The Dark

                           By S. Hanken





   She waited there in the dark, chained to the basement wall. As she 
breathed, it came out in small, helpless sobs. She had been chained down 
here in the dark since these monsters had found her, weak from morphing 
without enough food. The chain was too heavy for her to break; How they’d 
found or forged it was beyond her. Tears leaked out from between her 
swollen and bruised eyelids, ran down the rusty fur covering her cheeks. 
   She was starved. Her once beautiful russet and white fur was dirty and 
matted with misuse. And she wanted to go home. Her helplessness flared 
into anger again -- How dare they? What right did they have to take away 
her freedom, just because she didn’t look human anymore? Clawed hands 
ripped at the iron collar locked around her neck, her fingerpads torn and 
claws broken as proof of the collar’s strength. And her determination. 
   Boots thumped in the upstairs hall, sending her heart into a wild beat. 
Oh, God... They were back. She tugged at the chain, digging her feet into 
the dirt floor, her toes sinking slightly into the half-mud. Almost half-
outside herself, she could hear her own whimpering. 
   A column of light fell down the stairs and hit her as the basement door 
opened. She squinted in the sudden light, trying to see which one it was: 
She couldn’t tell from the silhouette, her night vision killed by the 
light. She cringed, letting the chain fall slack from her fingers.
   "Trying to escape again, hm?" The voice was quiet, full of threat. 
   "N... No..." She dropped to her knees and cowered, trying to cover her 
nakedness under her and with her tail. This was bad enough in itself, but 
not as bad as --
   "Ray ought to know about this. His favorite pet trying to escape -- And 
lying about it, too." The boots turned and half-closed the door to the 
hall, the light still hiding Caleb’s face in shadow.
   Every nerve in her body arced with fear. "No! Please! Anything but 
that!"
   "Anything?" His voice almost dripped, both obscenely hinting and 
threatening. 
   She knew what he wanted. It was always his price for not telling Ray. 
Saying no once had been all she needed. She sighed the word out, regretting 
it but knowing this was easier. "Anything."
   The door opened wider again, and the boots came thumping down the wooden 
stairs. Her sharp ears caught the faint clink and leather rasp of a belt 
buckle coming undone.
   "Well, then. Get up off that floor, foxy girl -- I have something for 
you."

                           *     *     *


   She stirred on the dirt floor, painful and slow. Her tail curled up 
through her legs to cover her chest, hiding her raw and bruised flesh.
   Caleb was never gentle. 
   But it was never about her, anyway.
   She didn’t cry. She prided herself on that: No tears. Not like the first 
time, when Ray had... Disciplined her afterwards. 
   "Beasts don’t cry..." It echoed in her memory. She didn’t cry anymore, 
but she had been human.
   Sidney. That was her name. And she had been human. She had to keep 
reminding herself to stay sane. Why had this happened to her? She wasn’t 
the only slow morph, surely not the only vixen -- so why had they picked 
her? Regardless of reasons, she was here. 
   Sidney sat up, wincing gingerly as she put her weight on battered 
muscles. The all-too familiar ache of an empty stomach pulled at her 
middle. She was fed just barely enough to keep her still-morphing body 
from feeding on itself. And that was the shame of it -- Her own body 
betrayed her, made her weak enough that her kidnappers could keep her.