The sky had a clear, desolate light blue tinge; its cloudless belly engulfing the horizon and everything before it. The ground could only live under the sky’s oppressive shadow in its brown, urban decay. It was an ironic sight. The world’s cheeriest phenomenon casting the brightest shadow on the lifeless stretch of civilization.

An abandoned factory sat under the sun amongst the ruins. The very few doors and windows were boarded up, with some torn apart by the slow hands of nature. The concrete walls were chipped away piece by piece as moss and vegetation reached into its very foundation. The wire fence that surrounded the factory now seemed to be suffering under the factory, having a hard time keeping what was left of itself in rather than keeping unwanted guests out.

A wolf cub was standing in front of the fence overlooking the greater part of the crumbling factory. The grey, rotting walls stood in stark contrast with the cubs red, feline eyes as he shifted his steel gaze forward. He held a stance, standing with his knees locked and buckled straight., his limbs as stiff as logs. He drew in long, deep breaths, feeling the sharp claws of the cold autumn air graze his lungs under his chest.

In front of him stood a pack of lynxes. They covered the cub in a semi-circle, closing in on him with their numbers. There were about half a dozen of them. They seemed to be from the same litter and were all similarly dressed, with bomber jackets and jeans of varying shades. They all stood around the same height, with only minor physical features to differentiate between each other. The one thing that showed no deviation between the six were their expressions. Sharp, twinging ears, twitching noses and heavy, contracted gazes.

Faces of trouble.

The lynx standing directly in front of the cub spoke, “Knew you’d sneak out on us.”

The cub didn’t answer. He had his arms out, stretched to his hips, holding an open palm with clawed fingers as he stood his ground.

“With your tail behind your back,” one of them called out, followed by the others.

“Can’t even beat a rabbit in a running contest.”

“Big coward for a big cub.”

“You suck.”

“Shut up, Durak.”

“Hey,” the lynx in front of Shiro spoke again, “Throw me the tools, Nadmen.”

One of the lynxes shoved a paw into his back pocket and pulled out something. It was a ball of raggedy cloth with rough edges sticking out from within. He threw it to the lynx in the middle. It was caught mid-air. Slowly, the lynx peeled open the cloth, grabbing its contents and tossing the cloth aside.

What he retrieved was a pair of brass knuckles. The black coating wrapped the knuckles in an air of intimidation. The surface was dull and lifeless, matte sheen not allowing any light to bounce off of them. They were tied together by a piece of string with a hasty knot tied on the top, easily undone with a simple pinch and pull. The lynx did exactly that, tossing away the string as he did.

“I found these in dad’s drawer,” the lynx spoke with a smug on his face, “I’ve always wanted to use them on someone. I can’t use it on my brothers, of course.”

“You’re dead this time,” one of the others chimed in.

“Don’t you get up after this.”

“You’ve got a girly name.”

“Shut up, Durak.”

“Get him, Vysok.”

“Hey, Vysok,” asked one of the lynxes, “Do we hold him or what?”

“No,” Vysok replied as he slid his fingers into the knuckles. They were a size too big for his palm, but it didn’t matter to anyone, “This idiot never runs when you’re looking.”

The lynx rushed in with two light steps and hurled a flying punch from the top. It crashed into the cub’s chest, bouncing off with a heavy, hollow thud. As soon as it bounced off he immediately threw the second punch, this time from underneath, striking him in the gut square with the iron knuckles. The lynx just kept pounding, wailing on the cub, punch after relentless punch. There was no technique behind them. They were mindless swings carried only by the weight of his arm and stubborn, brute force. It wasn’t much, but the knuckles compensated for everything else, acting as how a solid lump of iron would be when it was repeatedly struck against things at a high velocity.

The cub didn’t even flinch.

He kept his eyes wide and stuck on the lynx. He took in every punch and hit the lynx threw at him. Even when the lynx snuck in a few kicks to his shins his eyelids barely twitched. He stayed tall and erect, unfaltering from anything and everything. The most the cub did was lower his head when the lynx came for a sucker punch directly to his snout. He slightly adjusted his head down and the knuckles landed on his forehead, between his ears. The cub didn’t even do it on purpose. He was looking down on the lynx who barely stood as tall as his shoulders.

As Vysok kept throwing his fists the cub asked, “What did I do to you-”

The lynx threw an uppercut that struck his chin. It barely closed the cub’s mouth, only rocking his neck back by a fraction of an inch.

“Shut up,” he panted, “Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.”

His fists started to slow down. Barely half a minute passed since his first strike. He threw a feeble attack, aiming at the cub’s hips. It only managed to ruffle the cub’s white shirt. He went in for another kick to his shins. All it did was crumple his jeans slightly more than before.

One of the others surrounding the cub spoke up, “Vysok, why don’t you let-”

“NO,” Vysok boomed as he threw more punches, each as fruitless as the last, “Shut up. All of you.”

He looked towards the cub, wheezing fatigue ridden breaths as he glared at him. “You think you’re so strong? Looking down on me and my brothers with those red fucking eyes.”

“I never-”

Vysok lashed out with a howl, lunging into the cub’s throat with open hands. He stabbed both his thumbs into his neck. His feeble fingers did nothing. He barely even pressed through the cub's skin. All he did was make him stop talking. Despite that, the lynx’s hands were shaking, jolting and twitching from the strong emotions that flowed throughout his body.

The cub wasn’t affected at all. He was breathing just fine. Vysok’s weight made no difference to his stance. He stood as straight and stable as before.

The lynx didn’t care about the pointlessness in his actions. He didn’t care as long as he was beating the cub silly. He pushed himself back and threw himself in again with a tackle. He grabbed onto the cub’s hips, scarcely rocking him backwards as he hurled himself towards him. He grabbed onto the cub with one arm, wailing more and more punches with the brass knuckle on his fist as he pushed with his legs. It looked as if he's fighting against a pillar. It was like he wasn't even there, looking at the cub's emotionless visage.

The lynx kept punching relentlessly, giving up neither speed nor energy. His fur became ruffled as weariness began to set in.. His legs were losing their strength. His punches were reduced to flailing limbs. His breaths were dripping with saliva. The only thing keeping him going was sheer will and hatred alone.

Vysok punched for what can be described as a neverending eternity eating into his soul. Just before the last of his spirit was gone, he heard something from the corner of his drooping ears.

“Ow.”

The lynx turned ecstatic the moment he heard that peep into his ears.

“He squealed,” he screamed from the cub’s hips, “He squealed!”

He looked up towards the cub. It became apparent it wasn’t the cub that made the noise. His mouth was shut, as it always was. His focus wasn’t even on him. He was looking ahead, his once steely gaze replaced with an unfamiliar surprise. Curiosity overwhelmed the sense of disrespect within the lynx and he turned his head around, still holding onto the cub’s hips.

The ow belonged to one of the others. The lynx standing further on the left was clutching the back of his neck, lowered to his knees, wincing from a sudden pain he had felt. He felt around his neck and stopped somewhere. He pinched on something and slowly pulled his hand out into view. In his palm were three small pellets the size of vegetable seeds, perfectly round and white. It was coated with little dashes of fresh blood. He turned to his back to find the source and saw someone else standing behind them.

A tigress cub was watching from behind. Whence she came, no one knew. It wasn’t until the lynx turned back that everyone noticed her presence. Her pupils bore a strong gaze, their reddish-brown hue accented by the red beanie she was wearing. She had a huge backpack slung onto one side of her shoulder while dragging a good part of her black winter coat to one side, revealing an equally dark shirt underneath. Her jeans looked a few stitches too loose as it sagged below her ankles, covering the top half of her sneakers.

Resting on the side of her jeans was a submachine gun.

The tigress raised the gun and pulled the trigger, unleashing an indiscriminate hellfire on the group. Pellets flew at breakneck speed, prompting hoots and hollers of pain from the lynxes.

“She’s got a gun! Ow, ow!”

“Ow! This broad’s crazy!”

“Hey, my legs- ow!”

“Go for Pyotr! Ow! Go for Pyotr!”

“Shut up- ow, Durak!”

The lynxes instantly broke apart and fled in one direction, letting out foul speech and cries of pain as they sprinted away, save for Vysok, who stood there, shielding himself with his arms. The pellets tore pieces off the sleeves of his bomber jacket, along with a little of his jeans too. He kept them up for a while, having them stay for at least a few more seconds before eventually peeping over them, only to find that his cavalry had abandoned him. He glanced to the side, watching his brothers take off without him. He was left behind, face to face with the gun-wielding tigress before him and the cub he’d spent the better part of the past few minutes beating up looming over behind him.

He slowly let his arms down, making no sudden movements until he suddenly sprang away with feline vigour and broke into a dash, catching up to the others, shouting to the two as he went, “This isn’t over!”

The cub watched the lynxes sprint alongside the wire fence before eventually taking a turn, escaping into the far side as they ducked behind the decaying walls of the factory. When the tail of the final deserter disappeared he turned his gaze back to the tigress, who stood half a head shorter than him. Her eyes brushed across him from head to toe to head with a judgemental tinger in her gaze.

The cub spoke, this time without the disruption of an enraged lynx. Under the quiet sky, his voice sounded exceptionally deep. It was gravelly, especially for a cub his age.

“Thanks.”

The tigress held her submachine gun out towards the cub. It was a mean, gleaming piece of machinery. Its angular, boxy shape was carried by a massive, rectangular base in the middle, supported with a vertical rubber forward grip just behind the short, stub barrel. The grip was engraved for more friction, with the magazine poking out from underneath. It was held with a sharp trigger guard, housing the only curved part of the gun apart from the muzzle - the trigger itself.

She pushed it onto the cub, “Hold this.”

He held it with both arms, supporting both the stock and the body like he was cradling a child.

"Where'd you get this?"

"It's my brother's. And he says what's his is also mine, so it's my gun," the tigress spoke. Despite her looks, she was rather soft-spoken. Her voice was silvery and enunciated with the right amount of volume to be audible to the cub and not to anyone who could be reasonably hiding beyond her intended range.

"I mean why'd you bring-"

Just as the cub was about to finish his sentence the tigress reached behind herself and dug underneath her winter jacket. She pulled out a flap-over briefcase, wet and tainted with blades of grass stuck onto its black surface. The presence of the briefcase shut the cub's mouth. He looked at the briefcase for a moment before his face lit up, quickly handing the gun over in a wordless exchange. As soon as he was relieved of the gun he slid the briefcase under his shoulder, checking the fit with a few quick squeezes from his elbow.

“Thanks,” he said again with his gruff voice.

“Why did you do it?” the tigress asked.

“I smelled them. I threw it so they won’t destroy it when-”

“Why’d you let them hit you?”

The cub’s words were immediately bitten off. He fell silent, looking down at his knees with timidity. The tigress followed his eyes.

“Where’re your shoes?”

“They broke.”

“Again?”

The cub nodded bashfully.

“Whatever,” the tigress dismissed it, “How tall are you?”

“What?”

“How tall are you?”

“I… don’t know.”

“How can you not know?”

“I don’t remember things like that.”

“And yet you remember the price of cabbages in the Supermarket.”

“Forty per kilogram.”

“Whatever,” she said again, “Stand still and don’t move.”

“Why?”

“And don’t talk either.”

The cub shut his mouth and brought his snout up with a dignified manner. The tigress dropped her bag onto the ground and rested the submachine gun on top of it. She stepped close to the cub, almost breathing down his neck. Her eyes were staring intensely, making quick calculations in her head while the cub tried to move his snout away from her beanie while maintaining remaining perfectly stationary.

“If I’m a hundred and forty-five…” the tigress mumbled on, muttering numerals and equations the cub could barely understand before she finally stepped back. the cub let out a silent breath she may or may not have heard.

“You’re at least a hundred and fifty-something,” the tigress said.

“Okay.”

“How can you let a bunch of hundred thirty kittens beat you like this?”

The cub was about to take on another pact of silence and look down at his feet when the tigress snatched his snout from beneath him and pulled it towards her face, so close they could practically taste each other’s breath. The cub had nowhere else to look but towards the tigress. His eyes were solid, with an unbreakable ruby red, but the strong, fierce red-brown of her eyes managed to crack the gem into submission.

“I don’t want to fight back,” he said.

“Why not?” the tigress pried, “You just want to keep getting pushed around like this?”

The cub tried to shake his head the best he could within the tigress’ vice grip.

“So why won’t you fight back?”

“Because something bad will happen.”

“What thing? What bad will happen if you fight back?”

“I don’t know.”

“... …”

“I just know it will happen.”

The tigress let go of the cub and took a step back. The cub took some time to catch his breath. As he took in lungfuls he spoke.

“This right now is bad,” he said, “But if I fight back it’ll get worse.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

Both of them stood in silence. For a minute or two, the cub rested both his hands on his briefcase, standing with a posture drastically different from moments earlier. It looked uncertain whether it was the cub that was holding the briefcase or the briefcase supporting the cub. The tigress kept a short, yet distant, gaze set on the cub, staring at him with a face that seemed muddled and disoriented.

The tigress bent down and picked up her gun with one hand and her bag with the other,  slinging it onto one shoulder.

“How could you tell it’s bad if you don’t even know what’s going to happen?”

“I can feel it,” the cub answered, “Pa told me to trust my guts.”

“Well, until you know what it is and whether it’s bad or not-”

The tigress raised the submachine gun to her eye level and cocked the slide on the top, checking the ejection port before letting go for it to close back with a minacious, metallic crash on impact.

“I’ll do the fighting back for you.”

The cub tried to open his mouth, seemingly to retort when the tigress shut him up once more by shoving the gun into his mouth, jacking his words back into his throat before they could even come out.

“If you tell me I have to protect myself instead, I’ll get angry.”

The cub pushed away from the bitter, oily muzzle of the gun, holding it in his hand as he spoke.

“I wasn’t gonna say that.”

“Then what?”

“I’ll get sad if you get hurt.”

The tigress’ eyes widened for a quick second as soon as she heard the words. They quickly fell back to their normal, unfazed expression as she drew back her gun, dropping it next to her loose pair of jeans.

“Well, if you don’t get me angry, you won’t need to be sad,” she said as she extended an open palm, facing upwards towards the cub, “Come on, I’m walking you home. Just in case they come back again.”

“But you live on the other side.”

“I’m going to my brother’s. He’s meeting with his friends. I can take his bike home. He always lets me on the wheel.”

The cub looked at her hand for a while, his curving tail bobbing with hesitant contemplation. His face didn’t show it, but the rest of his body told the tigress everything she needed to know, and then some.

“Come on, boyfriends and girlfriends do this all the time.”

“It’s embarrassing…”

“We’ve been boyfriend and girlfriend for two years already.”

“It’s not that…”

“Then what?”

“The adults keep asking questions…”

“But I always did the talking.”

“They always look strange when you say you’re the older one…”

“Then we’ll take the old forest route,” the tigress pushed her palm once more, “It takes longer, but nobody’s there to ask any questions."

The cub took one more indecisive second before finally caving in, handing over his palm with a reluctant, yet somewhat comforting, “Fine.”

Then, as soon as the cub gave his hand, he slumped down over the tigress’ shoulders, dropping to his chest as his legs suddenly gave way. With his whole body against hers, the tigress felt it. Under his shirt were unseen bruises forming tiny, abnormal bumps across his body. His arms were reduced to simple sticks trodden down by weak bones and marred flesh. As the tigress hoisted him up, her nose picked up a metallic smell seeping into his body scent. She threw his arm around her shoulders, giving him the chance to at least walk himself home after what happened 

“Thanks,” the cub wheezed out.

"You should take the same route tomorrow," the tigress suggested, "They won't ambush you if you change your path."

"Okay," the cub said.

They stumbled down the pathway, wobbling around like a penguin with a stump. The way they walked seemed as if the tigress was carrying a bad growth on the side of the shoulders, and the cub looked like a sack of potatoes being heaved from the side by a hunching farmer.

The tigress groaned, “This isn’t romantic at all.”

 

---

 

The blue sky soon turned dark with its once radiant glare reduced to a luminous grey, tainted by a formless blue still escaping the falling horizon as the shadowy clouds scavenged for the last of the sun’s leftovers.

Underneath the infinite darkness was a small, run-down house sitting amidst the outskirts of an urban area. Its dilapidated walls were grazed with traces of weather and age, along with the common, orange-tiled roof whose colour had been washed away to a faint peach. Behind it was thick forestry that felt as lively as it was deserted. Finding even one sample of a Feral in the wild was as rare as hen’s teeth, but conventional understanding holds no candle to their instincts.

A view of a city skyline sits in front of the house. It wasn’t grand with pulsing, neon lights and skyscrapers but rather a line of grey, boring apartments with little balls of white and yellow light pulsing from the tiny black squares. Sometimes small blips of red could be seen travelling across the sky and upon closer inspection, a faint outline of a plane would form. No stars, though.

All the other houses had at least one garage or a shed, with no less than one bland, uninspired car or truck sitting outside their porches. The run-down house had none of that. Next to its walls were the neighbour’s fences and its porch was barely half the length of its doorstep. There wasn’t even enough space on the side for weeds to grow. It managed to look like a shanty amidst a row of slummy-looking houses.

Within the house lived a wolf and a cub.

“Dinner’s ready, pa.”

“Mm.”

The wolf, his grey fur ruffled and crossed, opened his eyes and rose from the sofa, letting out a little grunt as he stretched his tired shoulders, pulling the navy blue buttoned shirt over his back while he did so. He walked out of the living room, loosening his brown khakis as he made his way to the dining room where it conjoined the kitchen. The dining room consisted of a small wooden table propped on the corner of the concrete walls with two rickety chairs sitting diagonally apart from each other. That alone took up one-quarter of the space already.

The cub was setting up the table, brandishing it with two plates of steamed potatoes which had cuts in the middle. He plopped the plates down with great haste and rushed to the kitchen on the other side with two small skips, grabbing a giant serving of fried vegetables and placing it on the table as it left a trail of steam.

“What about the pork I bought?” the wolf asked.

The cub froze right before he placed the plate onto the table. His eyes shot wide open, his hands still holding the steaming plate as if he’d lost all contact with his sense of heat in his palm. He was too busy processing the words he heard and the shock it entailed.

The cub slowly looked towards the wolf, barely containing his emotion as his shoulders raised in excitement.

“Isn’t  it expensive, pa?”

“I didn’t buy it so it could pay rent in the fridge, did I?”

The cub remained still for a full second before exploding in one great motion, skipping back towards the kitchen in great speed, “Thanks, pa-”

“The plate.”

The cub turned on his heel, nearly throwing the plate towards the wall as he tossed it towards the table in one fell swoop, its contents surprisingly unharmed as it dropped. He made a beeline towards the fridge, pulling out a plastic baggie containing a cut of Feral pork blade. It was a low-quality cut bought from a store in the big city that somehow cost the wolf as much as a bottle of wine. People belonging to the wolf’s economic status couldn’t usually afford meat as a common meal and the mere notion of consuming meat is a sense of self-indulgent luxury in a life of prudent spending. No individual with a rational spending habit would defrost pork just to have it as a savoury dinner unless there is an occasion that would excuse it.

But to the cub, he didn’t think much of it. His train of thought arrived at ‘having pork for dinner tonight’ and ended right there.

Then he reached out to his side, pulling a short, plastic stool and pushing it to the other side. He stood on it, giving himself a good view of the kitchen sink. He turned on the tap and washed his hands, the water flying from his excitement. The cub didn’t seem to care. He slowed the water down to a trickle and plugged the hole before carefully placing the meat into the sink as if it was fragile. He set it down and proceeded to watch right on the stool, his ears twitching with excitement and tail wagging with zeal.

Then his ears suddenly perked up. He turned around, spotting the wolf watching him from one of the chairs.

“It’s gonna take almost an hour,” the cub said.

“I can wait,” the wolf replied.

“Thanks, pa,” he said again, turning back to the sink.

To the cub, there was something about watching pork simmer in shallow water that fascinates him. Perhaps it was the rarity within the sight or the delicacy it promises in time. If that was the case, according to common psychology, he’d lose interest pretty soon, as new becomes either old or impatience fairly quickly for a child. But he watched with much interest, even after a few good minutes, staring intently at the red meat’s wavering image under the water.

The wolf, on the other hand, was watching the cub with as much enthusiasm as the cub had for the meat, though he didn’t need quite as much an explanation as to why.

The cub kept his eyes on the meat until a few minutes later when he suddenly looked up. He reached upwards where the cupboard was and fished out a wooden, well-worn chopping board, a white ceramic plate, and a bottle of salt. He skipped off the stool, going around specific parts of the kitchen as he fished for things. He eventually came back with a burnt, black pan and a grease-covered bottle of cooking oil.

He skipped off the stool again and pushed it towards the stove. As he did he pulled open a drawer around the height of his crotch, taking out a spatula with its head worn with scratches and cuts. He crouched down and ducked so the stove knobs were eye level. He gave it a hard twist and tiny flames spewed from the crown. He grabbed the pan and rested it on the stove all while fiddling with the knob with his other hand, adjusting the flames with precision. He stood back up and grabbed the bottle of cooking oil. He lathered the pan’s surface with a thin layer of faint, soft yellow that would be a pain to wash off but at that point, the cub hadn’t thought that far. He glazed the spatula across the pan softly, spreading the oil evenly across the surface. When it started boiling he twisted the knob once more, tamping the flames down a notch, leaving the oil bubbling and the spatula on it.

By then it was well into the twenty-minute mark. The cub got off the stool with a gentle skip once more pushed it back towards the sink where the meat was already well-defrosted. He fished it out from the cold water and shook it from the baggie for a few seconds, checking its condition while giving it a good flick. He examined it for a little before finally opening the package, letting the pork feel the caress of fresh air after who knew how long. He pulled the chopping board over the sink and rested the pork on it. He dribbled a rain of salt onto the meat and gave it a massage, rubbing the salt all over the meat, giving it a few good pats to let the sodium wrap the pork blade as much as possible.

Then the time came.

He skipped off the stool, holding the meat in one hand as he pushed the stool back to the stove. His expression was as expressionless as it was before, but his tail was wagging at a velocity so fierce it looked like it would detach into a bloody mess if it continued any longer. He stepped back towards the stove and turned the knob back up, the flames burning once more with a dull blow from the bottom.

Finally, with much satisfaction, the cub dropped the meat into the pan and immediately pressed it down with the spatula. The sizzle that came with it popped in the cub’s ear like orchestral music, bringing a phantom taste into his mouth courtesy of his childlike imagination and expectation of the extravagant flavour he’d be able to savour after. It took every fibre in the cub’s being to keep himself from drooling as he flipped the meat, watching the pork blade blaze within the golden grease. Every swirl he made with the steak in the pan carried with it the smoking scent all too irresistible to carnivores like him. The cub, if he were to lose all sense of self-restraint, would have thrown himself at the pan and gulped it down. The pain from the burning oil would be a concern for an irrelevant time, too unimportant to ponder on during that hypothetical moment.

As the pork blade slowly matured from its baptism by fire, the cub brought the plate close. Just before the final touch, he turned off the stove and reached to the side to push the cutting board away from the sink. Grabbing the pan with one hand, he pressed the pork down with the spatula and tipped the pan into the sink. Excess oil spilt away like a slow, viscous waterfall.

He leaned back to the stove and, with one slow movement, slid the pork down onto the plate with much care as to not spoil its crusty edges. The rough, bronze-scorched surface of the pork blade steak flexed itself with great temptation as it dropped onto the plate, the residual oil bubbling from the heat still radiating from the meat. The beautiful fumes diffused into the cold air of the night. He left the pan hanging for a while, letting the gravy drool across the surface in a controlled stream so as to not ruin the look. Immediately after, the cub dropped the whole pan into the sink along with the spatula, crashing with the chopping board and taking it down with it. The cub stepped off the stool, holding the steak in his hand, leaving the kitchen untouched as he quickly made his way back to the table in a few quick skips.

He pushed the vegetables away and set the meat in the centre stage. The cub practically threw himself onto the chair and would’ve gunned down towards the steak if the wolf hadn’t stopped him at the crucial moment.

“So we’re eating all this with our hands?”

The cub took a moment as he stared at the wolf and back down at the plates, reeling his kite-high excitement back to ground level before he finally realized and skipped back to the kitchen in record time, coming back with two pairs of knives and forks. He set them as nice as he could for the wolf while he held it in his hand, ready and prepared. He kept his gaze on the wolf, brimming with anticipation as he waited for a signal.

The wolf kept his level gaze trained on the cub’s wide, ruby-red eyes for a moment before letting his head drop slowly. He looked back up with a gentle, bemused smirk creasing the side of his snout.

“Alright, alright,” he said, “Have at it-”

The wolf didn’t even finish his sentence before the cub pounced onto the meat with his fork, cutting himself a good portion and stuffing it into his mouth without even touching the potato. He immediately pulled the meat out, wheezing and huffing from his tongue as fumes poured from his mouth and tears streamed down from his eyes. The wolf gave a soft snort of amusement as he watched the cub drop the fork onto his plate, hissing over the burning heat from the piece of steak.

“And this is why we wait before we eat,” he said as he grabbed the cub’s fork, pushing the meat back down to the plate, “Eat your potato first.”

The cub wiped off the tears from his eyes, slowly recovering from the sizzling pain. The wolf handed the fork back, “And finish the vegetables before you touch the steak.”

The cub gave not even a grunt of bitter irritation. His mind was too occupied with the steak to consider any other emotion besides pure determination. He heeded the wolf’s words and ate as he was told, all while keeping a sharp, almost scary stare at the pork as he did. Every bite he took of either the potato or the vegetable quickly dissolved into another rendition of what the steak could’ve tasted like in his mouth. He quickly chewed all his food, utilizing all of his carnivorous teeth to its absolute limit as he gnawed, ground, and devoured his way to his end goal.

Soon, there was nothing left between the cub, his molars, and the steak.

The cub kept his gaze firmly glued to the piece of meat as if he were concentrating with every intent in his mind to levitate it into his mouth. The wolf watched him with much interest, seeing the cub give his full attention towards the steak with his unbreakable, iron will. He decided to take it up a notch.

“I think I’m full,” the wolf said.

The cub gave the same reaction as he did when he mentioned the pork in the fridge. His head swung to the side, his eyes flaring with genuine surprise and fire. The implications behind the wolf’s simple words had undone the dam in his mouth, letting out a stream of drool right at the bottom of his snout.

The cub didn’t move an inch as he kept his wide eyes stuck to the wolf, his nerves so tightly strung that one twitch of external stimuli would set him off immediately.

The wolf spoke again, “I said I’m fu-”

The cub lost all sense of rationality and threw himself towards the steak. He didn’t even bother with the utensils. He dropped it on the side and dragged the whole plate towards himself. He grabbed it by the side with his palm and demolished that piece of meat as if he’d starved for days. There were bones in the steak, but they were no match with the cub’s ferocious molars. He savoured every drip of gravy oozing by the cubic inch from the meat. Yet, amongst the carnage, there was a brilliant, radiant grin splitting the cub’s snout from side to side. His ears twitched erratically with every bite, his tail swinging with the ecstasy brought with every gulp.

The wolf gave a light pat between the cub’s ears as he demolished the steak, “Eat up, you need the energy-”

The cub did hear the wolf’s words, but he didn’t give much attention to it since he was so preoccupied at the moment. Had he been just a tad bit more aware, he would’ve caught the signs on the wolf’s subsequent words.

“-cause’ we’re going somewhere tonight.”

 

---

 

“Hey, Balev,” the wolf greeted the walrus on the sidewalk, right in front of the run-down house with the cub standing by his side.

“You remember, right?” The walrus barked as he pushed himself out from the rusty hatchback.

“Yes, I’m buying gas-”

“And the beer,” the walrus added, his long, unkempt whiskers bouncing off his massive tusks. It was an enigma how he managed to even fit them through the hole of his T-shirt that was barely wrapping around his massive belly as his waist stretched the fabric down to its finest thread like it was rubber, “Don’t forget the beer.”

“When have I ever forgotten your beer?”

“Hopefully somewhere soon in the future, cause’ I rather you slip up on my beer than on the job,” the walrus said as he launched a bunch of keys from his flipper to the wolf.

The wolf caught them mid-air just as they flew towards his face. “Thanks.”

For that, the wolf reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a brown, rusty key of his own, holding it in front of the walrus, “There’s milk in the fridge if you want some.”

“I only came here to house sit. Nothing more, nothing less. But I will taste test your milk, thank you very much,” the walrus said as the wolf handed him the key, “So where you headed?”

“Ice cream.”

“This late at night? On a weekday?”

“There’s no law that says I can’t.”

“Well, as long as you come back with a full tank and a six-pack that isn’t on your body, I guess” the walrus leaned down and braced himself on his knees, facing the cub standing beside the wolf. His rounded cheeks contorted with a degree of discomfort as if his tongue were tied, unsure whether to let his words spill out, “Hey…  kiddo… uh… your father… uh… and you… uh… just make sure you hold on, eh?”

The cub wasn’t so shy as to duck behind the wolf’s arms but he didn’t answer verbally either. He nodded politely, even if he didn’t understand what the walrus meant. The walrus gave a feeble smile in return and got back up.

“Alright, you guys stay safe and come back with my car in one-” the walrus was just about to get up the doorstep to the run-down house when he caught a whiff of something. He paused, poking his nose into the empty air for a second before looking to the wolf.

“Is that pork?”

The wolf nodded.

“Not bad. What’s the occasion?”

Strangely enough, when the wolf answered, his gaze was directed towards the cub instead, “You’ll see.”

The walrus gave a wave of goodbye and left the wolf and the cub. The wolf headed into the rusty hatchback and the cub followed, riding shotgun. The hatchback wheezed for a moment as the wolf flipped the ignition, coughing up a hazy cloud from the exhaust. The suspension gave a suspenseful creak as the transmission groaned dangerously, hinting to a chance of absolutely breaking down before it even took off. Then the wheels unlocked themselves and started to totter down the road, rolling towards the dull lights of the flat distance beyond.

If they had words to speak to each other, they kept it to themselves. Instead, they let the scenery speak. The dilapidated, downtrodden houses morphed into well-to-do, detached houses, standing within walls with porches big enough to hold a car or two. The surroundings grew more civilized by every passing junction. Soon, the scene outside the hatchback’s musty windows turned to a cityscape. The apartments that lay dormant on the background now towered over them, reaching up to the sky that once seemed so infinite, now barely visible among the concrete canopy. They stood stationary, like golems protecting the tiny men living within them.

The hatchback that once seemed like luxury within the neighbourhood a dozen minutes ago now stood out like a black sheep among the slowly increasing traffic. With every green-light, they passed cars that seemed to grow shinier and bigger. The hatchback was looking like an old, stubborn mule stumbling on crutches among selectively-bred stallions.

The cub popped his head from the passenger seat to look out the window. He felt the wind caress his cheeks, blowing his fur smooth on one side. The cars now seemed so pretty, with shinier wheels and wider leg space. The sidewalks were no longer deserted, lonesome highways for pedestrians. There was barely a rusty wire fence to be seen. People in expensive-looking clothes strolled along with their heads held high, walking along brightly lit shops and signs. Not one of them kept an eye over their shoulders or their backs. It was like watching a competition of having the widest blindspot right on the street. If they did that in the neighbourhood they would’ve been stripped down and robbed of everything in record-breaking time. The cub looked further out, kneeling over the car seat as he kept a keen eye over the people, watching with bated curiosity.

The wolf pulled the cub down by his tail from the wheel, “Sit down, you’re gonna get a cold.”

“I’m not cold, Pa,” the cub said, but he still sat down anyway, content with just looking at the passing city lights.

“Pa,” the cub asked, “Where’s the ice cream shop?”

“What happened after school today?”

The cub didn’t answer. He just looked to one side, staring at the side of the car door, letting the shadows take his face away from the city lights pouring into the interior.

“You let them have it, didn’t you?”

“How did you know?”

The wolf flicked a turn indicator and twisted the wheel gently to the side. The city lights shifted completely towards the passenger side, brightly shining upon the cub, now sitting in a near fetal position. 

“You were skipping over your right ankle the whole time, and I felt the bumps over your face,” he said, “Your fur doesn’t hide everything.”

“I’m fine,” the cub said.

“For now,” the wolf answered, turning the wheel to the other side. Now the lights were completely gone. Only darkness remained, sitting between, over, under, and around the two.

“They’ll stop,” the cub said.

“They would,” the wolf answered, “If they’re foxes and you’re sour grapes. But they’re no foxes, and you’ve let them taste the grape the moment you let them have you.”

The car came to a stop. The sound of crunching gravel spat under the wheel as the transmission cranked to a stuttering halt. The wolf flicked the keys, killing the engine, but not the headlights. He opened the door and stepped out of the car. The cub stayed inside, still ducking down to one side, keeping his face to the shadows.

The wolf went around the car and gave the passenger door a hard knock.

“We’re here,” he said.

“I don’t have shoes,” the cub said.

A silence trailed for a solid second before the sound of a pair of shoes getting hit on the ground erupted from outside the car.

“I’m going to open this door,” the wolf announced. The cub didn’t respond, but the wolf opened the door anyway. The cool breeze of the night rushed in as the cub was exposed to the moonlight. He remained motionless at first. Then he slowly pulled himself out of the seat. He kept his head down, moving his feet towards the ground. He glanced to the side, seeing the wolf’s grey, bare feet standing on the dusty, dry dirt of the ground. The cub looked back to his own feet, which were almost half a size bigger than the wolf’s.

“They won’t fit,” the cub said.

“Make them fit,” the wolf answered.

The cub got out of the car, squeezing his toes into the wolf’s shoes and leaving his heel hanging outside, stepping on the shoe itself. The cub looked up to see his surroundings. The shops were gone, and so was the sidewalk. He was in a construction site, sandwiched between giant buildings facing the other way. The city lights were reduced to a warm, radiating glow in the distance, pulsing faintly among the outlines of the giant buildings.

“Follow me,” the wolf said, walking to the front of the car and into the half-erected building gleaming from the beam of the headlights.

The cub followed, not because he wanted to, but because he didn’t have a choice. Somewhere deep down within the cub was a feeling of stupidity and regret. He could've asked questions, or sensed something wrong. The wolf barely drove already, and now he borrowed his partner's hatchback and took him to some obscure hazardous place in the middle of the city. The cub reluctantly tagged along with the wolf's giant, black shadow walking towards the site, making his own as he went in front of the car.

The construction site itself was completely deserted. One would expect a wall-less shanty erected on the corner of some unused space for some shade under the sun, or a pair of boots left on some corner, or even a shipping container office block sitting somewhere on the outside. This construction site just seemed desolate. It was undeniably a construction site, but it didn’t feel like one. The equipment sat around as if it had been worked on in the past and abruptly abandoned for several years. The dust and crumbling rocks clung to the tools, asserting dominance over them as they lay unclaimed and ownerless. The wolf led the cub into the unfinished, concrete base where walls and window frames sat in silence, watching them from every corner.

There was a room in the middle of the site.

The room was a simple construct of bricks and cement. Even under the darkness, the cub could spot the outwardly orange walls among the dull grey that surrounds it. The room was perfectly cubic and enclosed on all six sides, save for an open doorway on the front. The wolf stood to the side, signalling for the cub to go in. Reluctance seized his limbs for a moment, but he stepped in regardless. A familiar, metallic scent caressed his face like invisible veils.

The cub recognized the smell immediately.

“Two years ago, this construction site was for a new apartment block for the local factory workers. It was weird because the factory was bogus and almost all the provided names are either dead or missing people from cold cases,” the wolf spoke, “Turns out the contractor was using the site as a front to hide his operation of running undesirable shipments from the docks to the local business ‘round here.”

The cub turned back to the doorway, his stride climbing to a sprint before immediately halting. The wolf was blocking his way. His whole body filled the frame, from head to toe. There was no space for the cub to even squeeze himself through.

“We got the tip and the evidence to convict. All we needed was the contractor’s words. He wasn’t willing to talk so much, so we made this room.”

The wolf loosened a few buttons from his top and started to fold the sleeves. Under the pale moonlight in the backdrop, his grey fur gleamed into a bright silver as he unclothed his forearms into the light.

“When he was holed up in our station, we dispatched some civilian contractors and made the only legitimate construction on this bogus site. When the contractor got released eventually for lack of evidence and testimony, we ‘freed’ him here, where we spent our off-time having fun with him.

“We locked the guy up in this very room and gave him nowhere else to go. He only got our leftover lunches and could only do his business wherever he could. He had nowhere to go other than this doorway. When he tried to leave without confessing to the whole truth, we’d punch him back into the same room until he decided to speak. We took periodic shifts watching the guy, day and night, dusk to dawn. He finally cracked after two weeks. He broke both his arms and legs trying to break the walls or to sneak out. He had to confess ‘cause if he didn’t, he’d have to spend his whole life in a wheelchair with bone fragments in his knees.

“Since then, we’ve been using this place when the interrogation room in the station didn’t work. Two whole years, we’ve had guys trying to break themselves free, only to break themselves instead, because they couldn’t confess to their truth.”

The wolf held up his right fist.

“I’m gonna use one arm,” he said, “Get out of this room.”

Within a split second, the gravity of the situation crashed down onto the cub. Instantaneously, the cub fell into a hunched stance, his head falling to his shoulders as his arms swung, relaxed but ready, all the way to his wrist where his tense fingers clutched the empty air.  His ears perked up in an instant twitch, pointing towards the wolf.

Without realising it, the cub was pulling a snarl, the brow of his snout wrinkling more and more every second.

But it fell, for some reason. The cub seemed to calm down some. The cub unfurled his snarl, reverting to his usual, emotionless visage. His posture stayed though, ready and still.

Moments passed, letting the quiet, ambient noise of the distant city punctuate the atmosphere. The two did and spoke of nothing. In that momentary silence, both seemed to have blended into the scenery they stood within. They were inert and static, though nowhere near lifeless. A statue is cold and stationary. These guys were radiating emotion and pressure, so much that the bricks on the walls seemed to be distorting from sight, melting into liquid lines, swimming away from the two in fear.

Then he pounced.

The cub exploded from his ankles and rocketed outwards, trailing an iron-knuckled fist behind him, not towards the wolf but the wall. He landed a straight punch, drilling his knuckles deep into the seams of the bricks. It didn’t budge at all. Neither a tremor nor a sound was made. The wall looked all the same, with no difference made to it whatsoever.

The fact didn’t seem to reach the cub at all. He stood his ground, throwing square punches after square punches at the bricks, barely chipping dust and morsels off the wall. His stance was sinking deeper towards his knees. His knuckles began to wear out. When he finally made the first crack on the bricks, it had already been five minutes. The fur on his fists was shaved clean. His knuckles were reduced to a faint pink dome bruised with spots of red. The wall had splotches of blood dotted across, some thick enough to leave a short trail.

The wolf watched from the doorway, his once raised fist now resting by his side. There was a slight deviation in his voice, slightly choked up by his deep tone, “What are you doing?”

Whether the cub heard it or not, he didn’t show. He kept punching the wall, slamming his thinning fists again and again with no avail. Nothing seemed to matter to him anymore. The wolf didn’t seem to exist to him at all. There was nobody else left in the world, at least in the cub’s mind. It was just him and the outside world, with the only thing standing between them being a brick wall he couldn’t chip away, though that didn’t seem to matter to him.

“The thing’s three-inch-thick. You couldn’t-”

The sound of the cub’s punches started to change. The dull thud that used to follow his hits were slowly being drowned out by cracks whipping from his fists. They lashed out in miniature bursts, emerging from his knuckles, growing frequent with every punch.

The wolf asked in a heavy tone laden with fury, but not the one that stems from anger, “Why won’t you fight back?”

Right as the wolf finished the last word, a shard busted off from the brick wall. It was a small, irregular piece no bigger than a saucer plate. It slipped off the surface of the bricks, carrying fresh debris and dust as it fell to the ground. The cub retracted his fists for a moment when he saw the piece hit the floor. He stared at the tiny chunk of flat rock resting on the ground for a few seconds.

The cub finally looked up at the wolf and said, “I’m not becoming like them.”

The wolf looked at the dent on the wall. It was as if someone had dipped a fat brush in a can red paint and flicked continuously at the bricks. Everything within a ten-centimetre radius of the space where the fallen shard once sat was stained. The wolf didn’t dare to look at the shard itself. When it dropped to the floor it didn’t sound like a piece of rock. It sounded like something wet and flat.

He couldn’t bring himself to look at the cub either.

The cub continued, leaving the wolf standing in the doorway as he kept chipping off the brick wall, acting as if that side of the wall didn’t exist. The sound of his punches continued, the cracks sounding louder and deeper with every strike. At some point, during the moment, it wasn’t a crack that came from his knuckles, but a sloppy, moist squelch.

The wolf stepped into the room with the cub.

The cub looked to the side, seeing the wolf still standing over the doorway, but only this time he was inside with him.

The wolf let go of his fist. It became an open hand, but it wasn’t free. It was tensed hard, with his fingers gripping strongly into the empty air within his palm. His claws shone as if they were wet. They seemed sleek and glossy, glistening with a faint, grey light under the moonlit sky.

He raised all five of them above his head, his fingers all pointing towards the cub from above.

“I’m sorry, Yasnyy."

 

---

 

“Oi, Yasnyy,” Vysok called to the cub.

The cub was off with his senses. He already caught the scent from a mile away, but he didn’t trust it. He was sure he told nobody about the forest trail. Not even the wolf. In fact, he didn’t speak to anyone besides the wolf when he got home. There was not one soul that could’ve known about his way home today. Yet, here the lynx stood, wearing the same bomber jacket as yesterday with its sleeves torn by the shower of pellets he shielded himself from. It was only when he caught sight of the lynx when he regretted not trusting his gut and tried to bolt the other way. He was one of the worst runners in school, second to the seal in the next class who was born with a lame knee. The chase was over in ten seconds flat.

He clutched onto the briefcase under his armpits, hiding his hands underneath it. His frenzied, widened eyes darted across his surroundings, looking for a beeline to shoot through. It was fruitless. This was the forest trail. There was only one way in and one way out. Any other way of traversal within the trail was unheard of. The cub had heard of attempts, but he’d never once caught wind of a successful one.

Vysok approached the cub, backing him to the side as he stepped in closer.

“You thought you could run? That I will forget about you?”

The cub remained quiet, keeping his gaze levelled on Vysok. Today, the lynx was alone by himself with none of his brothers by his side. The cub took that fact into the equation as he wrangled his mind, finding an escape from his compromised position. But the lynx had already taken care of his solitary state.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Vysok spoke with a grin, “You think I’m stupid to come to you alone? I’ve brought a friend today, better than my useless brothers.”

The cub braced himself, waiting for any sort of impact, or something to just grab him from behind. Five seconds passed. Then ten. Nothing happened.

The lynx’s grin retracted to a scowl.

“I said I have brought a friend today.”

“Oh, right” a disembodied voice called out within the foliage. A loud, continuous rustling emerged from a distance. The bushes shook from afar, along with sounds of snapping branches and dry, crunching leaves. A silhouette slowly slipped out of the forest, bringing itself into full view.

It was a brown bear, dressed in a dull, green combat jacket and camo pants. He was unmistakably huge, so much so that it was a wonder how he was able to hide all of himself away in the forest, nevermind that the cub couldn’t pick up his scent whatsoever. As he came up from behind the lynx, the cub could see the bear’s body clearer in detail. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows where his massive forearms were adorned with bright pink bruises and cuts dragged in threes where his fur didn't grow. Even the otherwise deeper, bigger scars seemed minuscule in comparison to his giant arm. His legs were stout but stretched his camo pants to its middle like tree trunks. Every step he took seemed to tug the fabric another fraction too thin to be visibly comfortable in the cub’s eyes.

The bear walked up to the cub, sizing him up with his black beady eyes. The cub barely stood up to the bear’s chin as he kept his head low, frantically trying to memorize the bear’s faint scent as a reminder to take the opposite direction whenever the scent would come up.

“This one’s hurt bad,” the bear growled in a low, gruff tone.

“No shit,” Vysok answered, “I beat him up yesterday.”

“Did you strangle him and throw him to walls as well?”

“I- uh,” the lynx stammered for a second before picking himself up again, “Look, you’re only getting conscience now? After I paid you and everything else you’ve done?”

“No,” the bear answered, “It makes it worth even more.”

The cub immediately lowered to a stance, hardening his abdomen, fully expecting a frontal blow to come at any moment. Instead, the bear simply walked past the cub, taking position behind him.

“What,” Vysok spoke towards the cub, “You think I’m letting him have you? While I’m here?”

The moment Vysok uttered his last syllable the bear tore through the cub’s arms and put him in a Master lock. His briefcase was thrown to the ground as the bear broke under his shoulders with his biceps, locking the cub’s head downwards. The cub’s knuckles came into view, revealing to be taped-up, with red splotches speckled across the surface. The fur on his arms was ruffled, with fresh, visible scabs permeating throughout the surface.

The lynx didn’t care for the cub’s arms. He looked down on the cub’s face and spoke with a sinister grin, “I only needed him here to hold you down.”

The lynx reached one hand into his bomber jacket’s pocket, “You might want to know how I found you. Don’t you want to know how I found you?”

The cub didn’t answer, but even if he wanted to, the bear’s vice grip on the back of his neck was making it severely uncomfortable and difficult to do so.

“She squealed,” Vysok said, “I choked the answer out of her. Didn’t even need a bear for it. Not much of a bark without her BB gun, that pussy.”

The cub gave no audible reaction, but had the lynx paid any attention, he would’ve spotted the slight twitch on the cub’s eyelid. He would’ve seen his pupils dilate for a split second before succumbing back to its usual size.

“And you’re gonna squeal too,” said the lynx.

From his bomber jacket, Vysok pulled out a screwdriver. It was an uninteresting tool, covered in age with a cracked plastic handle, only made worthy of attention by its head, caked with a dry, dark maroon. It was a shallow dip, spreading only halfway across the tip with a small strand flowing down to the base.

“I’ll give you five seconds to think of something to squeal,” said the lynx as he drew the screwdriver down, aiming just next to the cub’s pelvis.

“... …”

“I can’t hear you, bitch.”

“... …”

“I said, I can’t hear-”

“Why do this,” the cub muttered.

The lynx paused for a moment as he heard the cub. Then he started to snarl. His snout started to furrow as his brow began to cross. His mouth started to reveal his teeth, pulling itself away like curtains. His hand trembled as it held the screwdriver. The lynx was close to the boiling point when he suddenly calmed down, reverting to his usual demeanour moment ago.

“Of course you wouldn’t know,” he said, “How could you? I won’t blame you for not understanding.”

The cub’s breath was starting to fall short, “Wha-”

“You piss me off. That’s all. The way you stand. The way you talk. The way you eat. The way you drink. The way you sit. The way you piss. All of it. It pisses me off.

“This didn’t even need to happen. It could’ve ended without any problems. But you couldn’t let it slide. You couldn’t just give me the money and let me and my brothers walk away, no.

“You had to look at us that way too. Like we’re beggar trash.”

As Vysok spoke his next sentence, his voice croaked. It came like a slip-up as if some pent-up emotions had finally found their way onto his tongue. The snarl came back to his face as he spoke, “Why is it people like you who get to be strong?”

“I-,” the cub attempted to speak, “I never-”

“Never what? Want to say you never looked at me like a weak pussy, huh? Say it. Say it, you fucking bitch,” the lynx pushed the screwdriver nearer to the cub’s thigh. The head, though short, was sharp and sturdy on the end. One forceful twist from the tool, even if administered by a child, would be enough to drive any screw in tight.

The cub wheezed out, “I never-”

“Say it,” the lynx’s voice raised louder as his snarl drew deeper, “Fucking say it.”

“I never-”

“Say it-”

“I never asked for this.”

There was a pause for a moment, lasting no more than a split second. During that instance, the ambient rustling of the forest took centre stage of the soundscape, rendering the atmosphere light and empty in an instant.

Then there was a shrieking hiss, followed immediately by a light, dragging ring of rubbing metal and a dull, quiet squelch.

 

---

 

Shiro’s eyes shot open in an instant but his back was dry. It didn’t happen very often, but it happened enough that Shiro got used to it. He pulled the blanket away and tried to sit up when he hit his head underneath the upper bunk. He opted to rest on his neck instead.

He looked around. Everything was still dark, but his canine eyes could still see the outlines, only barely. Romps was still snuggled into his silk blanket and the soft, orange glow that usually shone dimly from Vox’s blanket tent was still there. Everything else was as dead as the night.

Shiro looked back down to his body. He reached his hand down to his track pants and pulled down the right side by a fraction. He felt his fingers underneath the pants.

There was a slight bump standing out on his thigh. It was small enough to be hidden under his fur. A phantom nerve pulsed underneath the skin. Shiro decided to leave it alone. He spread his area and felt around some more.

There was more than just that slight bump. Some were long and cavernous that dug deep into his skin, while some were just lines of dead pelt where fur couldn’t grow anymore. There were places that still stung every once in a while in the shower and some would suddenly ache out of nowhere. And that was just half of his upper thigh, where his palm could cover in a single reach.

He got out of bed without sleeping it off. He tried it before. He’d rather get tired for the whole day and get an early start tomorrow night.

He passed the two in bed and the kitchen, heading to the other side of the dorm. He stopped near the balcony, glancing outside. The sky was somewhere between pitch black and very, very dark blue. He couldn’t tell how late at night or early in the morning it was. He could faintly hear the waves and catch traces of its salty scent permeating in the cold air. He looked away, feeling around the wall before he finally found the seams.

The storeroom opened up and along with it, the lights. Shiro stepped in, his head barely touching the ceiling as he ducked to his shoulders.

Sure enough, the broom was there, twisted on its end as it rested injured on the floor.

Shiro picked it up and examined the damage. It wasn’t severe, but no one in their right mind would look at it and claim it to be in working condition. He grabbed both ends and bent it back to its usual position in one quick twist.

The broom was back in its usual shape, but shards of torn metal still stuck out of the end.

 

---