She watched him go deeper into the church door till him and the dark became one. She could hear his cries turn to rash, dark sounding growls. How could she have waited so long for this?

"Happy Birthday, my dear Truu o' boy," she said with a laugh and took off in the direction of the old, dark desolated church.


--------
Truu could see in the dark. He walked down the main aisle in-between rows of decaying dark wooden benches on what was once, at best as Truu could figure, a neon blue carpet that was now black with age and dirt; the neon still shinning in tiny places here and there where the light from outside hit. He walked down the aisle keeping a low continual growl till he hit a wooden panel (that was just as rotten away as the benches), that separated the churchgoers from a great domed platform where the clergyman and the other members of the church stayed and preached.

In 2102, when the High Peak Church opened its doors to believers on the borders of the Dump and Boom City, it was decked with the grandest carpet mural tapestries that hung on gold painted walls. They had large crystal chandeliers that dangled high above on jade linked chains that descended from an oval ceiling with holographic paintings of scenes depictive from the bible. The stain-glass windows, with its shifting image of the cross and the Crucifixion was specially made to filter outside light to come in with grand illusoniongetic-type colors stood high above the domed platform that housed holographic phoebes that was set off through "hot words", that, when said, would play above the platform an animated adaptation of the chapter and verse the clergyman spoke. It had within its gold painted walls Displaced Sound speakers which ran directly into the mike on the platform that, when spoken into, casted the voice everywhere at once. Its only flaw was its location. The people of Boom City dared not ventured to the borders of the Dump for something that was to them nothing more than a social gathering. The bums and drifters counted little in ways of money.

Religion had gone commercial long ago. God could be broken by money. The clergyman closed the doors of the High Peak Church several months later for the last time, sealing up every last opening with steel enforced guards. But not before stripping everything in it of value.

Now Truu stood before this darken rotting platform, wiping away the layers of dust with his arms. He lifted his arms and crashed them down, braking apart the old wood easily. He began to tare apart the split wood in a mad frenzy, growling in unpredictable patterns as his eyes glowed a bright red. Then he stopped cold. His growls stopped and he stepped back helplessly.

Underneath the broken platform laid dozens of dead bodies heaped upon each other. All naked with their throats ripped out. Their eyes were rolled back in their sockets. Their dead-white bodies rotting like the wood and had become food and homes for night crawlers. They were all Homo animalia. All from the Boxed House.

Truu bent over, clutching his stomach and began to dry-heave—there was simply nothing in his stomach to throw up anymore. His head swooned and he lost his balance, crashing into one of the benches. He rolled in the dust covered floor, slicing through the benches with his sword-like hair. He clenched his stomach harder, the blade hair instantly becoming soft again with the touch of his own flesh, and howled in pain in-between the gasps caused by the dry-heaving. His head was lost in incoherent thought; he didn't think he could make it back out of the church. His blade hair became soft and Truu uncontrollably changed back into his human form. Everything had become numb. He closed his eyes tight. If he couldn't see hell, then it wasn't there.

The lights came on, instantly activating the holographic paintings of Cain killing his brother Abel with a stone.

"Open your eyes Truu o' boy, it took me a lonnnng time to track down the clergyman and get all this stuff back—not to mention hooking it all up!"

The voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, bashing in Truu's ears. Truu kept his eyes shut and didn't move.

"Hey!" the voice that came from everywhere said. "At least you could open your eyes. I've been working on this Plan for years, and you don't even open your eyes. Love can make you do weird things!"

Truu didn't stir.

"Okay. Besides the fact that your trying to ruin everything, I'll still go on with my Plan."

Someplace deep in the back of the church, gears began to grind and spotlights shot on the part of the platform farther back. It stopped on a girl no more than four with a cat collar around her neck that was chained to the floor. She wore only a long tattered shirt. Her long yellow hair was caked with dirt.

"M-mister . . . please . . ." the girl said in a hollow whisper as she tried to take off the collar.

"No. No. No!" the everywhere voice screamed. The collar surged up sending a shock through the little girl who fell to the ground and began to cry. "Hey Truu o' boy, you should see this. Who says dogs are better than cats? I've trained mine to do anything a dog could do. I could make her fetch. I could make her sit and roll over, bleed and die! Wan'a see?"

Truu didn't stir.

"Come, come Truu, you'll make me angry. And when I get angry, I tend to take out on my pets!" The collar began to surge again, shocking the little girl over and over again, her screams echoed through the oval church.

"See Truu, my pets don't usually last long, just ask those dead stiffs in the platform. But I guess it's my fault. Like they say, you can't teach an old dog new tricks! Don't blame me for trying, though. But this one? She's young. Had her for three years now—the best pet I ever had! It'll be a shame if I'll have to kill it because you want to whimper and pout like a baby. You know that's why I love you, but acting like a child has it's place."

The collar surged and the girl screamed again.

"Okay," Truu said in a whisper as he got off the ground. "Okay."

"Really? Really!" the everywhere voice came again. "Okay Truu o' boy, here it is in a nutshell: I want a new pet. Could you say woof woof?"

Truu said nothing. He simply walked on the platform around the broken wood and his dead brothers and sisters. He walked straight to the collared girl who was whimpering and crying on the ground.

"Hey! Stop were you are Truu! STOP!" the everywhere voice boomed so loud that the girl looked up and saw the man coming towards her undaunted. Fear shot through the pain she felt. She instinctively moved as far as her collar allow. She began to cry again.

Why did everybody want to hurt her?

"STOP!"

The girl felt the ground underneath her shake after that. She put her hands over her ears, crying and screaming as she tried to run away, but the collar wouldn't let her get far. The man kept coming. Kept coming. To hurt her.

The man kept coming.

"STOOOOOPPPP!"

The church shook violently and the girl thought her ears would pop. She began to scream as loud as she can. She felt her collar tingle and knew the shocks were coming again. What did she do that was so wrong?

The collar surged and the girls screamed out in pain again, her eyes rolling over and her hair standing on end, her mouth was gaping open and closed. The surge stopped and the girl fell on the dirt floor, her arms and legs sprawled out as she laid on her chest, her mouth gasping like a fish out of water and moaning incoherent words that weren't audible.

The shock came again, and this time the girl didn't even scream out, she simply jerked on the floor.

Truu stopped. He wanted to reach out to the girl, to comfort her, but he dared not make a move. He simply stood where his was.

"Good," the everywhere voice said. "Now, by the girl, you'll find a nice little dog collar just for you. You're a bright boy. I'm sure you could figure out what to do next."

Truu walked over by the girl. She wasn't moving and Truu fought the impulse not to find out if she was still alive. He found the collar ten feet to the girl's right. Unlike the girl, Truu found he had to bend to his knees to put on the collar. He clicked it on and he heard it mag-lock behind him.

"Good. Now say woof woof."

Truu said nothing. More to see what would happen then anything else. He felt his collar tingle and the shock exploded throughout his body. It felt as if his body had imploded. The shock lasted for last than three seconds, and when it ended Truu found that his limbs didn't work and he fell to floor, gasping. How long had that girl been going through this?

"Now say woof woof."

"W-woof . . ." Truu wasn't able to finnish.

"Nope. Not good enough."

Truu's body imploded again and it felt as if all feeling within him had gone dead.

"Again."

Truu tried to speak but he couldn't make his tongue move.

"Ha! Pa-the-tic!"

The shock rocked his body again and he thought it'll just be easier to let go.

The everywhere voice said nothing this time. Maby it just gave up. Maby it just liked to shock him, she didn't know. But if he was to be a pet like her, she thought, then maby she didn't have to lonely anymore . . .

"Meow," the girl said in a rasped voice.

"What's this?" the everywhere voice said in authentic surprise. "I didn't ask you to say anything did I? Could this be more of your pet loyalty? Ha! I'll never find that in another pet!"

The girl looked scared, waiting for the shock that never came. She turned to the man laying on the ground. A tall man who had scars all over his body. His chin was badly cut up. She wondered what he must've done to his master to get that. Then she wondered where his master was right now. She saw the man get up on his knees and simply say: "Enough."

He had the look as if he simply got tired of the stuff going and was going to walk out the door to find something better.

The everywhere voice said nothing.

The girl saw the man grab his chain with both of his hands. She saw him yank at the chain, his hands growing incredibly large. Saw the strands of black metallic hair erupt throughout his body. His head ripped back. Fangs began protruding from his shifting face. His ears sharpened and horrible howls began to come from him. She had to cover her ears again.

She saw the collar begin to shock the man who now looked like some monster from her nightmares. But the man-beast didn't cry out. She saw him take his huge black shinny hands off his chain and began to bash the floor, his hair started to stand on edge and he slashed the floor thrashing his head like a mad half starved animal. His howls wouldn't stop.

The chain never stopped shocking him. Truu could feel the pain flow throughout him. The pain would let him know he's still alive. Truu let go of himself then, retreating back to that place he swore to never go again. He closed his mind's eye and felt himself drift away; he couldn't do anything anymore—let us see what the Beast could do.

The floor suddenly crashed under the Beast's massive assault and it seemed to be swallowed by the ground. And all was a deathly quiet save for the settling of dust and the little girl's screams.

The world seemed to stop then for the little girl. She stopped her screaming; she had no more power to do it anymore. She found the silence scarier than the howls but didn't know why.

The silence remained for a time.

The girl began to think her master had left her to rot, chained to the floor like this. Left to die like a filthy dog. She began to cry; she didn't want to die like this.

Then the floor ahead of her shattered, sending wood flying around her at terminal speeds as the Beast climbed out, all the fires of hell lit its burning red eyes. It came out the hole in a mad frenzy, like some mad rabid and tortured bear. Its movements were jerky as it stood on its hind legs, its jaw opening so wide the little girl was convinced that it could swallow her whole.

The Beast tipped its head to and fro, landing on all fours, then standing on hind legs again only repeat the two actions again and again. It was howling like a mad banshee.

The little girl saw the Beast look at her serval times before it must of sunk in that she was there. It stood on hind legs again, and she saw a thick piece of rotten wood sticking out of its side, but she knew that was not why the Beast moved with such rage. The Beast did not feel the pain, didn't feel anything but the rage. It was going to kill her.

Fear made her freeze, her eyes open, mouth gaping as the Beast leapt at her. She wanted to cry, but there were no tears left. She wanted to scream, but she no longer had a voice. She had seen the Beast when it first came in, walking down the aisle, breaking the platform, and moving back in horror at what it found there; she saw it all from the shadows. But now, the Beast looked different. The rage had twisted it, made it ugly, darker. The Beast towered over her, looking down, its jaws gapping open, while saliva and . . . blood? dripped from its mouth.

She saw it raise its arm, its hand dripping blood as its claws protruded an extra inch. She closed her eyes tight and waited for the killing blow. She heard its hand cut through the air and hit her with a clang as she fell on her back. She was free of the chain. She opened her eyes and saw the Beast looking down at her; it seemed to be smiling. The ugliness was gone. It had beat the rage. The red in its eyes were not as highly lit.

And the little girl felt it all at once.

Safe.

Truu looked down on the girl he'd almost killed. Thanks kid, he thought, you brought me back. His ears twitched and he sniffed the air—he smelled her in the doorway of the church, the one who have done all this. The one he once loved in a life long ago. He heard the words, Sha-mea-tou, and the darkness turned to light. He felt the quantum ball rip down the aisle, desinagrating the neon carpet and old benches as they were consumed by the light.

With lightning speed, Truu shot around. His whole wolf-huminiod body lighting up with quantum energy as they danced to his hands.

"SHA-MEA-TOU!" he growled and the church lit up like the sun.

The two spiraling quantum balls hit, and surprisingly, for an instant, there was no sound.

The church, along with about three blocks exploded in a quantum nova that lit the sky like an artificial sun, setting many black clouds alive with quantum fire.

The sky stayed on fire just before the sun came up.

They found them early the following morning. Buried deep underneath a mountain of broken wood, dust, and earth. They found Truu's naked and badly bruised body hunched in a ball and at his center, they found the sleeping body of a four year old girl who was black with dirt. Truu had saved her life, but they couldn't figure out who had saved his.

As they put her on a sled, she woke with a smile as she saw the sun. It was the first time Acinonyx Jubatus saw the sun and was free.

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