The Moon Shines On Starlight

Chapter One/Mutt

"Life doesn't give us purpose, we give life purpose."

-The Flash

It was very dimmed. I couldn't really see. Oh, but I could smell. The sweet scents all around me. I smelled her. I immediately knew who she was. My mother. My creator. I went over to her screaming my way between my two siblings. Although I was just a puppy I could recognize my surroundings.

When I was finished drinking the milk from my mother I moved away. I felt a hard surface underneath me. It was rocky and rough. I could feel the edges of the surface, pointy and rugged. There were plenty of other scents too. One that smelled delicious. I also couldn't hear but I could feel movement. I was removed from the hard,rocky and rugged surface and under a much softer surface. There were these weird bumps over the softer surface. It was smooth, almost calming to me.

Whatever it was, it moved me around. A lot. I was squirming so much. I couldn't stay still. I was then put back down. A couple of weeks passed even though I couldn't really feel it. We didn't feel time the way others did. Nothing moved fast or slow. It was just us and mother. Each day felt as if I was still a newborn. No time passed in my mind. I could eventually see and hear... I couldn't see the color. Everything was black and gray. That was my world. The way I thought. Black and gray.

My mother was very furry but so was I. I got it from my mother's side. My siblings however, weren't as furry and had a much smoother touch to them, like my father. I was different from my brothers and sisters. I was smaller, weaker. I didn't let it stop me though. I always did my best to make sure I was good enough. I smelled her very often, my mother. I liked her sweet scent. It was like strawberries.

I never knew my father, we were only ever around mother. She would often tell us stories about how he left to join his human. Mother gave birth to us in an alley. I learned that word, which means we were born in a street, a quiet street. Nobody would find us, we were safe. We eventually started to find food around this dumpster. It would become our source for food. We would hunt and find trash. Another word I learned. We were learning as we got older. I had two sisters and two brothers. As I was one of the girls. We spoke to each other often, my siblings and me.

"Let's go, children." Mother said to us in a soft voice.

"Yes, Mother." We all said unison.

My siblings and I followed our mother back to our alley. Our home. Our safety, where nothing or no one could ever find us. It was all we knew, how we lived, what we learned. This is how we survived. Together. If we were apart, we would surely die of it.

We knew how to communicate. When we fought over food, mother would yell at us. I didn't like being in trouble. I was usually very quiet. It was one of the perks of being the weaker one. They didn't question me on it. One day I learned that the soft surface I encountered was a human hand. I had felt that same surface when a human came up to us.

We were in our alley. Our safety, doing what we usually did. My brothers were play fighting as Mother searched for food. We were enjoying each other. Then, we heard an echo of footsteps heading towards us. We didn't exactly know it was a human at first, until we took a closer look. He approached us, stared, tilting his head sideways. I copied him, curious, he reached down and touched mother.

"You're a good girl aren't you? Are these your pups?" He asked, in a dark, low voice.

You could only hear mother's growl at him. He held up his hand, and slowly backed away. He made his way back to his truck. When he did reach his van, he opened the back door, and pulled out a long pole. He came back towards us. At first he grabbed mother. The pole tightened around her neck. We could hear her gurgling. The human dragged her back to his van. We scrambled to find hiding places. The human came back for us. One. At. A. Time. Until eventually we were all caught, and put behind hard wires.