The Impasse

By: Grey Wolf 777

Prologue

          I was cold and numb by the freezing rain and the chilly wind that blew through the city alleys. It was a cold and dark night in the city of Chicago. It was so dark; I could barely see my nose in front of my face. I cursed the weather for being this way. But I was too numb inside and outside to be feeling anything.

            As I hid in the trash piles and behind the dumpsters, I thought to myself… “Why? Why did this happen? And how?” My life was turning out to be perfect, but I could only blame myself for what I did not so long ago.

“How could I have been so blind?” I asked my self.

            I leaned myself against the brick wall, and slid down into the trash.

“What kind of monster did I turn into? Why did this happen?”

            Tears started to roll down the sides of my face. My life was over. There was probably nothing I could do to save myself. I was all alone.

“Why?” 

Chapter 1

Hello. My name is Jack. What I am about to tell you is the life I had until this point. But before I get to that, there are a few other things that I need to share with you. First of all, you are not going to like me. In fact, I don’t want you to like me. The person that I was before, I would rather say, was pure evil.

            I am a rapist, and a murderer. And the only reason I still refer to myself as those things is because in the time that I did those crimes, I enjoyed doing them. And some say “Once a criminal, always a criminal.” I can’t help but give in to that saying.

I was born and raised not to far from this city. As a pup, I had a happy life with my masters. John and Macy, the owners of the house, said that they “had never seen a more handsome, well mannered, or hyper long-haired European Shepherd.” I was only completely flattered when I heard them tell me that… but I’m getting ahead of myself.      About two and a half years later, when I was in my mid teens, my masters took me to the Chicagopound. I never really understood why. I was deeply saddened, as were John, Macy, and their three children.

            While in the pound, I met three other dogs that I knew as friends about a year ago. Randy, Dan and Tom were my cell row mates at the pound. We were all aligned on the same side of the hall way. They took interest in me the moment they saw me. The first thing they asked me was, “Watta ya in for?” I told them that I didn’t quite know. I didn’t seem to remember if I had done anything. I felt at the time that I didn’t have a purpose for being in there. And every time I hear that voice echoing through me head saying, “Well, kid. We’re going to give you a purpose,” my legs shiver.

            For a while they have been putting together a plan to bust us out. “Why would you want to bust me out too?” I asked them. I could hear Randy’s horrible, raspy voice replying, “Because we like to do others favors. You need a purpose? We’ll give you one.” I don’t know how I as so gullible to believe that, but it’s too late now.

            The three of them had spotted a thin open space between the ground and the outside gate. The plan was to get me to break away the gate enough for me to slide through. Then, since the humans didn’t put any locks on the gates, and them being easy to open, I would open their gates, and we were free. I have to say that, unfortunately, it worked. If only I knew what the three of them were capable of doing and teaching me to do the same, I would have never done it.

            Ever since we escaped, Randy Dan and Tom taught me something that I never should have accepted. And I know you could guess what it is. At first, as every teenager should feel, I didn’t really like the looks of it. But me being as young as I was, they brain washed me with the word “favor”. They told me that we were doing what lonely, stray female dogs wanted them to do. Randy’s exact words were, “We’re just give’n em one last thrill, and them we put them out of their pain and misery.” I had learned later on that this was also known as “raping then murdering.” When I got a bit older and tried it out, it was like a hobby. As soon as I had done it, I had officially become a monster. Shortly after, they decided to make me their leader, and I took pride in it. It was as if I was tempted by the devil and then automatically possessed by him. A while after, I should say, “my reign” I spotted something that had changed my view completely. I had caught a glimpse of a happy family with their dog. At that moment they were having the time of their lives. And I couldn’t help but remember John, Macy, and their three gorgeous children.

            I fell into a deep depression after that. Tons of memories of the happy times I had with my childhood masters came rushing back to me. I can gladly say that the monster in me was gone, but so was my will to live, I should say. When my demon left, so did my soul. I was a shell, just waiting to be picked up and either kept as a keep sake, or thrown a great distance. Luckily, my first encounter was a girl. Her name was Stacy. She saw that I was depressed and she felt a comparison because she had been there and done that. When she met me, she took me in. It was like she had taught me to live again. We became friends shortly after, then best friends, then eventually lovers. When I was with her, I was more than happy. She was a smart, funny, and an attractive looking retriever. But when the friendship of a boy and a girl is so expected to some, it was the last thing that was expected to Randy, Dan and Tom.

            When I had met Stacy, I had obviously shut myself away from Randy, Dan and Tom. They just thought “Ah, he’ll be back. He needs us.” But when they saw that I was with an attractive female, and she wasn’t dead lying on the round, they got mad. They had decided to track me down. And when they found me, they did the unthinkable.

            I was alone with Stacy one night. We were talking about our future: a litter or two of pups, then their pups after that, the usual. Then the guys decided to pay an “old friend” a visit. They held Stacy captive in front of me, and they gave me the most unfair choice ever. They told me that if I didn’t handle her, they would instead and make me watch. I couldn’t hurt Stacy, I just couldn’t. So, against my better judgment, I watched in horror as the three of them repeated the history I had with them. It was then that I had realized the monster that I had become. I couldn’t handle watching, it was pure torture. I tried to offer that I would go back with them if they had just stopped… but it was too late. Before the words could reach their ears, Stacy was dead. At that moment, all of my happiness, all of my joy, all of my love was gone. All I had left in me was sadness, hate and fear. After it was done, they left me there to rot. And Randy’s last words were, “Once a criminal, always a criminal, Jack. Where ever you are, we will find you. And we will be there to remind you of the person you were, one way or another. There is no escape, just remember that.”

            As the demons left, I sat there in all of my sorrow and wept like the rain outside, over the corpse of my once loved one. My heart had been ripped out and drained. I couldn’t feel the bearing of it, almost as if it were actually gone. I could no longer watch my dead lover, so I ran. I didn’t know where I was going, and it didn’t matter. And in the dead of the night, I lay in the garbage of the alleys, decaying, rotting from my loss.

            “What am I going to do?” I asked myself. Every time I fall in love they will do the same that they did to Stacy.” I had almost thrown up by the thought of her being gone, and by the paws of my own partners. I had to get away, so far away that Randy, Dan or Tom would never find me.

            When you have lost, what it seems is everything, you become dead inside. But when you find true love, even if what you had lost was love, hope seems inevitable. Stacy, I had realized, was not my true love. What I found later on in my journey to get away was the key to living.

            Get comfortable, because this is how I found my true love, and how she taught me to be all that I could be of the good person that I was before I met Randy, Dan and Tom, and how I learned to live again, and keep on living.

            Hello. My name is Jack. And this is my story. 

Chapter 2

     I was very tired from all the running. I just wanted to fall asleep, right in the trash. But I had to get out of the city. I had to go far away, a few states away if necessary.

            I urged myself to get up. I slowly got to my feet as small paper