Silencing Darkness: Fall of One

  After a day of wandering around the city, Ashton, one of the members of Carface’s Silencing Darkness gang, noticed something strange. Hiding behind a wall, he could see Charlie B. Barkin, an enemy of theirs, walking around with his granddaughter Mel, his eyes checking out for any ambushes while they talked. The sight of Mel alive, although a little beat up looking and limping slightly, infuriated the Elkhound, making his claws rake the concrete under him. He quietly ran off back towards his base where he and his companions stayed, an empty warehouse full of crates. When he arrived, he told Bane, the main dog of the group, what he had seen.
  “… Are you serious?!” Bane snarled, his eyes flashing. He picked up a bottle and threw it at the far wall, shattering it to pieces, all the shards being hidden behind the crates. He began to pace on all four paws, growling and grumbling. “How could she have survived? We tore her apart!”
  “Beats me Bane, and I’m pretty sure Phillip doesn’t know either.” Ashton said with a growl of his own, looking at where the smashed bottle now lay behind some crates then at the Akita he had named, who was looking at the floor. “But I saw her, limping, but very much moving around.”
  “My plan! Was! Perfect!” Bane snapped at him, kicking over a small stack of crates by Phillip and sending them crashing down to the floor, making dust fly up. Phillip yelped and dashed out away from the tumbling crates, his doggy bed, which he had been laying on, getting buried.
  “Everyone is bound to have a bad day Bane…” The Akita grumbled, walking cautiously up to the crates to try and dig his bed out from under them. He hated when the duo around him started getting angry.
  “Ah shut up Phillip. You should have made sure she died, you were the last out.” Ashton replied, looking at the Akita with his eyes narrowed slightly. Phillip didn’t say anything, continuing to dig his bed out from under the crates. He would never admit it to his companions, but hurting that poor girl made him sick to his stomach and depressed him.
  Bane kicked another stack of crates over before he snarled viciously, hopping onto a crate that he had called his own (dog bed and all) to get him above the other two. He tried to rip a chunk out of his dog bed in fury, growling. A passerby would think something was getting killed with all the snarling Bane let out.
  “Oh calm down Bane, quit being such a whiner.” Ashton said after awhile in annoyance, having enough. Despite the fact that Bane was mainly the leader, he hopped up onto the ‘leader crate’ Bane was on and shoved him off to shut him up. The Malinois glared at him as he hopped down.
  “Shove me again and I’ll rip your tail off.”
  “Then quit your damn whining about your precious plan not working and do something about it you lazy tailed excuse for a mutt.” Ashton snapped. The two glared at each other for some time, Phillip looking from one to the other. Soon Bane huffed in annoyance and got back up on his crate, lying down out of sight of the other two.
  “I’ll think of something tomorrow, since you decided to annoy me tonight Ashton.” They heard him from above. Ashton glared at the spot before going to his own, a piece of canvas draped in front of a hole between some large crates. Nudging the canvas aside, he slipped in, the fabric hiding him from view when his tail was in.
  Philip frowned a bit as he continued to look between both hounds, unable to see either of them now. He slowly stood and walked quietly to the entrance of their hideout; glancing over his shoulder to be sure the other canines weren’t paying attention as he slid out. Soon he felt the breeze against his fur, and he walked calmly away from the doors. When he was sure he wouldn’t be heard, he switched his pace to a sprint, his claws echoing between warehouses.
  He kept running, the warm night air whistling through his fluffy fur, his tongue out one side of his maw. As he ran, he looked around to be sure he wasn’t followed, wanting to be alone. He wanted to go under the docks, to be invisible to everyone. It wasn’t long until his paws touched sand, and he slowed to a trot.
  I’m a monster… I attacked a helpless young girl… And I didn’t even try hard to stop my colleagues… Philip soon reached his destination, sitting by one of the dock’s sturdy wooden beams, underneath the path. His depression had been eating at him for days since his group attacked the girl. And we attacked her for what? A grudge that should have been buried years ago along with Carface?
  Philip shut his eyes, once more imagining the night of the attack. It killed him inside when he saw the fear in her eyes, the helplessness in her face, and the way her beautiful, frail body had slumped… Again and again he thought about her, not only because she was a victim, but because of something else deep within his heart. He was not a killer and he knew it, and knowing she had survived and was walking elated him slightly, but the guilt still remained in him.
  Suddenly, behind him, he heard the crunching of sand. He turned his head back, and squinted as a flashlight found his eyes. It seemed to pause in the air before coming his way, and his ears lowered a bit defensively. Soon his eyes adjusted to the bright light, and he could see it was a man in some kind of funny robe, black as a raven’s wing, a white cross hanging off a thread around his neck, and he seemed to be carrying a basket in his free hand.
  The man sat beside him without a word, and the canine shied away. He didn’t trust strangers very well, and this man seemed a bit suspicious to him. The man looked him over for a moment before reaching into his basket, pulling out a circlet of flowers and a loaf of bread, starting to cut slices off. Philip watched him, not making a sound. He could feel his belly grumbling but was too depressed to worry about it.
  The man soon ripped one of his slices of bread into bite-sized pieces, pulling out a napkin and placing it in front of the Akita, then putting the bread on it. Philip just looked at it for a moment before looking away from it, staring at the ocean, the moonlight twinkling off the waves. The man in black watched him carefully before he spoke, “Starving yourself won’t solve your problems boy.”
  Philip glanced at him before giving a sort of ‘hmph’ noise before turning away again.
  “I learned that myself you know.” The man went on. “My name is Father Rodney, and like you I come here for my own reasons.” He solemnly picked up the circle of flowers before walking to the edge of the sea, placing it on the damp sand. Soon a passing wave picked it up, sweeping it out seaward.
  Philip watched in silence, keeping his eyes on the priest as he took his seat once more. “My niece loved the sea. Young Stella was always upbeat, and always told us to keep our smiles up. She always wanted us to be happy. It was tragic when she drowned out there. She went too far out and was overtaken by the waves.”
  The Akita looked at Father Rodney, head lightly tilted. “She’d have loved a dog like you, I know it. She had a way with dogs that always made them happy. Whatever ails you, she would make it seem like it went away, if only for a moment.” The priest looked at him, eyes thoughtful. He reached up and took his cross off, gently placing it around Philip’s neck. The canine looked down at it, watching it gleam.
  The Father was silent as he took a few bites of bread, looking at the slight break of moonlight in the waves where the flower circlet floated away. Philip thought things over, wondering what to do. When the man finished his bread, he stood up and pat the dog’s head. “Whatever troubles you, you should handle it as soon as you can. Fix it, before it’s too late for you to take it back.”
  With those last words, Father Rodney picked up his things, turned on the spot and left quietly into the night. The Akita watched him go, before looking at the sea again, ears twitching thoughtfully. That girl, Mel, was still alive, and he could still speak to her. He could ask her forgiveness, and the forgiveness of her family. He looked at the sky a moment before closing his eyes.
  “Lord…” He whispered, feeling a tingle on his tongue as the word slid from his throat. “Lord, if you can hear me… Give me a sign… Give me a sign that I must go back… Prove to me that I can change…”
  He sat there quietly, the waves continuing to crash softly against the shore. Philip soon began to feel silly, but also heartbroken. He had hoped that there was some sign that he could be forgiven for what he and his companions had done.
  He was snapped out of his thoughts when a wave crashed over his paws, making him yelp and jump back, opening his eyes and staring where the wave had reached him. He was about to shrug it off as an unnatural wave, an accident, when he noticed something glittering in the sand. He reached his paw out and scooped it up, staring in wonder. It was one of the flowers from the floral ring, a sort of brownish flower with a sort of creamy tan inside.
  It was like her fur… He sniffed it deeply, taking in its scent. He would give this to her as an apology. It was his sign, so he was going to take it. Without another word, but giving a nod of thanks towards the sky, he took off to find Charlie’s home.