Priscilla and her boyfriend Conner were walking through the park, watching the sun go down beyond the treetops as they talked.

It was their second date, so it wasn't as akward as the first, but was still very uncomfortable. Priscilla would gnaw at her leather school bag sometimes, and Conner would twist his para cord bracelet around his paw.

They had gone to dinner before, and decided to just talk while enjoying the greenery. It was maybe the prettiest park in town; with its color changing flowers, fountains, and rivers. Pups were chasing each other around the play-sets, their yips carrying through the park and the sound of their claws clicking on the play-set. There were a few kits, but they were just sitting on a worn-down, cats only bench.

"So... how was your day?" Conner asked, attempting to break the ice.

"Good. School was sort of fun, Mr. Mackleton showed us how to make computer programs in computer tech."

Conner was quiet for a while. He looked at the ground with his gold eyes, and his soft blond fur wouldn't stop twitching.

Priscilla could tell something was wrong; she had lived off studying emotions of all animals.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

He looked up at her. He looked like he had seen someone die. Which he had. His father had died recently of influenza, and his baby brother had died of parvovirus, a disease that mainly affected pups, a month ago.

He opened his mouth like he wanted to speak, but he couldn't find the words. He quickly closed it again and looked at the pebbles under his paws. "It's nothing. I-I'm fine."

She didn't press him for the truth. She hated when others did that, and she was sure Conner would too.

Priscilla moved her bangs out of her face, revealing both her golden eyes. "Alright then."

They were quiet the rest of the walk, except once when they overheard a puppy yell that he really didn't like the smell of farts. They could barely contain their laughter.

 Conner offered to drive Priscilla home on his hover. They sped around the tall buildings, avoiding other hovers. There was a removable roof for the hover, but they both decided that the summer wind felt good, so they left it down.

Priscilla sat in the back, and Conner stood on his hind legs driving, his front paws hooked onto the steering handles. Priscilla could feel the wind blow her long, curly ears and fur around. Other hovers honked at them when they got too close, but Conner would just speed his gray hover away before they could swear at him.

It took about ten minutes to get through the city, and now the little gray hover was flying twenty feet over a road that led into the desert. Priscilla looked back at the glow of the city. She remembered her parents showing her a really old movie that had been made by the humans. What was it called... Star Wars? Yeah, that's what it was. Their city, Topaz, looked allot like the cities in Star Wars. There were roads, but cars were allot harder to drive and they used more gas, so hovers were more common.

On the horizon, Priscilla noticed a few blinking green lights, and the faint shimmer of metal. Could it be... no. She had traveled this road maybe a thousand times going to school, and she would have noticed it and asked what it was. But her curiosity overtook her.

" Do you know what that is?" She asked.

She didn't want to distract her boyfriend from driving, but hovers were safer than cars when it came to distractions, and all her family had was cars. She wouldn't be able to safely ask what it was with her parents.

"That?" He gestured to a gas station below us.

"No, you chocolate brain" Which was a rather rude comment  concerning the fact that chocolate was fatal to animals in large quantities, but was like alcohol in smaller amounts. "those green blinking lights on the horizon."

He looked to the left for a second, but pulled his head back to the sky ahead of us. "No. But today I overheard the governor's son and his dumb friends talking about a lab the feline rights republic built in the desert. Maybe that's it.

If that was the case, then who knew the trouble that could happen. The FRR gained their intelligence when Priscilla was only ten, and she didn't fully understand the danger then. But seven years later, she understood the danger topaz was in. The FRR had done many horrible things. They always threatened the governor, Thomas Peitter with death threats and bombings. Shootings in schools and hospitals were common, mutated animals were put in store food, and lots of other despicable things happened often. Peitter wouldn't call an army to end them, as he was afraid they wouldn't succeed. Rumors also said that he was too soft.

A really stupid and dangerous idea sparked in Priscilla's mind.

"An army couldn't figure out what they're doing, right?" She asked.

Conner turned his head around. "Yes..." He furrowed his eyebrows.

Priscilla had to swallow her fear. "What if we snuck in? You know, just to see what they're up to. No one would notice two teenagers."

"Priscilla, you're the chocolate brain. They maybe wouldn't notice two teenagers, but two large, blond dogs? We'd stand out like a beacon."

He was right.  She was smaller than him, with gold fur and black blotches, so she might have not be spotted. But Conner naturally drew eyes to him, like moths to a porch light. But she really wanted to just see what was up.

She made a sad puppy face, with dropped ears and a depressed frown as she looked at the building. "Fine. We can end or date like this."

He was quiet for a second, looking out at the sky.

"Fine. But we can't go inside, and we gotta be low profile. I'll need to park my hover a long way off, so we'll need to hike a little."

Priscilla perked back up. "Really?!" She said with so much enthusiasm Conner jumped and jerked the handles. "Don't do that..." He grumbled.

The two dogs had parked the hover about three hundred yards from the lab. Priscilla left her book bag in the hover's back seat, since it would slow her down. They walked for about ten minutes, running every now and then.

They were both quiet. Priscilla's heart raced like a roller coaster, excited to be there. Conner didn't look so happy. He wouldn't meet Priscilla's eyes, and he had a worried scowl painted on his handsome face.

The desert sand was cool, and Priscilla could feel the smaller animals in the tunnels under her paws. Her father was a descendant of sled dogs, which were bred to feel faults under the ice. Her brothers and sister couldn't feel under the earth like her father, but Priscilla had gotten lucky.

As they neared the compound, they slowed to a quiet tip-toe. The moon was halfway to it's peak, and they could both see their breath. Priscilla eagerly walked right up to the wire fence.

The entrance was around the corner to the right, with a guard box guarded by a gray house cat  reading a newspaper. Fifteen feet above Conner and Priscilla, was barbed wire. It hummed with electricity. The compound itself was as big as a college campus. There were four buildings, but Priscilla couldn't read what the signs said on the two farthest from her. The south west was labeled area 3. The south east was labeled area 4.

Area 4 had Windows, but only a few were lit. Inside them were cats, large and small, with white lab coats. They were all deeply involved in work.

Area 3 was much different from the rest of the buildings. Instead of stucco, white walls, it had shiny metal walls. There were no windows, and only two lights were positioned by the doors. A large, acid green vinyl was placed on the side facing them. It was the FRR logo, a simple jaguar face encircled with lightning.

They had only been there a minute when Conner said "Alright, we've seen it. Now let's get out of here before someone sees us!" His tone was urgent, and had turned forty degrees.

"No! What if something important happens?!" Priscilla growled back.

"Nothing will happen. If we stay-" He didn't finish. And he shouldn't have jinxed it.

He was interrupted by a high pitched squeal. The dogs covered their ears, whining at the sound. Area 3's walls were turning a fiery shade of red, and blazing heat hotter than a furnace radiated off it.

The dogs were panting fiercely, their paw pads becoming wet. The heat forced them to close their eyes. Priscilla knew they needed to get out of there, or they would die of heat stroke. But her mind was so fogged up by the heat she just collapsed. The sand was now as hot as it would be at mid day.

Conner didn't look at her. His eyes were still closed. The metal building was melting, and the bolts that hold the place together shot off.

The squeal was silent for a heart beat.

Then the whole building exploded. A huge cloud of smoke pushed back, racing all the way to the freeway. Then red flames shot from the building, followed by yellow and white. It was so bright, Priscilla and Conner could see it through their eye lids.

The heat was intense, and extremely painful. Priscilla could feel the heat pushing the air from her lungs and her head. Then a tiny, tingle started at her chest. It quickly spread across her body like a wildfire. She didn't recognize it as pain, but it soon hit her. The tingle quickly turned to white pain, racking her body with torment.

She screamed a blood curling wail. The sound she was making was like nothing earthly. She could hear her poor boyfriend crying in pain as well.

She opened her eye just a sliver, and saw that his fur was on fire. And his coat was flame red, with black ears and tail. His bangs and a v shaped marking on his chest were colored like the fire around them.

I am going to die. This is it.

And right as she thought it, the pain became too much. It increased till she felt nothing... and her world went white.