Dog Boy

43

Time was becoming more and more foggy in my head. There was no natural light. I had no clock, watch, or tablet to keep time. Food and water came at random times, and always when we were asleep. Neither Melina or Micah showed themselves again, let alone Seth. All this compounding, I was unable to reason if we'd been here a few days, or as long as a week.

I began to question if they were drugging us, giving us some kind of sedative. I definitely felt aching all throughout my body. Perhaps it was the collars they had put on us. We'd discovered this latest humiliation after waking up at one point. Ashley tried to take it off, and I was forced to watch in horror as Ashley let out a short, yet painful scream from an electric shock. Yet another sign that Seth was in control.

I sat up from the dog bed, where I'd been sleeping. Ashley was sitting nearby, looking at a book. Her expression was emotionless, as though she were more staring at the text, examining the letters, than actually reading it.

My bodily needs came my attention. I was hungry and thirsty, and by this point, my aching hunger stopped any revulsion I had to eating the dog food. I stood up, and then promptly fell down, barely bracing myself as I hit the ground, but still smacking my snout against the carpet.

I struggled not to curse, struggled not to break my resolve with Ashley near. Somehow, I hadn't been able to balance right. I pulled my tail out from under me as I sat down, and then examined my feet.

These were not the same feet I had been walking on when they had kidnapped us.

"No... no," I said, my body feeling for a moment as though it was numb.

I looked to Ashley, who only gave a slight affirming look, then I looked back to my feet.

They  had changed. They were bending, so only the padded part of the foot would touch the ground. The rest of the foot angled upward. I carefully stood up, wobbling. It put me in a permanent tip-toe position. They looked like the hind legs of a dog.

I swallowed harshly. "I... I was afraid... but I never thought they'd actually try something this... this awful."

Obviously, I'd experienced changes like this before - but that had been two months ago now. I'd struggled to believe that could be possible - but now for some reason I was having trouble believing it could go further.

Yet it was. I couldn't deny these changes were happening. I couldn't fight off the increasing fear that the changes would be taken to their ultimate result.

I clenched my fists. "They are drugging us. They're giving us some kind of messed up drug that... that is doing this. It's gotta be in the water, or in the dog food."

Ashley let out a sob. "And what do you plan on doing Matt? They've gotten us. We can't just stop eating or drinking. What if they're releasing it into the air? We're trapped, and we could be here for months before anyone tries to get us..."

I heard her mutter a few words under her breath. Unfortunately, my sharpened canine hearing caught it all.

"If anyone ever finds us."

"They... they will find us," I said, attempting to muster up confidence.

Ashley wiped her tears on her sleeve. "Will they find us Matt? Or will they find two dogs?"

I sat down next to her, and glanced down at her feet. They were also now in this new digitigrade form. Seth had reignited the virus inside of us, and found some way to make it change us even more. What if Ashley was right? What if we were completely changed before any help could arrive?

Or what if they found us a bit before then? We might look entirely like dogs, but able to speak and think normally. What if Dad couldn't find a way to reverse it? What if we were stuck in that awful in-between place... forever?

Ashley sobbed quietly.

"Ashley," I said.

She looked up at me through pools of tears.

"Do you remember in 6th grade, when we ran that 5k?"

She nodded, wheezing.

"You were going to give up."

"Yeah," she said, "and after I had bragged to all my friends that I was way more athletic than them. And... and they all raced right past me."

"But you finished the race anyway," I said.

"I walked for at least a mile of it," she lamented.

"But you ran fast at the end. You pushed yourself."

She forced a little smile. "And those guys... they kept a bad pace, using up all their energy at the start... they beat me, but they just about destroyed their muscles for days afterward."

I hugged her close.

"Seth and those working with him... I know they're going to end up like that in the end. Even if we lose the race... we can at least go out strong."

"Yeah," Ashley nodded, shuddering from her crying. That brief little spark however, seemed to be buried in an instant, as she moved to her dog bed again, falling against it with a weary look on her face.

I'm not sure if I really could take to heart what I told her. I felt very hopeless. There was no sign that the status quo was changing in our favor. But I had to help get her through this - and get myself through it as well.



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