One by one, these beautiful animals enter your bleak and boring life-
slowly adding up to a group.
But they're not ordinary animals... are they?
-•
Chapter lengths: 1500-1900 words
If you're coming back to this story after a long time and are confus...
The shelter is huge and has an eerily somber ambiance. Walking in, Kit is greeted with a long gray hallway with solid doors along the walls and a large set of glass doors at the far end. Walking further into the building, she notices large images of sad animals hung on the walls and a plaque next to each door. Some plaques have animal indicators, such as "Bunnies" and "Cats", and some simply say "Staff Only."
As she walks down the hall, the barking gets progressively louder, this leads her to assume that the dogs are kept in the back. Reaching the glass door, she pushes it open and hesitantly walks through, having yet to see a worker to talk to.
The area through the doors is a small courtyard with cement paving and a small grassy area in the middle with 3 medium sized scattered trees. Glancing around, Kit notices the walls are lined with identical, small cubicles holding 1-3 dogs each. Taking a left, she slowly begins to walk around and observe their living spaces. Each cubicle is made of cement, the back wall having a small opening, big enough for the dogs to go through for interior housing. The front barrier, closest to visitors, is a simple chain-link fence. Some spaces had blankets and others had stuffed toys, but all had just one visible water and food dish.
Kit wanders around, ears going numb with the persistent barking, when she gets to a cage confining three small dogs. Two are excitedly yipping and jumping at her while the third is laying in a corner with its head on its paws, eyeing her. The three dogs all have similar physical characteristics: small bodies with long caramel brown fur and upright triangle shaped ears.
Kit turns her head towards the depressed looking dog in the corner, it notices this and lifts its head as its tail slowly begins to thump the ground behind it. There is nothing extraordinarily special about the dog, but it has captured her attention and heart.
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(the toy and environment in the image don't correlate to the story, this is only to visualize the dog)
Having made up her mind, she turns heel and walks back into the building, reluctantly leaving the dog to try and find someone to talk to. She purposefully walks down the hall and notices a large glass window embedded in the wall across that of the main entrance. The bottom of the window starts just above Kit's waist with a counter sticking out and a small opening just above it.
"How did I miss that?" She whispers to herself. Approaching the counter, she notices a bell with a note "ring for assistance" and so she does. Moments pass and an employee appears behind the window, wearing a face mask and black ball cap.
"How may I help you?" A deep, soothing voice comes from the employee, startling Kit a little, but she quickly gets a hold of herself.
"I am interested in a dog here and would like to interact with it."
"Sure, do you know which canine?" Kit pauses, a confused look plastered across her face as she tries to recall if there were name plates for the dogs.
"It was a smallish, uhh, long-haired dog with light brown hair and large black eyes. He's about this big and may possibly be depressed?" She tries in a sincere attempt to describe the dog with gestures from memory, failing miserably.
