FAR FROM THE CAGES AT THE SHELTER, this new place was deep in the woods. The tall man unloaded Blue from the truck parked next to a large tree that, from the smell, or lack of smell, wasn’t a tree at all. It was sterile: no whiffs of animals, birds, bugs, or even wood. Tall Man leaned into the hooded lens of a security camera, which did a quick retinal scan, before the hidden doors opened to a steep staircase down into the ground.
Workers in spotless white suits quickly surrounded Blue and, despite her growling and snapping at them, talked gently before injecting her. Scared and confused, she became aware of wires, test tubes, and the smell of her own blood.
“How’s it going?” one scientist said to the other.
“She’s doing very well, despite the high charges we’ve been giving her,” said the other.
Blue snarled.
“Don’t worry, girl,” the first scientist said. “This only hurts a little bit.” He stabbed her with another needle.
Suddenly, strangely, she felt stronger. But as she looked at her reflection into the shiny, stainless steel table, she was struck by a far bigger difference. Her blue eyes were now bright— almost glowing.
Blue had been named such by her mother because of her almost instant love affair with water. As a puppy, Blue would boldly bound through puddles during thunderstorms, and even as an adult, she would paddle in the city ponds when the police weren’t watching.
But this was different. Blue, like most Huskies, already had pale blue eyes. Only now they were a piercing aqua, the color of the sea and the sky—a color so intense, there was nothing natural about it.
“What the heck?” Blue snarled. “Get me out of here!”
She clawed to get off of the table, but couldn’t get traction, her paws uselessly scraping back and forth against the polished steel. The scientists again rushed to the table, locking a collar around her neck, two of them keeping her from thrashing her head from side to side.
They dragged her outside, despite her angry barks.
And then, they unlocked the collar.
Freedom!
Blue sprinted from her captors—a far easier and faster journey than she thought possible. She ran through the forest, her nose leading past the trees, grass, and creeks. Within a day, she was back among the garbage cans, sidewalks, cardboard shelters, the homeless, the noise, and chaos.
It was good to be home.
Within a few days, her old friend, hunger, was back.
She searched through a trashcan and picked up a moldy, half-eaten sandwich. “Score!” Blue yipped before chewing on it with gusto.
After finishing, the hunger pains delayed for a few hours, she turned around toward the street. There, in the middle of the street, she noticed a rusty cage, and whimpering sounds of puppies. Blue cocked her head in confusion.
Then Blue saw her old friends, the Rottweiler bullies. As they walked toward the cage, laughing, she realized they planned to kill the pups. They had a long history of terrorizing—murdering cats, squirrels, or any other defenseless animals unfortunate enough to cross their path when they were bored.
Blue muttered to herself as she bounded into the street to get the cage, “Not today.”
She knew something was different within her. She still didn’t know how to control her new power, but somehow she was going to move that cage.
Within seconds, she had easily beaten them to the cage. I’ve got this, she thought.
She snarled at them, “You’re not killing these puppies.”
She then grabbed the cage bars in her mouth to drag it off the street. Only one problem—she couldn’t move it.
“Crap.”
Apparently, she did not “got this.” She wasn’t different. She had no special powers, and no special strength.
The Rottweilers, who had moved back in surprise after she rushed in, were laughing on the sidewalk.
As she stared remorsefully back at the cage, she saw a speeding car headed right for her.
Clearly, the driver only saw the rusty cage, and, with rush hour traffic on both sides, decided to hit it, and Blue, too.
With the puppies’ yelps of terror, she could feel her own adrenalin surge. She decided to perform one last, noble act, stepping in front of the cage in an attempt to shield them. Blue prayed for forgiveness for all that she had done wrong in her short life. She looked inside the cage and said, “I can’t save you.”
The car hit her broadside. She felt the force of the impact, heard the screeching of brakes, and smelled rubber from the tires. But she could still feel the street under her paws.
Am I dead? she thought, confused. Where’s the white light? The Open Meadow?
She opened her eyes. People encircled her, swarming the sidewalks, gasping with cell phones out. The Rottweilers’ jaws were slack, their tongues hanging out.
There was the car. It was flipped over, its front bumper crushed. Steam rose from the radiator, and it was leaking. The owner, stunned, stumbled out toward the sidewalk where bystanders caught him before he collapsed.
Blue barely had time to notice the fire before letting out a yelp and rushing to shield the puppies again.
BOOM! The small explosion engulfed her. She felt the heat surround her for a moment, and then it was over.
“That dog is mine,” screamed a fat man in a stained T-shirt. He lunged toward her, trying to grab a clump of her fur as she nipped at him. Other people started rushing toward her, trying to pin her to the ground. She jumped out of the crowd and ran back to the pups, which were still trapped in the cage. This time when she grasped the cage’s door, her teeth crushed the bars. Quickly grabbing the two small pups in her mouth, she sprinted down the alley at a speed so fast the sounds from that street were soon nothing but a dim whisper.
Once she got to her home, she gently dropped her new companions—two Labradors, one golden, one black.