Vigilante PAW

Chapter Thirteen: Friends

Marshall found himself wandering around the lowest floor of the lookout. The place was quiet, the sky outside eternally set at the end of the day. The sun was frozen in place, stopped just when the sky turned orange. For some reason, he didn't question why he was in the lookout, or why he was all alone in it. He only explored each inch and crevice he remembered, walking slowly through the place he used to call home.

Marshall opened his mouth in an attempt to call out for someone. Ryder, the pups, anyone, but no noise left his mouth. In fact, he didn't even have a mouth to speak with. The Dalmatian put a paw up to his face where his mouth should've been, but when he felt around it, he could only feel his fur brush against his paw.

The Dalmatian shrugged before he continued walking. He walked into the elevator, waiting for the doors to close. As usual, they did a few seconds afterwards, but something was different.

The elevator was moving slowly. Slower than he had remembered. The ride up to the lookout would usually take around fifteen seconds, and that included when it stopped to give the pups their outfits. Yet, twenty seconds in, he was only just reaching the PAW Patrol logo at the middle of the elevator.

As he slowly passed by the logo, he noticed something odd. He looked at his shoulder, noticing that a bit of red was in the corner of his eye. Upon further examination, the fire pup realized he was wearing his firefighter rescue gear. Confused, he looked down to look at what was around his neck.

His pup tag was on, blinking with its usual red light.

The Dally's eyes widened. Was there a mission he needed to attend to? If so, where were the others? Why weren't they with him? Was he late? Oh no he was late for the mission! The mouthless Dalmatian ran in place, waiting for the slow elevator to finally reach the top.

Once it did, though, Marshall ran out of the elevator to join a line that nobody was in. The Dally sat on his haunches for a few seconds, waiting, but soon realized he was all alone. He couldn't call out for anybody, since he had a severe lack of a mouth, after all.

Marshall, wondering where his friends were, walked over towards Ryder's room. The Dalmatian knocked on his owner's door before struggling to turn the doorknob. It was surprisingly easy for a creature with no opposable thumbs for once.

He peeked into Ryder's room, but behind the door was a large mirror, just as big as the door was. There was no room to walk into, just a mirror. As he looked at the mirror, the reflection made him flinch.

On the other side of the mirror was... Well, it was him. But, this him was eerily familiar. While he was in good health, wearing his rescue gear, and unaffected, the other side of the mirror had various injuries. The one he noticed first was the reflection's swollen right eye.

Additionally, mirror Marshall had bandages wrapped around his head, holes in the side to allow his ears to still funcion. He could just barely see the faintest red tint on the back of the bandage around his head. His eyes moving down, they looked at his front legs, where bandages were wrapped around each of them. Same for his tail.

Upon looking back up after taking his eyes off of mirror Marshall's for just an instant, he saw that his right eye wasn't swollen anymore, instead, black fur was around it. He looked just like the other Dalmatian, Hood. The one who had put him in this state in the first place.

He couldn't strip his eyes away from the sight of the mirror. He wanted to scream, he wanted to run, he wanted to hide under his covers and never come out, but he couldn't move, he couldn't scream. He was powerless under the gaze of that... That thing in the mirror.

That wasn't a reflection of him anymore. It was a reflection of where his life had gone all wrong.

Tears filled his eyes, blurring his vision for just a second. As tears ran down the Dalmatian's face, the wet streaks left suddenly transformed into black fur. Anywhere his tears touched that weren't covered with black fur turned black, the many streams of tears creating black streaks of fur from his right eye. The streaks of black fur ran from his eye, to his cheek, then down to his neck. Those tears damped his chest, stopping as the tears seeped into his now black fur.