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This Forsaken World

By Mantrid Brizon

Episode One: A Changing Tide

April sighs, her hand lowering and head tilting back. Her long black hair, pulled into her trademark pigtails, sway in the gentle breeze. She silently laments the loss of her prisoners as she stares into the clear, blue sky; the pale skinned human male, “Grey", and the equally rare, hooved equine Voeldahn woman, Ruth, will be truly missed. Reflecting on her prisoners, she can't for the life of her understand why she didn't simply pair them off from the start. So desperately she wanted the horse woman to birth a child, and with a human she'd have what she wanted; it'd be an adorable plaything for her daughter, Augustine. Of course, had she done that, Ruth would've enjoyed the human, which April wanted for herself.

Turning her head down, she looks toward her daughter, whom she walks beside. April's sapphire eyes land upon the pre-teen girl, a clone of herself, and the byproduct of her rape of Danny so many years ago. Seeing her mother's gaze, Augustine's tail swishes from side to side, her lips curling into a little grin as she looks up at her mother. They travel slowly along the jagged concrete of the old road. Her short coat of clean, white fur with thin black stripes ruffles from a powerful gust, as does her hair, which matches her mother's. Augustine shivers, and so April impulsively drapes her arm over her daughter.

Augustine rests her head against her mother's torso. April's heart burns with pride as she recalls how bravely Augustine stood up to her, holding her own mother at gunpoint and demanding that they return to Coalton. Unable to control herself, April gently and affectionately scratches the girl's head with her clawed fingers. She was never so bold at her age; she merely cowered around those who kept her, never fighting back until years later. The sinister woman is pleased that her child has already proven herself stronger. If she continues this path, she'll do well in this world, considering what it's become.

The self-appointed chieftain trudges along the old broken road, leading her daughter and their troops back to Coalton, the town she leads with a bloody fist. Marcus, her second-in-command, looks over the dainty feline Voeldahn woman. Her slender frame is plain to see, while her hips and perfect buttocks sway gracefully as the five-foot and three-inch tall woman walks over the rough terrain. He glances over to the other soldiers who walk just beside and behind him, all of them several paces from the ruthless woman and the pre-teen girl.

He gives each a nod as they approach their village. Marcus doesn't need to speak; they all know what he's about to do. He's been clandestinely planning this for some time, and it's been a long time coming. The strong Voeldahn draws his collapsible baton from a pouch on his belt, being careful not to make too much noise as he does. The canine man's muscles grow tense, his dark brown fur bristling on his arms as he prepares to strike. Sweat builds on his brow, dampening his thick fur. Augustine glances back at just the right moment, screaming and reaching for her blue and black Charter Arms revolver.

April turns back to see Marcus, who stands nearly a foot taller than her, wielding the baton high above his head. The six-foot and two-inch tall Voeldahn tries to club his leader, only for her to draw her holstered Micro-Uzi. Using the baton, he knocks the gun from her left hand while sweeping the blunt instrument across the knuckles of Augustine's right hand. The girl screams in pain and drops her revolver as the other men spring into action. They grab hold of Augustine while Marcus pounces upon April. He pins her arms to the ground with his considerable strength.

“You stupid fucker! I'll fucking kill you!" April screams.

“Not so tough without that gun, eh?!" Marcus laughs.

“Just you wait 'til I get it back." She snarls, baring her teeth.

“Mom!" Augustine shouts.

One of April's formerly loyal minions stuffs a rag into the short snout of the girl, her blue eyes squinting from the taste and texture of the old fabric, as well as the force with which he inserts it. His hand grips her chin, his fingers coiling over her short snout and keeping it closed while a second man prepares a line of old, 550 paracord; he wraps it around her snout and ties it, keeping her mouth closed over the wadded rag.

“Touch a hair on her head and I'll eat your fucking hearts right out of your chests!" April growls angrily.

“Shut the fuck up!" Marcus snarls.

He backhands April with such force, that she briefly sees stars. She hasn't been struck like that since she was a little girl. Suffering a flashback, she's left momentarily frozen in terror. Taking this opportunity, both of the white tigress women are quickly bound. April is soon gagged in a similar manner to her daughter. The men hold the defenseless females by their arms and pull the along, two with April and one with Augustine, who's young age and small size make her a minimal threat, at best. Marcus leads them back to Coalton in silence, stopping as the walls of the town come into view.

Turning around, he looks back at his captives, brushing his light brown bangs from his eyes. He smirks, silently chuckling as April glares at him, struggling with her bindings and a snout that's tied shut. The two men who hold each arm struggle as she puts up a considerable fight, only adding to Marcus' amusement.

“Always fighting. Normally I like that in a woman!" Marcus laughs. “Who doesn't like a good rape, am I right?! ... But let's face it; you're just too fucking ruthless. When you keep killing us like we're easily replaceable, shit like this happens."

“Mmm! Mmm mm mmmm!" April mumbles through the rag.

“I'm sorry? What's my plan?" He asks, mockingly cupping the back of his pointy, canine ear with a hand. “Why, I'm taking over! Won't that be nice?!"

“Mmm-mmm!" April snarls.

“Well that was a 'fuck you' if I've ever heard one!" Marcus chuckles. “Don't worry though. Augustine will be nice and safe with us; I like Augustine. She knows how to keep her head down, like a good girl. You should be more like her! Unfortunately for you, April... You're not, so you're done..."

He motions to a few soldiers, bringing them closer to him. He whispers into their animalesque ears, pointing back and forth between April and her daughter. After a moment of silence, he pats two of them on the back and swirls his index finger in the air while pointing skyward, a signal to the others to follow him.

“Mmm!" April mumbles.

“What's that?" Marcus stops and turns back toward her. “Oh, well we're going home, they're going to take you out of earshot and murder you, and Augustine will be allowed to live in Coalton, once I'm sure she isn't going to seek revenge. With you out of the way, whenever the Sijian Alliance that I've heard so much about makes its way down here, we're going to seek annexation. Have a pleasant death." He snickers.

The two soldiers who've been tasked with her execution take hold of April's arms, pulling her away from both her daughter and the town she'd founded. Looking back, April can see a tear rolling down Augustine's cheek as she witnesses the men leading her mother away. The mere sight of this breaks April's heart; she lost her parents to raiders when she was only a little girl, and now Augustine is suffering the same pain at nearly the same age. The fire of anger grows within her, slowly building as it consumes every fiber of her being. How dare they force this kind of torturous pain on her daughter like this.

Pulled out of sight as they round a corner, April no longer has the image of her daughter as a reminder. As the men lead her further and further away from Coalton, she takes a moment to reflect upon her life. All that she's done and all that she's had to do replay in her mind. At fifteen, she committed her first murder, executing a vile man and a woman who was once her friend, a woman she knew before their village was attacked, back when her parents were still alive. As if to spite their corpses, she abandoned the child that her friend had borne for the man, leaving it to die of exposure in the wilderness.

April swiftly learned that what this cruel and perverse man had said seemed to be true; people only respond to a select few emotions, and some are more valuable than others. Her willingness to employ extreme, almost comedic levels of violence, brought her the fear and submission necessary to prevent robbery, rape and murder. The sadistic pleasure she took in torture and murder was at first an act, but soon her stomach no longer churned from her deeds. The screams of her victims no longer bothered her. At only seventeen-years-old, she'd formed a gang, and though many would come and go, she now had some level of control, for the first time in her life.

The things she did with it could be considered questionable at best, and certainly she acted rashly on occasion. Raping, torturing and selling Danny into slavery was a low point, but she eventually founded Coalton. How many families found safety in her village, protected by her minions? How many traded without fear of being robbed and murdered? Looking up at the sky, she reflects on her daughter and on Danny, wondering what life would've been like had she kept Danny with her and not sold him into slavery. Would Danny have been a good father to his daughter, Augustine? She's had these thoughts several times before this moment, and it always weighs heavily on whatever conscience she has left.

Her heart aches further at the thought of Augustine not having anyone when she dies. What will become of her daughter? April shudders at the thought; a woman is never safe on the road, regardless of how young or old she is. Few can contain their carnal urges for long when living in a world without rules or risk of proper punishment, men and women alike. She only had to deal with one man when she was a child, and fighting only made it worse. It's at this moment, as April plays out the varying scenarios in her mind, that she decides that she won't allow these men to kill her without a fight; she can't.

She needs to escape and rescue her daughter, and at the very least, she should take one of them down with her. No sense in dying like a bitch. Using her own claws, she carefully pokes and cuts at the thick ropes that bind her wrists together, clandestinely weakening the knot. They walk for well over an hour, trying to follow their instructions of being far enough away so that the citizens, and Augustine, won't hear the shot reverberating throughout the forest. Now several miles away, the men suddenly steer April towards the forest. With violent shoves, they push her through a series of bushes.

To her surprise, however, they don't allow her to fall, nor do they draw their weapons and fire. Instead, they walk her through the wilderness, heading toward a patch of woods she's moderately familiar with. They lead her toward a ledge. Do they plan to push her from the sixty-foot cliff to her death? Would that even kill her? Surely, she couldn't survive the injuries sustained, and that would certainly spare them having to waste ammunition. Deeper and deeper they march into the forest, approaching the small cliffside. April knows that her time is short, her mind formulating several strategies.

During the time it's taken them to walk to the forest, and throughout their trek towards the cliff, April has managed to loosen the knot that binds her wrists. Pulling it apart, she holds it together so that the ropes don't fall away, lest they discover she's free. Passing through a series of bushes, the ridge and the steep drop come into view. To her amazement, Marcus' minions haven't yet bothered to check her ropes. As they approach the ridge, one man produces the same revolver that belonged to Augustine. April allowed her to keep it after she stole it from her, using it to force her own mother to call off the search for Grey and Ruth.

“Alright... Ready to do this, Dave?" One asks.

“As ready as I'll ever be." Dave sighs.

“How about you, bitch?" The man shoves April's shoulder, pushing her towards the ledge.

“Mmm-mm!" April growls into her gag.

“Lay off, Steve. Let's just do this and go home." Dave remarks.

“Just having a little fun." Steve chuckles.

She carefully pulls the rope and coils one end around her hand, gripping tightly as she prepares herself. April can hear the subtle sound of the revolver cocking.

“Hold on! I want this fucking whore to see us do it." Steve proclaims with perverse pride. “Turn around bitch!"

April hangs her head, her lips curling into a sinister grin around her bound muzzle. This is her chance. She remains in place, looking over the edge of the cliff. After a pause, she can hear footsteps approaching.

“Didn't you hear me? I said turn around!"

The angered Steve grips her shoulders, one hand holding a pistol. Spinning her around by force, he's startled as April slashes his face with her claws before swiftly kicking him in the chest. He stumbles back, falling into Dave, who stands only a few feet away. Steve drops his pistol as the pair tumble toward the ground. Dave's hand lands in the dirt and the revolver fires. BANG!

“Agh! God damnit! My back!" Dave cries out in agony.

April races for Steve's gun, but Steve is to quick. Taking hold of the pistol, she is forced to tackle the man, knocking the wolf-like Voeldahn to the ground. Again, he drops his pistol. Fearful that he'll retrieve it, April kicks it away. To their collective horror, it tumbles over the side of the cliff, where neither can retrieve it.

“Fuck! You're going to pay for that!" Steve growls.

Taking a rock, April is quick to strike him in the temple. Once, then again, and then again; April beats Steve's head with the rock until a clawed hand grips her shoulder. Pulling her from Steve's body with considerable force, a weakened Dave attempts to drag her through the dirt. One hand clutches a wound on his back, which oozes hot crimson. Still clutching the rock, April swings hard, slamming it into the side of Dave's skull with an audible crack.

“Agh!" He groans, falling again into the dirt.

April's momentum causes her to twirl, also landing on the hard earth. Lying on her back for a moment, she can briefly see a jagged and bloody rock nearby. It's clearly pierced Dave's back when he fell upon it. Scrambling to his feet, Dave pauses.

“There it is!"

He picks up the revolver that he must've dropped. He rises to his feet and cocks the hammer. Before he can employ the little revolver, April lunges. Her claws dig into his throat as she brings up the rock, still clutched tightly in her other hand. Over and over she strikes him, bashing him in the head as he flails his arms. Steve suddenly grasps her shoulders, pulling at her.

“Get off of him, bitch!" He roars.

Reaching a hand back, April smashes the rock against his nose. Steve groans in pain, releasing her and stumbling backward. With two men on either side, one of them armed, April takes no chances. She swiftly pushes Dave as he turns to face her. He stumbles back, the most fearful look on his face as he barrels over the edge of the cliff. Only a moment later, Steve and April hear the most horrid of cracking noises as Dave's body lands on the stones some sixty-feet below. Spinning around, April throws the rock at Steve's head, striking him and causing him to fall down. Racing toward him, she leaps upon his chest and grips his throat with both hands.

Steve, however, is a man, and naturally stronger. In short order, he punches her in the face, shoves her to one side and climbs atop her, strangling the life from her in an identical fashion.

“You're going to pay for this!" He snarls, his eyes filled with rage.

Struggling for breath, dots of black speckle her vision. She only has seconds to spare before she's unconscious and at his mercy. Her hands scramble for anything that she can use, her arms growing weaker by the millisecond. Her fingers coil and she balls a fist, collecting a handful of dirt. April heaves the dust into Steve's face, causing him to shut his eyes and cry out in pain. One hand releases her throat, quickly rubbing his burning eyes. With his vision blocked, April slams the blade of her hand as hard as she can into his throat. He coughs and falls onto one side.

Scrambling to her feet, April stumbles, quickly tearing the rope from around her snout and spitting out the rag. As Steve tries to pull himself up from the ground, she stomps the boot of her pawlike foot onto his genitals. He keels over in agony, lying on his side in the fetal position. The rope still dangles from one hand, and so April employs it. Kneeling on Steve's back, she grips the rope tightly with both hands and draws it around his neck, pulling hard. He begins to struggle, putting up a fight for all of a few seconds. Steve then falls limp as he blacks out. April grits her teeth through the pain as she holds the rope, her arms and hands stinging from the exertion, faintly tremoring.

“Die, damn you..." She grumbles.

It's a considerable struggle for her, cutting off his air until he expires; it takes nearly five uninterrupted minutes to kills via strangulation or smothering. Unable to hold out, April's fingers release the rope and her arms fall limp.

“Shit... Please tell me you're carrying a knife." She speaks to Steve's unconscious body.

Rolling him onto his back, she searches his pockets. To her shock, not only does he not have a knife, he doesn't have spare ammunition or even rations! Sighing in frustration, April sits on her legs for a moment, wondering what she can do to kill the man before he wakes up. Her arms and fingers won't hold out, and he has no knife. Should she beat him to death with rocks? Perhaps he'll wake up and fight her. As she thinks, she feels a subtle breeze. Turning her head toward the pleasant wind, she looks directly at the cliff. Her lips curl into a sinister grin.

“I bet you miss your buddy, don't you?" She asks the unconscious Steve in a childlike tone.

Grabbing hold of Steve's shoulders, she squats down just above his head, pulling with all her might. She grunts and groans as she struggles to drag his body some twenty feet toward the cliff. After a few feet, she drops his body in the dirt with a loud thud.

“Damn... I need to work out more." She remarks as she pants for air. “Come on, you heavy fucker."

Inch by inch she drags Steve's body over the broken rocks and the lumpy terrain, struggling to maintain her own balance as the dainty white tigress pulls him closer to his doom. Nearly halfway toward the ledge, Steve suddenly shifts. Startled, April drops him again and stands tall. His head bounces off of a rock.

“Ow..." He quietly moans, his face contorting in pain.

April looks left and right, contemplating her options. Unwilling to fight him all over again, she jumps over his body and darts into the woods, hiding a short distance away. Tucking herself within a splitting tree trunk, she watches through a dense bush as Steve slowly sits up. He rubs the back of his head and uses his shirtsleeve to wipe the dust from his eyes. After a moment, he appears to remember his situation. Bolting to his feet, he spins around, looking for April.

“Oh fuck..." He murmurs several times.

Turning toward the ledge, he carefully peers over the edge and down to the rocks below.

“Shit! Dave!" He gasps.

Steve checks his pockets for anything useful, before scrambling about the dirt for a weapon, all while April watches from her hiding place, unseen by the bloodied man.

“Shit... How long have I been out? Fuck... She must've thought I was dead... She must be long gone by now." He peers over the cliff once again. “Fuck! ... What to do... Okay, okay! Uh... She killed Dave, we fought, I lost my gun, but then I beat her to death and chucked her over the cliff! Yeah, that sounds good!"

April raises a brow as Steve concocts a story to feed to Marcus. Without even bothering to search for her, Steve leaves the scene, stumbling into the woods and back toward the road. She almost laughs at how easily he gave up, though she contains it to a silent chuckle. April waits for some time, just to be sure that Steve isn't simply waiting in the woods for her to appear. Once she's confident that he's truly gone, she emerges from her hiding place. Following the ridge, she looks for a way down; she needs to find those guns. A steep path follows a stream, and after an hours' hike, she reaches the base of the cliff.

Looking down at Dave's mangled corpse, his eyes stare into the sky, still wide with terror. Flies are already landing on his face, laying clutches of eggs. She snickers at the sight. Kneeling beside his body, she waves the flies away. Her hands feel his pockets before rummaging through them for valuables.

“I bet you thought this was going to be easy... Just shoot me, go home, then get your dick wet? Well, I've been dealing with bastards like you since I was thirteen, and I've been killing them since fifteen; I don't go down like a bitch; I'm April Fyre, you dumb-fuck." She speaks to the body.

After taking what little supplies he has, April sits beside the corpse and tallies her bounty. A full and surprisingly undamaged canteen, an intact magnesium stick, a small ferrocerium rod, a folding and lockable pocket knife that's actually sharp, and a small quantity of food. Dave doesn't seem to carry any spare ammunition either, nor is the Charter Arms revolver anywhere nearby. With her new gear now attached to her own belt, April scours the nearby terrain for the fallen pistols, hoping to find at least one of them. Minutes turn to hours, and hours soon bring dusk, yet she still hasn't found either of the two weapons.

Dave's broken body reeks of blood, and the buzzing of flies is like nails on a chalkboard. Eventually, with little daylight left to spare and her patience already wearing thin, April gives up the search. Realizing that Marcus may not believe Steve's story and come to the cliff to check for himself, she decides to venture deeper into the woods and make her camp as far from the ridge as she possibly can. Unfortunately, she'll have to barter or steal weapons and supplies from any nearby settlements before she can return to Coalton for either her daughter or revenge.

After walking for nearly an hour, there's virtually no daylight left. Discovering a clearing near a small but clear stream, April pauses to rest. The water moves at a steady pace, the babbling brook calling out to her like a siren. She cannot resist the music of the water. Resting on her hands and knees, she dips her snout into the stream, drinking her fill. After topping off her canteen April builds a fire and a simple lean-two against a sturdy tree. She sits beneath her shelter, watching the flames with her icy blue eyes, her head resting against the firm bark of the cold oak.

Closing her eyes, her stomach softly growls. Eating what little food she'd claimed from Dave's body, she stokes the flames of her campfire. Typically, she wouldn't encourage the fire, lest she be seen by anyone searching for her, however, as deep in the wilderness as she is, her primary concern are the many nocturnal predators roaming about the darkness. While she is a Voeldahn, with the fur, tail, snout and ears of a cat, the mountain lions see her like any other human or wild deer; if she can be killed and eaten, they won't hesitate. Nature is even colder than April.

With the fire protecting her, April closes her eyes and soon succumbs to her exhaustion. In her dreams, she finds herself wandering alone, in an abandoned Coalton, calling out to Augustine. Entering her old hangar, April walks through the silent halls, searching high and low for her offspring. Opening the door to her room, she peeks inside to find another forest. There, a ten-year-old April sits in the darkness, softly crying. She's too afraid to run into the dark and away from Trapper or Reagan, who've kidnapped her from the camp where Sniper promised to find her. The sniffling April holds her pigtails, a reminder of the nice man who was like a father to her.

The adult April watches her younger self, a sharp pain piercing her heart. With watering eyes, she stumbles from the doorway, swiftly slamming it shut. It's all she can do to avoid the painful memories of her youth. It wasn't until she'd hit puberty some years later before anyone tried to touch her, but once they did, Sniper wasn't there. Why hadn't he come for her? He promised her that he would. April can only assume now, after so many years to dwell on it, that he didn't survive his journey to or from the river. Perhaps Trapper was right after all? All his talk rhetoric about weakness and the failings of morality...

“We're all just animals" he'd say to April and Reagan, “so why constrain ourselves?" He often spoke those words before demanding the girl's attention, often at gunpoint. At first, April accepted her fate, but soon she took Trapper's words to heart. It wasn't long before April finally had enough and put a bullet into his head while he slept. After the first shot, she fired a second and then a third, before setting his body on fire, just to spite him. She never enjoyed what he did to her, and since she's just an animal, why not lash out like she always wanted to?

She murdered Reagan as well, for good measure. After all, she never did try to protect her, even when she had every opportunity for nearly four years. April never believed that fear of being hunted by Trapper was a valid excuse for submission. Truthfully, as far as April is concerned, everyone's guilty for her plight to some degree or another. With her anger reaching its peak, she stomps down the hall and toward the main hangar door. Passing another door, she quickly opens it to look for Augustine, only to peer into a large room. Standing before her, an older April, all of seventeen years, forms her first gang. It happened purely by chance, one beautiful but fateful summer day.

Reaching a small town, April was accosted by a gang of four Voeldahn boys. After harassing the beautiful teenage girl for some time with no reward, the four boys took a more direct approach. They attempted to drag her off and rape her. One had the nerve to drop his pants to his ankles in front of townsfolk as they pulled her into a shed. She fought hard, however, and two of them shoved her inside. As she fell, she used the opportunity to draw her pistol, roll onto her back and open fire. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. With five rounds of .22 LR, she killed two outright, the tiny, forty-grain bullets striking their faces and necks.

As one boy fled in terror, the leader, who'd dropped his pants earlier, was left in dire straits. Though one hand now gripped his prized Micro-Uzi, he was struggling to lift his pants. Wasting precious time, April was quick to shoot him down, emptying Trapper's little twenty-two Ruger pistol before claiming the Micro-Uzi for herself. With the town up in arms, she swiftly murdered two adult men who came to investigate, demanding the fourth boy. Other girls and some of the boys who'd been targeted by the band of thugs were quick to surrender him. To the dismay of his mother, and after making him beg for his life before the town, April executed him anyway.

Her ruthlessness brought her all of the right kind of attention, and before she left that town, a dozen others had decided to follow her. April's anger subsides as she steps back from the door, her heart filled with a perverse pride. Her determination is now as strong as ever. Racing down the hall, toward the main area door and violently ripping it open, she finds yet another setting in place of the cells where she keeps her “pets". Standing on a road, she finds a camp that looks eerily familiar. Entering a tent at the end of the camp, she's startled by a sight. Before her, she sees herself, all of twenty-years-old and nude, as she straddles Danny's pelvis, raping the drugged young man.

Her younger self enjoys him to her heart's content, accepting his seed once the physical stimulation forces his eventual release. Seeing herself impregnated with her daughter, April's suddenly horrified when the younger April turns around, still seated atop the bound and drugged Danny. She aims her favorite weapon directly at the older, dreaming April; she stares into the barrel of the Micro-Uzi machine pistol. April jumps back from the tent and falls to the ground as her younger self fires several rounds at her, barking insults for her intrusion. This had, in fact, happened that day, when a man interrupted to share important news with his leader.

Fear overwhelms her; the fear or failure, the fear of loss, and the fear of death are palpable as April scrambles from the tent and races for the open hangar door, which floats in open space. As she dashes, she can hear bullets whizzing by, briefly distracting her from the sepulchral screaming of many voices. Some sound suspiciously like people she'd tortured or murdered in the past, but one is quite distinctive; Augustine begs for her mother's help. She cries as April did when she wept for Sniper, hoping for a rescue that never came. Remembering all of the torment that she'd suffered, April jumps through the doorway, landing with a thud on the hard ground.

Startled from her sleep by her nightmare, she opens her eyes to a cold campfire and a blue sky, glowing vibrantly from the morning sun. Sitting upright, she takes a deep breath. It's all she can do to keep from crying over her awful dream, which only served to remind her of her troubled past. It's a fate that she doesn't want for her daughter, or any young child for that matter. After eating what's left of her food, April drinks from the stream before beginning her journey back to the road. Opting to take the long way, in the hopes of avoiding any patrols Marcus might've placed, she first walks away from Coalton.

It isn't long, however, before the blue sky darkens with thunder clouds. Before mid-day, she's caught in a torrential downpour. The thick mist left from the heavy rain makes it hard for her to see, while the new streams and deep mud make it even harder to traverse. Eventually, she loses her direction entirely, unable to judge her position from the sun, which is hidden by cloud cover. For the first time in many years, April is both physically and metaphorically without direction. She wanders through the forest while the thunder claps and the rain pours, her snow-white fur with black tiger stripes as soaked as her clothes.

After several hours of rainfall, it eventually subsides, but the landscape has been deformed by the maelstrom. Nothing looks like it did, nor does she have a renewed sense of direction. She opts to walk in the same path that she'd been, hoping that it'll eventually lead to a road, any road, and she'll be able to work her way back toward Coalton, stopping at any outlying villages to “gather" supplies. As the sun begins to set, she trudges through the forest in her drenched clothes and boots, her pawlike feet sloshing inside of her footwear as her fur mats, flattened in some places and bristled in others; her hair and girly pigtails are nearly glued to the fur on her face and neck.

Forcing her way through a patch of dense bushes, she suddenly breaks through. Tumbling out of the flora, she lands on her belly, swiftly sliding down a meter-high ledge of mud. Splash! She lands in a deep puddle beside an old road. The concrete is sunbaked and cracked from decades of neglect.

“Son of a bitch!" She growls, rising to her feet.

“Well I'll be mother-fucked..." A woman's voice says.

April's eyes grow wide, her head quickly turning toward the stranger. There, standing on the road and pointing the barrel of a carbine rifle at her head, stands Monica, with Grey by her side.

“This is why I wanted to take this road." Grey remarks to his companion.

The pale-skinned human, whom April had captured earlier, looks to her with a little smile. His long, light-brown hair and goatee sways in the gentle breeze. However, his companion, the two-tone, rust and cream colored, canine Voeldahn girl, glares with fiery eyes. Her fingers coil around the pistol grip and barrel shroud of her Cobray CM-11 rifle, a gift from Grey. Monica's bushy tail sways with devilish glee as she takes a step closer, her finger caressing the trigger of her pistol caliber carbine. April's beautiful eyes scan the pair. Neither Grey nor his companion are wet from the rain.

“I think I get it now, Grey." Monica chirps. “You've had this coming for a long time, you fucking bitch..."

“Wait!" Grey shouts.

Reaching out, he grabs the top of Monica's rifle, gently forcing her to lower her weapon. To both Monica's and April's shock, he steps between the women.

“But I... She... This is..." Monica stammers.

“We're not using this."

“You said to take this road! You said 'the voice' wanted us to go this way!" She barks.

“The voice?" April reiterates, raising a brow.

“It did, and look who we've found!" Grey grins, looking over his shoulder at April.

“Then what the fuck are we doing?!" Monica demands.

April turns her head down, her sapphire eyes shifting upward and watching the human. His eyes scan her from head to toe, but not in the manner that she's accustomed. Typically, the first thing a man does is judge her looks, most often to imagine how much pleasure he'd derive from her supple flesh. Grey, however, doesn't look her over with lust. Instead, he seems to be scanning her quite innocently, examining the condition of her body and clothes. He turns his eyes toward hers, staring right through her. It's unsettling just how warm his presence feels to her; she'd held him captive in her cell, with every intention to rape and torture him until he was barely alive, but his face shows no anger and his eyes show no malice.

“We're helping someone." He says with a little smile.