I

    I didn’t mind running. In fact, I loved running. But I was terrified. I wanted to leave this prison known as “the lab”. My non-mechanical paws were still bleeding from his most recent experiment. Now, my pads were like metal plates.

    I made several twists and turns, slowly out-limping the scientists. It felt like forever since I had stretched my limbs, and the first time I ever ran. I decided he loved it. Even though my right legs were limping and full of pain, my left legs were strong, and I didn’t feel anything.

It felt like forever till I found a window. I slowed down, and hesitated. I had never seen through a window, being on the inside. When I was a pup, I watched the people through them from a distance, but it was like a screen. I considered turning back, but the scientists were coming. The only exit was towards the scientists. from the left side of his brain, a vague thought bubbled up. Glass breaks. Jump through the glass.

Okay, so that was weird. I didn’t really remember anything about glass breaking; it was more like being told by someone else. But I decided to go with it. I stepped back a little, and tightened my body. I jumped; my body felt like a tight rubber band snapping. The glass shattered, sending little clear knives everywhere. They bounced off my metallic side harmlessly, but they stung my right. Glass pieces scarred my pelt, one piece cutting my cheek.

I was so stunned by the sound of glass breaking, and the flying knives, I didn’t think about high up I was. I plummeted swiftly to the large road below, maybe forty stories up in the sky. I fell towards the middle of the road, filled very densely with traffic.

I panicked and howled fearfully. But about twenty feet above a semi-truck, I twisted so my fur faced the red and black sky. My metallic side hit the truck with a large, un-happy crrrreeeaaaaughhhhk. It took a moment for me to understand what was going on, and I stood dizzily. A huge crater was left in the truck, but I didn't have time to admire it.

I jumped of the truck, and landed on a taxi.The driver threw a few curses, but I was too busy hopping from car to car. Many people on the sidewalk stopped and gawked at yours truly, the half metal, half dog creature. When I approached the sidewalk, several people ran and screamed, making way for me to run.

Great, I thought. The scientists would see me "chasing" the people, and find me. I hadn't thought my escape through enough. One man turned around, and threw an empty wine bottle at me. I ducked, sliding on the pavement. The bottle ricocheted off the sidewalk and shattered, sending dark glass everywhere. One nicked my ear, and I winced. I felt a sickly feeling ripple through me as he got up and ran anyway. It was like melting in tar, and coming back out again. The people nearest to me stopped running around and stared with confusion, as if I had done an Irish jig.

I didn't have time to wonder what had just happened. I sprinted to the nearest alleyway I could find, hoping it would lead somewhere else. Sadly, it didn't. Just a dead end with trash bags and silver cans spewing a nasty smell and rottened food. I turned my head around to see if anyone was chasing me, but the people just looked confused and the traffic was still. Even the dog that was licking the cheese off some nachos by the entrance of the alleyway didn't seem to notice me.

I could feel my heartbeat slow, and my breathing settle down. I walked cautiously to the greasy dog, wondering why he hadn't noticed him. I was a foot away from him, and the dog still hadn't noticed.

“Hello?” I barked quietly, but it didn’t sound like me entirely. It sounded like a machine was talking in unison with me.

The dog whipped around, jumping a yard back, and growled in fear.

“Who’s there?! Why, it must be that Crisis dawg!” The dog looked around, but it didn’t seem to see me. “Show yourself! Monster!”

“Monster?” I creaked.

The dog whacked his paw out, as if trying to hit me. “Oh, I should’ve believed ‘em! They were all right! Now this monster dawg has found me! Show yourself!”

“Look, I don’t want to hurt you,” But the machine voice wasn’t very convincing. “Who told you my name?” I asked.

“I ain’t talkin’!” The dog barked. He grabbed his nachos and ran out of the alley way.

I had a million questions running through my mind. Who was he talking about? How did he know my name? could he really not see me?

I looked down at my paws, but they weren’t there. Okay, so he was right about one thing.

Why, it must be that Crisis dawg! The crazy dog had said. (At least, I hoped he was crazy, and was just imagining things.) It wasn’t a very common name. And I barely remembered why my mother had named me Crisis.

I had asked her about it once, when I was just a pup. I couldn’t walk, and I was very sick, so my mother never let me play. Most of the time I just asked her dumb questions about everything.

“Why is the sky red?”

“Humans think they own it, so they have polluted it.”

“Why did the pollute it?”

“They were building machines to fight their enemies.” Her voice was shaky, but still annoyed.

“Why do they have enemies?” I squeaked.

She paused, then looked at me with her steely brown eyes.

“They all want to be the best at everything, so they boast and shove it down others throats. They get mad at others, so they fight to show what they can do. Now, the world has a huge crisis on it’s paws.”

I waited for a second. I knew the war was a touchy subject, for anyone. “why did you call me that?”

“Pardon me?” She asked with confusion.

“You know, my name. Crisis.” I asked.

We both stared at each other, and I could feel the tension coming off my mother.

“Because in such a silly, terrible world it would be silly to name you something else.”

I didn’t think my mother meant to come out harsh, But the world had made her life out very harshly. My father abandoned us, my siblings had died, I was crippled and the war made everything else worse. Things so simple such as rain puddles didn’t exist.

They still don’t… I thought bitterly. Dark ashes fell from the sky. They burned my fur a little, but it didn’t hurt more than a little tingle.

Slowly, I began to turn visible. I panicked a little, but then jumped behind a pile of trash bags. It stank like a death, and when I looked at my paws I realized I was actually standing on a dead crow.

“Sick!” I barked out, but held my paw to my mouth and backed away.

The rats that I had scared before creeped out and continued their feast.

I stuck my tongue out in disgust, then remembered that some of the glass was still in my pelt. It stunk and was a tight fit, but I held my breath and got to work  pulling glass out of my pelt. I licked my paw then rubbed it on my cheek like a cat, getting rid of most of the blood.

Along with blood, a strange blue liquid came from my cuts. I remembered quickly that the scientists had injected me with the stuff for almost my whole stay at the lab; which had been about six months.

I figured that it helped me grow, since a seven-month-old dog shouldn’t be as big as a bike. And another weird thing, they had put the metal on me when I was a tiny crippled pup. It fit perfectly then, and perfectly now.

I looked back at the time before the scientist had found me. I couldn’t walk, since my left legs weren’t strong enough to hold me. A few days before he found me, a clan of rouge animals had attacked my mother and me. She had risked her life for me, and even after she died I was close to death. The memory was so painful I didn’t wander on it much, but the left side of my mind betrayed my right.

After a big gray dog had killed my mother, he turned to me. “Well well, little pup.”

I growled and barked at the dog, but I was sure he could kill a stronger pup much easier than my mother. “No need for that. Just stay still, and it will hurt less.”

A tabby cat behind me tugged my leg in it’s jaws, and laughed menacingly.

Another cat whacked me on the eye, and shredded my face.

Hordes of other cats, dogs and rats clawed and bit at me, but I could tell they didn’t want to kill me. They were just getting the most pain out of my death.

After what felt like hours of torment, the big dog called the animals back, and they ran back to where they came from. After that, I drifted into unconsciousness.

All the scars had healed since then because of  the scientists “magic”, but nothing could make me forget.

My stomach grumbled. If I was still at the lab, it would be feeding time about now. But since I wasn’t, I needed to find my own food. My eyes drifted to the dead crow. No way am I eating that, I thought. But how could I find food? Perhaps if I could turn invisible again, but I wasn’t sure how I had done it before. I felt a little drop of blood trickle down my ear. Maybe when I got cut I turned invisible. But I wasn’t transparent until after I jumped out of the window, and I got allot more cuts then. Maybe my ear was like an “on” switch?

It was just hopeful thinking, but I scratched my right ear. I counted to five, six, seven, but nothing happened. Then, I got that sickly jumping-through-hot-tar feeling, and I watched my paws ripple away. Sweet! I thought.

I quietly jumped over the pile of trash, and walked out of the alleyway.

Sirens blared. The road was now filled with orange cones, emergency people and cars, and car remains.  A few cars had crashed, but the worst of them all was the semi-truck I had landed on. News reporters were pulling up outside the cones. I caused all that? I thought.

I wanted to help, but what could I do? I was just a monster dog that had ran away. Even if I was just a normal human, would the police and other people let me help? The best I could do was just walk away, and find my own food.

The crowds were dense; everyone with phone was taking pictures or videos. Has someone filmed me? I could imagine it on Youtube: Crazy monster dog takes suicide jump and lives while killing truck driver. Yeah, something like that. I wove in between the people the best I could, but I toppled over a few groups.

I walked through the crowds for what seemed like a mile, And they finally died down to the normal New York hustle. Finding food wouldn’t be easy. I smelled some rats, but after seeing what the scientists did to some I had pity on them.

I walked along, scratching my ear every now and then to keep up the invisibility. I heard a man calling out, advertising his hot dogs. You may know what a hot dog is, but I didn’t. Out of curiosity, I creeped up to the source of the noise. Through the crowds, I saw a large man standing behind a red-and-yellow hot dog vendor. The smell of fresh, warm meat drifted to my nose. Without noticing it, I started to drool.

“Get your hot dogs! get ‘em hot! Only a buck, fifty cents for condiments!”

I licked up my slobber, and trotted excitedly to the stand. A long line of people was in front of the vendor, and some teenagers hanging around had bread in their hands with a long piece of meat in it. It didn’t look like a dog at all, but I remembered what my mom had said long ago. Humans are crazy. What ever it was called, I perched my fore legs on the vendor's table top, and it shook a little. The man looked a little surprised, but continued his work. I grabbed a jaw-full of the meat, and dashed off into the street.

“Hey!” the man called. “Crazy, floating hot dogs!”

That’s probably what it looked like, but I didn’t stop to say thanks.

I sprinted off, dodging people while making Darth Vader breathing. The man didn’t chase me, probably because he couldn’t see his stolen profit. I slowed down, and tried to chew the mouthful of meat. Oh, this was so much better than what they had at the lab! The slop they had tasted like mud and crushed up bugs. I lost a hot dog, but I still had about seven left.

I walked up to a shop window to finish my food while looking at the stuff they had. A big, white, vinyl circle with three red dots on the sides and a blue one in the middle was stuck on the window. Inside they had a display of huge TVs, glass-pads, and other newly invented things. But standing on a raised pedestal was what looked like a printer and a binder. A sign underneath it said “Thought pad”. I barely understood english, much less read it, but I gave it my best shot. It said: The world’s fastest, and smallest mind reader! Not only can it read your exact emotions by just a thumb-print, it can take notes straight from your mind and save them! Ever wanted to be an artist? Just place your hand on the pad and it will paint a picture straight from your mind! You can be the new Dubstep by recording music straight from your mind! The Thought pad has many other uses, such as high quality recording and photography, High definition red-disk playing, and high speed wifi surfing. Come buy your Thought pad for only $1,300 today! 20% off discount if you serve in the military, and 50% off discount if you work for uniblue science!

It almost made me mad that the military, who were fighting for our country all the time, only got 20% off the stupid pad while the scientists got 50% off. Yeah, it was stupid for me to think that, but I really didn’t like those scientists. I had seen uniblue’s logo all over the lab, and I was sure that the discount was going to the scientists that had stuck needles in me everyday and fed me slop.

I scratched my ear. Dark ashes began to fall again, so I inhaled the rest of my hot dogs before ashes got on them. I needed to keep moving, so I got up and walked east.

I ended up at a cross roads. A large building with huge glass windows flickered colors. The colors danced into the Uniblue logo, and my heart swelled with anger. I had to stifle a growl in my throat. Traffic lights flicked different colors, hundreds of cars and people went through the area.

I walked along with a crowd of people, and they stopped at the edge of the sidewalk. What are they waiting for? I thought. You may not cross the street when cars are going across, or there is a green light my left side said. Okay, you may be thinking I was being dumb, but hey. I’m just a dog!

After a few moments, the yellow light flickered, followed by the red. We all walked across the white striped street, and I looked behind me at the color-changing building. The time and date danced on; 19:30, September 15, 2042. We reached the other sidewalk, and the crowd thinned a little. A few went into a bakery, and a few kids went into a toy store. The sky thundered a little, but everyone knew no rain would come. They air seemed to feel everyone’s thoughts, so it showed off by sending a gust of wind that came by and stole a few people’s hats.

I scratched my ear again. After walking for about a mile, I scented the vague smell of dirty water. I couldn’t see any bodies of water, so it must have been down east more.

I passed stores, food vendors, screens, and heard the chop of helicopter blades mixed with people chatting and car honking.

About a hundred feet ahead, I heard and vaguely saw a man in a black suit, dark thick glasses, and military cut hair talking to a group of old people. “You’re sure you didn’t see him? He’s about this tall,” The man in black gestured to about the height I was “And the other half of him is a black dog with a white paw and green eyes.”

I shuddered, and scratched my ear again.

I knew that word of my escape would spread quickly, but I had hoped it wouldn’t.

The elders told him that they hadn’t seen anything like that, but they had overheard about my escape from some other people. The man thanked them for their time and walked down the street towards me. I panicked and hopped to the other side of the street, stepping on a few people’s feet as I landed. They yelped, and others looked at them with confusion. I righted myself and stepped off their feet.

I needed to go somewhere they wouldn’t look for me. Somewhere a mechanical dog like me wouldn’t dare to go. I needed to get to the water.