04 | Man's Best Friend

You're trapped in a thick fog. Dense, heavy air grasps tight your lungs, making it hard to breathe, bringing tears to your eyes. You struggle and clutch your fingers at the air. You find nothing. A few inches lower and all you feel is the soft fabric of your blankets, far too hot for your comfort. But it's impossible to take them off.

You cannot move the rest of your body, nor can you see more than a few inches in front of your face. A vast darkness wrings its bony fingers round your head, casting your vision into a sunken black.

"Help," is all you try to say but no words come. There is no one around to free you, no one to answer your quiet cries. You're losing your mind at record pace, the integrity of your emotions no match for the encumbrance of nightmarish mirages manifesting all for you.

"Help," you try to say again — "help."

But there's nothing. Nothing more than a deafening ring in your ears and the eerie absence of light and life around you. You have only yourself and your bed now.

You are lightheaded, confused, afraid.

What more is there, but to accept your death?

Before you can shut your eyes to close away the unsettling sight of certain demise, you hear it — a feminine voice, calling out to you. Calling your name. It begins as a whisper, gradually building up to a demanding hiss.

"Wake up."

It speaks to you but you are not ready to respond. You don't ever want to talk back to this voice, for you know who exactly it is.

You begin to feel their hand riding up the length of your wrist. An uncut fingernail slices a shallow line along your flesh, threatening to go deeper.

She says your name again. The touch of her fingernail upon your skin trails deeper, poking past the first few layers of helpless tissue that hold her only inches away from both muscle and veins.

"Help," you attempt to speak once more, but still no words leave your mouth.

"Get up," says the voice.

"Get up," says another. This one, too, sounds feminine like the last. They are unmistakably two different entities, two different monsters sent here to your dreams to torment you.

"Get up," they shout in unison. You don't. Even if you could move, you wouldn't. Why bother responding to their commands, even in nightmares? You're beginning to think it's a bit too lucid, that you are not supposed to have this level of awareness and sense in such a state.

"Go... away," you murmur, the words finally leaving your lips.

The two monstrous figures' faces suddenly spiral into view, bounding out of the darkness. Their sharp red eyes fill your vision entirely.

"Get up!"

You barely suppress a scream, opening your mouth wide.

That's when you feel a swift smack to the back of your head. You jolt awake, your senses coming back to you. The sight of your homeroom classroom surrounds you now, your head resting on a piece of paper upon your desk.

You raise your head and take a look around. Everyone else but Pursena, it seems, has left class. The room is empty and devoid of all noise. The dog-girl looks down on you, crossing her arms.

"Get up, idiot," she mutters. "I've been standing here for, like, way too long trying to wake you up."

You blink, your senses coming together. By some flash of instinct you touch your bruised cheek as though you're checking the wound is actually still there. To your disappointment, the pain is absolutely still existent.

"How long did I sleep?" you ask.

She makes a face like she's too tired of your voice to answer your question. "Too long — does it really matter? You walked in today, sat down, and you were out for the entire class period."

Oh. So that's what happened. It's coming back to you now that the girl has gotten over the burden of answering a simple question. You did indeed pass out as soon as you walked in the room this morning. The reason? Absolutely no sleep the night prior. As you had tried to sleep soundly in the comfort of your bed, images of Linia and Pursena would not let you close your eyes.

Last night you spent hours staying cautiously awake that should have been used for sleeping. You were just too afraid the nightmares might become physical and the girls would strangle you in your sleep. Not only that but their voices. Harsh, cold voices — they followed you from the girls' room to your room, whispering into your ears.

A total drag.

"Sorry," you tell Pursena without realizing it. You stand up, gathering your things. After rubbing your drowsy eyes a few times, you notice Linia is nowhere to be found. You'd expect the two to always be together around you, but this time it's only Pursena.

For a second you nearly find yourself asking Linia's whereabouts. You have to stop yourself and consider why you even care in the slightest about the girl that knocked the lights out of you yesterday.

"Come on, quit making me wait." Pursena taps her foot absently on the floor.

"Why are you waiting?" you say.

She scoffs. "Because we're going to the meat market."

"Who's we?"

"Who do you think, dumbass?" Pursena's tail starts to sway. You can't tell if she's excited to go to the market or if she's frustrated. Either way it's a weird sight.

"Why the market?" You pull your eyes from her tail.

"You're, like, gonna buy me some more of that cheap stuff. I've been craving it."

"But you said you didn't eat—"

"I know what I said." Pursena's eyes avoid you a moment, wandering idly to the classroom doors. There's this feeling you get that she's showing some sort of vulnerability right now. Her expression, from what you can tell looking at the side of her face, is bashful in a way.

"It was pretty good stuff," she grumbles. She only stares at you now from the corner of her eye, probably too embarrassed with this minuscule confession to look at you straight. "So I want you to get me some more."

Well, you aren't completely broke yet, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that you can buy her more stuff. Not that you really want to. You know if you refuse, however, something bad will happen, whether it's by Linia's hands or by Pursena.

Come to think of it, though... it's obvious Pursena isn't as hotheaded as her sister. Normally Linia is the one doing the talking — and the attacking — while Pursena sits back and watches from the sidelines, wearing either a poker face or too absorbed in the taste of dried meat to care about conflict.

Honestly you don't know if acting on her greedy desires for food is an advantage or not. It seems like it could be. After all, many people say the way to a person's heart is through tasty food.

In this case, sadly, while you may not be able to reach her heart, you can surely reach her ears. She might be far more reasonable than Linia.

Maybe.

The trip to the meat market is a quiet one. Both you and Pursena don't speak much, only focused on the road. Every now and again Pursena will glance at you, ready to speak, but she never does anything more than stare for a moment.

Eventually you yourself decide to make conversation. "Hey, uh, just wondering. Since you and your sister seem like you'd have your own money, why don't you buy your own meat?"

Pursena doesn't glance at you when you ask. "It would be a waste since you can just, like, buy it for me."

"What if I run out of money?"

"Then I'll buy it myself. For now, you're sharing."

Hah, right. Sharing. That's what she calls it. It feels more like you're getting robbed of both your money and your dignity at the same time.

You turn up at the market. The streets are lined with various food vendors. Some selling fresh veggies and fruit, others selling bread and drinks. Your eyes are fixed on the drink vendor, where a tall and burly man beckons customers closer, announcing a sale on steamed milk and fresh juice.

Pursena's eyes, as expected, are right on the meat vendor. She cares about nothing more than the food in her sight. Noticing your attention isn't on her, Pursena quickly grabs you and pulls you by your wrist. She speeds up, eager to buy more to eat.

"Quit standing around before they sell out or something," she whines.

You let her take you to the front of the vendor. A woman with gorgeous brown locks stands beneath a display of sausages, pork, chicken and the like.

"Those," Pursena says and points to a lone basket beside the brown-haired woman. In it are the slabs of dried meat you purchased yesterday — the cheap stuff, as Pursena would put it.

With a sigh, you make your purchase, which ends up costing about a third of your coins. Pursena demanded that you buy the whole basket. At first it sounded crazy but the woman selling the meat assured you there wasn't much left anyway, so the price would not be substantial.

Even so... digging through your wallet afterwards leaves you disappointed. You're about to be living on scraps.

As you and Pursena make your way back to campus, you notice she isn't eating out of the basket yet. Any other time she would be stuffing her face, no hesitation. Right now she's silently walking beside you, seemingly waiting for something.

You don't question it. When the two of you arrive back in the academy's courtyard, Pursena stops by a bench.

"Here," she says. The girl takes a seat and rests the basket in her lap. "Sit."

Without question, you sit beside her. You're not sure what to do now so you just look off in the distance at nothing in particular. Pursena speaks up after a moment, and you suddenly feel the basket being placed in your lap.

You grab into it and lock eyes with her. "What?"

She gestures to the basket. "Feed me."

"Feed... you?"

"Did I stutter?"

You swallow down your confusion. Uncomfortable chills run all up and down your body when you see Pursena lean in, open her mouth, show her pearly white teeth — ready to be fed.

She must really think she's a princess. You weren't expecting this at all but you can't find it in yourself to refuse. So, hating your own guts for it, you pull a piece of jerky from the basket and hold it up to Pursena's mouth.

She bites down on one half, chewing, never breaking eye contact. You inch the other half of the snack closer to her lips, allowing her to take it delicately in her mouth.

It's so weird. You feel so weird. You keep asking yourself this — is this even bullying in the first place? Again and again, as the girls order you around, you have to ask. Because in reality, all you'd expect from a standard bully is foul language, a few punches to your gut, maybe the shredding of your school papers.

But these girls. They have successfully gone far beyond that point of normality, as weird as it sounds, to become your bullies who treat you like a maid.

Now you're feeding this dog-girl her sum of snacks and you feel so indescribably weird. Her eyes refuse to leave yours, her perfect teeth continue chewing on her treats. And you? You keep feeding her.

You feed her until that basket is empty and she has nothing left to eat. You feed her until the constant eye contact you make is causing your very soul to cringe. You feed her and watch her chew and swallow and lick her lips and then, finally, turn away.

A weight lifts off your shoulders as soon as you stop looking into her eyes.

"You really are like a pet," she says, fixing her hair and brushing her folded ears with a finger. "Linia was right. This is kinda nice. I think I'll make you feed me at least, like, once a day."

Lord. Please, no.

"Great," you stutter. "Awesome."

"Well." Pursena stands up and yawns. "I'm going back to the market. That wasn't enough."

Before she leaves, she turns to you and points at the bench like she's pointing down at a dog being told to sit. You suppress a scowl. "Stay here," she demands. "Don't go anywhere. I'll be back."

So while she's gone, you sit there and you wait and you stare at nothing and question yourself to no end.