One morning, I woke to Amistad's wet, tiny tongue licking my face. I opened an eye and looked up at his ears flopping down toward my face and his skin hanging down a bit, too. His eyes shone bright with excitement and happiness. He turned and romped around for a few seconds, then climbed and wiggled onto my stomach and licked my face again.

His tail was wagging and he was panting. I slowly got up—feeling dizzy at first, which has been happening for a long while—and began hitting the ground with my hands after squatting down. I intensely made those noises like I was drumming and Amistad went crazy. He was running around and leaping and just going around in circles. He paused with his front side closer to the ground with his hind side in the air with a smile on his face from enjoying the game. He began to bark joyfully, which woke everyone else up who wasn't previously asleep—Cheng had been going through his bag for something, perhaps a treat for Amistad.

Bluejay groaned, turned on her side, and pulled her bag over her ear while Crystal and Mom looked over at Amistad and cooed. We had always wanted a dog, but there were never enough animal shelters that let you adopt for low prices or nothing in our area, which was upsetting. Hopefully we survived to take care of Amistad.

While we waited for Bluejay to want to get up, Cheng, Mom, Crystal, and I played with Amistad. He's the cutest puppy I've ever seen and he hardly even play bites, too—which is definitely a plus.

Finally, Bluejay decided she was ready to start the day. I was beginning to grow impatient. That would be me at my house on a normal day, but these were no normal days. We couldn't afford to sleep in for too long.

We walked and walked. Soon, I was surprised by what I saw. "Snow!" Crystal cried excitedly.

Snow it was. There was a thin layer at first, but then it grew thicker and it was enough to cover our feet. Crystal loved snow, and she immediately began to throw snowballs at us all. She proceeded to throw one at Amistad when we first arrived at the thin layer of it.

Amistad was puzzled—he had never encountered snow in his short life. At first, when he put his paw down in it, he lifted it back up and whimpered slightly at the cold temperature of it. Then he began to smell it and licked it. When he realized the little taste and the cold temperature he felt against his tongue as well, he got bored with it for a moment. Soon enough, however, he rolled around in the snow and romped around. He began to shiver only after a few minutes. Cheng quickly picked him up and cuddled him like a baby.

The little vegetation that existed had thinned out and the clouds above began to be tinted with a blood-red color. It gave us all an ominous feeling, and even Amistad had curled up in Cheng's arms and quivered with fear.

We walked on in silence. I remembered all those who had lost their lives due to this.

I began to doubt anything would ever be the same again.

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I looked around at everyone. I glanced at my mother to see her wearing her simple emerald—which was her birthstone—necklace that my dad had gifted her in her birthday in May. I began to tear up while recollecting that day. I looked around at everyone else and noticed Amistad looking at me sadly. He noticed I wasn't happy, and I smiled at the pup.

Suddenly, shouts broke the silence. Then gunshots followed. I looked where I was just looking at Amistad a moment ago and saw a fallen Cheng.

Crystal screamed and I grew dizzy. No, I thought. This isn't happening. Not now, please no.

Cheng's eyes stared up into the sky with great fear. He looked over at me and weakly handed me Amistad. He tried to speak to us, but he couldn't manage the words. He let out one last groan of agony and his eyes glanced up into the sky as his head turned weakly. He looked at the blood-red clouds, now seeing them no longer.

Bluejay began to shout something unflattering into the still air and shot blindly with her gun. She began to sprint toward the group of three people standing there, each with two bags on their backs. I'd be willing to bet many of them were stolen from people they murdered.

Bluejay raced toward them, swinging her arms and roaring a battle cry. She pulled up her gun and held it steadily. She shot at one of them, who had been aiming for another one of us—it was too far away to tell who.

"Don't mess with my friends!!" she screeched. She shouted a few words to them, one of them resembling the word bucking. I had instantly covered Crystal's ears as soon as she had begun screaming at them, so she heard nothing. Or at least I hope so.

They turned tail and fled, leaving their friend's corpse and gun behind. They must have been to panicked to even remember it and their friend's bags. I supposed they were ours now.

Amistad jumped out of my arms and ran toward Cheng. He nudged his limp arm with his wet nose. When he didn't respond, Amistad licked Cheng's face and poked him with his nose in multiple places. Cheng did not respond. When Amistad was no longer curious to why and had just wanted Cheng to play with him and cuddle him once more, he began to howl and bark a mournful tune. I felt the tears flow from my eyes.

I began to remember all Cheng had done. He helped us all in times of fear and what could have been even more tragic. He helped us in our sorrows and even shared them with us, even though we hadn't known him that long. He had been friendly and trustworthy. He shared his resources with us and took in the helpless Amistad. He had done so much and shared so many friendly conversations and laughs with all of us. Why did the good ones have to go? Why did two of those murderers get to live and flee while Cheng had done nothing wrong yet suffered the loss of his life?

Those questions couldn't be answered, nor could the mourning Amistad be calmed. I swept him into my arms as he looked at Cheng and whimpered. I saw a single tear fall from his puppy eye onto my shirt. I cuddled and stroked the poor pup. He kept whimpering, but it began to slow down. Eventually, he fell asleep.

Crystal, my mother, and Bluejay were standing nearby shedding tears of their own. We mourned Cheng for a little while longer, but eventually, we knew we had to carry on.

"I should've noticed them sooner," Bluejay was mumbling later when we found ourselves walking ahead of my mom and sister. "I could've saved his life, but I was so, so stupid. I was too late." Her eyes became stormy once more and could not hold the rain. "I just want to do something. To know my parents' sacrifices weren't in vain, to know that I can mean something, you know? That's all I want right now."

I thought back to Julia and Peter's times and thought of a world that was brighter and lighter. "Yeah, I know."

At the end of the day, Amistad curled up into a tight ball and slept right next to me. As he did so, I began to count our loses. First was Austin. Then there was Dad. Then there was Cheng. How many more were we going to have to suffer through? Wasn't that enough?

I pondered on thoughts like those some more for a while before I drifted into a slumber that was no rest and all nightmares as the snow fell from the blood-red sky.