The Hawkeyed Husky
An anthropomorphic husky ducks behind a corner, using his canine hearing to detect what might be around it. Hearing nothing, the husky moves to look around the corner.He sees nothing, so he assumes he's safe and continues. He looks at the buildings around him, wondering how an apocalypse that had been brought upon by a virus could've done this to a city."Well Jack, at least you were one of the lucky ones." the husky said to himself. He was originally human before all of this started, but the virus demanded it change every living, sentient being, also known as humans, into one thing or another.He heard a noise and spun his head in its direction, quickly readying an arrow in his bow in one swift motion. He concentrated into the darkness of the building in front of him and saw movement. Knowing what he was looking for, he quickly saw the pale white skin of the ghoul limping through the apartment building, bones clacking with every step the walking corpse made.Jack pulled back the string of the bow, aiming for the slowly moving walker's head. He was thankful for all the missing windows, allowing for a large window of opportunity. He glared at the arrowhead, willing it to ignite, and let go of the string. The arrow struck the ghoul right behind the eye with enough force to knock the undead human right off its feet and into the rubble. Its body immediately ignited, its rotting, dry, and paper-like skin making it extremely flammable. The fire spread throughout the bones, each one having some burnable material on it somewhere, effectively lighting up the room.The husky's ears folded back on his head, and immediately shot another arrow into the fire that had been charged with flash freezing, its temperature at 0° K. The fire froze and shattered, the summer heat causing the ice to melt very quickly.The husky sat down, tired from the walk here. His tail wagged aimlessly as he took inventory. His quiver had five arrows left. He was curious how much energy he had to create more, and was hoping he wouldn't run out today. He moved on."Now if I were a Holly, where would I hide?" Jack was referring to his girlfriend, whom he had lost contact with, and was trying to figure out where she would go to wait for him.The last message she had gotten through to him was: "Meet me in Geiser Town. I love you, Jack."Jack walked for a couple blocks, careful not to stay in the open for too long. The raiders he kept seeing could be anywhere, after all, and he wasn't going to take any chances. It's bad enough that he doesn't like to kill and that they have no problem with it, but they also have guns and don't mind making a lot of noise.The husky leaned around a corner and immediately ducked back. Two wolves with assault rifles were patrolling the area. I really am not going to enjoy this. Jack thought. He thought about his options.First option: death. He could kill them or die trying, which
neither would be very hard. The ease of the option appalled him.Option number two: pacification. He could disable the wolves and leave them there, unable to comprehend what had happened. He shuddered. He didn't want to do that.Third option: befriending them. It was a long shot, but he could try to get them on his side. He didn't actually know if they were raiders or not, anyway.Last option: avoidance. He could completely ignore their existence and pass them undetected. As much as he wanted to do just that, he found the idea of making friends more and more appealing.He readied an arrow with a message, "Friend or foe? You'll know what to do. I'll mark the place." and shot it in the air, masterfully aiming to make it impossible to detect where the arrow came from. He thought over his plan. Attempt to contact. If successful, attempt to befriend. If not, ignore. If successful in befriending, get them into a meeting place. If not, disable and disarm. Interrogate afterwards.The arrow struck the ground beside the smaller wolf. This wolf was jet black and was wearing dark clothes. The larger wolf was grey and was wearing more threatening clothes. Judging by the body language, Jack guessed that the smaller one was the younger brother of the bigger one.The younger one read the note, his tail wagging at the prospect of a friend. He looked to be about Jack's age, which was around sixteen. The younger one ran over to his brother, handing the wolf the note. The older wolf read over the note as the younger one got excited.Then the older brother struck the black wolf down with the butt of his gun. Jack's mouth gaped, seeing this act of abuse. In a rage, the husky pulled an arrow and let it fly into the grey wolf's arm. Jack only realize after he shot the arrow what he had charged the arrowhead with. He called himself an idiot and ran of to the now asleep grey wolf. The wolf was rapidly regressing in age and stopped at about three, his clothes altering themselves to match.The black wolf was yelling his brother's name as the husky picked him up. The younger, well, Jack thought, maybe now older, brother ran over to the husky and attempted to shoot him, but the husky's mood was too rotten to deal with this and jammed the gun's trigger. He picked up the grey wolf's gun and pointed it at the now older wolf. "You just earned yourself a time out." Jack said. The black wolf's arms went up, dropping the gun."I'm s-sorry." the wolf pleaded, "P-please don't shoot me." His eyes are watering, Jack thought. He lowered the gun."Follow me," Jack said, "You can start with your name.""My name?" the wolf asked, "My name is...uh...""Do you not know your own name?" Jack asked. The wolf was racking his brain for an answer, and started crying as a result. Jack sighed, "If I promise to stop asking, will you stop crying and follow me?""I honestly can't remember." was the wolf's
response."What do you mean by that?" Jack asked, careful of his tone. He looked at the wolf curiously."I don't remember much before the apocalypse." the wolf said, still sniffling. Jack stood in front of the wolf. Jack was slightly taller than the lupine teenager, and the wolf's eyes were a piercing green. Jack noticed that the other wolf had yellow eyes. More wolf like. He wasn't liking these details he was noticing."What did that tell you?" Jack said, point a thumb at the unconscious pup."My brother? He told me he had found me passed out in a library and that my name was Luke." Jack took a mental note that the grey wolf was not "Luke's" brother...and that the black wolf's name was not Luke, "Though I'm starting to doubt everything that he had said. My brother was never abusive, from what little I remember." Jack noted that this was all true, his quiver's strap wasn't glowing anymore."What's his name?" Jack asked. Luke's eyes went wide."I-I'm not sure." he grabbed his head and shook it, "I always assumed his name was Aaron! He never corrected me and always responded to it!" the wolf yelled. Jack grabbed Luke's shoulders."Hey, calm down. We can't have you attracting the undead, and we'll fare better if you aren't having a meltdown." Jack said, pausing for the wolf to calm down, "Now, I'll help you solve these questions, but I'm going to need you to let me do the talking.""O-okay. I g-guess I can trust you." the wolf said between shaky breaths, "You haven't really given me a reason not to."This is a very trusting person. Jack thought. I hope I can encounter more people like this. Jack walked over to the regressed wolf and opened one of the lupine youth's eyes.A red eye looked back at him.It had slits for pupils and the irises were glowing. Jack cried out in shock, fell on his butt, and scrambled backwards. "Th-th-that's a d-d-d-demon!" Jack yipped."What?" Luke said, rushing to the husky's side.Jack searched his brain for an easy way to explain it, "It's not your brother. I knew that much from you claiming that it was."I've been in this apocalypse for years, like most, and I've been observing how these transformations work. One thing that made me suspicious was the fact that you two had different colored fur. Families that weren't metaphorically furries before the breakout always are the same exact species. Down to the color usually."Another thing was his yellow eyes. Yellow eyes aren't very common amongst humans if at all existant, so I doubted his humanity right then and there."Then there were the lies you told-""What lies?" Luke cut Jack off. Jack drove an arrow charged with Heaven's light into the regressed wolf's head and the light ate away the demon's flesh, leaving no debris or evidence behind. Jack could've sworn Luke's voice was deeper a second ago."The lies," Jack continued, "were that
your name was Luke and that the demon was your brother. While you thought it the truth, you were lying.""I've been in the custody of a demon?" Luke asked. Jack turned toward the wolf and gasped...