Chapter Three

The End of Bliss

Six years ago

Kävik (Hunter) led the lead, with his sisters Winter (Rae) and Juno (who somehow kept her original name) behind him. Behind Winter and Juno was Suzaku (Adyn). Along Suzaku’s side was a young Husky named Nëkio. They pulled a heavy Klondike that weighed almost three hundred pounds.

They had trained for three months under Mr. Polanski’s hand. Mr. Polanski was a Klondike racer and was training them for the upcoming race. Maura had died during the first month of training, after being whipped to death. Suzaku watched with tearful eyes as his oldest sister crumpled underneath the weight and bled to death.

He was now one years old, and still smaller than the others. Mr. Polanski threatened to throw him into the kennel. The kennel was a box that was ten feet by ten feet, and that’s where Mr. Polanski kept his blood-thirsty dogs that ate the weaker ones, as Mr. Polanski called them.

Suzaku pulled with all his might. The Klondike seemed to never budge. He strained with all his might, along with his brother and sisters and Nëkio. The Klondike moved and they kept pulling, with fear that the Klondike might stop again.

“Keep moving!” Mr. Polanski shouted, cracking his whip over their heads.

Suzaku kept his head bowed.

The Klondike didn’t stop, and the pack of five dogs pulled the sled for five miles all day long until the sun began to sink over the mountains in the distance.

Mr. Polanski put them in their small kennels, and locked them up for the night. The kennels were barred cages with a thin layer of newspaper on the bottom. There was no protection from the fierceness of the cold wind.

“I hate that man,” Kävik growled. “If I ever had the chance to tear his gizzard out, I’d do it.”

“Me too,” Winter agreed.

Nëkio joined in too, but Suzaku kept silent. He hadn’t spoken ever since he saw Maura die, and after a while, the other dogs gave up trying to get him to speak again.

There was a moment of silence, as the cold wind blew through the cages.

“It’s cold.” Juno cried. “I wish I was back home.”

“This is home,” Kävik reminded her, forcing the memories of his younger youth into the back of his head. “We’re not going to go back to the place that we once lived.”

“I wish we could,” Winter said.

Nëkio, who had never known any other place than at Mr. Polanski’s kennel, asked, “What was it like?”

“It was warm,” Juno smiled. “And there were people who loved you—”

“Stop talking!” Kävik barked. “Be quiet all of you, and go to sleep.”

Suzaku’s mind was fresh with the memories of the first three months on his life, and it brought tears to his eyes. He curled up into a ball and tried to blink the tears away. Winter saw him and whispered, “its okay, little brother. We’ll pull through this together.”

The next morning, when Mr. Polanski came out with the single can of food for the entire pack of dogs, Winter had froze to death.

The dogs had to fight for their food, as Mr. Polanski called it survival of the fittest. Suzaku already had two scars next to his right ear, on the top of his head. Kävik’s ear had been torn clean off from the first fight.

Mr. Polanski opened the cage doors and the dogs jumped out. When he noticed Winter didn’t move, her skin beneath her fur frozen, he grinned.

“Looks like you get to have a different meal today,” he placed the can of food on the top of the crates and took Winter’s body out and dropped her limp body to the ground.

“Eat up!” Mr. Polanski shouted before turning around, taking the can of food back into the house; his back turned to the brutality of the dogs fighting for a bite.

Suzaku turned around too. Although his stomach growled with hunger, he would never eat a dog, and definitely not his own flesh and blood.

That day they recruited another dog into their Klondike team, a Siberian Husky named Arrow. Arrow was a two-year male dog, and was twice the size of Kävik, and pushed them twice as hard too.

“Move!” he growled gruffly, sounding almost like Mr. Polanski. “Faster!”

Suzaku felt his muscles strain even harder than before. He stumbled in the snow, and fell down. Arrow didn’t bother to stop to allow Suzaku to get back on his paws.

“Get up, or get left behind,” Arrow said in a fierce voice, not looking back at Suzaku. “I won’t wait for stragglers.”

Nëkio stopped for a second so Suzaku could get up. “We’ve got to keep moving,” Nëkio said, encouraging Suzaku.

Suzaku got back up and they continued their trek across the training grounds that Mr. Polanski owned. When they arrived back at Mr. Polanski’s home, Suzaku’s muscles screamed with pain, his stomach was empty.

Mr. Polanski put the dogs back into their cages for the night, and went inside his warm house. Suzaku stared longingly at Winter’s empty cage, and cried himself to a restless night of sleep as cold wind whipped at his short black fur.