Trauma

New home?

Trauma POV (limited third person narrator)

Everything had changed within seconds. The calm journey to death had turned into something entirely else and he didn't yet understand what it was. The end of everything in his life had suddenly disappeared behind an invisible horizon, his life lay ahead of him. The life he had thought lost, had wished lost. He knew it the second his paws touched the wooden floor of the hallway of someone's house.

There had been a lot of poking around and strange behaviour before that but it was humans he was dealing with and humans were overall strange. They even had forced food down his throat. After days and days of letting him get away with not even looking at food. And now he was out of the kennel he had thought he'd never leave. He had hoped he'd never leave it. He really had. But now... He didn't see any sense in life yet but some of his spirits had returned. They were raging inside of him, fighting a war he couldn't influence. He felt stronger now, more powerfull, less broken. And he had been them who made him like this. The humans. Two men to be more precise who had kidnapped him from his peaceful kennel and dropped him into a world he didn't understand.

They had made the decision to keep him alive and he wasn't sure yet if he hated them for that. It was something in their eyes. Because for the first time since losing his handler he had looked into someone's eyes. The eyes of this men were wide open and boiling with life, hope, energy and pity. They weren't colourless and empty like his handler's eyes had been after he had been hit by a bullet and crumpled down next to him. They were very much alive and they were very willing to love him. He knew it. He could feel it and he could see it. But he didn't know if he wanted it. This was a decision which had to be made later. Now there were other things to do. Because he was somewhere else, in the house of this men.

There he stood, moveless, not sure of what to do or what to think. His paws resting on wood that felt somehow cold but oddly smooth. A lot better than the kennel ground. Unknown scents were all around him. Scents of nature and the outside world, of grass and countless creatures. There were less natural scents too. Plastic, colour, metal and a sweet scent he couldn't name, the two men who smelled oddly similar and carried the scent of this flat in their clothes, engraved deeply. They couldn't deny where they belonged. This was their home. Their home of warm scents and warm air and wood that smelled and felt good and light and friendliness.

They looked down on him, obviously unable to make a decision themselves. Not knowing what to do, where to step. They appeared helpless, like puppies which had been dropped off somewhere they'd never been to. Their mother gone. His handler had never been like this. He had been the one to make the decision. He had been the one who told Trauma what to do. Back when he had still been Tornado and not Trauma. Back then when there hadn't been smoot wood under his paws or warm artificial light. When there had been the noise of battle, the smell of fear, fire and sweat, the pulsing energy of a fight. None of this could be sensed here.

There neither was the strict grip of an indipendent human being that knew what it was up to and always let him know.

It had barely ever happened that he had to make decisions himself. There had been orders and he had done what he'd been told because that was what kept him alive and he knew it. Easy life. Now there was nothing like that. No orders, no strong human who gave them. It was him who had to make the decisions. Even though his ears twitched to catch every little noise, in case something bad would happen. Even thought he felt tense and uneasy and like barking at everything.

But there were barely any noises. The two men breathing, not very heavily. His own breathing, rather heavily. Some cars in the distance. It was rather peaceful here. And that made Trauma nervous. Because where there is calm there's a storm approaching. Peace is an illusion. He had experienced it. It was always ready to explode into a horrible attack.