(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.

In the few times she'd seen The Man come out to feed the dogs, she had witnessed the brutality of pack structure and punishment. The male dogs bit at each other's lips and noses, occasionally full-on brawling and snarling over the food rather than eating it first. Grey Dog and White Dog fought over food the most, which was the unofficial names that they called each other.

Brindle Dog was the female, and Flare noticed that she fought the least. She was still bullied and shoved aside from food or the best spots to lay, but she didn't respond with full-on agression like the male dogs did. In fact, Flare had not seen her fight any dog yet. She defended herself with a snarl and flash of teeth but always turned away immediately after.

The puppy had no idea how old she was, but she was certain it was much older than herself and Jax. She had the movement of experience, but didn't seem old enough to be slowing yet.

Jax, the black-and-white bully breed was nearing his full height and weight, which wasn't much compared to the other dogs. And Flare always found his face to be strange because of his pushed-in muzzle.

Flare twitched a scruffy golden ear and finally lifted her head as she heard steps come closer to the back door. It swung open, and instead of The Man walking out, a female with a much lighter scent and long flowing hair appeared. Flare had of course been aware of her prescence in the house via scent flowing from the door's cracks, so it wasn't too much of a surprise to see her come out of the back door. She stood up, but wasn't too eager about being trampled by the other dogs.

Then something else filled Flare's senses. A delicious smell wafted from the woman, or something she was holding. In her arms she held a bucket of dog food. So White Dog, Jax, Grey Dog and Brindle Dog all piled around her excitedly, wagging their tails. They were behaving much better than they would have if The Man were feeding them today, and didn't seem to mind as tails whapped faces and paws stepped on one another.

Then Grey Dog leapt all over her legs, though- coming close to knocking her down as she made her way farther into the yard where the mud gave way to grass. The dulled meaty scent of dog food followed her.

Flare noticed that the human also held a sack with weird looking stick-items jumbled together inside. All of the dogs could smell the dog-food in the larger bucket container, and especially the stick things packed into the clear bag.

She began speaking in a baleful voice that the dogs heard as a jumbled non coherent language, and lifted up the food higher while dipping her hand into the bowl to scoop some out. Instead of dumping it straight on the ground in a pile, she flung some this way and that, so that the dogs scrambled over each other in a hustle rather than fighting over one huge pile.

That human seems to understand things better than The Man, Flare dawned as she eyed her. She had fed the dogs in the grass instead of dirt, and made sure each one had gotten something.

But all too soon, she quieted down and stopped flinging out food. Flare bit back a small whimper as she realized she had just sat there and watched the human as every other dog ate but her.

I missed my only chance! She was preparing herself to slink around the others nervously, to search for crumbs, when a quick movement caught her eye.

Jax and White Dog had both snuffled towards the same spot of grass, and Jax began snapping his teeth as White Dog's nose touched his.

As the dog's began and snarling and sizing each-other up the human made a sharp, high-pitched noise, which caused the dog's head to turn sharply her way.

She flung a handful of the meaty sticks from the bag one way, and then the other. Flare's stomach made a churning noise, as if it were ecstatic that there was still a chance at getting something. Anything. This time, she stood up hopefully and waited to pinpoint her gaze on the next item thrown.

Brindle Dog was sitting on her haunches with her tail wagging close to the human, while Grey Dog finished snapping a bone in-between his teeth and bolted back to her feet. All of the other dogs were soon an excited huddle again.

Meanwhile, Flare nosed her way through individual pieces of grass, following the scents of leftover crumbs. She licked a few from between the grass blades, picking up more dirt than food itself.

The human turned her head and made her way towards Flare. Flare held her breath, tail wagging as the human dipped a paw into the clear bag and drew out two sticks with scrappy meat on the bones.

Flare's tail thumped harder against the ground in eager, over-anticipation. She felt like her throat was crying out for the meaty bone sticks as it was finally set down at her paws.

Grey dog moved to immediately take the food, as he would've thought was his right. He had snapped one of the bones in half and swallowed it when the high-pitched whistle came again. Grey Dog flinched away from what was left with a flick of his ears, looking confused but also wary of the sound. Though Flare didn't know exactly why, the sound also faintly shocked her and immediately brought the human to her attention.

She must be doing that on purpose to get Grey Dog to listen, she observed as she began eating. But I don't see how it works.

Paws and muzzle on the remaining bone, the pup swallowed down the food in ravenous gulps. Right after her first bite, everything else became an afterthought. The noise and her environment almost disappeared as Flare ripped the meat from bone and soon after became enveloped in digging the bone's marrow out.

Her belly felt more relieved than it ever had as she was allowed to continue eating, and became oblivious to all the other dogs shooting resentful glares around her. Flare had a feeling that if it hadn't been for that sound the human made, then Grey dog would have made sure he had gotten it all to himself. The male was greedy and possessive of everything.

While Flare was gnawing on her bone scrap with her back teeth, the human made another sharp noise towards Jax and nudged his shoulder lightly with her knee. Flare flinched at the nosie again, but somehow she knew it wasn't directed at her.

Jax tried again to dart around the human's leg to see what Flare had left, not taking heed of her warning sound. Then she popped open the bag of sticks with her thin paws again, which caused Jax to flip around. The scents of the meaty bones left in the bag filled the entire yard with a painstakingly delicious aroma. She has more! Silently, Flare dropped her bone beneath a paw and pricked her ears in hope for more.

"THANK YOU! SHE KNEW I WANTED MORE SCRAPS!" Yelped Jax as he flung his body towards the bag, which was tight in the human's grip.

This time the human wasn't tossing the sticks about. She side-stepped as if she had expected this response, not bothering to make the noise, and dodging Jax. Quickly, the woman set one bone down at every dog's feet.

Though her stomach felt so much better, she couldn't help feeling envious that one of her own sticks had been stolen by Grey Dog.

Flare had only stared at the bag for a few agonizingly long seconds when the human turned and dropped two more in front of her nose as well.

This time White Dog was closest.  He was so fast that he managed to snatch the bones before Flare had moved to grab them. In just two or three chomps White Dog had eaten it. Flare was astounded that they'd continued this behavior after the sharp noise had warned them to stop multiple times.

"No!" Spat the human, and Flare was astounded when the words actually made sense in her ears. She'd heard The Man say the same phrase and tone rarely, but now that it had been repeated to the other dogs so many times today, it made sense in Flare's mind.

Flare was more astounded that she could understand the human's words than she was about her stolen bones. She'd had no idea that a human's unintelligible rambling and chatter could be formed into words that a dog understood. Her head cocked, she looked up at the woman and half expected her to start speaking in dog.

Plopped into an eager sit as the human bent down towards her, Flare was conscious of White Dog right next to her. He stuck his face closer to them, and rudely sniffed all over the woman's hands.

The female human scratched Flare right between the ears on her forehead, ignoring the huge male dog. Flare enjoyed the brief moment and let her tongue flop out, feeling comfortable for the first time in days. The moment was over too soon, but the tan puppy was awarded with three more bones, to which she fell on right away this time. Learning quickly, Flare realized that if she didn't grab it as fast as the other dogs did, she wouldn't get to eat at all.

All of the others were given the remains of the bag, which equaled about one each for them. The huge bag of discarded bones was probably a rare delicacy in The Yard, because they ate even more aggressively quick than usual. The human shoved the empty clear bag inside of the bucket container before turning and heading back inside The Man's den.

Although the hard meaty sticks were almost splitting her teeth, Flare forced herself to bite through them with her back teeth, and swallow the pieces quickly. The other dogs were already finished, and had began sniffing closer to where she crouched.

They scraped through her throat as she finished them, but thankfully none got lodged. Flare was done with the bones just as Jax came up to her head, snuffling all around the area where she'd just ate. Flare turned her head away and pretended not to notice to avoid confrontation.

The she-dog was aware that the sun had gone away whilst all of them had been eating. Now a breeze kicked up to accommodate the darker clouds that gathered. It was freezing outside, but not as much as it had been when she was starving in the meager sunshine earlier. Food seemed to help her forget about the worse conditions she was in. The same seemed true for the other dogs, because aside from Jax, they were all plopped down and nibbling or licking themselves in content.

"Hey, Tan Dog."

Flare didn't think he expected her to answer, but this time he looked at her and licked his lips. When he surely couldn't have still expected a response, he closed his eyes and scratched an ear, then carried on the conversation himself.

"You're getting really thin. You know I haven't been in this yard very long... But even I know that you'll have to fight for kibble sometimes, if you want to eat. Or do what Mocha does, and at least try. Females may be weaker than us males, but they still have teeth." As he droned on throughout this bridgage of unasked answers and random facts about females as if he was one, Flare thought to herself.

Mocha must be the brindle-dog, the only other she-dog in this yard. But she doesn't seem motherly or welcoming at all! And, they had previously called her Brindle Dog. Perhaps Jax had not spoken her name before because he hadn't known it earlier, or didn't respect it.

Jax now shook his ears, which seemed to bother him often. Now that he was sitting so close, the tan puppy noticed that his lips had holes and wounds in them from being bit or tugged on by the other dogs. Flare almost mustered up the bravery to ask, Why do you all fight for food? Can't we share? Or can it not be like it was today, every day... In her heart she knew the other dogs would overhear and bully her for it. And that's why her chest beat with a nervous, irrefutable pain.

"The female human doesn't come out and do that very much. If we're lucky, she does it..."

The black-and-white stout bully seemed to be thinking for a long time. Then, suddenly he jumped up and slapped all four of his paws onto the floor with them all spread far apart. He looked as if he were slipping on ice, and young pup Flare almost allowed herself a giggle.

"Once every this many days." Flare blinked up at him and gave a tiny nod instead of laughing, her nerves sparking up all over again.

"Or longer? Not totally sure one-hundred percent." A harder glint appeared to smother over the playful gleam of Jax's eyes.

"So you might as well start to put up a fight for food sooner or later... Or you'll be a very skinny breeder. That's what female dog's is, and us male dogs is always fighters. Even without The Man telling us to, we fight naturally for food, water, places to rest and mark, and over Brindle Dog. And soon you," he advised with a sideways glance.

Though Jax sounded sincere, like he was letting Flare in on something she should know, she detected a hint of gloating beneath his words. Nothing he'd said had made sense.

And so Flare was perplexed. She didn't know what a breeder was, but it sounded very different than being a Fighting Dog.

"Oh, and you might want to know-" huffed the young black-and-white bully dog in his gruff voice, "-that shed back there?"

He turned around and lifted his ears towards a dark shape behind the tall wooden fence panels. It was impossible to see any body of it through the wood, but Flare could just catch the top of a metal shed's roof. It was tall and wide from where she could see it, so much that it could hold a car or two inside it, she guessed.

But Flare knew the shed wasn't for the man's car. He kept it on the gravel patch next to the house, and then took it off to work each morning. In fact, any minute now, the man would be heading out of his front door and the dogs would hear his truck start up and drive away. Usually, he fed the dogs but today the much nicer woman had done it.

"It's a den-like area for The Man and his human pack-mates to watch us. He brings us into the shed to fight. Not all of us, just two at once," Jax added.

The tan puppy felt a chill in her bones. Even with her belly full of food, she began to feel uncomfortable. The pup couldn't imagine why a human, or more than one at once, would want to watch dogs cause each other to bleed. She didn't know what fighting was per say, but she knew now that it had to do with hurting another dog. And fights ended in a dog being injured or forced to back down due to bloody injuries. These dogs didn't just stop biting at the first yelp of another.

Why would a human want to watch that?

"If you're never going to speak, I don't think any of the dogs here will like you very much." He seemed to think for a minute, then looked back at her with his short jowels swinging. This was the first time the dog had ever been so serious around Flare.

"I, for one, don't think I do. You seem weak and no dog can figure out why The Man would allow you into The Yard." He sniffed Flare's ears and she flinched back, her chest pressed to the ground and ears pinned.

"That's right!" Another dog chimed in from behind suddenly. Flare thought it was Grey Dog's voice, but just then Mocha the female pit-bull cut in with her own agreement and she couldn't be sure.

"That's the truth, pup. You haven't got any business here if you aren't a mating dog or a fighting dog, so you'd best run away if you ain't either!"

Flare was very confused because she didn't understand yet another word now; 'mating.' Plus, so far she hadn't seen any possible way to escape The Yard.

Perhaps I'd better start thinking about it, then, Flare wondered. But in her mind she couldn't convince herself that she would act on those thoughts so soon. The other dogs terrified her into freezing, or cowering in submission. Never knowing when the next snarl would come, or glare or growl or ear-snap... That might've been enough for Flare to be scared into submission for the time being.

Already, the tan puppy hated it here. She agreed with the second choice; that she needed to escape The Yard; rather than becoming whatever they wanted her to be.

In her mind, Flare knew she could be an outside-dog, stray-dog, or farm-dog and perhaps, one day... Even live in a home alongside nice humans. But for now, she was trapped in the yard.

"Shouting at that weakling pup won't do any good," growled the grey pitbull. In one leap, he had bounded forward to bark in her face. The sound of it shook Flare, and she finally got to her paws, preparing to flee.

Her eyes darted around frantically. She searched for a hole among the fence line, or a crack anywhere among the concrete slab or house-panels. There was nothing she noticed at this angle, even this close to the house, that could possibly allow her to reach somewhere other than here.

Flare panicked again, and she was sure her puppy fur must be fluffed up by now. The other dogs noticed it and the white dog was the first to laugh. He mocked her position with a fake flinch and terrified glance at the house. Jax joined in with an outburst of hysterical giggling as he saw White Dog's re-enactment.

The puppy tried not to feel humiliated. Her litter-mates never scared her like this- it wasn't her fault these dogs were so much bigger than her, and The Yard was larger than any room she'd ever been in. She shivered, half out of cold, exhaustion, and also out of fear. The sky was grey, cold, and unwelcoming.

"She probably just needs one good bite, so it wakes her into fight or flight!" The tall white dog broke in with a cheerful tone of certainty. His voice was very deep and gravely; he seemed to be the oldest of all the dogs. Though he didn't look prepared to bite her himself, he shook his ears and stepped towards Grey Dog to encourage him.

Flare closed her eyes and hunched her head into her shoulders. She knew that she would probably flee before they bit her ears this time; but then wouldn't all of them chase and bite her, making it worse? Shaken to the bone, she stayed still and heard her own pounding heart.

Flare was saved by Mocha calling out. She opened her eyes to see Grey Dog stalking towards her, his head and ears lowered and matched with a pinpointed gray gaze. Terrified, she tried to pull her eyes away from his, but it was locked onto her like a deer in headlights.

"Hey, it's snowing, I said!" Mocha nudged Grey Dog and he looked angry at her for interrupting, and even more so when he looked around and saw no snow falling.

"Yeah right, Mocha. I would've smelled it first!" Taunted Jax, who had made no move the entire time to defend Flare. None of them did! Flare's chest heaved as she sucked in great gulps of freezing air.

For a second, the puppy looked up just as all the other dogs did- although her body was still rigid with shock and her heart pounded with fear at the idea of having her ears ripped like White Dog's.

Sure enough, some flakes began drifting down. With every one that settled on Flare's pelt, a chill slowly gathered beneath her wet fur. Her teeth began to chatter as she realized just how vulnerable she was, how her life would hang on the edge of dying and living each day.

It was obvious Flare didn't fit in here. With a cold certainly, she felt the thought pulse in her head with a hard knowing.

My life is going to be very hard until I escape this yard.

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Another rough representation of The Yard's layout