The boy looked around for anything that could be used as a weapon, but he had to be quick. His eyes scanned the area far and wide, back and forth until he found a stick buried a small distance away. With adrenaline pumping throughout his body, he ran for the makeshift weapon and grabbed it, only to lose his footing on the sand. He fell on his face, but that didn’t deter him. The boy got up as fast as possible, and with a stick in hand, he ran full sprint towards the two crows. The boy knew he had to be as quiet as possible. It was impossible to fully mask the sound of him running on the sand, but the crows never did look up at him. They had already considered the boy a waste of their time, but unfortunately for them, that line of thought proved to be their downfall.  

With as much strength as he could muster, the boy slammed his stick into the body of the closest crow. It landed with a meaty thunk as the blackbird was blown back by the impact. It tried to get up, but that hit caved in the crow’s chest. Small pieces of the crow’s rib were piercing through its chest. Bright red blood stained the pearly white skeleton that was surrounded by pitch-black feathers. A moment later, and the crow was dead. Not wanting to miss a moment, the boy transitioned into another hit and managed to land one on the second crow.

Stunned by what happened to its friend, the second crow was too slow to react. When it tried to move out of the way, the crow was in the perfect spot to be smacked. The crow died instantly, but the boy didn’t know it. All he saw was a monster in the shape of a black bird that wanted to bring death and pain to another animal. Hit after hit, smack after smack, the boy kept pummeling the crow, and after each slam, he felt a little bit less angry. A bit less upset. After what felt like hours, but in reality, a few minutes, the boy’s arm was as heavy as lead. Unable to carry the stick, which had long turned into a smelly red object covered with blood, it fell to the ground and stained the sand.

He looked over at the dog, and he suddenly remembered what he wanted to do. He went to the creature, held his head to its chest, and listened. The dog’s heart was beating, but it was getting weaker and weaker. The boy ripped off a small part of his shirt and covered the dog’s wounds as he scooped it up in his arms. With great haste, the boy ran back through the small tunnel, up the well-traveled path traveled path that led to his village, through the village center, and finally to his house. With panic in his heart, the boy rapidly entered his house and laid the wounded dog on the floor.

At this time, his father should be at a meeting in the center of his village, so he did not have to worry about making him angry. At least not yet. The boy ran to the linen closet and grabbed a few towels before rushing back to the dog. He stopped dead in his tracks when he saw that there were two people in the house. The boy desperately wanted to yell at them. He wanted to know why are they here and not at the meeting. Everyone above the age of ten had a requirement to be at the meeting, so the boy was exempt for another three years.  

The boy pleaded and begged for help. He desperately wanted to save this animal. Luckily for him, his mother was caring, and she couldn’t stand to watch people or animals suffer. Using a thread and needle, the mother sewed up the dog's wounds as he laid panting and barely breathing. Every so often, the pain would be too much to handle, and the dog would lash out, biting and hollering, but the boy held a tight grip on the dog’s neck.  

Soon the deed was finished. The mother’s beautiful tan hands were covered in the filthy blood of a stray. The precious white towels were stained red, and valuable string that should’ve been used to save another life was wasted on a filthy mutt. 

They didn’t have any antibiotics or medicine to spare, so it was up to the dog’s own strength to survive. The mother told the boy and sister to clean the bandages.

After cleaning and walking back to the house, the boy broke down in tears for the first time in front of someone. The sister did the same, and the two cried themselves together for a few minutes. After having a good cry, the two hugged each other and walked back to their domicile, but they didn’t talk. If they did, they knew more tears would soon follow. At the house, they saw their father standing outside.  He had a whipping belt in his hand. The boy knew what was coming. He had brought an unknown animal into his house. 

The boy told his sister to go inside and handed her his half of the towels. She silently nodded and left the boy alone with their father. The setting sun emitted a beautiful red glow in the sky as the day transitioned into night. The cold desert sand whipped against their clothes as the boy knew what he had to do. He and his father walked over to a nearby tree, and the boy put his hand on it and stuck out his back. The father gripped the belt tight and raised it up high before coming down with immense force.

The sound the belt made hitting flesh was earsplittingly loud and sudden, like the eruption of thunder on a calm night. The boy took his beatings in stride, and he felt that it was worth it. To be fair, he was following the words of his mother. The boy was to be the next leader of his community.  And as chief, he would be responsible for the lives of everyone in the village.  To him, that included Humans and animals.

After many anger-infused thrashes, the deed was finally done as the father went inside the house. The boy stayed leaned up against the tree for a long time, letting the cool wind clash against the welted red skin.  

The next day, the boy woke up to the dog sitting next to his bed. The mutt's wound was still nasty and red, but it seemed that there was no cause to worry about disease. If the crows had one, then the dog wouldn't be up and about. He lifted the dog and sat him on his bed.  The dog sniffed around a bit before looking back at the boy. His fur was as black as the, camouflaging the blood and hiding any scars.

The boy’s mother came in and told the boy to take it easy for the day. He was to spend time with the dog and train him. The boy nodded his head, and that was how an unbreakable bond of trust developed between animal and man. Both man and beast were abused and damaged by the environment they lived in and the people around them, but they had each other, and that was all they needed.  

One year later, the boy gave a name to the dog on the anniversary of their meeting. After deliberating on it with himself, he decided on the name Yaddie. Two years later, Yaddie, now weighing roughly about 27 kilograms, went on a hunt with the boy for the first time. They managed to bring back a few deer and some rabbits. Three years later, Yaddie was well over one hundred and twenty pounds. The massive dog became a guardian as he protected the sheep and cattle when they went out to pasture on the little grass available in the desert. Not a single animal died to wolves that year. Yaddie came back covered in blood and guts, but it wasn’t his.  

Four years later, the village the boy lived in was attacked by a neighboring tribe. Many men, women, and children died in the invasion, but Yaddie was there to protect his new family. Yaddie, along with the boy’s father and other warriors, managed to mount a counter-attack to drive the warriors away. Yaddie was the sole reason the boy, the sister, and the mother survived that day. For the next two years after that, life was relatively calm and serene for the beast. He received plenty of petting when he woke up, and he went to work the boy from morning to dusk, who was now the age of thirteen. During these two years, Yaddie was always at his side and never left. Even still, Yaddie was the only friend the boy had, not counting his sister.  

For four years after that, for a total of eleven years after rescuing Yaddie and on his eighteenth birthday, the boy’s father decided it couldn't be put off any longer. He rounded up a decent-sized group of people, supplies, and animals and said it was time to scavenge. He announced that the village scouts discovered a prime building ripe for the taking. Their destination was the rundown building that would soon be their grave.

The boy shook his head and came back to the painful reality he found himself in. Only a second had passed between the time he came across the corpse of Yaddie. But for the boy trapped in his memories, it felt like he experienced all eleven years for the second time. The beatings his father gave him were still fresh in his mind, and he could feel the pain even now, flaring up around his waist and hip.

He wanted to stop and die. In his mind, he was content perishing alongside his best friend, but he quickly shook off that idea. The boy said a silent prayer and crawled over his canine companion. Tears fell to the ground as he did. He was now one meter away from the movement he saw.  

He crawled and crawled, but the boy was losing strength in his body. His hands were now a deathly pale white due to the amount of blood he lost, but he couldn’t stop. Just one meter away, he kept telling himself. He got closer, but he lost the ability to crawl. He couldn’t feel pain, and his entire body felt numb. His mouth was dry, his head hurt, and his vision faded from his eyes. It was safe to say that the boy was about to die. Yes, that was how it was supposed to go. Moments before he was to close his eyes for the last time, he heard a small voice. It was a scared whisper, calling out for someone, anyone who had survived.

“..Brother…” it was his sister, speaking out while in the shadow of her impending death. The boy conjured and gathered every bit of willpower he had left and dragged himself across the bloody sand.  

At first, he was only half a meter away. Then he shorted that to a quarter meter and halved that. He crawled and crawled, gaining a few centimeters each time, but that was enough. For the final time, he threw his hand out in front of him, gripped down with as much force as he could using fingers and a hand that was about to fail him, and pulled for the final time. There, he was finally next to his sister.  

He looked at her. Her face was beautiful, and she looked just like she did in the morning. His sister was always the favorite. Though their father beat both of them, she always suffered the least. But the boy didn’t harbor any ill will towards her. The boy opened his mouth to speak, but only garbled noises and sounds came out. His vocal cords had finally given out, preventing him from talking, and his eyes fogged up from the pain.  

After he blinked, he discovered something horrible. His sister, who was one of the most beautiful girls in the village, looked different. Much different. Her flawless skin and silky-smooth face were no more. Instead, a bit of her head melted from the heat of the explosion. Bone and muscle made up a grossly half, and black burnt skin made up the other portion.

Startled, the boy angled his head and saw a large pool of blood forming in the sand. It was her hand, or rather the lack of a hand. The boy knew that he had to wrap and apply pressure to the wound, but he did not have the strength. That panic only forced his heart to beat faster, and thus more blood poured from his missing foot. 

With a simple sigh, the boy accepted his fate. He had enough, and he was tired. Tired of this terrible and worthless life he had led. Tired of being beaten for no reason. Tired of being born and alive. He was done with all of it, and right now, as of this very moment, he was happy with dying. Dying meant an end to all of the pain and suffering the boy had endured in his short life.  

He closed his eyes for what could be the final time, and darkness embraced his vision. Soon, that darkness turned to white, and he saw two forms materialize. One was big and black, a furry beast that walked on four legs. The second was the gentle smile of his dear sister. Her fair skin and bright red eyes left an impression on the boy as he tried to stand up, but deep down inside, something wasn't right.

In a momentary lapse of judgement, the boy did his best to rise to his feet.  He looked down and noticed his missing foot was there, but something was amiss. He looked at his hand and discovered his skin was the same fair tone as his sister. That didn’t make a bit of sense, considering that their mother and father had dark skin. Had he ignored it all this time? A dark thought approached his mind. What if he was never their son at all? Was this girl, who smiled gently, not his dear sister who had suffered alongside him? Was that the reason why his father beat them so hard? The boy tried his best to remember the color of his and his sister's skin, but he just couldn’t. 

He had too many questions and no way of answering them.  

He started panicking and tried to breathe, but no air reached his lungs. In an instant, the white room was replaced by the night sky, and the floor transformed into bloodstained sand. He was back in the desert. The boy felt tears welling up in his eyes and pitifully brought his hand up and smashed the sand. Why wasn’t he dead?! Hasn’t he suffered enough?!  

A short distance away, the boy heard an unknown metallic sound. He felt the ground rumble, so he turned his head towards the noise. A big silver box had risen out of the sand. With no windows or seems, it seemed to be a chunk of metal. The boy wasn’t scared, though. He had already come to terms with death. A clink echoed out as the front of the metal box slid open to reveal two humanoid figures covered with a bright yellow mysterious suit. Black dongles were attached to where the head should be. They walked closer and closer to the boy as he closed his eyes. One bent down and tapped a black stick to the boy’s head.  

The world went black, and his consciousness left him, alone and afraid, surrounded by unknown people.