerned about Dextra’s plight, yet showed no effort to remove her from it. In her sleep, the symbiots inside Dextra’s body had tried to get a microwave signal with those in the male that had been brought in with her. Though dormant, unless they were shielded or too far away, those in the in the dead male’s body would have reawaked at least long enough to draw energy and return a status signal. In the beginning, there had been a reply, but then the alphabeasts that had examined the hostmate had mistaken the symbiots for rotting, cancerous cell tumors, and did, what they believed was the safest and most rational thing to do. Classifying his death as possible brain cancer, and they’d then order an immediate cremation of the body. Locked in the furnace, the persistent symbiots had only prolonged what would have been a quick and mildly painless death if they hadn’t tried to put all energy into reanimating their host.
A couple of the vets near the crematorium could have sworn they heard wailing and clawing.
”Well, your definitely a lot more restless than I had expected, and your hearts strong”, the vet, her nametag reading, Sherry, stated cheekily as she approached the whimpering husky and ran her fingers comfortingly through Dextra’s cheek ruffs. “*hmm* You know what? Let’s see how the stitching is holding up with you wiggling around like that. Where you got all this strength from, beats me… *hmmm* Doesn’t seem to be much bleeding.”
Sherry carefully undoes a bandage and sees that the gash has already sealed itself into a crusted, furless scar. After examining it curiously, and to her disbelief determining it safe to do so, she then gingerly pokes at it. To confirm her thoughts, she finds that it’s healed enough that it doesn’t even hurt anymore, though crushed into a furless scar. After walking away to recheck and double check the report, the mystified human started removing the other bandages one by one. As she does this, Dextra remains strapped down, but then Sherry soon gets to a point when she must release her to get at the remaining bandages.
Wary to causing some unseen, internal damage, Sherry starts to reconsider, thinking that maybe Dextra’s skin just effectively scabbed over the wound. Somehow, she finds that just as unlikely as the entire wound healing up overnight, and so then starts debating on if she should wait and get some other vets to hold the hyperregenitive sled dog down. A few others, once they finished checking on the other pets, would be there shortly.
Deciding to get everything prepped before they arrived, Sherry, always keeping an inquisitive eye on Dextra to watch for any bad reactions, turned off the equipment and gingerly removed the monitors and needles from the hardy canids body. Other than wincing when she wiggled as Sherry tried to painlessly work the needle out, Dextra remained fairly calm and collected.
When there was nothing left but the straps themselves, Sherry looked at her watch, at the door, and then reached a rash decision. “Stay down, Dextra”, Sherry repeated as she rubs Dextra’s side, pressing down on any part that the femme husky tries to raise as the straps are loosened bit by bit with the other hand.
Realizing that the alphabeast was forcefully putting resistance on Dextra’s body and possibly have a valid reason for doing so, the symbiots decided to relax the femme husky’s body against Dextra’s will. Once Sherry saw that Dextra was staying down and lie still promisively, she patted her on the head, gave her a cheery, “Good girl”, and starts undoing the other bandages. The loss of muscle control worried Dextra, but she was being released and Sherry would stroke her fur, gently turn her over, and scritch her as the bandages were removed. Once all the bandages were removed, all Sherry could do was step back and whistles in amazement. It was undeniable that all of Dextra’s wounds had come close to healing completely overnight.
Dextra’s left foreleg had set wrong when the symbiots had patched her up in her masters’ yard. The vets had rebroken it, set it correctly, and wrapped a cast over it. It would normally take weeks just to heal enough to take the cast off. If she was able to walk on it as easy as before would take even that much longer. Seeing the wounds, Sherry was curious of how the fracture and wound to it now looked. Her co-workers hadn’t arrived yet, and so after a bit of pacing and flip-flopping on what she should do, she pulled out the cutter and started carefully removing the cast. The shaved area underneath was moist and sticky with protective puss, but the surgical cut had sealed up was now, the vet carefully cut open the cast and poked the area gingerly with a steril swab. Dextra reacted, not but wensing and cringing, but by panting happily and pawing at her.
The vet whistles in amazement again, shaking her head, and then goes over to report again, not knowing what to do. As she blindly flips through the detailed summary of Dextra’s condition and what was done, Dextra stretches and yawns on the table and then slowly gets up testing her weight on all four legs. The vet sees her and Dextra wags her tail happily.
Dextra looks over the edge of the table to jump off and the vet, still unsure of her total recovery, threw up her arms and shook her head, commanding, “No! No, Dextra! Let me help you.”
To the symbiots interest, the vet slips her arms right behind Dextra’s forelegs and right in front of her hind, and lowers her to the floor. The vets momentarily in easy muzzle reach, Dextra licks the vet’s nose once she’s got all four on the floor. Now on the floor, Dextra shook herself off and then started loped around the room, wagging her tail mirthfully.
“Wow! Now, that’s one for the record books… *heh* I’ve been thinking. I wonder if there’s a test for lycanthropy.” She playfully scritches Dextra behind the ears and Dextra licks and nuzzles Sherry back before rolling over onto her back in submission. She was definitely in the company of a good alphabeast. Like all the others, it’s language other than her own name was completely foreign to her, but her tone was gentle and her touch was kind. “It would explain a lot, and I bet you’d make a cute werehusky.” Vet playfully rubs Dextra’s belly and she paws up at her, and then the vet remembers something as she looks down across Dextra’s body. “Oh, yes. In all the freakiness of your super quick healing, I almost forgot. Back on the table, Dextra.”
Again Dextra looked attentively at the vet at the mention of her name, and the vet gets up and points at the table, commanding, “Up, Dextra! Up!”
Dextra looks up at the table, but then cocks her head at the vet curiously, not knowing what the blurb means. The symbiots don’t help, waiting to see if Dextra will be lifted to where the human is pointing. After a while, the vet gets impatient and a couple other vets walk in as the first is trying to lift and push Dextra’s tail-end onto the table as Dextra pants happily with her head and forepaws on the table, slapping the vet’s head with her tail.
“Hey! What on earth are you doing? Where’s… Wait. Is that… No. It can’t be…”
“Don’t just stand there with your jaws on the floor. Help be get Dextra back on the table so I can check her for neutering.”
“I could of sworn she was neutered the last time she was here.”
“Yeah, lucky her. That’s all we need is a litter of potheads like you running around.”
“That’s not what I meant, pervert. I mean the last time I checked all the files for updates.” ”And FYI, I quit months ago.”
“Whatever. I want to make sure she didn’t miraculously recover from that, too.” ”So, get over here and help me, now!”
“Wow! She’s a regular doggy Jesus Christ!”
“Right now I wish she was Lassie.”
They finally assist the first and get Dextra on the table, get her down and on her back. They drug her to keep her immobile. Still bewildered by her quick recovery, they examine her for lack of productivity. Dextra is still neutered.
“*heh* Well, at least lycanthropy doesn’t cure neutering.”
“Lycanthropy?”
“You mean like you think she’s a werewolf, lycanthropy?”
“*snicker* Wolves are an endangered species and you think werewolves, if they even exist, are trying to mate with dogs? Talk about lowered expectations.”
“Werewolves. Don’t be ridiculous, and by the way, it was daylight and a quarter moon last night.”
“Like I said. Despirit. Noble wolf, or subservient dog. Who should I-”
“Yeah! Zeek bit Dextra, not Doug. What’s the point of a dog turning into a wolf, or *snicker* does Doug’s dogs turn into beer-swilling, tabaco-spitting, drinking buddies at night?”
They all break into laughter and when they calm down again, one of them states distantly, “I’d rather be a werehawk. Now that’s a preditor with clout.”
“That’d be one big-ass hawk.”
“Big and bad-ass, you mean.”
“Harpies. Yeah, a werehawk’s a harpy. I’d want to be a kitsune. A werefox.”
There’s a silent pause as they all reflect on their totem animal and what it’d be like to be them freely.
“Um. What’s a wereferret?”, Sherry asked as she checked Dextra’s temperature and then wrote it down in her records.
“Nerotic”, one of them snickered, getting nods and reflective laughs from the others.
Once they all calmed down and while Dextra was still snoozing peacefully, they carted Dextra into a back room, washed her in a flea-dip, and did a casual grooming of her fur. After she was cleaned up and about the time she was finally coming to, a new flea collar with a golden dogtag with just her name on it was strapped loosely around her neck. Finally, when she’d fully come to, she’s lead out of that room, to a active rear section of the building, where she was ushered into a cage away from the other animals in the back.
The almost cubical area was slightly less than double her body length and had a grated floor that felt weird on her pads, and along with the two big metal dishes, also had a thick warm blanket in there that reicks of all the prior animals that have been in there, invarying states of health. As Dextra sniffed the blanket and read the cronicalogical history of her “bedroom”, a couple of the vets checked to make sure her water and food dishes were full. As much as she hoped they wouldn’t, they then left and she found herself alone with the three levels of cages occupied with restless, calling, unfamiliar animals. As much as she had been scared on that first morning after the fire, being imprisoned in the dark, rank, noisy pound seemed ten times worse.
Being a small town, the vet and the pound were in connecting buildings, which, depending on the staff, meant that the they were effectionately and professional cared for, but it was still a pound. Being in a big room full of unknown scents and creatures, a majority of them being the same species as her or not, and no alphabeasts to keep her company, Dextra was scared for her life and paced back and forth in her cell nervously. Some were there, like Dextra, to recover, and they got the best care and attention. Some had been found and were waiting for their owners to be located so they could be returned home after the proper fee. These were monitored and tended to, but not as much as the needy. Some were exotic pets, like ferrets, or brought in with the intention of being resold because the owner could or wouldn’t take care of them. These made up the majority of the pounds occupants, and, having been there the longest and their care being the lower on priority list above those that needed to be let go either by relocation to another pound or being put to sleep, they were jaded and frustrated about their possibly life-long sentencing.
Elsewhere, back in the vet, calls were being made to make Dextra’s stay in the point as short and painless as possible. Most were to locate Berta and Fester, and one was to tell Ed that Dextra was okay and that he could visit her tomorrow to see for himself. It ended up that Berta and Fester were unreachable, their physical and mental state having been too severe for the local hospital and so they were at an undisclosed location after having been airlifted to a state hospital. Which state hospital, they had told the vet over the phone, was for the families knowledge. The local hospital reps were at least willing to say that Dextra’s owners were both still in critical, but stable condition at last report. Berta and Fester’s siblings then called, but they ended up being of little to no help, stating that they busy tending to their parents’ needs, didn’t have time or room in their lives to tend to their parents’ dog’s as well, and that they’re parents were fairing well enough and had requested not to be bothered. This outcasting of Dextra might have left her homeless and made her life bad all over again if not for the care inside and out she’d received already. Between the biological clock having been turned back on her work dog vigor, her being a purebred from the start, and she having the gentle nature of a family dog, there was a good chance Dextra probably wouldn’t have had anything to worry about in finding a new home. Just to make sure, one more phone call was made.
Ed was called again, the vets told him Dextra’s plight, and after a bit of initial thought, he told them he’d think it over and call them back. He had adequate space available both inside and outside his house, had a steady income that would pay for her needs without breaking the bank, and he’d been thinking previously about buying a dog. Now one was being handed to him and he already knew she was up-to-date on her shots. The only problem was that he thought she was still weak and ill, and so would require special attention. He cooked and ate dinner, and as he was putting the pots and dishes in the dishwasher, he finally reached a decision. Upon calling the vet clinic back, he agreed to take temporary custody of Dextra until her original owners return, however long that may be, though he was admittably unsure if he could ready tend to any special needs Dextra might have as she recovered. He was actively employed and could only be on vacation for so long.
So as not to spook Ed about Dextra’s hyperregeneration, the staff eased his mind by telling him, as well as rewriting in their report, that all she’d had were surface wounds, lots of bleeding, and shock. Over the phone they tell Ed that Dextra might be traumatized by the events of the past couple days and that a new home would most likely also bring anctious and unexpected reactions from her, but nothing he shouldn’t be able to handle. Just to be sure, they were going to call him every day to see how she was fairing in the new environment and if she starts to act particularly weird, and especially if she starts to act violent, not to hesitate to call them immediately.
To this last part, Ed momentarily has second thoughts, but considering how Dextra had looked the day prior and the fact that she was being put out so soon, he thought the vets were overtasked, but they were willing to admit so. He also assumed that for the same reasons, Dextra would be spending the time just laying around recovering. All in all, he just didn’t believe the fleshwound speech, and thought it was a half-ass write-off.
To escape from or due to the fact that she was alone with the other demestic animals, Dextra started thinking of her masters again and wished in howls and whimpers that they’d come into that ominously dark and musky room, and rescue her from where she’d been imprisoned. As the hours rolled on, the others in the room with her relaxed into complacency and started receding to sleeping their time away, at least until another foreign or unexpected thing entered their miserable lives. After taking one last look and sniff in the directionh of the door she’d been led in from, Dextra clawed and rolled over the blanket, and then finally settles down on it and decides to get some rest herself.
Late that night, Sherry crept over to Dextra’s cage and peaked in on her. Before Sherry’s entrance into the pound, Dextra had been asleep, rerunning more clips of her time with her masters subconsciously, but the other beasts had either been up already or woken up at the sound of the door opening, and started making noice in instinctive warning. It was a disordered mix of territorial aggression, reconization and wanting to be cuddled and petted, and annoyance at being woken up by the others.
Maybe without the alarm, Sherry could have sneaked up on Dextra, but the husky was eritatably awake and pacing her cage warily when Sherry arrived. Still a bit sleepy, Dextra yawned after getting a good sniff of her and watched as Sherry stopped in front of her, knelt down, and put her hand palm up in her cage. The humans siloquette and the way she moved was remotely familiar, and a sniff and a lick of her palm confirmed that she was the cheerful, friendly alphabeast from earlier. This was equally confirmed by a quick scritch on the top of her muzzle before the door was unlocked and opened.
“You’re getting a new home tomorrow. Hopefully a better one with someone that loves you and will keep you fit and happy. It’s a bit all of a sudden, but you’re healing up nicely and there’s no reason for you to stay.”
Purely enjoying and feeding off the company of a familiar alphabeast in this strange environment, Dextra panted happily and rubbed up against Sherry, her comforting words nothing more than motherly cooing to the husky’s mind. It really didn’t matter what was said, as long as it was a comforting tone from an alphabeast. From what had happened in the woods and having spent the past hours in the pound, now more than ever she was certain that she liked these upright creatures better than any other animal.
(Environment perfect for breeding. Ample food and water. Health requirements met by dedicated and knowledgeable alphabeasts. Adiquate shelter. Readily available hostmates. Host still inadequate for breeding. Extensive research of area cells may provide viable. Adequate sample host recogmended but not required. Alphabeast is recognized as of like gender to host and readily available. Non-threatening linkage unlikely. Threatening linkage probable to lead to death by alphabeast dispite host’s powers.)
Sparked by a new thought and interest, Dextra walked over to and started sniffing at the caged beasts, differentiating the males from the females, and the canines from the others, which were mostly felines. She wasn’t sure why she was searching out the male canines, especial after what the last one did to her, but that feeling was back in her loins and mind, and something instinctual told her they were the solution. Male or female, canid or other; none seemed too happy about her being there, sniffing at them and wafting strong feminine musk. It was more than her heightened and slightly alien phermones, though. Everyone was excited, and too close to everyone else for everyone’s comfort, especially Dextra. She just happened to be in the middle of it all and causing more of a ruccous, be it anziety from the male dogs, or adgitation from the females.
Hoping to collect as much sentual input as possible of what they hoped was their new home, the symbiots had distributed themselves throughout Dextra’s body, and the other beasts could smell them on her and didn’t like it. Once they got a good whiff of her, including the male dogs Dextra was involuntarily trying to entice, they started aggrisively growling, hissing, and getting into a attack stance against her. If there hadn’t been any metal bars between her and them, she very well could have been mobbed and torn apart.
Sherry, of course, couldn’t sense the symbiots, but she was getting a pretty good idea that there was something more about Dextra than what could be seen. This interested her and brought up her hopes that the husky before her really was a were of some sort. She’d seen the movies. Animals could sense the change before humans could and knew they weren’t just a normal, well it’d always been portrayed as a human, but that was because humans made the movies. Why couldn’t an animal turn into a human-ish version of themselves?
Not knowing that she was the cause of the other beasts aggressiveness, Dextra was just plain scared. She jumped away from one side of the cages only to be too close for comfort on the other side. Finally she ran back to Sherry, the other canines, thinking she was a threat to the local alphabeast, barked threats and warns at her, and she ran and hid in a far corner. She wanted to be back in the warm bedroom of her masters, listening to the melody from the box on the nightstand. The alphabeast never scared her like this.
Dextra whimpered and struggled as Sherry tried to put her back in her cage and, once inside, howled mournfully as the human walked away and tried to leave her there for the night. Eventually Sherry grow piteous of her, let her out and started leading her back to the vet section.
Having nowhere else to put her, no more emergencies called in, and no surgeries scheduled until mid tomorrow, Dextra was put back in the examination room she’d been in that morning, with was fine and dandy with Dextra. She’d already become somewhat familiar with this room. After setting down a blanket in the corner, Sherry patted Dextra on the head and then locked her in for the night.
“Some big, bad werewolf you are”, Sherry chided as she took one last peek in at the fit husky and then turned and walked off.
Whimpering out of immediate loneliness, Dextra scratched at the door and jumped up at it to possibly see Sherry’s face again. The small window provided very little visibility and Dextra started barking for the Sherry to come back at the realization that her footsteps were becoming more distance. Then, her ears picked up on the music playing in a different room in the vet. It was “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails, being played by one of the night crew to stay awake. She scratched at the door a little bit longer, and then paced the room, sniffing and twitching her ears. Finally, she took the blanket in her teeth and dragged it over to the door, which was where she could hear the music the best.
After pawing and scratching at the blanket to mold it into as comfortable a nest as she could manage, she matted it down by circling a few times before laying down upon it, her ear on the door. With one last mournful whimper, the she-husky closed her cyan eyes, tucked her tail around her legs, and the symbiots took it as a sign to shut her down for the night.
“I have become cumbersome to this world.”
Day 3:
Dextra awoke early the next morning thinking that she would find herself in her master’s bedroom once more. She felt good. She hadn’t even really opened her eyes yet; only yawned and stretched on the soft bedding around her, but she felt vibrant and ready to start a new day. She felt great.
Yawning contentedly, the healthy husky stretched again, and then blinked her alert cyan eyes and looks around. Once again she was not with her masters, but yet she didn’t feel the great uneasiness that had been haunting her the previous days. She was a bit hungry, having visibly thinned a bit overnight, but that was because the symbiots had been hard at work while she slept, reseeding the previously scarred and furless areas of her body and strengthening her bones and muscles. Plus, they believe they’ve unraveled the blueprint of her reproductive system, and that boosted their moral greatly. Though she was still somewhat tattered on the outside, inside she slightly regressed in age, the symbiots goal being to get her into prime shape.
Still, her masters were again not with her and she was alone in a slightly strange room. All was familiar in sight, sound, and smell to the day before, but it wasn’t her master’s domain and there was no readily available way out of the room. As she shook herself off and paced the room discontentedly, the alien organisms continue slowly repairing her sexual organs. To them, everything was going quite well, and there would be plenty of time to find a way out well the resourced were threatened again. On a third circle of the room, she sniffed at the scented, but ignored bowls of food and water, and put her search out to her alphabeasts on hold long enough to gobble down her food and lick both bowls clean. The symbiots seriously doubted there would be a need to leave this structure of plenty.
She wasn’t in her master’s bedroom, but she was in a comfortable situation. Her masters were, she wasn’t sure, but the distant babble of alphabeasts as well as other creatures were close by. There were footsteps coming her way. Dextra, not sure who it was, and wanting to be let out of the room, stepped back to where the examination table was, and barked challengingly. The footsteps didn’t stop and pretty soon Dextra was watching nervously as the doorknob turned and the door started opening. Once open, she debated on dashing through it, possibly having to dodge around, over, or under whomever was coming at her, or retreating, hiding in a far corner, and maybe getting out without them seeing her later. She opped for the later and ran around to the far end of the table as the three humans stepped in.
“Hello, Dextra. I see you’re awake and lively. Well, it’s the big day. You get to meet your new caretaker.”
Vets corner and snap a leash onto Dextra’s collar, and then coax her out into the hallway. The alphabeasts around her are unfamiliar, but after a short while she optimistically think she’s being led to her old masters. She was momentarily disappointed again as she and her escorts stopped in the waiting room. Nearby, Ed was acquiring and filling out the paperwork to claim her as his for as long as was necessary, and then spending more time getting briefed by the staff.
The waiting room was making Dextra nervous and scared again. It was attacking her senses with their excited, nervous, and tempermental calling and warnings. Almost all the animals there, minus the alphabeasts, were there for routine check-ups and or just didn’t like being there and wanted everyone else to know they could defend their spot and the whole place if they could.
“Hi, Dextra. I’m Ed.”
Thankful for any affection and glad to be in a caring environment, Dextra licks and nuzzles new owner. It doesn’t hurt that he brought treats with him and between licking his offered palm, she eats them gradtuitously. Their sweetness brought back memories of her old masters’ siblings. Though he didn’t seem familiar, maybe he was one of their siblings. Maybe he was her guide to her masters.
Dextra, her hopes up, complied with Ed as he lead her outside and over to the back of his truck. It was a big truck, a crew cab dually with a raised bed cap sitting on 28’s. The bed was roomy, definitely the biggest an alphabeast had ever put her in, but it was high up and once coaxed in, she realized she’d never been in there before. Maybe this alphabeast wasn’t related to her masters.
Ed closed the rear hatch behind her, went into the cab, and opened up the small window between it and the bed. Dextra poked her head in and snuffled that area. No sign of her masters past or present there either. Ed rolled down the cab windows, started the truck’s powerful engine, turned to Dextra as he started to back the truck out of the vet’s parking lot.
“You’re going home. Well, my home at least, but it’ll be your home for a while, too”, Ed stated soothingly as he reached over and ruffled the fur between Dextra’s ears.
It distracted Dextra a bit when the truck started moving, and the wind started blowing through the cab into the bed where she was. The wind ruffled through her fur, cooling her body and bringing even more flashes of unfamiliar and slightly familiar smells and sounds to her senses. Everything looked the same and new at the same time. After a while, all she could do was pant and take it all in, and wait.
Ed was sure of Dextra’s wounds a couple days ago, and yet now here she was looking like nothing had ever happened. He started wondering if he’d overreacted. He’d have to make a mental note to talk with Doug.
“Yeah. You’re a lucky one, Dextra. There were a lot of people thinking you were a goner for sure”, Ed said as he reached his hand back and Dextra licked it. “Yeah. They definitely did an awesome job on you, flesh wounds or not.”
When they get to Ed’s house, Dextra is confused and lost. To try to orient herself, she lopes through the house sniffing everything as she looked for any sign of her masters. There are some old, deadening and uninteresting smells in various places, but for the most part everything seems to be Ed’s.
Two story, three bedroom house. Spacious rooms, large entertainment system, small chandelier over the dining room table, a larger one over the area between the front door and the stairs to the second floor, and center counter in the kitchen with lots of ornamental hanging cooking instruments. Decked patio behind the dining room with a sunroom full of plant-life as an addition right above it. An attached two car garage to one side and a covered, large external pool in the spacious, high wooden-fenced backyard.
As she takes in his dwelling, Ed follows her around close at hand, mostly to make sure she doesn’t wreck or relieve herself on anything. Finally, she reliezed this domain’s master had no connection to her old masters. Being that he was the local alphabeast, she turned to him for guidance.
“So, what do you think of my house, Dextra? Hopefully it’s adequate.”
Dextra, wanting him to take her out of his domain and back to the one she came from, paces nervously and whimpers. Symbiots decide to restart her heat, deeming her ready to finally attract and breed with a compatible hostmate. Eggs will be available and ready for insemination in time if she gets mated that day. Her heat only adds to her nervousness and she paws at, rubs up against, and circles Ed.
Thinking her just restless, Ed takes Dextra for a walk around the block. He keeps her on a leash since she doesn’t know the neighborhood, and tries to keep up with her when she runs, alternating between forcefully restraining her and letting her run him. After they’ve gone a couple blocks, he turns her around a corner, takes her down one more block and into the local park. That only makes her want to pull harder on her leash, but then she see the other dogs, and it and then her heat starts. Despite herself, she subconsciously starts swaggering and walking around with her tail raised.
Having been neutered since a pup and traumatized by her first encounter mating, she becomes confused by her desires and subconsciously cock teases the dogs around her, whimpering and strutting and letting herself be smelled, and then turning and barking and snapping when they try to mount her.
Ed notices what’s going on, takes her home, and calls vet. Vet states that she is neutered. Suggestion by the vet that the dogs that acted upon her might not have been spayed, or she might be traumatized by Zeek raping her. Either way, it might be best not to take her back there for a couple days.
Not having any dogfood readily available and having leftovers in the fridge, he feeds Dextra cold chicken breasts, legs, and thighs. It’s different than what she’s used to, and it’s given to her freely, so she happily wolfs it down. At first Ed thinks she’s famished and starts to open up a can of tunafish for her as well, but then remembers that dogs will try to eat anything presented to them, so he puts it away and pats her tight, glutted belly as she worked her teeth on a crunchy bone. She’s thankful for the exercise and food, but her mind wanders back to her old masters.
Realizing Dextra’s looping nervousness for locating her old masters might or possibly was already zeportizing her stay in the adequate environment this new alphabeast was providing for her, they first considered compromising her memories into a blur to register this new alphabeast as the master she’d always had, but then figured it might cause unknown problems farther down in time.
Symbiots end up just repressing her thoughts of her old masters, letting her freely take in the sights, smells, tastes, and petting, and voice of her new master. No one had yet to seem unhappy for her being here, so why shouldn’t she relax and be happy about her new domain as well.
Later, Ed lets her rest her head on his lap as he sits on the couch in the living room and watch a couple movies. As he does so, he casually scritches her head and neck and strokes her back. After that, she was let to her own bedroom, since he thought she’d be too restless, but she whimpered and howled and scratched at the door when he closed it between them. At first he was going to put her in the basement, but she cheered up when he opened the door, so after a while he got the message and let her sleep in his room. Panting happily she circled and laid down at the foot of his bed, and then jumped on the bed next to him and fell asleep beside him.
Dextra dreams of frolicking and playing with Ed in the park.
“I have become cumbersome to my girl.”
Day 4:
All scars gone and coat full and glossy. Reproductive organs back to top form.
Dextra follows Ed around the house out of interest of what he’s doing, and then symbiots go back to their main objective of breeding. Increased heat over the previous day, and egg optimistically and testingly starts journey to womb to be fertilized.
Dextra and symbiot misguidingly agree that Ed would make the perfect mate for her since they have a mutual dog-master companionship going and Dextra likes humans over her own species. Though having a host as dominating and respected as the alphabeasts would be prime for breeding throughout the planet they were on now, have an cherished and freely loved host like they were already in had many benefits as well. If they were to combine the qualities of the two, they would be superior and irresistible; the perfect creature.
Though they could pass as is from one host to another through their orifices, they could not live for very long outside a host without being in cryostasis unless they were climatized through breeding. Once inside a fertilized egg, they could adapt, develop, and mutate their own make-up to best suit their environment. On the outside, they would look like their mother host, which would have to cared for until they were brought to term, but on the inside they would evolve into a multi-layered strain of themselves that wouldn’t be easily affected by the local climate, desease, or creatures. As most of it was collected in the womb to become a new being, residual cells of itself would be left throughout the host and could be used to evolve the host as well. Morphing and upgrading her as need be to experiment on what form would work best for itself.
Ed irked when Dextra starts sniffing and licking the crotch of his pants. Trying to cool off her own heat, she licks her privates and then later starts humping his leg and dragging her butt across the floor. Ed locks Dextra in a closet and calls the vet. Angry conversation leads to free exam, and if needed, surgery. Dextra much more enthusiastic about way things are going than symbiot. With a bit of difficulty, Ed gets Dextra in the back of his truck and to the vet.
Dextra paces around the truck bed uneasily as “Stupid Girl” by Garbage plays on the truck’s low-end speaker system.
“Damn. Well, there’s no mistaking it, she’s definitely in a state of heat. Several days deep into it, I’d say, too. Don’t know how we could have missed this yesterday, and believe me, it will be investigated.”
Dextra, not knowing what’s going on, is sedated, but symbiot alert. When the vet’s go for her genitals, Dextra is driven awake and ran out of the vet. Argument between Dextra and the symbiot about Ed’s good nature and intentions, what goes on in a vet, and mating with animals of her own species.
Dextra comes across a young golden retriever in a fenced in yard that hasn’t been spayed and ends up courting with and letting him mount her. Doesn’t enjoy it, but it drives the heat away and so lets her think about things other than getting mounted.
Retriever’s owners discover them, and though they could put up with the restlessness, and had planned later to use him to sire offspring, they were to be pure and in a controlled environment. The owners are much more angered by Dextra’s presence than the fact that they had been caught in the act. Retriever annoyed by his fun being interrupted, but Dextra scared by their angry expressions and tones and wants him off her. The owners intensions are to capture and neuter her, and then see who she belongs to and have then pay the bill.
The knot is again in the way, but symbiots now know what to do about that, and to the males extreme discomfort, she manages to shake him up before the symbiot dilates her, then she kicks him after getting the knot out of her so that she’s free to run away and clamber and jump back over the fence. The fact that she was able to get over the fence takes second stage to the fact that their dog was caught humping another, and as Dextra runs back towards Ed’s house, the retriever is being taken to the vet to be spayed.
In her aimless and shortsighted mission to just run away, Dextra becomes lost and hungry. Agitated and growingly lonely, Dextra wanders streets all night, rummaging through garbage cans for anything edible and when another dog, an inquisitive mutt trustingly put out for that night, approaches her, she ends up going for her guts out of anger and uneasiness. Inside her, the retrievers sperm starts fertilizing the symbiot-coated eggs within her womb, each one becoming a successful insemination, most multiple times to better the odds of the minutely varied genes. The sperm that makes it to the eggs but doesn’t get into the eggs are absorbed into the pitch-black coating and used as nourishment.
(We are.)
“I'd like to believe we could reconcile the past.”
Day 5:
Dextra wakes up the next morning with the bitter taste of blood in her maw, and a not so full belly. For the first time in days, she feels content, maybe even blissful. Symbiots subconsciously inform her that she’s pregnant and this, for different reasons, makes her uneasy. She’s a bit more intelligent and her mind dictates that Ed would have made a better mate than the retriever. The retriever was another one of those brutes who raped her, even if she’d given in to get rid of a mental itch.
Dextra sees Ed as her alpha male, canine or not, and the other males she’s been around were lesser. She’d cheated herself by doing it with another dog.
Symbiot make it their next mission to get Dextra on Ed’s good side and possibly get her as his lifelong mate if she keeps herself fit to whelping them. As Dextra tracks down Ed’s house, symbiot split, multiply, and start growing into mites. They are now successfully maturing into imitations and informs her that they will be her litter and, to lessen the time and make the gestation as comfortable and efficient as possible that they will need plenty of food, warmth, and rest. With the state of her environment, she couldn’t safely do it herself, especially when she’s gotten further along, so they agreed that it was imperative that she get back with her master as well.
Dextra tracks for familiar smells, sounds, and landmarks. When she gets back to the park she was walked at, she’s overjoyed, but famished. The fact that she smells of death, doesn’t win her any chances with another dog, plus her litter correctly figures that their nearby owners wouldn’t take kindly to her doing cannibalism under their watchful eye. Thirsty too, so her litter talks her into jumping into the pond, drinking to excess. Her stomach hurts with the distension of water, but her hunger is gone and she smells friendlier.
Her basic needs and desires mostly solved, she happily tramped through the park and even sat with interest and listened as an orchestra recital played, amongst other songs, “Somewhere Out There”.
Happy that all her troubles being solved by the end of the day, she got up, pissed on a nearby tree, and trots blissfully to Ed’s house, taking more piss stops along the way. Barks at Ed’s door and he’s surprised, then angry, and finally happy to have her back. They tussle and play until she starts pissing all over the place in her excitement. This angers Ed, and he puts her in the basement without food. Dextra whimpers and paws at the door, but is ignored. The litter quickly takes in the no eliminating in the alpha’s territory rule and wonders where the alpha goes to do it. Picks a far, out of the way corner to defecate and wishes she could dig up the concrete floor to bury it.
“Resurrect those bridges with an ancient glance.”
Day 6:
Slight distention in belly and renewed hunger. Growth of womb unnoticeable under fur by Ed, but the suddle movement inside Dextra’s body puts her even more at ease, and she licks and paws at her belly fur. He lets her out of the basement, she’s overjoyed to be forgiven, and he feeds her. She gobbles the bowlful and laps up the water greedily and whimpers for some more, nudging the bowl towards him. At first he doesn’t want to, knowing that making her overweight would lead to health problems and possibly pain, but her soft sapphire eyes get to him and he sees she looks so happy when he refills her bowl, panting happily at him while he’s refilling instead of just diving for the bowl. He does it two more times before flatly refusing and setting the bag away. Locks her in the basement as he goes to work, setting a pot of water down there with her.
She’s hungry when he returns, but is thankful when he takes her for a walk shortly afterwards. Starts pissing a lot and scats a little bit shortly after leaving the yard and runs around Ed giddily, coaxing him to play with her, and bowing and wagging her tail ecstatically. They wrestle and play tug-of-war. When Ed sits down and leans against a tree, Dextra jumps on top of him, her hindlegs straddling his and her forepaws on his shoulders, and pants happily.
She recognizes her name, but not movement commands, looking at him curiously. They play Frisbee until she gets hungry, and she loses interest.
Back home, she expects to be fed again, the contents of her belly going first to sustain the litter, and then herself. She isn’t despite whimpering and begging, and is scolded when she tried to get to his plate and especially the stove. Is put back in the basement for trying to get into one of the pots on the stove, but she notices the fear in his voice and the way he checks her over.
Litter doesn’t get why he has no problem being around the hot objects, but it seemed like a life or death ordeal when she tried to get at them.
Ed later lets her out and gives her a single bowl of food. Litter notices the heat is gone from the food areas as well as the objects they were in, which are now empty, upside down in a different area, and wet.
Exploration of the house reveals the toilet of water. Laps at it until led out.
Watches television with Ed and then sleeps on the covers of his bed.
“But my old stone face can't seem to break her down.”
Day 7:
Licks Ed’s face, waking him up in the morning. Famished, her belly growling, and yet it has a noticeable, but still slight bulge in it. Not yet realizing she’s pregnant, he tickles her sides and belly, and she rolls over giddily onto her back. Now with her effectively off him, he gets out of bed and hoping to be getting something to eat, she follows him to the bathroom, but barred from entering with him. Whimpers and scratches at door until he comes out, relieved, showered, and shaved. Mistakes her for being fat, but still feeds her a couple bowls of chow and a bowl of leftovers, and then mirthfully, one more.
Puts her in the basement with a pot of water. Later, when she gets hungry, she paws at, and then bites on the doorknob, but can’t work it right. Voracious when she’s finally let out and tears into the kitchen looking for food. Ends up working the cupboard door open and tearing the large bag of dog food apart. So intent on feeding herself, she growls and snaps at Ed when he tries to move her away from the spilled pile of food.
When she’s done and glutted herself, having finished off most of the bag’s contents and made herself thirsty, Ed scolds her and she walks herself away halfheartedly to the bathroom, where she’s looked in. As
Late that night:
Hello, mother.
(Who?), Dextra barked into the darkness, waking up suddenly. There were no unfamiliar scents or objects around her, but her eyes were still adjusting quickly to the darkness and she snuffled the air wildly, turning around to keep from being caught from behind.
You, mother. You.
(Who are you? Where are you? Why are you calling me that? Where are you? Why do you sound so close and I can’t see or smell you? What are you?), Dextra barked and whimpered distressfully, calling the attention of other dogs and waking Ed.
The voice was right next to her. Seemingly right on top of her, directionless and yet strangely clear. It scared her to no end. She started running for Ed’s bedroom upstairs.
So many questions. That’s good, mother. That’s very good. You’re ready for the next phase. You’re mind is improving, but let’s not call attention to ourselves prematurely. A different tactic is in order.
Dextra suddenly felt very tired as she slowed to a walk up the stairs. Ed was at the top of them looking at her inquisitively. She wondered if he had been the one talking to her, somehow completely understandable to her canine brain and language.
(Attention prema-what? What’s a tact-), Dextra warbled as she slumped down on the steps and drifted off into a deep sleep half way up.
“*Hmm* Maybe I should take you back to the vet for a check-up”, Ed commented with concern as he picked her up and carried her the rest of the way to his bedroom. He put her on one half of the bed, patted her side, and slipped back into the other half.
Day 7 Dream:
Blackness. A point of light that grows until Dextra finds herself free floating in a dark red void, the muffled sound of her own heartbeat surrounding her.
“Where am I?”
This is further confused by her thoughts coming in acoustic from the dream world around her instead of her own now voiceless maw
Where we are, mother?
Tiny darting, flickering points of light twinkle around her, moving like will-o-wisps.
“Who are, ‘we’? Where am I? Why can’t I see or smell you, strange creature? I am not a mother?”
But you will be, mother. We are growing.
Countless fertile eggs swirl all around her, then they twitch and expand into a pinkish shrimp-like shape before collecting into a single blob that beats in time with her heartbeat before morphing into a puppy version of herself.
“You are… you smell like me, but…”
“So we should, mother. We are here”, the young Dextra responded in a child’s voice from its little yawning maw as it dogpaddled around her and patted Dextra’s underbelly. “You are here with us so you can understand and prepare.”
“Prepare? What? No! How?”
“The male, our father. The recreation of us.” Replay of Dextra and the retriever mating in the yard.
“Recreation?”
“Yes, mother. A new body. A new form. A new chance. A new beginning of a new era”, little Dextra chants as she hold both forepaws on her mother’s wriggling body. As she talks, Dextra can feel as well as see movement within her and is scared even more by the sight and feel of her belly expanding.
“I don’t want to me a mother!” the room thunders as Dextra yowls and bicycles even more determinedly in free space to try to get out of the demon pups fertile touch. She tries kicking her off, but her footpaws go right through the pup, dissipating her form momentarily. “No! Stop it!”
“It has been started, mother. We will be”, the young husky coos matter-of-factly as Dextra’s belly reaches a cumbersomely overripe size and the pressure reached a breaking point.
Why me?!
“She remembers bridges, burns them to the ground.”
Day 8:
Dextra awoke in great alarm, her last dream thought being that wriggling, overburdened belly spilling its watery contents in a torrential flood from between her loins. Scared, she jumped to her feet, stumbles around disorientated, and ends fall off the bed, knocking the alarm clock radio off the bed. When she’d gotten her wits back, she started looking around for her whelped pups as the switched on radio continued on through playing Lit’s “My Own Worst Enemy” slightly off=station.
That dream had been far more real than any Dextra could remember ever having. When she realizes that she was alone, where she was, and that the wetness on her and the area she’d been was piss vise birth water, she whimpers at what Ed would do to her in punishment.
As she was starting to lick the evidence off herself, she realized with new fear of the broadness to her underbelly and unfamiliarity to her own juices. Her belly had grown larger and tighter, bulging now to what would be a somewhat noticeable size to Ed, but what was a frightening growth from the day prior to Dextra. Her scent was warmer, more, motherly. Dextra pawed at it in distress.
(Hello?), Dextra whimpered softly, not accustomed to talking in her head.
Yes, we’re here, mother.
(I’m scared. I don’t want be a mother. Go away)
We cannot go away, mother. We want to be born. We want to let us be born. It will be slower than in your dream, mother. We promise. You will have time to adjust. We must prepare.
(What will master do when he finds out?)
He will have to accept it. We want to be born. We need sustenance to prepare.
(Sustenance?), Dextra grunted as her stomach growls softly. The piss on the bed turns odorless.
You should get some food, mother. Hunger is bad for you.
(Yes. Master will feed me) Dextra yapped as she walked hopefully out of the room, and heads for the kitchen.
Dextra starts showing signs of noticeable intelligence to Ed. Goes to kitchen, and sees her bowl empty, grabs it in her teeth, and takes it to the Ed’s bedroom. He’s looking at the piss puddle on the bed. She holds bowl to him.
“No more water for you after dark”
In punishment only one dish of food served, much to Dextra’s dismay. Whimpers and claws at door when put into the basement. First suspicions of Dextra’s state, by Ed.
In fit of desperation, gets basement door open and gluts on contents of fridge. Found whimpering, covered in food with a belly full to bursting, trying to nudge pots and bowls back into fridge. Having glutted herself painfully, she whimpers and feels like she’s going to puke. Looks guilty and then motions towards her empty bowl before rolling over and backing away. Waddles herself gingerly back to the basement.
Angry, but confused, he looks at her at the basement steps, closes the door, and then starts cleaning up the kitchen. The walk forgotten, she relieves herself in the far corner and waits to be let out. Takes Dextra to the vet and while she’s there, Ed buys a lock for the basement and, on the whim, his bedroom, installs them, and picks up Dextra.
Vet, seeing that Ed hasn’t figured out that Dextra’s pregnant yet, decided to hold off telling him and instead calls it nervous jitters from the past days events and that it was perfectly okay to feed her as needed. That’s it’d help her cope better and calm her down. Also he should play with her more to run the restlessness out of her.
Litter, hoping Ed will do as instructed, decides that if Dextra stands any chance of making though the gestation and whelping alive and happy, she’s going to have to communicate with and, all and all, be more on her master’s level.
Maybe, probably above her “master’s” level.
Dextra learns to speak English from the television, and read it from the computer. Ed is a furry enthusiast, but not readily known even by himself as a preg enthusiast. Seeing the cartoon animals and pics of furries through Dextra’s mind’s eye, the litter starts molding her into one of their intelligent hybrid creatures that appeals him so.
“I have become cumbersome to this world.”
Day 9:
The alarm clock goes off that morning playing “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt.
Visible teats on underbelly and distension of belly only somewhat lessened, but more firm than glutted condition the day before. Wiggles in under Ed's covers and he awakens later body to body with Dextra, further disturbed by her arfing and yipping softly into his ear.
Unsuccessfully tries to warn master against locking her in the basement having only eaten two bowlfuls and having only one pot of water.
Ed bathes Dextra, shampooing her fur and combing through it casually.
At first, she sits in the flea dip water, panting happily and smiling at Ed, and then she sighs and lays down in it. When she takes a breath, rolls over onto her back and stretches, he notices the nipples for the first time. Realizing what that meant as she scooted herself backwards so her head was resting comfortably above water on the back of the tub, Ed saw her bloated belly in a whole new light.
To double check, Ed pulls her by the armpits and motions for her to get out of the water, and then steps back and lets her shake herself off before making her lay down and roll onto her back again on the bathmat. Dextra smiled warmly at Ed as he gently rubbed a hand over her belly, parting her fur so he could look at her fattened teats.
“Good Lord! You are pregnant, aren’t you, Dextra?” Ed asked her rhetorically and only half noticed that she nodded and barked once happily in response.
His mind momentarily elsewhere, he pokes and measures her belly and is taken back by the visible and tight distention of it. He wasn’t an expert on canine gestation periods, but she definitely appeared much more than a couple days and maybe even weeks along and surely hadn’t been this way when he first found her.
“My, my. You’ve definitely gotten large all of a sudden, and that’s not natural”, Ed stated suspiciously and it brought some déjà vu haunting thought in the back of his mind. Dextra cocks her head to the side curiously, looked at him questioningly and then her belly. Again, Ed thought about back to a few days ago, trying to pull up any indication that she was pregnant at all, and to the best of her memory, she wasn’t. He stopped rubbing her belly and she wriggled on her back to try to continue it, drawing his attention to the present her before him again. “This just can’t all be your litter, can it?” prompting another nod from her, but now she was looking at her belly and whimpering, “I mean, it’s just too…”
Suddenly he realized she was actively responding to his questions. In startle, he got up and backed away from her. Whimpering uneasily, Dextra turned over, sat up, and pawed at him.
“Dextra?… What the… You understand what I’m saying?” Ed asked slowly, and Dextra nodded slowly, smiled momentarily, saw that he wasn’t happy about that, and bowed her head sadly. “Can you, talk?”
“Not yet, mother. But you will be able to, soon”, her litter replied from within, the angelic choir of voices in her head.
“I will soon, master. My litter made it so I could understand you, and they’ll make so I can speak, too”, Dextra tried to tell him absent-mindedly, but it just came out as guttural sounds, and barks and growls.
“He doesn’t understand anything you just said, mother. Just shake your head slowly”, the litter instructed, which she did.
Dextra’s actions and attempt surprised Ed as much as if she’d just spoken and he had to collect his wits as best he could before trying to speak. “Um… How are… How long have you been… This is all so weird”, Ed babbled more and more indirectly, and then turned and walked off with his head in his hands.
Concerned, Dextra got and padded close behind him down the hallway.
Closes the bedroom door, barring her out of the bedroom, she whimpers and paws at the room. Ed wakes up with her sleeping next to his body.
“I have become cumbersome to this girl.”
Day 10:
“Eh. Good morning, Dextra”, Ed said after getting over the fright of waking up and finding she’d worked the doorknob to get back in the bed with him.
There was a long pause as Dextra silently worked her maw, and then she barked slowly and coherently, “Morrrn. Innngh.”
After a long, bug-eyed stare at the smiling husky, who had her head cocked to the side in wait of what her master would say in response, he finally, “Eh. *Heh* and now you talk.”
“I. Tark.”
Dextra can repeat single words told to her with difficulty and heavy accent
Paws at Ed’s shoulders, trying to look at him eye to eye
To her esteemed enthusiasm, Ed does take interest in her growing belly and though he won’t sleep with her in his bed, and won’t touch her above or below, he’ll stroke and scritch her belly.
“Too heavy too light, too black or too white, too wrong or too right, today or tonight; cumbersome.”
Day 11:
Dextra can say short clips and phases with difficulty and can word simple sentences slowly and stumbles with long words
Rears back and tried to walk on hind legs, stretches and puts paws on the walls
Slightly longer toes on forepaws, raised bump around dewclaw
Knitting her brow and putting a paw on top of her muzzle, Dextra asked naively, “What do you mean, “put to sleep”, master? The litter is getting plenty of rest in my body.”
“The toilet isn’t meant to be drank out of. That was fine when you were just a dog, but I can teach you how to use the fosiet, and there’s plenty of juices and drinks in the fridge. If you want, I’ll put a couple non-perishable juices in the lower cabinets for you. The toilet is where you relieve yourself in. You sit on it, do your business, and push the handle like so. The water and your waste swirls down and is taken away.”
“Wow!”
Ed locks her out of his bedroom after he wakes up and finds her cuddled up with him intimately under the covers, her hand paw inside his underwear on his dick, and the other around his neck, pillowing his head. She whimpers and pleads at the door, until she finally cries herself to sleep at the doorway.
“Too rich too poor, she's wanting me less and I'm wanting her more.”
Day 12:
Belly ripe enough to drop a healthy human child or a sizable litter
Dextra can say short simple sentences, has difficulty with long words
Can walk on her hind legs for minutes at a time, cracks her back occasionally and rubs back against the wall. Hips slightly wider
Foreleg stance slightly wider, pelt pulling back on forepaws individualizing toes into short, stubby fingers, bulb-ish thumbs
Lactating nipply teats on underbelly
Early next morning, he finds her ragged and weary, visibly shivering in the hallway. With her fur and species, he knows she can’t be as cold as she seems, but knowing what the litter is putting her through to draw some affection from him, he feels sorry for her, and then more so as well as angry at the litter when its confirmed by the fact that her largely ripe belly is warmer than the rest of her body.
Covers her in a comforter and helps her to the kitchen to fix her a large breakfast of omelets, sausage, hash browns, creamed beef, and cream of wheat.
“You have… hands?”
“I thought… Is that bad, master? You don’t like them?”
“How did you… Dextra. What are you?”
“Your girl, master. I want to be your good girl.”
“But you’re a… Well, you look like a dog, but…”
“But what, master?” Dextra looks at Ed, ears down and wide-eyed, pleadingly.
“When I say girl, I’m just referring to the fact that you’re female. I don’t mean to… Well, for you to try to turn into…”
“But you have hands, master. I want to be like you and make you happier.” Dextra stares pleadingly at Ed, stroking her paw pads over the fabric of his shirt. She lifts his shirt to scritch and nuzzle him and he pushes her away to arm’s length.
“Yes, you have nice hands, Dextra, for a talking dog, but you also have features I don’t have. Features that humans like me don’t have, but which I like you for. Your muzzle, fur, and big pointy ears, for example. Are you going to shave yourself next to be more human?”
“Shave, my fur?”
“Yes, as in getting rid of that lush, shiny coat of your just so you can have smooth, sunburnable skin like mine.” Ed explains as he runs his fingers through the fur on Dextra’s face and then rubs his own face.
Dextra looked at her own body and then the exposed parts of her master’s body.
“If that is what you wish, master. If it’ll make you happy, I will lose my fur and my muzzle.”
“No, no. I will never wish that upon you. I’m sorry. It was only an example. I wear clothes, because I have to. Because I lack the natural protection that you have, but I’m fine with that. I’m a human, and you’re a… dog-girl. Making you shed all of your fur or, I guess shrink off your muzzle, would be like me cutting off my hands, or you your tail.”
“My tail, master.”
“It’s a beautiful and expressive tail.”
“Really? So you like it? Is that what you mean, master? You like my tail and my fur”, Dextra cooed as she turned around, bent over, and wagged her estatic tail high in the air, also exposing herself teasingly to him.
“Yes, Dextra. That’s what I mean”, Ed replied as he turned to walk off.
Ed tells Dextra that she can answer the phone while he’s at work if she really feels compelled to do so, but to just take a message and to never give her name over the phone. Dextra doesn’t know how to write, but she had a wonderful memory, and was trying to learn how to write from copying the words in books and by watching the Learning Channel.
Ring
“Hello? Ed Schmitt’s house. He’s not here. Can I take a mes-sage?”, Dextra recited as she cradled the receiver in her mitten hands.
“Oh… Who are you?”
“I watch the house”, Dextra answered after a long pause.
“*hmmm* Okay, and your name is?”
“I watch the house. He’s not here. Can I take a message?”
“Um. Okay… He must be richer than I thought to have a… are you just a housesitter, or are like his maid, too?”
“Made what? I don’t get it? House sit-ter? I’ll have to look that up… Can I take a message?”
“And he trusts you to watch his house?”
“Yes.”
“By yourself?”
“Yes.”
“There’s no one else in the house with you?”
“No. He lives alone, and-“
“I mean right now. There’s no else, people, dogs, anything in there with you right now?”
“No one comes in but him. Oh! There’s plants! Lots of plants in the sunroom. I watch them, and water them. They look and smell nice. Did he have you call me to-”
“What about Dextra? Is Dextra there?”
“Yes. Yes. Um… You sound familiar. Your voice. Were you… How do you know… her.”
“So, Dextra is there. Right now.”
“Yes. She’s here. Who are you?”
“I’m a vet. That’s why I’m calling. Ed hasn’t returned my calls about Dextra’s health and well-being, and considering the unusual circumstances of how he found her and the state she and the other dog were in… Well, it’s very important I talk to him, and why he left you with her I don’t know, but I only pray you’re… We’re worried-“
“*bark* Sherry! You’re tag said, Sherry! Yes, yes! Sherry, the vet, from… Oh! Thank you! Thank you! I’m honored that you called! You’re worried? Why? What’s wrong? What happened? Is it… *whimper whimper* Is there, s-s-some-thing wrong with… Please, please tell me if there’s something wrong, Sherry?”
There’s a long, silent pause from the other end and then Sherry finally asks, nervousness in her voice, “What’d you say your name was again?”
“I can’t tell you my name, Sherry. What’s-“
“Why not?” Sherry asked, frustration and anger hinting in her tone.
“Mast… Eh. He said so. I can’t give my name over the phone. He said so.”
“Ed said so.”
“Yes, Sherry. What’s wrong, Sherry. Please, please tell me. I’ll tell him, Sherry. I will.”
There was another long, silent pause, and then finally Sherry replied with a relieved laugh, “Nevermind. Nothing’s wrong. Really. You go back to guarding the house, nameless one, okay?”
“Okay. I will. You sure nothing’s wrong, Sherry.”
“Positive.”
“Okay. Can I take a message?”
“Just let him know I called.”
“I will, Sherry.”
“*heh* Bye.” Click.
“Wow! Sherry called and was worried about me.”
That night, he wraps a blanket around her on the couch, watches a couple movies with her before going back to his bedroom, and locks the door. She whimpers softly as she obediently stays on the couch and listens to him lock the door and get into bed, reluctantly rejects the comment by her litter that she should go up there and find a way to get back into bed with him.
“What’s the use of having their hands and intelligence if you don’t use them. You’re not a helpless, dependant canine companion anymore, mother, if you wanted to stay that way or not. You know what you want, and know that being barred down here isn’t it. We’re not going to make you cross the line you two have set up, but we can feel from your sadness that you’re no longer content with it. You’re human-ish now, mother. You’re allowed to make your own choices.”
“I know, my litter. I know. It’s just that…”
“You’re afraid that he’ll hate you, mother? What make you think that that’s not what the fence is already about? He’s afraid to love you for what you’re becoming, and is trying to maintain oppression on you, and you’re afraid he’ll actually crack and get rid of you, but he won’t, mother. He could have assumed that you had mated with him last night and gotten rid of you then, but he didn’t, did he, mother?”
“No. Because he loves me. Master, loves me.”
“And even if you might get punished, which we truly doubt he will do beyond words, and words only hurt you as much as you let them, creatures with that kind of love don’t just throw it completely away over a test of that love.”
“Breaking into his room and getting into his bed again would be forgiven because he loves me? He seemed so angry that I was petting him.”
“We won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do, mother.”
“Does master hate me?”
“No, mother. He doesn’t hate you. He’s afraid of mutual companionship. He’s afraid of your changes.”
“Master does hate me.”
“Please, mother. Don’t think of it that way. How can he hate things you’re doing out of love. He hates us.”
“But you’re inside me, so he hates me!”
“Sleep, mother. Dream happy, doggy dreams.”
The television changed over to a music station, “Fallin’” by Alicia Keys starts playing as Dextra goes into a content REM sleep. Dextra dreams of Ed and her in the park tussling, playing Frisbee, and running around. As she sleeps, litter contemplates amongst themselves on turning Ed into a furry involuntarily by either them or their mother.
“The bitter taste is cumbersome.”
Day 13:
Dextra can casually communicate in intelligent conversation
Can bend spine into hunchback and walk on hind legs with support from time to time. Flat bottom, wider hips
Small gorilla-like hand paws that bend both ways, has difficulty gripping heavy objects and holding things in one hand for an extended period of time. Shoulder blades winged outwards into more human-ish profile
Puffiness around chest area around nipples