My once-fiery coat of fur had been shrouded in a tattered cloak of dust and debris, my once snow-white paws turned to a colour of late autumnal slush, tipped with blunt ragged claws drained of their sharp shine by my toil against the walls keeping me within this dark abode. They had sustained no new damage for a few hours or so, as hopeless and discouraged of any chance of escape I had become.
Counting my luck that I had at least not been thrown in the stomach of straw as my brother had – for him, I could hope for only a quick end – I had resolved to bide my time, that should I find no way to free myself of my own accord, Death would hold the key.
However, I did not expect my angel of death to arrive so soon.
I was suddenly roused from my futile slumber by a sudden slice of white light from above. The scraping of a rock followed, and before I had time to come to my senses the sky opened up above me, allowing light to stab the shadow and fill it fully and completely, a singular, wide, blinding beam of sudden brightness, from which I squirmed, vocalising my surprise in a series of weak squeals and the whites of my bleary eyes.
It was then that I became aware of the noise.
Noise.
Lots of it.
Although it had taken longer to arrive in my ears, it was almost worse than the light. It shoved its way into my skull, tearing at my ears as it pushed and pulled, determined to hammer its way straight through my head.
The sounds were those of monsters. A complete cacophony, a racing, rancid rhapsody of screams and yells and –
BANG!
It was a shocking sound. A sound quite unlike anything that I had ever heard. A deafening roar so loud that it almost ran around the track of sound and became silent, leaving only a dull, resonating ring in its wake, a ring which reverberated through my skull, silencing the other, inferior sounds.
From the light, a wide, rough talon reached towards me.
Perhaps this was my angel of death, framed by its own cold halo, thought I. And, for a brief moment, that thought lulled me into a sense of false serenity. Subdued and disorientated by the dumbing of my senses, I almost let it grasp me, nothing but my own funeral bells ringing in my ears, spots of light dancing delicately across my vision, my nose ...
Smell.
Dogs.
Run.
