THE YARD

Chapter 2

(image shown on Media Board is main character as a puppy)

The tan puppy twitched a fly off of her ear and peered up at the sun after just waking up. It was the first time in days she'd seen something bright, besides the reactive White Dog.

It hurt her eyes right away, so she winced and rubbed one of her eyes with a paw gingerly.

It flares, she thought. But then she paused and stared at her yellow-tan paw, wondering if flare was even a word. It's not like anyone had affirmed for her whether it was or not.

Suddenly, the puppy decided that was her name, and what she wanted to be called.

None of the other dogs in the yard besides Jax seemed to have a name. (According to Jax.)

The first day he'd been a bully chatterbox. It was a common occurrence for Jax to speak his mind, but White Dog kept him in his place.

In the days she'd been there the other dogs had not addressed her other than to make snide remarks, rebuking comments or condescending chatter amongst themselves. If Jax could have a name, so could she. She wasn't useless, like the other dogs said. She wasn't just Tan Dog.

Her previous family had called her something like poppy or pewpy, but she was so young it'd been hard to understand. The tan dog had been too young and had too little repetition to properly remember the word. Heck, she was still too young. If she didn't grasp onto the word Flare tightly enough, it'd get lost among all of her other jumbled-up puppy memories.

Flare felt better for the first time in The Yard, now that she had a name. Maybe she would tell Jax, if he came back to nip at or make fun of her. But she knew she'd never announce it to the older dogs.

Studying her surroundings was already getting old, and all she ever did was lay down on the cold mud next to the outcrop of a concrete porch. The only reason she wasn't laying on the porch farther from the dogs was because it was even colder up there.

Flare knew that the tall fence only had two exits. The first was into the house, and the other was all the way across the huge yard. Past the muddy area, two tires laid out next to the wooden fence, and had old frozen weeds clumped around them. Rotting-wood dog-houses were right near the end. There was a heavyset chain attached to the ground right outside of both dog-houses, but neither were being used by any dogs.

The gate at the far end was centered and part of the fence, with a heavy black latch keeping it shut. The tan puppy guessed she'd never be able to open that and get away from the other dogs. But was she strong enough to dig her way underneath the fence?

Flare was a light tan-yellowish female dog with a thin stature. She looked nothing like these other dogs. And the fact that she knew nothing about fighting, or even what it was besides biting another dog too hard, made her wonder why she was put here. Did the humans mean to raise her as a fighting dog, by putting her in a yard with them? What about when Mocha had said "or breed?" Could she choose to do that instead? Or how about neither?

She'd had plenty of time to think while sitting against the house all day, body flattened to the ground. She had so many questions. Of course, the human called 'The Man' by the other dogs came to feed them every morning. He would be here soon, and on the fourth day here her stomach was howling for food. She couldn't describe the constant ache in her belly besides thinking it was somewhere between sickness and having a rat inside her, chewing away from the inside out.

Flare had never known what real, gripping hunger was like. It could also be compared to a dog having latched onto her stomach and twisting slowly. She wanted to eat today so badly, but the way these dogs ate was possessive and ruthless.