train stopping. I thought to myself, Yes! I’m finally getting off this train! But sadly, it only stopped to pick some more dogs up. Everyone was practically silent as they waited for the new arrivals. They were never this way when I came on board, I thought. I guessed they never noticed me.

Three dogs came on board the train, two were scared to death, but one was actually IN a frenzy! This dog was snapping and biting and growling and clawing it’s way out of the cage. The man holding the cage reached into his pocket as fast as he could, and pulled out something like a small rocket with a point at the end. Then I realized it was a dart. It kind of looked like the darts Judge Miller used in his Dart Board game, but this one was far more dangerous. The man put the dart in a special container, and then blew into it. Then, after a few seconds, the spazzing dog finally stopped and fell to the ground of the cage. The man breathed a sigh of relief, and picked the cage back up again, because it dropped while the dog was in the frenzy. He put (I mean threw) the cage next to me and left. I looked at its non-moving body in horror. What did he DO to it?! I sniffed as close as I could and could tell it was a girl dog. Okay. What did he do to HER?! I stood there, waiting for her to move, but minutes passed. Nothing. I tapped another dog on the shoulder.

“Excuse me.” I said.

“AAHHHH!” The dog jumped and slammed his back on the wall farthest from me.

“Hey, it’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I-I’m sorry. I’m just a little scared, t-that’s all. Do you know w-where we’re g-going?”

“I’m afraid not. No one knows. But I can tell you this: I’m not sure we’re going anywhere pleasant. But can you tell me what happened to her?” I pointed at the girl dog still motionless next to me.

“Oh. She’s just unconscious. That dart has some sort of poison in it to make you sleep. It’s only temporary. But I’m telling you, I wouldn’t want to get anywhere near her when she wakes up. She’ll go MAD!!”

“Have you guys known each other?”

“Only for about 10 minutes, and those 10 minutes were the worst of my life…”

“Well, thanks for telling me. I was just worried about her.”

“It’s just nice knowing you.” He said as he turned around to sleep.

Now I was a little afraid. She could kill me if she wasn’t in that cage! But she could still do a lot of damage even inside the cage. But she’s not moving now, so that’s good…for now.

About an hour later, while I was sleeping once more, this huge banging sound filled my eardrums. As soon as I woke up my cage was bumped and it fell to one side! I landed with a crash and looked up immediately. She has awoken…!

I screamed in horror at her while she was going crazy once more. I was just lucky she wasn’t rabid! Some of the dogs next to me screamed as well, and tried to break open the cage, but only I knew that they would fail. The loud barking that was going on almost constantly got even louder!  My paws raced to my ears to block the horribly loud barking, but it was still coming through. I looked at the crazy dog again. She was spinning in her cage clawing every inch of the metal bars loose, but all she left was a small dent in one small bar. She snarled loudly in fury, and jumped in her cage. It jumped with her. Soon her feet were hurting terribly, and now she started to howl in fury. I had to stop the madness, but as soon as I touched her shoulder, she whipped her head to my cage that was still on its side. And she growled deeply in anger. I looked into her eyes. They were red with the fury that controlled her. I could almost see them burning with rage, but underneath all that anger, I could sense a warm, soft, true heart, but only broken. I stopped the screaming at once and talked to her.

“Please! Don’t do this! I’m a friend! You have to stop causing havoc, and scaring everyone!”

“…What’s he DOING?!...” The scared dog that talked to me earlier said to himself.

“I know you’re not always like this! I know you have a heart, a GOOD one! Please listen to it! Be who you are!” I said to her. And I actually got through to her! Now the clawing and the growling got softer, and softer, and her eyes were cooling down. She was listening. Soon, all she was doing was gasping and breathing loudly from all the movement she has made, and her eyes were now a twinkling dark blue. All the other dogs were amazed at what he’d done. And I, was proud of her.

“Thanks.” She breathed. And that was all she said before she collapsed from exhaustion. I was still smiling, knowing I had done a good thing for her. And I rested as well, ignoring the staring from nearly all of the dogs in the car of the train!

One dog put his paw to his heart and looked up to the sky. “Whoever you are, you’re a true hero…”

The next day I woke up and had breakfast as usual. Then I looked over at the cage next to me. The female dog was still sleeping, but soudly. I smiled again. I had no idea how good this would feel until now. I waited a few minutes before she finally woke up. She glanced at me, then looked away and put her head down again.

“Uhh. Hi.” I said to her. She turned her head to look at me, and she had an annoyed expression on her face.

“What do YOU want?”

“Well, since I helped you, I wanted to formally introduce myself.”

“What do you mean you HELPED me?!”

“Hey, hey. Easy! All I want is to introduce myself.”

“Well all I want is for you to shut your mouth! So stop talking to me!”

“You know, I really thought you had a heart. A good heart. But I guess I was wrong. Sorry I helped you see that.” I said as I turned around and sat down. All the female dog did was scoff and lay back down for the next three hours.

When I was ready to face her again, to tell her what her problem was, I turned back around to see, that she was crying. I immediately stopped thinking of the horrible things she said to me and comforted her.

“Hey, what’s the matter?” I asked softly.

“You’re not mad at me?” She said in a surprised tone

“Well, I was. But why are you crying?”

“You were right.” She almost whispered that. “I don’t have a heart. I’m just a wild havoc-causing monster!”

“No, no. I didn’t mean that.”

“Yes you did. And you’re right.”

“No. I was wrong. You DO have a heart. Everyone does. I was just mad about the way you yelled at me.”

“I’m very sorry for that. You see, my life wasn’t really…peaches and cream. I was a street dog all my days until I was captured and put on this stupid train.”

“Really? I never would’ve guessed. You’re just so…ah! What’s the word? Pretty?” I smiled, thinking I was as dumb as a post.

She giggled and officially stopped crying. “Yeah, thanks. So what’s your name?”

“The name’s Buck. And yours m’lady?”

“Don’t call me m’lady or you’ll wish you had never been born! And my name is Curly.”

“Curly.” I repeated.

“It’s a stupid name huh?”

“No, it’s perfect.” I smiled, thinking I finally stopped her rages for good.

CHAPTER 3: A Powerful Street Dog

Curly then talked about her life on the streets. “My mother gave birth to me in the same alley I’ve lived in for years. I also had brothers and sisters, for a while.”

“What happened?”

“You see, I had a brother named Scruffy. He was my best friend in my pup hood days. He would always stand up for me, and stay by my side when I was sad. Helped me when I needed it, and played with me when I got bored. But one day, he started to cough, almost nonstop. And then he was burning up. I was getting worried. My mother couldn’t do a thing about it. On the last day, he told me never to hold back any fears, show courage, and true heart.” Then she sighed. “He was the first to go…”

“You mean, your siblings caught the disease, too?”

“And died from it. I was the only one to survive, and I mean the ONLY one.”

“Are you saying your mom died of it, too?”

She nodded slowly.

“Aww man, I’m so sorry.”

“No, really, It’s fine. I knew it before it happed to her anyway.”

“So, you lived on the streets yourself?”

“Yep. I taught myself everything on being a street dog, with a little outside help. Soon I became the master of my alley. And then I became the master of my street when I turned 1. Everyone, besides the humans, had to do whatever I say as long as they were on my street. I was on the top!”

“I guess you were pretty happy then.”

“Well…yeah. I was kinda happy, but I did miss my family. I mean Scruffy’s last words were the reason I became the queen of my street. I just wanted them to be there with me. But that all changed through the months, because I was so consumed by power, that I went crazy! I gave everyone unnecessary orders and told everyone to pay up even their last bit of food for almost no reason. And if they even so much as touch me, they either get thrown into the Portal of Darkness and Evil, or get killed, depending on how MUCH they touched me. I just didn’t realize that I was power crazy back then until just hours ago.”

“Wait, you had a Portal of Darkness and