Thundermercy

Chapter seventeen: The Abandoned Pound

I jogged up to the building and looked around.  It was starting to get dark and it also started drizzling, so I ran to the thing that looked like a the front door.  I took my hood off and looked around.  It was just as dark in here as it was outside if not darker. 

I walked farther in to the building and it got so dark that I couldn't see at all.  I think that Cassandra put a  did something to the place.  She made it dark, she knew I was coming.  She would be ready, at all costs.

I kept walking.  If it was a trap, let it be.  I was going to save Austine, no matter the cost.  I blindly walked in to the wall, something fell.  I jumped back, landing on something.  It was radiating heat, and it had a definate shape.  I whipped around slapping the thing with my hair.  It grabbed my hair and screamed.  The thing was stuck to my hair.  My hair spikes were now in the thing.  I looked up, two, glassy, black , glowing eyes peered down at me.  I felt as if it was staring in to my soul.  I looked away and spun.  There was another scream, the thing still had part of it stuck in my hair.

It grabbed me and hissed.  "Let go of me."  It was a she, and it seemed as if 'she' had her hand stuck in my hair.  I grabbed her arm and threw her over my shoulder.  She yelped and flew up as soon as she hit the floor.  Her hand was torn up, and bleeding every where.  I could feel my hair harding with her blood.  Some of the spair blood was dripping in seperate little beads down my back.

I ran across the room, I didn't want to fight.  I wanted to live, and save Austine.  So I ran, it seemed like a good idea at the time.  But I wasn't thinking, she knew this pound, she would find me.  Sooner or later I would have to fight her.  And I wouldn't be avoiding it because I would have to fight her.  And there would be no other way.

As I ran through the door conecting the enterence from the rest of the room.  As I sprinted to the next door I couldn't open it.  So I shoulder butted it, it flew open and I ran inside.  I didn't look back, I was scared that she would be behind me.  I would rather not see it if it was coming becasue I might panic and freeze. 

I kept running and running turning corners until I found the back.  The back was littered with beakers and flasks.  There were what looked like heroine needles spread out in neat little rows on the counter.  And there was another door, one in which I ran through.

This pound was more a mamoth insane insilum than a pound.  This is where all of the dogs in the city went, when someone didn't want it or it was a potential threat to sociaty, it went here.  They shut it down when they found out they had been doing experiments and things to the dogs that had been brought there. The reason they found out was some freak accident happened and we were created.  Though I am not the first generation.  I don't know who is.  But it is said the first generations are the most strong.  And only a few of their offspring will inherit the gifts.

I had a flash back.  "Honey they are shutting down the pound, you don't need to worry.  There will be no more experments.  The nice people will find us a nice home. And we will be loved.  We will get more food and we will be the only other dogs there. For once, for once some one will love us and care for us.  We won't just be play toys."  There was a dreamy look in her eyes.  Her beautiful eyes softened, and she chuckled.  She looked at me, then Olive.  "I promise."

I don't remember my child hood but I remember enough, I was born in this pound.  I was never experimented on, my mother would not let me be.  Or whoever the female that was always with me and my sister was. And they never found us a nice home.  They dumped us on the streets.  I was just us and 20 other dogs that were dumped like that.  I never understood why.

I kept running.  I found the room they did experiments in.  Strapped to the table in a strain jacket was Austine.  I dashed up to it, it wasn't her.  It was a trap.  Where ever Cassandra came from she was there.  She jumped out of Austine, tearing the dummies torso in half.  I heard a blood curling scream.  I whipped around, my hair almost smacking me in the face.

Flory, she had come to save me.  Olive was there.......  "Olive stop, you don't have to do this.  You have a family, and they love you, they-"  I looked at her, choking on my tears. 

"No I don't, no one loves me, I'm fat, I can't stop she will kill me." She pointed her finger at Cassandra.

"Yes love, you are fat, and you do have to keep going."  Cassandra laughed.  Her stupid laugh, she was hurting all the people I love.  Her stupid laugh, it didn't even sound like a laugh, she- she was like a highena.

"No you don't, just stop, being dead would be better than this misery."  I looked at Cassandra and smiled.  Olive's angry face softened.  She stopped. I looked over at Cassandra.  She was ferious, she clinched her hands.  She was trying to suffocate her, she was so stupid.  She didn't know that we broke the spell.  Well mainly Flory, but we did.  I laughed, and jumped at Olive.  I knew what she was going to do before she knew.  She was going to try to get Olive. 

I put my hands up and braced my self, a moment later a blast came.  Torrents of dust and smoke were pouring over my force field.  It momentary stopped to rain shrapnel.  Then it kept going.

"Why are you saving me?"  She asked me.

"I can't tell you, but you most defiantly have a family, and they love you.  No matter what you do."  I looked in to her eyes.  She had a whole lifetime of torture behind her.  Her eyes looked like they had seen such bad things, her hands had probably committed so many murders.  Because she was at the will at Cassandra.  The power hungry monster.

She was going to get us.  When the mass amounts of dust and smoke cleared I walked out of the mess, Flory and Olive following.  Olive looked puzzled like she was still trying to register what I had just said.

"How-" Cassandra looked at us with her glassy, black, beady eyes.

"Magic."  I replied.  I saw something shiny, I jumped out of the way, pulling Olive and Flory with me.  But not fast enough, they blade stuck in Flory's stomach.  She was bleeding, I ran over to take it out.  As I was about to grab it Cassandra tackled me.  She was about to take out another blade when my shirt went up.  She looked at my stomach and dropped the blade on my leg.  I winced, my leg was bleeding.  Rather pouring out blood, blood that I needed.

 I finally looked at what she was staring at.  My moon shaped birthmark.  No- had she seen Olive's too.  Cassandra grabbed her blade, and tore it out of my flesh, and quickly got off me.  She ran, revealing her hand, it was... torn up.  She had been the one to attack me.  And she hadn't fixed her hand, odd.  She must not have much magic left. 

I bolted over to Flory.  Olive was leaned over her pleading.  Pleading with god,  I looked at the blade.  It was triangular and it had ridges, if we took it out we would be making more damage than the blade. 

"She saved you, and me.  So many times she has saved me that I don't remember.  You would have died if it were not for her.  She broke the spell.  She-came to-save me.  I'm sorry-Flory- I'm a selfish pig-" I was fighting back the tears, that were now streaming down my face.  I had kept them in for so many years, and at the place I could not cry, I was.  I leaned over Flory's cold, limp, white body and covered my eyes.  "Thank you, for every thing.  I promise I'll come back for you.  And give you the proper ceremony.  I promise." 

I got up and started walking.  I collapsed, my leg was getting worse.  I forgot that it was still bleeding.  I landed on the bloody floor making a splash, hitting my face on the cold, hard ground.  If I was going to die, I would die here, where so many had fallen.  For so many different things.  For no real reasons, so many had died.  Olive put her hand on my shoulder and rolled me off my face.

"Don't die here, you have a mission to finish."  She looked at me through her eyes, she looked sad. 

"Yes, I do."  I said hoarsely, I reached for my toes, Olive hoisting me up.  I leaned on her shoulder as I got up.  I limped to the the wall.  I had some magic, I should be able to heal myself.  Like I did at the other pounds, when I was sick or was attacked by another dog.  I used it so many times why couldn't I remember.

I put my hands out, opening them.  And tryed to remember the spell.  Austine's life depended on it, and I couldn't let her down.  I just couldn't, I could come back for Flory later, if she died she would just come back again any way, right?