2

	The night had fallen on the city of Gondomar. The birds had been replaced with the sounds of crickets rubbing their legs together and taking over the job of vehicles that drove around throughout the day. Everything had a very dark blue hue except for the spots where the moon was shining its silver light, cascading across lawns and houses in the suburbs where Sambinon’s family resided. The tall black street lamps only aided a little, lighting up the corners of the streets to provide checkpoints for those that still walked around during the early hours of the evening. It was very peaceful at this hour for the neighborhood, the position of the community providing a perfect view of the downtown area far off into the distance. There were tall buildings that lit up, surrounded by smaller establishments that created the perfect skyline. Despite the light from the inner city, it was still possible to see all the stars that were out that evening, providing a beautiful painting above those that cared to take a look.
	Another light source was also beginning to pull onto the street that came from a vehicle seeming to return from a night out. As it pulled closer, the black SUV blended in completely with the night light aside from the bright headlights that shone directly in front of it. It turned slowly into the driveway, up the slight incline, and stopped in front of the house. The headlights lit up the side of the house with their intensity for a few seconds before the father turned them off, making them shine a dim orange before they finally disappeared into the night as well. The doors of the SUV slowly opened one at a time as Sambinon and his family stepped out of the car and onto their sidewalk. All were smiling, but seemed to be moving a little slower than usual on account of apparently eating a very hardy meal at the seafood restaurant that evening. Even the energetic little cub was walking casually, somewhat dragging his feet and making a shuffling sound as they approached the door.
	The father walked up to the door and reached in his blazer pocket to find his keys. As he was searching, he looked down at a stuffed Sambinon who was holding his stomach and groaning quietly. He chuckled to himself. “Are you going to be alright, little man?” he asked, finally finding the key and starting to unlock the door.
	Sambinon didn’t really respond with anything other than a louder groan as his father pushed the door open for him and his mother to step inside. Once they were all in, Sambinon started going straight to the couch. His father shut the door behind them and put the keys into his pocket again, smiling as he followed Sambinon. The mother hung up her coat on the brass coat racks that hung beside the door, making sure that it wouldn’t fall before turning around with a smile. “I think it may be time for a certain boy to get ready for bed,” she suggested.
	Sambinon had crawled up slowly onto the couch and stretched out across the leather, resting his head on the arm of the furniture. He turned his head to look at their clock and saw it read eight-forty eight. He didn’t usually go to bed until around nine-thirty on most nights, so he tried his best to complain through random noises. He couldn’t really form words because his stomach was so full of shrimp and fries. 
	His mother walked over to the couch and sat down at his feet. “Yeah, I think it’s time for you to go to bed,” she explained. “You ate much more than I’ve ever seen you eat.”
	The father leaned over the couch, resting his elbows on the back and his chin in his paws. “I think your mother’s right on this one, sport,” he said, still with a grin across his face.
	As Sambinon lay there, closing his eyes without trying to argue, his mother stood up and walked to the other end of the couch beside him. She bent over and wedged her paws between Sambinon and the couch cushions. When she had slid them all the way around her son, she lifted him up and held him under his neck and knees. She then looked at her husband. “I’m going to go ahead and tuck him in,” she explained. “I think it’s going to be an early night for all of us. Thank you so much for the dinner.” They both smiled at each other before she started to turn around, a half sleeping Sambinon in her arms. She stopped turning after a second and looked back at the father. “Oh, did you lock up the house?” she asked.
	The father looked behind him and saw that the door was closed. He turned to face her again and jingled the keys in his blazer as evidence. “Of course, I always do,” he reassured her.
	She smiled sweetly at him and then went into Sambinon’s room to lay her son down for the night. As she entered, she didn’t bother turning on the light, going to the bed and laying him on his back. She leaned down to him. “Lift up,” she whispered. Sambinon groaned a little, and kicked his legs up as she pulled the sheets from under him. “Okay, you can put them down now,” she told him. His legs slammed down on the bed because he was too tired to use his muscles and bring them down gently. She giggled softly and put the cover over his body, tucking him in for the night. After kissing him on the forehead she said, “I love you, baby,” and went back to the door, looking back at her sleeping son as she shut it.
	She turned back around and sighed as she looked at her husband again, still in the same place as when she went into Sambinon’s room. She walked up to him slowly. He had his bulky arms spread wide for an embrace as she came close to him. He wrapped them around her and hugged her close, resting his head on top of hers. She then looked up at him. “I’m all worn out,” she said.
	He smiled with a little chuckle emitting from his chest. “Trust me, Sambinon and I know exactly how you feel,” he said as he looked down at her. “Come on,” he placed a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s get ourselves some sleep.” She nodded and began to walk across the kitchen to their room as the father flipped the switch near the door to turn off the overhead lights of the living room. He then began to sluggishly walk to their bedroom, turning off all the light switches along the way. 
	When he entered the room, his wife had already turned all the lights off except for the lamp on the night stand on her side of the bed. The whole room had a dark golden glow as she came out of the closet in just her lilac colored night gown. It was a V-cut gown that came down to just below her knees with lace at the bottom. It definitely accentuated her curves nicely, but swayed loosely at the bottom. The father noticed his wife and shut their bedroom door behind him, whistling to her playfully. She noticed and just smiled at his apparent satisfaction with her attire. “Well,” he began, sliding off his blazer as he walked to his closet. “It looks like today was quite possibly the best day this year.”
	He nodded and sat at the edge of the bed after pulling the comforter and sheets back some to make room. “You may be right,” she agreed. “It seems like everyone had a good day.”
	The father came back from the closet and started to undo his tie. “It’s definitely going to be different around here. We may even become upper class before long.” He chuckled a bit, hanging the tie up on the closet door, starting to work on his vest and shirt.
	“Now let’s not get our hopes up too quickly,” the mother giggled in response. “You get me thinking we’re rich, and there’s no telling how unreserved I’ll be when you take me shopping on our anniversary.”
	“Oh, I see,” he laughed. He took off his shirt and threw it in the corner of the room along with the vest. He then loosened his belt, pulled it threw all the belt loops, and hung it next to his tie. “Well you’ve still got a ways to go before you start thinking about expensive anniversary gifts,” he joked with her, beginning to mess with his pants button and zipper.
	She watched him as he did this. “You know I don’t need expensive gifts on our anniversary,” she explained. “That was a joke.”
	He laughed as he pushed his pants down and stepped out of the legs. He stood there in his green boxer briefs now that fit snugly around his waist and form. “What was a joke? Do you want expensive things on our anniversary or not?” When she rolled her eyes in playful annoyance at him he walked over to the bed and sat down, slowly scooting over to the middle. “Oh, you know I’m just playing around with you, baby.” He leaned over and wrapped his arms around her once more, kissing her gently on the lips. 
She received the kiss and smiled bashfully at him. “Now let’s get some sleep, okay?” she said as she lay down on her pillow, positioning it under her head until she was comfortable. He smiled down at her, leaning over her body to turn off the light on her night stand. After the light was off, he lay beside his wife and wrapped his big arms around her smaller frame before they both tried to drift off into a well deserved slumber.
The light clicked off, making the house look like its last open eye finally closed for the night from outside. It had become so late in the evening, even the streetlamps had automatically shut down and left nothing but shadow around the houses in the suburban neighborhood. The moon was doing little good to light up the community on its own, leaving nothing but the reflection off the thin fog to provide outlines of structures. Everything was still as the time passed on in the night, barely a single sound wave interrupting the silence as most of the people decided to turn in for the night. The clock in the living room of Sambinon’s house was the only noise that could be heard as it eventually counted the seconds of ten-fifty seven. 

*   *   *

There was a wind that suddenly swept through the neighborhood, causing the chatter of leaves from trees and bushes to fill the void of silence. A shadow crept across the backyard of Sambinon’s house, followed by another shortly after. However, these were not created by the moon casting light onto a tree or a building. The first shadow was taking long strides through the grass and strategically ducked against the exterior of the home. If anyone had observed these actions, they would have been able to tell that it was really two individuals that seemed to be creeping around the property, but there was no one awake to warn of the sneaky behavior. The first of the shadows had run swiftly to the side of the house, compressing his breathing before squatting down against the building. His back leaned on the cold surface while he looked up at one of the windows, studying to if there was any movement in the darkness. When he was satisfied, he pulled his hands up and snapped his fingers three times in quick succession, still looking in the window. That’s when the second shadow came forth, his footsteps a little louder as he ran through the grass and stopped on the side of the house next to his caller. 
The first shadow reached up and pulled his top piece, a black mask made of very thin cotton that had holes in it for the eyes, off his head and held it in that same paw. He was a wolf with silver fur and white markings along the ridge of his snout. His build was muscular, but he wasn’t as bulky as the other shadow that crouched beside him. His eyes were a faint jade color and a scar shot like a bolt of lightning up one of his ears. He and his follower were both wearing all black. They had fitted leather vests that were thick enough to seem bullet proof, even though they were not. It lay over a short sleeve shirt for him and a hoodie for his partner. They both wore black cargo pants with what seemed like matching boots cut low enough for them to execute their stealthy maneuvering. Hooked onto their waists was a leather strap that kept small hand guns connected to both of them, each with a silencer attached. The guns were really for the most extreme measures, definitely not intended for use on any regular night like tonight. However, the barrels did have silencers on them just in case they needed to make an unnoticed escape from a location. Their hands were covered with fingerless gloves made of thin leather so they could be more silent as they worked. 
The wolf’s leather stretched as he looked at his watch, grinning as he noticed it was late enough at night where no one would be awake in this neighborhood of business men working from nine to five every day of the week. He hated even thinking about how well off all the people in this part of the city must be, with their nice houses and things that they didn’t need littering the homes and taking up space. Space and belongings they didn’t even take the time to use. There were plenty of people around the city that could use them, but the richer class had always hogged it for themselves. He never had that growing up and every person that he came across that did, scorned him as a low life. His dislike had grown over the years as he realized that it was always going to be just a little harder for him to get along as he pleased. 
The figure behind him then took off his own mask, revealing that he was a bull terrier with white fur and a brown patch over his left eye. His eyes were a dark brown and his body was much more bulky than his partner. Although he was a little shorter in height, it was clear that he was more of the muscle in their operations, taking orders from the wolf before he took any action. He too had been raised in similar circumstances that kept him from thinking too highly of the rich. He had met the wolf while at a bar one night after getting laid off from his job with the city. He was approached by the wolf that night as he sat at the bar by himself, asking him how things were going. When the bull terrier filled him in, they instantly connected on how hard it was for them at the time, sharing stories of getting laid off and having to do multiple jobs at once. They got to know each other a little better over the years, sharing stories of their lives and helping each other out the best way they could. Now it seemed they were always around each other and recently started to try and make better lives for themselves. They had become so hard pressed that they were barely scraping by. The only option they saw was selling property they owned at first, which slowly began to dwindle to nothing but the essentials. This is about the time when they began to think these upper class snobs needed to know how it felt to not be spoiled. Maybe they needed to be taught not to scoff or be wary of those that didn’t have the same luxuries they had as if the lower classes had some sort of disease they could transport through eyesight. Their animosity had arisen so much they believed it was a good idea to take away from some of these families to prove a point while advancing their own lives. At this time, it was the only fair thing that had happened to them in a very long time.
The wolf looked over his shoulder to his partner. “Alright, it’s now or never,” he explained, motioning his paw forward for the bull terrier to follow him. 
As they began to move, the bull terrier asked, “What’s so special about this house? It didn’t look like those two had too much of value.” As they crouched, gliding across the back of the house and to the corner, the shadows were moving across their faces and hid them from the moonlight’s gaze. 
They stopped at the corner of the house when the wolf turned and responded. “I don’t think it’s wise for us to go for a house that has too many valuables tonight. We’ve already got a pretty good stock to get rid of, and we don’t want to attract more attention than we already have,” he explained. He turned to look around the corner as he continued. “I think it’s probably best to take it easy on this lot. Provide just a minor inconvenience for them.” His eyes scanned the side yard to see if there were any lights on in nearby houses that could give away their position. He saw there wasn’t any illumination in windows of the houses around the area, so he turned back to his partner. “Let’s go,” he instructed. They both stayed crouched as they continued around the corner and through the side yard against the exterior of the building. They made sure to keep their eyes on the beagle’s house to make sure no one came across those windows in shadow to potentially see their movements.
The night wind crept up, providing a chill on the two while also picking up the leaves, making them chatter about what was taking place on the ground below. As the bull terrier followed, the wolf stopped to look around the next corner adjacent to the porch. He was ducked down further so that someone who may be on the other side of the house could not see him before he slowly peered up with those jade eyes over the stone of the foundation. After several seconds he jumped up onto the platform rather swiftly, heading toward the front door with his partner following behind. He was an expert at controlling his footsteps so he would make minimal noise on any surface, but his friend was still in training as evidence by the loud clopping sound from his boot as he initially hit the stone. The wolf immediately turned and gave him a frightened glare that seemed to pierce right through the wind. “Be careful!” he whispered to the bull terrier. His partner heeded the instruction and began to intensely concentrate on the shifting of his bulkier weight.
The night wind began to pick up again, whistling quietly through the porch and sending a chill down the wolf’s spine almost unnoticeably. He and his partner then found the area most covered in shadow and squatted down once more, the bull terrier on the left, both of them peering through the window of the front porch. The wolf’s view was slightly obscured by the lacy curtains, but he was able to determine the general layout of the front room. He hadn’t intended to go any further into the house than this first open area, partly because he did want this to be a quick night for them. He also couldn’t discern if there was anything extremely worth taking in this house because everything that seemed to be of value was too big to carry without making an unsettling amount of noise. However, he did notice that there was no glowing light or panel on any of the walls that would indicate an alarm system, nor did he hear one being set with his acutely trained ears.
The bull terrier spoke up. “Why are we approaching this house from the front?” he asked, looking over at the wolf who was still browsing the room. “It doesn’t seem too logical to be out in the open like this.”
A grin snaked its way onto the wolf’s face as he turned to his partner. “The best way to get the job done is through quickness and calculation,” he explained. “Most of the calculation part comes before the operation even begins. That’s why we survey the home for so long before we make our move. Did you notice anything particularly helpful to us while you were supposed to be observing?” he asked the bull terrier. The bull terrier looked at his friend with a blank stare before shaking his head. The wolf just chuckled, “You’ve got to be more in tune with your senses, man.” He then nodded his head toward the front door. “As soon as we got here, you saw the tiger go into the house didn’t you? How many were there?”
The bull terrier was still staring blankly, but knew the answer. “Two,” he responded, still wondering what his partner was trying to get him to remember. 
“Exactly,” the wolf nodded. “And when he went inside after his wife, did you see him shut the door?” The bull terrier just nodded in response, somewhat scared to make too much noise with his voice. “Ah,” the wolf wagged his gloved finger at the canine, “but did you hear him lock it?” The bull terrier looked at the wolf in amazement of his incredible hearing skills. The wolf just grinned deviously in response as he leaned slightly to his right and turned the knob of the door, gently pushing it open only enough to show that it was unlocked. “Now remember,” the wolf started. “We’re going to make this quick. We may leave with nothing at all, but I’d rather do that than search too hard and wake them up. That tiger looks like he may be too much to handle.” The bull terrier nodded as they both directed their attention to the door. 
They stayed as low as they could while still being able to walk forward, the wolf leading the way as they stood in front of the door. The wolf looked behind him at his partner, holding up his paw. He was mouthing the numbers as he counted one, two, three, before they both infiltrated the house as quickly as they could as to avoid any possible squeaking of the wood and hinges. As the bull terrier stepped further inside, the wolf immediately turned around and shut the door just as quickly until it was almost closed. He then took his time to turn the knob, pushing the door the rest of the way shut, and turned the knob back to silently seal the exit. The inside of the house was now dark again and the only noise was the wall clock counting the seconds. It was as if no one had ever invaded the house for a few moments, peaceful and quiet as it had been at night for the entire time the family had lived there.
The two partners were squatting down on their haunches still, letting their breathing settle from the excitement and their eyes adjust to the darkness that now surrounded them. It took a couple minutes for the wolf to feel comfortable enough with the assumption that they had not stirred anyone in the house. His eyes were also beginning to adjust as he was now able to identify the maze of furniture in the living room by the silhouettes casted on them thanks to the dim light of the moon. He breathed out heavily once to let his partner know he was beginning to take action, placing his hand on the bull terrier’s shoulder. “You know what to do next,” he began. “Look for anything that could be of any sale value. I’m sure this house has something in it that will make some money.”
The bull terrier nodded and they split up, each going to opposite ends of the living room. The bull terrier went to the left side of the room, noticing the wall and one door that was along it. He didn’t want to bother opening it though, believing that it would be his luck to open the door and someone be inside. This would run him the risk of waking someone up and he just didn’t feel like having to go through that much excitement this evening. He stood up a little more, looking around the room for something just small enough for him to loot. The shadows of the objects were darker than the rest of the space, providing him a vague idea of what they could be. He crept over to the entertainment system and studied the different shelves that surrounded the actual television, something he didn’t even entertain the idea of taking. All he saw were a couple of books whose titles he could not make out and little trinkets that were obviously invaluable, only meant for subtle decoration. The cabinets underneath the shelves were made of wood, his eyes searching the small doors for their knobs so he could look inside. He traced his hand across the panels, his leather and the wood making a soft sliding sound against each other. Then, the inside of his palm met a brass extension. He concentrated, lightly grabbing the knob and pulled it open quickly as if mimicking what his partner had done with the front door earlier. He decided it was best for him to look inside through that one door than chance it with another door that could possibly squeak like an annoying rodent. He knelt down on the ground as quietly as he could and peered inside, trying to make out what the silhouettes might be. It seemed to be a bunch of rectangular shapes stacked up inside and along the inside of the door. He assumed these were all movies that had been stored as part of the family’s collection. The bull terrier didn’t think it necessary to sift through them for ones that were worth anything, so he slowly closed the door of the cabinet once more.
Meanwhile, the wolf was searching around the huge leather sofa situated in front of the glass coffee table. He always thought this was the best place to look first since most people with a television would spend a lot of time in front of it. This also meant there was a possibility someone would naturally place their valuables around the sitting arrangements. He first slid his hand along the seat of the sofa to see if anything was idly lying around and then, once coming up empty with the sofa, turned his attention to the coffee table in front of it. He sat down slowly on the sofa and studied the top of the table, noticing nothing there as well except for more decorations that looked like they weren’t worth much. He then turned his attention to the contents underneath, looking for something that may be in a box or concealed in some kind of secrecy. While his partner got up and decided to check the area around the door, the wolf got up and walked around the coffee table to get a better position for searching. Getting down on his knees, the wolf bent over and searched the bottom shelf for something that looked important in the shadows. He ran his palm over the different objects, finding trivial merchandise such as books, magazines, and the remote control to the television. Completely dissatisfied with the house he had chosen so far, he got off his knees and stood up straight. He saw his friend looking in the coat pockets for things like watches and jewelry, but he felt like this would all be in vain.
The wolf slowly walked up behind his partner and placed his hand on his shoulder again. The bull terrier turned around and shrugged. The wolf’s movements made it obvious he was getting frustrated, pacing the floor slowly, his hands on his hips and looking down at the carpet. “There has to be something,” he began, stopping in front of his friend and rubbing his chin with his hand. The ticking of the wall clock made the seconds seem like they were the pace of the wolf’s thoughts, not allowing him to think any faster or slower about what their next move should be. Suddenly, it struck him like the chilling wind outside. He looked over at the clock, a grin forming across his face once again. He motioned with a wave for his partner to follow him over to the wall that housed the clock. Their feet tread softly across the carpeted room once more until they reached it, looking up with inquisitive eyes. The wolf reached and touched the wooden frame, taking note of the antique style of the carving and the designs that were engraved in it. He slid his finger over the face of the clock, and felt the pendulum underneath that forced the second hand to click forward at its allotted rate.
The bull terrier could feel the excitement growing in himself as well as his friend, looking over at him with a smile of approval. “You think this is it?” he asked the wolf. 
The wolf silently snickered to himself as he continued studying the clock. “Sometimes your objective is so obvious you almost forget it’s calling out to you. It’s not the best thing in the world to loot,” he began. “But this is about the only thing in this house that seems to be in our scope of interest tonight.” The wolf then looked over at the bull terrier and nodded, silently ordering his partner to help him with dismounting the antique item. The wolf positioned himself on the left side of it, putting his head to the wall to see how it was hung up. He noticed that there were three nails drilled into the wall that held onto the back of the clock by hooking on the three matching grooves punched into the wood. He nodded to the bull terrier, placing his hands on his side of the clock, instructing his partner to do the same. Once they both securely grasped their respective ends, they began to simultaneously lift up on the clock thinking that it would lift easily. However, there was a thud from the clock that made the wolf and his partner cringe. They froze in their position as the wolf looked behind the clock again. He saw that the two nails at the bottom of the triangular formation were disconnected from the back of the clock, but the top nail was still attached. He reached over and swatted the bull terrier’s hands away so he could get a better hold of it. He stood in front of the clock now and grasped both sides, lifting up slowly before hitting another thud on the wall. “Damn it,” he cursed quietly to himself. He thought the top nail had to be securely hooked into a perfectly circular hole that just did fit the circumference of the nail’s head.
The bull terrier looked at his friend with a small amount of concern on his face. “What’s up?” he asked, leaning in to get a look at what the wolf was doing.
“It’s going to be a little harder to get this down than I thought,” the wolf explained. “Just give me some room, alright?” The bull terrier stood back, looking around the corner into the kitchen to make sure no doors opened down the hall connected to it. The wolf continued to maneuver the clock around, trying to get the hole to line up just right so he could get the clock off the wall and leave. It was more a struggle than he anticipated, making him break a slight sweat from holding up the clock for so long and trying not to make another thud reverberate through the house. It seemed like it was taking forever because of the inability to see this hole, only being able to do silent trial and error. Even then, the wolf knew there wasn’t much room for error so he was getting irritated and impatient very quickly. The minute seemed like several as he felt his head get hot from the intense concentration. He felt like he had to take a break for at least a couple seconds. The wolf lowered the clock onto the one nail and turned to his partner, wiping the sweat from his forehead and letting himself regain control of his nerves. The bull terrier turned back to him and chuckled lightly at his partners stress level, but it was clear that he also was not exactly calm.
As the clock hung there on the one nail for a moment, it began to tick more like a time bomb now. The one nail that it was hanging on was already loose from the years it had been drilled in, and the wiggling of the clock against it only made it worse. Unknowingly to the two partners in darkness, the back of the antique was beginning to slide off of that unstable nail. It wasn’t making a noise to alert the wolf of its descent, but the thin piece of metal was beginning to slide out of the wall from the pressure of the heavy clock dangling on it.
The bull terrier was looking down at his friend as the wolf was trying to regain his composure and calm down enough to go back to work. He wasn’t paying attention to how the clock was now hung on the wall, the shadow of it barely noticeable until it started to move. But once that nail decided to give way, there was no stopping it. The bull terrier caught the movement in his peripheral vision, suddenly looking up at it and holding out a paw. “No!” he whispered coarsely. 
The wolf immediately turned around, already knowing from his friend’s reaction that the worst possible thing was happening at that moment. It was almost as if things were moving in slow motion as the wolf moved his arms out to catch the clock that had already pulled the nail down with it, both falling to the floor. It fell for a couple seconds before it made contact with the wolf’s forearms. However, this only made the situation worse as the wolf had only blindly reached out. It struck the inside of his arms and bounced off, smacking into the wall and causing a huge crashing sound of gears being rolled around inside as the wall opposite the wolf felt the full force of the wooden item. It echoed through the house before hitting the floor, causing even more noise. The two partners sat there, cringing at their mistake and praying that the ones living here were hard sleepers. The wolf held a hand out behind him with one finger up to the bull terrier, telling him to keep quiet and stay where he was for a while.
The noise carried its way quickly into the bedroom of the mother and father, making the father jolt upright in his bed. He was almost instantly awake and alert from the sudden thunder of noise that was unidentifiable to him. He was breathing heavy, not knowing what to make of the sound. He looked over at his wife who only stirred slightly from the noise. He reached a paw and touched her shoulder, prompting her to awaken more easily as she looked up at him in slight confusion. Her eyes were still half lidded as she sat up against her pillow and asked, “What’s wrong, honey?”
The father looked around the room to further orient himself, thinking for a moment of what the crashing sounded like. He then looked over at his wife and responded, “You did hear that, right?”
The mother still looked as if her husband was acting strangely. “I don’t think so,” she began. “I’m sure it was something outside or maybe the house making noises.” She tried to give a forced smile in her dazed state, but this didn’t do much to console him. 
He shifted his weight to sit at the edge of the bed, his feet planted firmly on the floor as he turned his head to speak to her. “I don’t know,” he explained. “That kind of thing wouldn’t have woken me up so suddenly. We’ve been living in this house for too long.” He then turned to look at the floor, listening intently for any other noise that may follow up the crashing sound.
The mother then sat more upright, not needing the support of the pillow as she looked at him more concerned. “Wh-what do you think it might be?” she asked. Her paw was holding up the sheets to her chest as she began to slowly wake up more from the seriousness of the situation. 
The father looked at the door, still listening for any other noise. It was so confusing to him. He hadn’t heard anything like that in the middle of the night before, but he also couldn’t figure out whether the crashing was inside the house or out because he had been asleep. He turned his attention back to his wife, finally speaking again to ease her worry. “You’re probably right, but let me just go see if it could be Sambinon trying to get something to drink. He’s at that age where little cubs will usually attempt that by themselves.” He placed his hand on top of his wife’s above the sheets. She nodded in agreement and rested her back against the headboard once more. He stood up, the mattress lifting with him as his bulky frame escaped it, and began to walk over to the door. It was a cold night inside the house, but he didn’t bother putting on his robe in part because he hoped that he would find his son in the kitchen or, better yet, nothing at all. He stood in front of the door in his boxer briefs and placed his hand on the cold brass knob, turning it gently and opening it with a creaking sound as he was not skilled like his son in silent entries throughout the house.
That sound of hinges slowly screeching open in the back of the house quickly travelled to the front where the wolf and bull terrier were in the living room. They were already still, but that sound forced them to completely freeze as they looked down the hall toward the parents’ room. The wolf instantly gripped at the bull terrier’s shoulder as they stood there, the clock still on the floor in front of them. Down the dark hallway, they saw part of the wall start to jut out a slowly swing open, only illuminated by the small light above the kitchen stove. Their eyes shot wide open, realizing a door was opening and would soon reveal the very one they were stealing from. “Hide,” the wolf whispered softly to his partner before they quickly scattered in opposite directions in the living room. They would have gone straight to the front door, but the hallway gave a clear view of it and would reveal intruders leaving the premises. The wolf silently prayed that this Siberian tiger would be satisfied with just glancing over the room as long as they hid well enough. He trusted his partner to pick a decent spot where he at least wouldn’t be seen easily. As the wolf hurried to duck behind the side of the couch facing away from the opening door, he looked over and saw his friend beginning to wedge himself between the wall and the entertainment system near the front windows. After making sure his partner was secure, he leaned his back against the exterior side of the sofa as he ducked and listened intently. Neither he nor his friend even dared to breathe audibly as their hearts began to beat with heavy thumps in their chest.
This all happened in the time the father had opened the door, peering out at first into his dark house, before slowly stepping outside and closing the door behind him. He had walked through his house before at night, but there was something about this evening that made his home more eerie than normal. The light from above the stove seemed to be casting an incandescent chiaroscuro effect on the rest of the house, making him very weary of his surroundings and his senses heightened. He started walking forward after looking down the hall briefly, his bare feet tracking across that cold tiled floor of the hallway into the kitchen. His head turned to look at the area where the stove was surrounded by the cabinets, refrigerator, and bar on all its sides. His pace was very slow as he continued forward noticing nothing in the kitchen that would make a crash like what had woken him from his slumber. He couldn’t figure out why, but he was getting nervous as he traveled to the carpeted area of the living room as if a presence were nearby. His breathing got slightly heavier as he stood at the edge of the bar, gazing into the dark living room only lit by the moonlight through the windows outside. The cool air conditioning seemed more prominent to him now, slightly breezing through his fur. He swallowed once as he slowly reached up for the switch to turn on the overhead light of the living room.
The wolf was only able to listen to the footsteps of the father, not risking being caught by poking his head out from behind the furniture. He was so low to the ground he could feel his muscles strain as he squatted down below the arm of the couch. Then he suddenly was blinded momentarily by the instantaneous lighting of the entire front of the house. He realized the light switch had been flipped, making him feel incredibly frantic as he closed his eyes for a moment to get used to the lighting. His hearing became more astute as he began to think of ways to keep out of sight from the tiger if he decided to look around. This was a moment requiring the most intense concentration for he wanted the best case scenario of leaving the property undetected by anyone. Focusing all of his thoughts on the sound of footsteps that would be muffled by the carpet, he stayed completely still, ready to only move in time with the tiger if he had to. 
The father had to shut his eyes for a moment as well when the room became lit from the overhead bulb. He tried his best to calm himself when he could finally open them, looking into the living room with studying eyes. He looked from the door, across the couch and coffee table, to the entertainment center as he looked for a source to the crash. His eyes were squinted slightly, thinking this was all too strange to just be a random occurrence. He stepped forward once before looking to his son’s door to see if maybe it was cracked, indicating his son had scurried off to bed after making a calamity. Scanning across the room once more, he caught sight of the clock lying on the floor against the wall. Realizing this had to be the culprit, he gave a big sigh of relief, rubbing the back of his neck as he walked over to the fallen antique. 
The wolf was alert to the tiger’s movements. He recognized the direction of the father’s path and began to step down at the exact same moments, making his way cautiously from behind the arm of the couch to the very back to stay on opposite sides of the furniture. He then realized the bull terrier had absolutely nowhere to go as he was wedged between the wall and the entertainment system. He had obviously not thought this through as well as the wolf in the split second he had to decide where to go. The wolf began to grow nervous, leaning over to look around the side of the couch to his partner. 
The bull terrier was focused, but there was a clear look of panic on his face. He heard the tiger travel to the corner of the room where the clock fell, which would give him a clear view of the bull terrier had he looked to his left behind the entertainment system. He was sweating, time slowing down it seemed before he looked over to his friend. The wolf was holding up his hand, letting him know the only thing he could do was stay still and try not to breathe too hard. The bull terrier turned to face the side of the entertainment system once more, beginning to sweat as he hoped for the best. 
The tiger travelled quietly over to the clock, trying his best not to possibly wake up his son more than the clock probably already had. The carpet was soft under his feet, providing cushion as he knelt down and picked up the clock. 
As he stood upright, the bull terrier held his hand to his chest, relieved that he was lucky enough for the tiger’s focus to be completely on the fallen object. 
The tiger began to study it briefly to check for possible damages. He leaned in close to listen for the ticking it was supposed to create, satisfied that it did indeed still work despite its drop. He turned it over in his hands to look at the back, remembering how it was mounted up on the wall. Turning his attention to the clock’s previous resting place, he walked over to it and saw that there were only two nails sticking out of the wall. This of course did not match the three holes in the back of the clock, meaning the top nail had fallen somewhere on the floor. “Oh no,” he sighed. “Where did that nail go?” he asked himself.
The wolf’s ears perked up as he heard the tiger speak. He realized this meant the father would have to search around the room. His heart beat hard inside his chest, looking back over to his partner leaning against the wall. The bull terrier was visibly panicked at this point as he had noticed something the wolf had not. He was looking down at the ground, his eyes wide open and his body shaking. The wolf followed his gaze and saw the iron nail lying on the floor almost right beside his foot, meaning that if the tiger were to find it, he would surely find the bull terrier as well. The wolf went behind the couch again and looked down at the carpet, desperately trying to think of what the best way was to avoid a bad situation. He balled his fists up in frustration as he slowly realized there was no way to avoid one now. This tiger seemed to be persistent about hanging the stupid clock up, so he was going to find the nail and he was certainly going to find his partner. He now had two options. Either he could stay put and hope the tiger was oblivious enough to not find the nail or his friend, a chance that was extremely risky and unlikely, or he could find a way to at least knock the tiger out so both he and his partner could escape virtually unnoticed. He certainly did not want to risk being seen and identified for anything if he could help it. The latter was what he saw as the only possible outcome at this point, beginning to scoot silently to the other side of the couch’s back to keep an eye on the tiger. He didn’t want to use his gun because he didn’t want to have murder on his mind, so he had to think of something else to create their escape, and he had to think of it quick.
The father set the clock down against the wall under the nail formation and turned around, looking all over the floor for the nail. Traveling closer to the coffee table and leaning down to check underneath it, he reached with his paw to feel the carpet that he couldn’t see, but found himself come up short with no luck. He sighed again from more irritation than fear now that he was pretty sure the clock had fallen by itself. Standing up straight once more, he searched the floor around him for a few moments, the bull terrier just out of his view. 
The wolf knew where the tiger was and figured he was going to have to act really soon. He peaked around the back of the couch as he was kneeling and saw the clock the tiger had set back down against the wall. That aggravating decoration, the reason they were in such a mess, was going to be the one thing to get them out of it. 
Suddenly, the tiger’s announcement sent an adrenalin rush through the wolf. “Oh, there you are,” the father said, spotting the nail on the floor. He was far enough away that he didn’t see the bull terrier standing next to it, but the wolf knew if he got any closer he would.
As the father walked casually over to the spot where the nail rested, the wolf then decided to act at that moment. He stayed as low as he could to the ground and swiftly hurried over to the wall where the clock was leaning. When he found himself out in the open where the dad was, he felt a cool rush of air and energy wash over him. Pinpointing where the clock was, he kept his eyes on the father who had not yet turned or even recognized the wolf leaving his hiding place. He finally reached the antique and grabbed it firmly in his hand.
The father had already started to bend down for the nail, but heard the short sound of the clock being gripped from behind him. He immediately forgot about the nail and began to stand up quickly, turning around as his heart seemed to skip from the surprise. The father got to his feet and made about a quarter turn before he felt the harsh impact of the wooden clock hitting the side of his head, directly on his temple. The weight of the object wasn’t what sent him smashing into the next wall head first as much as the precision of where it hit him. “Arrgh!” he yelled, feeling as if he were flying as he fell sideways before the thud of his head hit the hard wall of the living room just under the windows. Everything went black as his head throbbed momentarily, feeling paralyzed before he passed out.
The wolf was standing there, still holding his arm out from the follow through of his throw. The clock lay at the tiger’s feet, the wolf gasping in disbelief that his plan had actually worked the way he wanted. The bull terrier poked his head out from the side of the entertainment system, unnoticed the entire time by the tiger that now lay limp on the floor. He looked down at the big tiger and then to his partner with wide eyes and mouth hanging open slightly. The wolf was looking at him in the same manner.
They both regained their composure as the bull terrier walked up quickly to the wolf. “What do we do now?” he asked. “Do we even worry about the clock?”
“Of course not,” the wolf answered quietly. “We need to get out of here as quick as possible.” He then pointed down to the tiger. “Check his pulse and make sure he’s alright before we leave. I don’t want to think I just killed someone over a fucking clock.” The bull terrier nodded and went to kneel down beside the tiger as the wolf brushed himself off, trying to calm down further from the ordeal.
The mother, still in the bedroom had heard the second crashing sound and what seemed like her husband grunting. She gasped as she sat up in bed, unsure of what was going on in the room down the hall. She sat there momentarily, not knowing how to react. Then, she got up slowly, pushing the soft sheets off of her legs, and walked nervously over to her closed bedroom door. The room had seemed cooler to her now as she breathed heavier, leaning her ear up against the cold surface to listen. “Honey?” she called to the other side, hoping to get some kind of response. She waited for a couple of very long moments before she began to fear the worse when she didn’t get an answer to her calling. Her breathing and hand were becoming shaky as she lowered it to the brass knob of the door.
The bull terrier had his two fingers pressed under the tiger’s jaw bone, checking for some kind of pulse while the wolf stood behind him with his arms crossed. He was looking down at his partner, waiting for those few intense seconds and really fearing he had thrown the clock just hard enough to do the tiger in. 
The bull terrier took his fingers off of the tiger’s neck and turned to face the wolf while he was still squatting. A smile came across his face as he reported, “He’s got a pulse. I think he’ll be okay.”
The wolf lowered his arms and sighed with relief. “Oh, thank God,” he said, rubbing his own neck to relieve the tension. “He should wake up then and just be confused. He’ll of course know that someone was here, but he’ll have no idea who.” He looked around the floor to see if they had dropped anything.  “I guess that’ll teach him not leave his door unlocked anymore.” The bull terrier smiled in response, patting the wolf’s shoulder with his hand. “Alright, let’s get out of here right now. Forget that stupid piece of trash. It’s been banged up too much now to be worth anything.” 
“I owe you one,” the bull terrier said, looking the wolf in the eye with a thankful smile. He took his hand off the wolf’s shoulder and waited for his friend to lead the way. 
“Don’t mention it,” the wolf responded, waving his paw at the canine. He sighed again and turned around, facing the front door. He waved for the bull terrier to follow as he began to take long strides towards it, his partner right behind him. Suddenly, he was seized by the sound of that door in the back of the house creaking open once more. His body felt paralyzed again as he looked down the hall and saw another Siberian tiger poking its head out from inside the room, meeting eyes with him. The two partners stared at the mother with scared expressions on their faces, realizing that they were now identified by someone with the lights fully showing all of their features. 
The mother was also staring, taking a short time to realize that there were intruders in her house and she was looking right at them. This was a moment she never thought she would have to face in her entire life, seeing as this could possibly turn into a life or death situation for her and her family. Her thoughts started to race through her head before making a move, but she knew the only place to go was back into the bedroom. She stuck her head back in the room and slammed the door hard with all her strength, turning the little extension of the knob to lock it behind her. Her mind still continued to think at a rapid pace as she started stepping backward away from the door. She was worried about what happened to her husband and what could happen to Sambinon if they found out where his room was. She swallowed, having difficulty from the adrenaline that now pumped through her veins as she backed up completely to the footboard of their bed. She could call the police, but would they get there in time for her family’s safety? She highly doubted it, but turned and scrambled for her cell phone on her nightstand anyway.
The wolf and bull terrier were stunned for half a second when the female tiger had darted back into her room, but soon became panicked when they realized she could be making a move to call the police or do something to escape and seek help. The bull terrier started running toward the bedroom door, not taking orders for the first time from the wolf. The wolf reached out a hand to grab his partner but it didn’t find its target, causing the wolf to stumble forward a little. “Come back!” the wolf shouted, trying to order his friend to return. “What the hell are you doing?”
The bull terrier had barreled down the hallway so quickly, thudding through the house without regards to how loud he was anymore, that he had now reached the door to the bedroom and slammed into it in hopes that it wasn’t locked. “Shit!” he exclaimed, the terror being expressed in his eyes. He stared back nervously at the wolf still beside the bar in the kitchen. “I can’t go to jail! I refuse!” he responded with fear in his voice.
The wolf tried to stay as calm as he could, given their situation. “Let’s just leave, man,” he tried ordering again, but he could see that his partner was no longer listening. He stood there, unable to take his eyes off his panicking friend. He had to start thinking again of how to get out of this uncontrollable situation, but it wasn’t looking too good for them. He continued to plead with his partner to come to his senses and ditch the house with him.
The bull terrier was having none of his friend’s reasoning anymore. All he had on his mind now was eliminating anything that could send him to jail or worse. He already didn’t have much in his life and going to jail would just be a reason for him to pack it up and accept that the rest of his life was going to waste away with no kind of reward. He had obviously been more emotionally affected by his circumstances with money. It had led him to feel useless which prompted him to start working with the wolf in the first place. It gave him a purpose as well as was getting him out of his horrible economic situation. He couldn’t bring himself to leave and run the risk of being caught. This tiger knew what they looked like now and there was no stopping the police from finding them and putting him and his partner through hell. He had to get into this room and either reason with her or do whatever it took to make sure she didn’t rat them out. His mind was so clouded with fear and frustration that he also didn’t realize how futile reasoning with the mother would be.
She heard the first hard crash on the other side of her door, making her jump and gasp. Everything seemed to be happening in a blur as she opened up her phone. It was the kind of phone that took forever to turn on, so she started to cry out in hysterics as she realized the canine was way too persistent for her first plan to work. This had now turned into a situation where she believed her life was in danger. She threw her phone onto the bed angrily and looked around the room for something to strike her as a way out. She had to protect her family in any way she could. If she were harmed or worse, there would be no way to protect her son from these two monsters. Her primal maternal instincts kicked in as she remembered her husband had a gun in the back of his side table drawer. He had taught her how to use it in the past, but she hadn’t really been in a situation where she would actually be using it on someone else. Now, however, she trusted herself and her drive to protect. She jumped onto the bed, rolling to the other side as the pounding was getting harder and harder on her door. She could hear shouts of desperation from the bull terrier as she pulled the drawer out and reached in the very back, touching the cool metal of the handgun. She pulled it out and slammed the drawer shut, taking the magazine out of the bottom of the grip to check for bullets. Luckily, it was fully loaded so she pushed the magazine back in with a click. She wasn’t sure if she would be able to take on this intruder, but she felt like she had to try to protect the ones she loved. Standing up slowly, she turned toward the door and walked into the front of her bed, centering herself at the footboard. She widened her stance just as her husband had taught her and pulled the hammer back until it clicked, ready to fire. She held it steady with both hands in front of her, looking down the two sights and readying her aim right at the wooden door. She was in the most concentrated state she’d been in her whole life, seeing nothing but the metal of the barrel and the projection of the future bullet going right into this bastard’s body as soon as he opened the door. If she had to, she was going to kill him. He and his friend were not going to ruin the family she had worked so hard for. She would take a life and damn herself to Hell if it meant making sure her husband and son weren’t harmed by a bunch of thugs in the safety of their own home.
The bull terrier was driving his shoulder into the door now, trying his best to beat it down with all his strength. He was becoming more irritated with each push though, causing him to grunt and curse as the wolf watched on. The wolf banged his fist on the bar, still trying to make his partner snap out of his clouded desperation. “You’re not going to make it any better by getting in that room!” he shouted. “Stop, damn it!” He was becoming frustrated as well, knowing there was no way for him to physically remove his partner. He wasn’t as strong as the other canine and didn’t want to risk a broken nose because of directly interfering with the blind rage.
The bull terrier was in his own world, not even hearing the wolf’s pleas anymore. His shoulder was throbbing, but the door wasn’t giving in or even cracking in the wood. He decided to beat on the door with his fists some to give his shoulder a break. He had to get in there, he simply had to. 
The commotion that was now apparent in the house was very chaotic. There was crashing and yelling now reverberating through the once silent property, creating a controlled warzone that was heard by no one else in the neighborhood. 
The blackness that had overcome the father was now being filled with the commotion in his home. He couldn’t see anything for a moment, but he was definitely starting to wake up from all the disturbances. The noise was becoming painful, further heightened when he felt his consciousness come back and he was able to open his eyes once more. He felt dizzy and there was a sharp pain on the side of his head. He couldn’t remember what had happened after he turned around because the clock had struck him so hard. The first thing he saw was a sideways view of his living room, his cheek pressed against the soft carpet and his hand out in front of him. He lay there motionless, not knowing how in the world he could’ve gotten there for a brief moment. The sounds around him were more distinct now, but he still couldn’t determine who was making the noises because he had never heard the voice before. He placed his hand on the carpet for balance and started to push up to lift off the floor and sit up against the wall. The next thing he saw was the clock on the floor beside his feet. As he stared at it, he slowly began to remember the impact he felt before he blacked out. This explained the throbbing on the side of his head, but not the cause of why it had been sent flying at him earlier. He then drew his attention to the sounds of a voice shouting around him, looking first to his left and then to his right. When he turned his head the last time, his eyes fell on the wolf with his fist clenched on the bar in their kitchen. The father had a dumbfounded look on his face at first, not recognizing who it was. He took a moment, shaking his head once to distract from the throbbing, and gazed over the canine. It seemed like he was wearing mostly black leather, but this still didn’t help the father figure out who it was and what he was doing here in his dazed state. Then his eyes trailed down to the wolf’s hip where there was a handgun attached to a belt that clung tight to the canine’s outfit. This is when it clicked for him. He didn’t understand why the wolf was here, but he immediately knew that the intruder was here for no good intentions. This wolf had to be the reason he was knocked out and the fact that he was now directing his attention to the back of the house where his wife was waiting infuriated him. He was going to take care of this guy right now before he had a chance to do the same to the rest of his family. Shaking his head once more, the sounds of the bull terrier banging on the door only seemed like the throbbing at his temple as he tried his best to quietly lift himself off the floor and against the wall. Once on his feet, he staggered to line himself up with the wolf’s back from across the room, not realizing there was another intruder because of his intense concentration. His limping didn’t do anything for his head injury, seeming to shake up his brain and force him to stay only halfway oriented. Seeing how the wolf had not noticed any of his movements, he was ready to make this guy regret the day he snuck into his home.
The bull terrier was furious with this stubborn door. He was breathing very noisily from the physical force he had placed on this sturdy piece of wood. Then he remembered the pistol that was on his hip, feeling slightly foolish for not thinking of it sooner. His head was hot as his desperation drove him to grab for his pistol, taking it out of its small holster. He thought to shoot directly at the door, but he didn’t want to run the risk of a bullet hitting the female tiger just yet. His eyes trailed down to the brass knob as he gripped the pistol with both hands firmly, pointing down at his new target.
The wolf saw what his friend was doing and gasped, realizing that this was the point where they wouldn’t be able to turn back and leave so easily anymore. If he didn’t try to subdue his partner now, it was going to be very bad for both of them once that gun was fired even if it did have the silencer. The wolf felt compelled to move forward out of necessity of taking control of the situation, his heart skipping a beat once more. However, as he tried to lift his hand off the bar, he felt a sharp pain on the top of his hand that kept it from moving an inch. The pressure was immense and caused the wolf to cry out from shock and pain. “Ahhh! What the…” he began to shout, but he soon felt what seemed like an entire wooden plank go across his throat, pulling him tight to a stone wall and keeping him there.
The father had seen the gun was holstered on the same side as the wolf’s arm that was placed on the bar. He had run up and pinned the hand so the wolf couldn’t draw his weapon and wrapped his entire bulky arm around the canine’s throat. He was pulling back on the wolf so hard that the wolf felt slightly lifted from the floor, but not so much that he couldn’t still reach it if he were to stretch.
The wolf quickly realized that this was the tiger he had knocked out earlier that evening. He felt so stupid for not watching his back and making sure the guy didn’t wake up on them. But it was too late to worry about that now as his throat began to close up from the pressure, the blood quickly rushing to his head.
The father was grunting, flexing his muscles as hard as he could and taking advantage of the surprise attack. “What are you doing here?” he asked the wolf. “Why did you break into my home?”
The wolf was hearing the questions, but obviously couldn’t answer them as his windpipe felt like it could be crushed at any moment. He looked around frantically, his mouth hanging open as he gasped for as much air as he could. He was gripping the outer arm of the tiger that was around his neck with the only free arm he had, squirming around and desperately trying to break free of this vice-like grip.
The bull terrier, not even noticing his friend’s situation because of his aggravated attempts at breaking down the door, pulled the trigger of the pistol and sent a silenced shot right at the door knob. He looked down at the knob and noticed that one bullet hadn’t done much to help his advancing. He growled viciously and immediately sent three more bullets raining down on the metal obstacle. He studied it again, breathing heavier than ever, and saw that his target had popped off and fell to the floor with a loud plop. He watched as it rolled over on its piston to hit his boot and came to a stop. Grinning as he looked back up to the wooden door, he leaned his back against the wall across the tiny hall. Still holding his pistol, he lifted one heavy leg up and prepared to break down the door by force.
The mother had heard the continuing pounding on the door from the bull terrier’s shoulder. She was shaking with nerves and anger, knowing that the time was fast approaching where she would have to actually shoot at another living being. She didn’t know what to think about that, but she was prepared to defend the only thing she cared about more than anything else. She jumped a little, the metal of the pistol rattling in her hands as she heard the silenced shots hitting the door knob. The moment was the most intense she had ever experienced, pushing her over the edge as tears began to form in the corners of her eyes. After the four shots, everything seemed to happen in another dimension, time slowing down by the emotions being stirred within the house. 
The bull terrier drove his boot hard into the door, making a loud thud and sending the door flying open quicker than he anticipated. His entire body was put behind this kick, sending him stumbling into the room with incredible momentum as he fell on his knees in the carpeted room. 
The door had swung open almost too quickly for the mother to realize what was happening, slamming into the dresser with its follow through. Then she saw him. The bull terrier had fallen from his kick into her room right in front of her. She hesitated, taking a split second to realize it was now or never. Her trembling hands held the pistol in front of her as she looked down the iron sights.
That hesitation is all the bull terrier needed to recover from his fall and look up at her from his knee stance on the floor. The first thing he saw was the metal of the mother’s pistol pointed straight at his chest. His reflexes were well trained compared to the tigers, pushing him to get up off his knees quickly and dive to the side strictly on impulse. As he lifted off the floor and lunged to his right, he suddenly heard a thundering crash and felt a piercing punch hit the outside of his shoulder that was so powerful it threw him off balance and he landed on his side. He hit the floor hard with pistol in hand, shocked from the foreign impact he felt in his left shoulder. He grunted and looked down to see a small pool of blood start to form at the epicenter of the pierce. His black sleeve was starting to get darker around the wound, telling him that he had definitely been shot by the female tiger.
The loud crash of the mother’s pistol broke the concentration of the wolf and the father in the living room. The father was shocked by the sound, taken by surprise just from the incredible volume of it. He didn’t immediately identify it as his own gun because he assumed the wolf was the only other one in the house.
The wolf, however, knew from the moment the sound traveled into the living room what it was. And he also knew that it was not his partner who had fired the shot because of the silencers on their pistols. All of this realization on the wolf’s part took only one second as he started to fear for the safety of his friend. Noticing the very slight loosening of the tiger’s grip from his surprise, the wolf took advantage of the situation. He lifted himself up, using the tiger’s body for support and then slammed his weight down, putting all of his pressure on one boot that came crashing down on the tiger’s bare foot. He didn’t hold back at all in a state of desperation to not go unconscious at the mercy of this bigger male.
The tiger’s confusion was broken by the intense pain he felt in his foot. He still held the wolf by the throat with his entire arm, but he couldn’t help the involuntary reaction of leaning forward. The sharpness of pain had sent a surge through his leg and into his stomach causing him to groan. However, no sooner had he bent forward, somewhat resting his head on the back of the wolf’s neck did he then feel what seemed like a brick being thrown and making direct contact with his nose and mouth. It was the back of the wolf’s head that had reared forward and came back with a heavy force onto the vulnerable parts of his face. It was so powerful, he half felt like something had cracked, but the shock from the two succeeding blows shocked him so much that he didn’t even verbally react to the pain. He couldn’t hold onto the wolf any longer, releasing his grip as his arm slid from around the throat and his hand off the wolf’s. His vision started going black once more from the focus point of the pain. He staggered back a couple steps and then felt his body fall through the air as he landed on his back hard with a thud on the carpet. He lay there groaning, feeling as if he were unable to move as three parts of his body now hurt worse than they had in a very long time.
The wolf leaned over the counter and gasped for breath, clenching at his throat and holding his stomach from the lack of air supply. He hacked a couple times, feeling as if he would vomit for a second before closing his mouth and concentrating on doing just the opposite. He heard the thud of the father and slowly turned to see what had happened. His own head was now throbbing in the back so he lifted a paw to rub the spot and numb the pain. What he saw when he turned around was the father lying on his back, his eyes closed with a small trickle of blood beginning to run out of his nose and down his lip. The wolf knew he had probably broken the tiger’s nose, but the tiger could also quickly recover. He directed his focus again on the gun shot from a second ago. He feared for the worst, knowing he had to go in there and see what was going on. Slowly he turned, leaning on the bar from his own wounds, and started to walk carefully to the room his partner had invaded. 
The mother heard the sound of her own gun going off, making her flinch both from the sound and the heat of the moment. Her eyes shut for a second, praying she had hit her target without any visual confirmation. The echo of the gun reverberated throughout the house as she slowly opened her eyes, the sound starting to die down. She didn’t see anything in front of her, sending a jolt of panic into her heart. Her eyes were wide as she lowered her gun slightly and looked around the room from where she stood. Then, turning to her left, she saw the bull terrier again. He was leaning against the door of her husband’s closet, holding his shoulder and wincing in pain. It was no doubt that the bullet had made contact with him, but not where she had originally intended it to go. She screamed in panic and started to raise the gun again.
After the bull terrier had sat up against the cold door of the closet, he looked for a second at his shoulder to see what the damage was. When he heard the scream from the tiger, his attention was instantly put back on her, still grunting from the pain in his shoulder. He saw her raising her gun once more. If he didn’t act more quickly, he was going to get shot in a more fatal spot than just his shoulder. Without thinking about anything but his own safety, he raised his arm with the pistol in hand and pointed it at the mother. Not caring much for where he was aiming, he pulled the trigger and sent another silenced bullet out towards the tiger before she could even get another shot off. It had happened in such a fluid motion for the canine that he barely had time to realize what he was doing before he watched as the tiger went flying back onto the bed, a short burst of blood coming from her chest where the bullet made impact.
When the bullet hit her, she was stunned as her whole being went flying back onto the bed. Her body bounced off of the mattress, distorting the red sheets she and her husband had been sleeping soundly in a little while ago. When her frame finally stopped being juggled by the mattress, she lay there still. She was still conscious, her eyes open and looking up at their ceiling fan, realizing she had been shot on the left side of her chest. It had entered through her ribcage and pierced her heart and lung, causing internal bleeding to occur on impact. She couldn’t believe what was happening, the idea of being shot still processing in her mind. The hole in her chest started to hurt slightly, but it was covered up by the fluid that has started to spill out around the bullet. Her breath started to get short and she began to choke, some of the red liquid coming out of her mouth. Rolling her head over to the side, she looked at the busted door and began to hope that this was all just a horrible dream that she would wake up from if she could just get herself to. She began to feel her vision leave her and the blood drip off of her mouth and blend in with their dark red sheets. Her eyes then came across the family photograph on her dresser, seeing her little boy in her lap with her husband behind her. They were smiling happily, not able to predict this night. Even if they did, there was no way they would have believed it. The tears began to well up again in her throat, streaming down her face along with the blood and mixing with it in puddles by her head. She slowly came to terms with the horrible truth of this being the last she was going to see of her son, the photograph of when everyone was so safe and happy. Her whimpers turned into heavy sobs as she looked back up at the ceiling fan, holding her hand to her wound to try and futilely stop the bleeding she felt in her chest. She was seeing the same sight as Sambinon did that morning when he leaped onto their bed to wake them, except this time she was going to sleep forever. Her last thoughts were of her son and how now he wasn’t going to have a mommy to make his bruises and scrapes feel better with a kiss. She didn’t want to leave him, but her body was failing her by the second. She wanted to hold him one last time, and let him know how much she loved him. But that thought was cut short with a few final, desperate gasps of air before the mother lay still, gazing up at the light and eternally viewing the same sight her son saw every morning. 
The bull terrier lowered his weapon, unable to breathe from the amount of adrenaline that momentarily coursed through his veins. He watched from the point the mother fell to when she finally lay still on the bed. He heard her cough and he heard her weep. The picture of the fallen mother lying lifeless on the bed etched itself into his memory. There was a tug at his heart when he saw no more movement from her body, taking his first breath since he had originally lifted his pistol. Exhaling heavily a couple times, he closed his eyes and grunted as he slid his back up the door of the closet to stand on his feet with its support. He was hunched over slightly from the pain in his shoulder, placing a hand over it to get the blood to clot more quickly around the wound. He opened his eyes and looked at the lifeless body of the female tiger, trying to convince himself that if he had not shot her it would be him lifeless against the wall on the floor. Although he felt bad for having killed her, he was in a state of mind that didn’t think it could’ve happened any other way. He grunted again as another surging pulse went through the bullet wound, making his shoulder ache immensely.
At this point, the wolf had staggered through the small hallway with his hand on the wall for support. He still had not completely caught his breath, but it was getting better the more he made his way to his partner. He placed his hand on the frame of the doorway and leaned forward to look around the opening. The first thing he saw was the other tiger’s limp figure on the bed, looking straight up at the ceiling. His eyes shot open, finding it once again hard to breathe from the circumstances his partner had thrown them into. Now it wasn’t a matter of just breaking into private property, there was now a murder on their record. The wolf shifted his weight and stood in the middle of the doorway, still placing a paw on the frame for balance. He glanced over to his right and saw his partner holding his shoulder and hunching over in front of the closet doors. Rubbing a gloved hand over his face, he looked around the room and trembled, “My God.”
The bull terrier looked up, noticing the voice of his friend. When they met eyes, the bull terrier looked down in shame as he realized the wolf already saw what he had done. He knew his partner didn’t want the guns to be used and he didn’t understand how to explain himself.  “It had to be done,” he started, pitifully trying to give some sort of reason for his actions.
“What?” the wolf asked, looking at the bull terrier as if he’d lost his mind. “What do you mean?”
“She was going to shoot me,” the bull terrier continued. “If I didn’t shoot first, she was going to kill me.” He pointed at the mother and shook his head, still looking down at the carpet.
“I told you to leave her alone so we could get out of here!” The wolf was out of breath so his yelling was a little exasperated. “If you had listened to me none of this would have happened! Now we have to deal with this being on the news too! Everyone’s going to know and we’re going to be found out!” The wolf extended a hand to the form on the bed, looking away from his partner in disbelief. As he looked down at the floor of the hallway, his mind started to race. His partner had actually killed somebody, making him an accomplice to murder. This was one of those moments where lives were changed on both sides. How was he going to live with the guilt? How was he going to get them out of this one? He looked back over at his partner and shook his head, rubbing the back of it in a state of panic and anxiety. His gaze moved from the floor to back down the hallway in his state of thought. As he did, he met nothing but black and white. The father had already gotten back up and charged the wolf back into the wall beside him with a tremendous force powered by blinding rage. The wolf felt the force of the father slam his back hard against the painted drywall surface, immediately taking the wind out of his lungs as the father reached up and grabbed his throat with both hands. It seemed as if he wasn’t going to let the wolf escape this time. His claws started to dig into the wolf’s neck causing a sharp pain along with crushing pressure. The wolf had been quickly pinned against the wall, completely off the ground. He tried to kick, but the father’s arms were much longer than his reach could save him. He grabbed the tiger’s wrists and tried his best to separate those strong hands from his windpipe, but it was no use as the father had reached a point of not asking anymore questions.
The only thing the father had seen when he woke up from his second dizzy state was the wolf leaning against the frame of his bedroom with the door open. He knew he had to act quickly to safe his wife from possible danger, raising to his feet once more and running at full speed into the canine that had bested him twice already. He could not let him escape this time. He was going to end it right now because the wolf was obviously very serious. Grinding his teeth, he pushed all of his weight onto the wolf’s throat with his hands and held him high up where he couldn’t get away. He didn’t know what had happened to his wife, and he certainly didn’t realize there was another criminal in his bedroom with a gun. “Don’t you dare go in there and touch her,” he commanded the wolf. “I will kill you.”
The wolf was gasping for breath at this point, his eyes starting to roll back in his head from the dangerously low air supply to his body. His vision was fading from the menacing sight of the father trying to choke him to death to one of darkness very quickly. However, he noticed a movement to his left just as he thought he was going to black out. It was quick and came very close to where the father had him held up. Just as he felt like his larynx was going to be crushed, he heard a silenced shot. Immediately following the sound, he felt himself fall to the ground and hit the floor hard. He sat there for a moment, feeling like he was going through space from the drastic change in height and almost the complete lack of oxygen. His head reeled and he felt a ringing as the blood rushed back to it with his vision starting to come back as well. Holding his throat, he started coughing again, sometimes heaving as he recovered from the returned injuries around his neck. He drew deep breaths to try and fill his lungs again with air, leaning sideways on one arm against the wall where he was previously mounted. As his vision slowly became clear again, he looked over to his right and saw the body of the father obscurely leaning against the wall with a bullet hole in his head. His hands were sprawled out in front of him and his neck seemed to be broken from how unnaturally he was leaning against the wall. His eyes were open, but they had no destination. There wasn’t much bleeding except for a small stream that left the wound on the side of his head the wolf could see. The wolf concluded that now the other tiger was dead as well. He couldn’t react fully as he was recovering from the physical trauma, but as he looked to his left he saw his friend extending a hand out to help him up. 
The bull terrier had shot the male tiger in the head at near point blank range, sending him against the wall beside him. His gun was now holstered as his arm connected to the unwounded shoulder was outspread to the wolf. “That’s what I owed you,” the bull terrier said without any particular facial expression. 
The wolf just growled and slapped the hand away, leaning against the wall to get up by himself. Once he was up, slightly hunched from his own injuries, he looked at the bull terrier with a fire in his eyes that could only come from the most incredible amount of frustration.
	The bull terrier stood there, looking back at his partner with wide eyes. He read the wolf’s expression and knew that this was not going to go well for him. He sighed pitifully. “I’m sorry,” he tried to apologize.
	The wolf shoved on the bull terrier with both hands without any warning, sending his partner more into the bedroom. “Sorry?” he began. “You just killed both of them! Do you realize how much shit we’re going to be in now?” The wolf was snarling at the other canine, so upset with his inability to think clearly.
	The bull terrier was rubbing the shoulder the wolf had pushed on. He looked the wolf in the eyes. “They tried to kill both of us!” he tried to explain. “If I hadn’t shot them, we would both be dead!”
	“If you had listened to me in the first fucking place, everyone would be alive you dumbass!” The wolf was screaming at this point. He didn’t care that he wasn’t as strong as his friend. He was infuriated and needed to take the bull terrier down from his pedestal.
	“Yeah, well, it didn’t happen like that.” the bull terrier retorted. “I was reacting with what I was given.”
	The wolf pointed at the bull terrier, scolding him. “You reacted to what you put yourself into.” He could see his partner look down at the ground again, obviously understanding how thoughtless he had been, but he didn’t care at this point. He started to pace back and forth with his hands on his head in a very fearful state of mind. He had no clue of what to do at this point. He had never faced this before, nor had he expected to. He stopped and turned back to the bull terrier. “Give me your gun,” the wolf ordered, holding out his hand for the bull terrier to place his pistol in.
	The bull terrier drew his pistol out, still looking at the floor in shame, and placed the now hotter metal object into the wolf’s outstretched hand. He continued on, “I was completely foolish,” He looked up and at the body that lay against the wall, realizing that in taking these lives he would have to carry the burden for the rest of his life. The same feeling of sadness started to well up in his chest again as he looked at the father, trying his best to hold back from choking up. However, the tugging of emotions still staggered his breathing noticeably. 
	The wolf read the regret in his partner’s eyes and exhaled in frustration, putting the empty gun into his pocket. He brushed his hands across his pants and chest before managing to finally stand up completely straight. He too looked down at the lifeless body at his feet, deciding on what to do with it. He turned back to his friend after a brief moment. “Let’s get him in the bedroom as well before we do anything else,” he told the bull terrier. “I need some time to think.” 
	The bull terrier nodded as they both walked into the hallway once more and crouched down on opposite sides of the big tiger’s frame, him on the left and the wolf on the right. It would definitely take two of them to lift up this bulky dead weight male off the floor. The bull terrier wrapped his arms around the shoulder of the father, following the wolf’s example. The wolf counted them off to three and then they flexed their muscles, trying to pick up the tiger. Grunting from realizing just how heavy the tiger was from the initial strain, they lifted up and managed to get his top half off of the floor as best they could. He definitely was heavy even for the two of them, showing just how much danger they were in once the father had woken up. They turned around with him in their grasp and started to walk backwards slowly, the father’s feet dragging softly across the carpet as they fully entered the bedroom. The door was still busted open with no door knob, leaving a clear path for the two canines to bring the father into his final resting place. Each making a quarter turn, they stopped in front of the footboard of the bed, making sure the father was parallel to the wood. Then, both slowly bending over, they worked together to lay the tiger on his back. 
	They stood up, but the wolf began to study the body more closely, noticing that the exit point of the bullet had left a pretty nasty hole in the side of the father’s head. Looking to his right, he saw a little blood splattered on the wall in the hallway. It made him feel nauseous to see all the blood everywhere, covering his mouth so that he would at least feel like he could control any possible vomiting. He walked over to the side of the bed where the mother lay and pulled on one of the sheets underneath her. When he noticed there was no way to obtain the fabric without the body falling uncontrollably onto the floor, he directed his attention to the pillows with casings over them. “This will have to do,” he said, grabbing one of the soft pillows and pulling in opposite directions to release the pillow from its holder. Placing the naked pillow back on the bed, he took the casing back over to where the father lay. He then knelt down and placed the fabric over the father’s face, carefully positioning it to specifically cover up the bullet wound. As he stood back up straight, he looked at his partner with a sigh.
	The bull terrier stared right back and asked, “What’s the best thing to do?” He was a little nervous with the mess he made, knowing that there was no easy way to really get out of what had been done.
	The wolf shook his head, walking back and forth along the side of the mattress. “I don’t know yet,” he started. “Someone is going to eventually find them and when they do, we need to have already covered our tracks. Since it’s only the two of them, it will take a while before they’re found.” He continued to look at the two bodies as he paced back and forth, still taking in the fact that all this was actually happening.
	The bull terrier nodded, “I really am sorry. I didn’t want to pull you into something like this. I…I only did what I felt was necessary.”
	The wolf scoffed at this statement, realizing just how much his partner needed to learn about controlling his own actions. None of this had to happen, none of it. If the dog had only listened to him and controlled his animalistic impulses, everything would be fine and they could be home. He knew the bull terrier believed he had done what needed to be done though so there was no use repeating his thoughts right now. He shook his head once more, desperately trying to think of something to do with the bodies. Suddenly, there was a creaking at the other end of the house that made the two canines stand up alert and confused. It sounded like another door and it definitely was coming from inside the house. 
	They looked at each other in terror, realizing there had to be someone else in the house making that noise. The bull terrier began to whisper. “What is that?” he asked.
	The wolf whispered as well. “I don’t know, but someone else is here,” he replied. He scanned the room frantically, looking for something to draw a quick escape.
	The bull terrier began to do the same. “I thought you said there were only two tigers in this house!” he said, anxiety and nerves taking over his voice. He looked at the doorway, but didn’t dare poke his head out to see if anyone was there. If he did, it would put him in the direct line of sight of whomever it was that obviously had been woken from the destruction that occurred just minutes before.
	The wolf seemed to be running from one end of the bedroom to the other, sweating as he searched for a way to get out of there. He was having a hard time thinking clearly as well now, not seeing any way out of the room except for the door that had been broken open. There was a window, but it was behind the headboard of the bed, but it would require a lot of noise for them to get through it. His eyes set on his friend once more with a look of cluelessness and painful realization that there was nowhere for them to escape. He hadn’t counted on another tiger being on the premises, so he didn’t know what to expect. All he had to act on was his instinct, and that propelled him forward over to the bull terrier. He grabbed the canine by the bicep as he stepped around the father’s body and pulled him over to where the closet doors were, opening up the flimsy wooden sliding panel.
	The bull terrier followed, but was confused for a second about what exactly the wolf’s plan was. “What are you doing?” he asked, whispering loudly.
	“Shut up and get in here. The only thing we can do is wait this out,” the wolf answered, pulling on the bull terrier’s arm and guiding him into the darkness of the closet. As his partner started to push through the hanging clothes and suits, the wolf stepped inside and squatted down underneath the hanging garments, looking out as he whispered more. “We’re not staying in here, we just need to observe and wait for an opening to escape.” The light from the room was seeping through the hard wooden blinds of the closet door onto the wolf’s face as he turned to his partner crouched in the farthest corner. “Wait, you hear me?” He wanted to keep the bull terrier under control this time. If they were going to get out of here without being noticed, he had to lead the operation. There was no more room for mistakes. He turned his attention back to the bedroom, looking at a distorted version of the scene from the blinds of the closet.
	Sambinon had been standing in his room at the door listening ever since he heard the loud crash of his mother’s first gunshot. He didn’t recognize it as such, but it still jolted him awake, making him curious. He could have sworn he heard his dad in the living room shortly after as well as some loud thuds. What confused him and made him stay in his room was the harsh tone of his father’s voice as he pressed his head against the door to listen. He wanted to stay in spy mode and figure out whether it was a good idea to go out or not. It was a lot of commotion for so late at night, honestly sounding like fighting. But he had never seen his parents fight before, so he didn’t believe that was likely. When he heard footstep trail off to the back of the house, it was hard for him to hear much, aside from some shouting that he assumed was his father because of the muffling from the distance. Then everything had gone silent to him. He pressed closer to the door, placing his hands beside his head in hopes of being able to make out if anything else was happening. He looked down after no success and noticed the glowing light of the living room creeping up from under his door, meeting his toes. He knew his parents didn’t want him to be up this late, but he didn’t really think it was his fault. To him, it sounded like his parents were running around trying to chase something or do something very important. Being naturally curious, he wanted to see what it was. He built up the courage to reach up and grab the brass doorknob and turned it, pushing open the door that protested loudly to the movement. The contrasting light in the living room attacked his eyes, causing him to shield them with his hand as he stepped out of his room. He didn’t think his parents would get too mad at him for wanting to help with something important. If anything, they would just quietly send him back to bed and he could at least sleep easily. 
	As his eyes slowly adjusted to the light of the room, he brought his paw down and looked around. The first thing he noticed was the clock lying on the floor next to the coffee table. Maybe this was what they were running around for, trying to hang it back up after it apparently fell in the middle of the night. He scampered over to it, half sliding his bare feet across the carpet, over to the clock. He bent over and picked it up, realizing that it was a lot heavier for him than it appeared. He turned and looked at the wall where it used to hang and saw the nails were going to be too high for him to put the clock back up by himself. He looked around the corner the best he could and decided to go back to his parents’ room where he last heard someone talk. After placing the wooden clock on the glass table very carefully, he brushed his paws over his chest and realized he was still in his clothes from the day. He didn’t really care, beginning to walk across the carpet of the living room and into the tile of the kitchen. He stopped for a moment and squint his eyes to look down the hallway before he moved any further. He really couldn’t tell from this distance, but as he stepped slowly forward he noticed that something was on the wall in front of his parents’ door. With the light being on, he didn’t feel a need to really go slowly down the hall as his feet scuffled across the tile at a pretty normal pace. The spot on the wall drew closer and closer as he realized it was a dark red color. His eyes were wide, approaching the frame of the doorway to the bedroom, but not noticing the door had been open yet. He was against the opposite wall, but he leaned forward off of it to look at what seemed to be red paint splattered all over it. He was very confused, not knowing what to make of the mark. He scratched the top of his head before his turned and looked at the open entrance to the other bedroom. 
	He stepped more casually towards the room as he saw the door had been left open, but continued to study the stain as he did so. His hand was trailing against the wall before it met the wooden frame that jutted slightly out from it, prompting him to turn his head to look inside the room when he stepped towards the middle of the archway. As he turned he began to ask, “Mommy? Daddy? What’s that stuff on the wall?” His head matched his body’s facing as he fully turned around and beheld the bedroom of his parents. He saw the two figures where they were laying, and stared for a couple of seconds, trying to understand why they were in those places. He found it especially odd that his father had a pillow case over his face, making him tilt his head in confusion. “Umm, Daddy, why do you have your head covered up?” he asked, beginning to step more into the room and also into the wolf’s line of sight.
	The wolf had been watching intently from their position as the bull terrier could only listen. The wolf heard the footsteps approaching the bedroom, starting to uncontrollably shake in his anticipation of another tiger that was fully capable of putting them under for the crime they committed. There were those few intense seconds where he heard the body sliding against the outer wall of the room, hoping and praying at the last minute he had chosen a good enough hiding spot for them to escape from once given the chance. But as little Sambinon stepped into the room and walked into the wolf’s vision, his mouth dropped. It was a little tiger cub and there was no doubt that the two tigers his partner murdered were his parents. “Oh no, what have we done?” he asked, whispering faintly and alerting the bull terrier to look out the shades of the closet next to him. 
The bull terrier’s eyes shot open and his heart dropped as he too made the connection between this cub and the ones he had shot. He was showing more obvious effects from his realization, beginning to tremble uncontrollably with his hand covering his mouth. The scope of consequences for his uncontrolled actions earlier was at full capacity right before his eyes. 
The wolf looked over at his convulsing friend and then back out at Sambinon, beginning to hurt in his gut.
	Sambinon walked a little more slowly over to his lying father and knelt down beside him, still staring wide eyed from his confusion. He looked at his father’s covered face down to his feet and back up again. His father would sometimes try to play trick on him, this being the only thing he could think of as reason for such a strange way to act. He looked up and saw his mother lying in bed, but started to think maybe his father had told her about the joke and she was staying quiet. This thought made him feel very playful, starting to giggle as he reached down for the fabric across his father’s face. “You can’t scare me, Daddy,” he laughed, grabbing the pillow case on his father’s head and pulling it up to reveal what was underneath.
	What Sambinon saw next was the blank gaze of his father’s eyes up at the ceiling, seeming to have no destination. He had never seen this look before, making him feel a little uneasy in the pit of his stomach. He reached his hand up and waved it in front of his father’s eyes, in hopes of getting him to look at him and break his concentration. When this didn’t work, Sambinon started to look over his father’s face once more, having no idea what to do next. His eyes scanned across the gazing face and fell to the side where the opening of the exit wound was. Even though he had never seen something like this before, he knew that his father was hurt. He gasped. “Oh, no!” he screamed out, throwing the pillow case to the ground and standing up quickly. He flailed his arms around in panic as he looked down to his father’s head, placing his hands over his mouth after a second and gasping more. “Daddy’s hurt!” he yelled out, looking up to see his mother’s form on the bed behind his father’s body. He saw one of her hands hanging off the side of the bed so he ran over to it, still squealing in a high pitched voice.
	“Mommy, Daddy’s hurt his head!” he shrieked as he clasped on tightly to the hanging arm. He shook it a couple of time, breathing heavily as he used all of his strength just to try to wake his mother up. “Mommy, please wake up!” he pleaded, still looking at his father as tears began to appear in his blue eyes. He looked up desperately at the mattress, wondering why his mother was not moving from his shaking. Letting go of the arm, he quickly pounced on top of the bed and knelt beside her, the tears now beginning to create little streams down his cheeks. “We have to help Daddy! He’s hurt! He hit his head on something!” He placed his hands on her chest and started to shake her that way, hoping that this shifting of her torso would get her to realize the shaking was not from a dream. The hand that was over her chest started to slide around from the shaking, slowly falling on the bed beside her after a couple of forced movements from her son. It revealed the hole on the left side of her chest, red and caked with blood from the amount of time it had been since she passed. Sambinon looked to where the hand had fallen and saw the injury. He gasped and looked up at his mother’s face which reflected the same blank stare of his father on the floor. 
	He cried out to her, “Mommy! What’s wrong!” His lips began to tremble as he knew something terribly bad had happened to both his parents. They weren’t waking up to his calls, but their eyes were still open as they stared off into the distance. He was overwhelmed, not knowing how to help his parents that now obviously needed something to make them better. He had no direction and didn’t know what was wrong with them in the first place. He didn’t want them to die, but it slowly started to creep into his mind that this might be what was happening to them. He continued to futilely shake his mother more. “Mommy, I want to help, but I don’t know what to do!” He leaned over her now, looking at her from about midway down her stomach. “Please tell me what to do to make you feel better. Please!” His face became buried in her night gown as his whimpers turned into sobs. He sniffled against her a couple times and then lifted from the fabric. He threw his head back and started to cry. His tears were running down his cheeks and his sobs reverberated through the previously quiet house. He didn’t know what to do without his parents, so if they died he would be all alone. “Mommy! Daddy! Please wake up and tell me how to he…he…heeeeelp!” At the last bit of his words, he squealed again, cracking into sobs and gasps for air. His eyes were closed as he broke down over his mother’s lifeless body, not knowing what to do or where to go to get help. His young mind couldn’t handle the stress and he didn’t want his mom and dad to leave him in the house all alone by himself. He sat there, sitting on his knees beside his mother, weeping uncontrollably.
	The wolf watched the whole thing, but the bull terrier could only bring himself to listen. He had heard the little cub talking and it emotionally shell shocked him, leaving him to stare at the floor of the closet as he thought about how much pain he had caused this innocent child. The wolf had placed a hand on the shades of the closet door and was wincing as he saw Sambinon realize his parents’ conditions one by one. It hurt him more than anything, making him wonder how he had even touched the dead body of the father. This child didn’t ask for any of what he was getting, nor did he deserve it. He and his partner were to blame completely and he wouldn’t be able to say any kind of apology to bring the parents back to their child. There was no use waiting for an escape since it was just a cub, and he figured the cub was not going to leave his parents’ sides. He decided it was time for him and his friend to face what they had done. The bull terrier looked up just in time to see his friend reaching for the sliding door, his eyes wide open. As it was slid sideways, the light of the room filled the closet. It lit up the figure of the wolf as he rose to his feet in full presence of Sambinon who was still crying by his mother’s side. The bull terrier, in shock still, stood up as well to follow his partner.
	Sambinon heard the sliding of the door and gasped as he opened his eyes and looked to his left, seeing the wolf and the bull terrier. They were in all black, but their faces were uncovered. Sambinon noticed the wolf had a scar on one of his ears and the bull terrier had a brown patch over his eye as their distinguishing features. He trembled as he watched the wolf step slowly closer to the bed, making him ball up his fists in fear. “Who are you?” he asked as his voice quivered. He stayed close by his mother’s side, even though his first instinct was to run because these two canines were strangers in his house. 
	The wolf stared at the body of the mother as he got closer and closer to the mattress. The bull terrier had not traveled far from the closet, standing and looking away because he wasn’t able to take the pitiful sight. The wolf stood there for a long time, seeming as if he weren’t even breathing as he took in the magnitude of the situation.
	Sambinon was frightened by the two canines, sniffing as he shook the mother’s body more in a final attempt to wake her. He didn’t know how to defend himself if they were to try and kidnap him like they did on the news his father always watched. When she still didn’t move outside of his pushing, he soon forgot about being afraid of the two partners and wondered if they could help him. He was in such a frantic state of mind that he didn’t care why they were in his house, but only that they were someone he could turn to for assistance. There was no one else around and he thought he may still have a chance to help them. He turned to the wolf desperately, the tears still flooding his eyes. “Please, mister. Can you help me?” he asked. “My Mommy and Daddy hurt themselves and I’m scared it’s really bad!”
	The wolf closed his eyes from the overwhelming obsoleteness of that question. He kept them closed for a short while, preparing himself for what he was about to say.
	Sambinon didn’t realize this and asked again, “Please, can you help me?!” His chest was heaving from the gasps and sobs that took over his body.
	The wolf opened his eyes now at the repeated question and looked at the tiger cub. He saw the sad face with tears wetting the fur around his cheeks. The eyes were a deep blue core to the flame-like markings around his eyes. He would never forget that face for as long as he lived. “I can’t help you,” he said weakly.
	Sambinon face started to scrunch up again, ready for another overload of tears as he turned to look at his mother’s face again, “Why not?” he asked.
	“They…” the wolf started, having a very hard time forming his words. “They’re already…dead,” he managed to get out, but the words killed him inside. He looked down and as the little cub watched his mother’s face for a second more before falling over top of her, hugging her close as he wept pitifully. His crying filled the entire house again as well as the minds of the two canines. The bull terrier winced from the statement and resulting cries, shaking his head as he turned to walk out the doorway. He just couldn’t take it anymore. The wolf watched as his friend exited the room with his head hanging before he turned back to the destroyed child. He knelt down on the edge of the bed and got to Sambinon’s level, starting to speak once more. “Shhh, listen,” he tried to calm the tiger cub for a second by rubbing his back. Sambinon was still whimpering uncontrollably, but managed to look over at the wolf while he rested his head on his mother’s stomach. The wolf sighed and took his hand off Sambinon’s back. “I’m so sorry…” he began again. He didn’t know whether or not he actually wanted to reveal that they were the reason for their deaths. This would make the cub even more upset, if that were possible, and it could also endanger their ability to escape without getting caught. But, in the pit of his stomach and his soul, he knew that it was wrong to lie to this child. He had already taken everything he could away. He didn’t want to take the truth away as well. “We’re the ones that ki…hurt your parents.” He wanted to give the child some respect by looking him in the eyes as he revealed what had happened, but it was much harder than anything he’d done in his life.
	Sambinon sat up, piecing together what the wolf had actually said to him. He was in shock by the words, but it took him a little bit to completely comprehend the reason why the two canines had been in the closet. The confusion then mixed with sadness as he looked at the wolf and pitifully yelled, “Why did you hurt them?! They didn’t do anything to you!” He rubbed his cheek and sniffed to clear his vision and be able to breathe a little bit better. He knew his parents hadn’t done anything to these canines and probably had never met them before. It didn’t make any sense, only further adding to his confusion. “My Mommy and Daddy are nice! You had no reason to hurt them!”
	The wolf stood up and took the yelling from the Sambinon, knowing everything the cub was saying to be truthful. As Sambinon continued to ask him why he did what his partner did, he looked down at the mother again. It was getting too much for him to handle, his own emotions beginning to mix up in his chest. Somehow, his eyes were still dry. He wished he could show the cub he was sorry, but the tears just wouldn’t come. He didn’t want to leave the cub in this situation, but he didn’t know what to do. Everything that was happening was becoming too overwhelming for him to handle. He knew of nothing else to do but leave for the moment and leave the situation as it was, risking getting caught and punished for what had happened to this child. Part of him wished that one day he would get caught because he knew none of this was fair. This kid had nothing now and they were both the cause. He owed this cub the lives of parents, something that he could never repay.
	Sambinon had stopped yelling after not getting any answers from the wolf to cry over his mother’s body, looking at her and trying to nuzzle her with his cheek. The wolf looked at the cub. He could do nothing at the moment, but one day he knew it would come back around to him and the cub would expect some kind of recompense. He could only think of one thing necessary to show how he knew at least that fact. “Remember my face,” he said more sternly, although still having trouble with his emotions entering his tone. Sambinon heard the wolf speak once more and looked at him, confused as to why the wolf was saying it. “And you remember it well,” the wolf continued. “Because one day you’ll see this face get what it deserves. And if you don’t, and you’re old enough to come find me…” he paused for a moment. “Then please do and I will accept whatever punishment that comes my way. I promise you that. I…I’m sorry.” Satisfied with his vow, the wolf turned to face the door and began taking steps towards it.
	Sambinon had looked at the wolf’s face intently as he talked, unintentionally doing what the wolf had pleaded for. But when the wolf started to walk out of the bedroom, Sambinon started to panic. “Wait, you can’t leave!” he pleaded, reaching out for the canine.
	The wolf heard the pleas, but forced himself to keep moving forward out the door and around the corner. The house was still lit up in the other rooms as the wolf looked down the hall to see his friend leaned over the counter, still shaking. As the wolf tread slowly across the cold tiled floor to his partner, he could hear the cub pleading that they come back to him and that he didn’t want to be alone. It made the wolf want to go back in the bedroom and help console the poor kid, but he felt as if it would only make things worse if he did anymore. The best thing to do was to leave the cub with his parents so that they could all be together. There was no point in shaming that with their despicable presence. Someone would eventually find them or the cub would at least find a neighbor to call the police. Right now, they had to get out of the house and continue on with the shame hanging over their heads for the rest of lives. 
	The wolf came up to the bull terrier from behind and placed a hand softly on his shoulder. The bull terrier’s eyes were bloodshot from the amount of silent weeping he had done while the wolf stayed in the room. His eyes were glossy from the tears, but no more fell as it seemed he couldn’t get himself to cry anymore. He continued to stare at the bar as he heard Sambinon crying again loudly in the background. “This is the worst thing I have ever been through. I’m so upset with myself right now. I’m the one who deserves to be dead on that floor,” he said softly.
	The wolf patted the shoulder, not for reassurance but to get the bull terrier to follow him. “Let’s go,” he ordered plainly. He began to walk to the front door after shutting off all the lights, putting the entire house in complete darkness again. The bull terrier followed him, still looking down with a blank stare as the wolf approached the front door. He pulled it open and motioned for his partner to exit first. As the bull terrier did so, the wolf followed behind him and shut the door with a click. 
	The moon was still shining, producing a pale cascade over everything in the neighborhood. As the wolf turned around, he saw his friend looking down at the cement of the porch, not moving and seeming to be deep in thought. He walked up beside him and looked out toward the street, taking in the view of streetlamps and dark houses. “The best we can do now is to leave this life behind,” the wolf said. The bull terrier now looked up and to his side at the wolf, thinking about the statement for a moment as the wolf continued. “No more stealing. No more crime. We have to rid ourselves of that aspect of our lives. It’s the least we can do for that kid and his parents.” After the short speech, the wolf stepped down from the porch and proceeded to walk around the side of the house. The bull terrier watched his friend go down those steps with a different light in his eyes. He knew the wolf was right, and he wanted to now do everything he could to change his ways. He began to follow the wolf back in the direction which they came, but still didn’t feel any better about the evening. They knew they were never going to get over it, and even when they had completely left this criminal life behind, it would still not be forgiven. 
It was so late at night now that the two canines didn’t even bother trying to hide behind bushes or creep around the property. They were going back home, but they knew to wait for the day where this would all come full circle. There was no getting away from this one, but for now they traveled back assuming that only the stars in the sky knew where they were going.
	Sambinon was still in the room crying over his mother so much that he was just dry sobbing with big red bags under his eyes. It was a heart breaking sight in the room as the little tiger hugged his mom as tight as he could, weeping into her now soaked gown from his tears. “Please, Mommy. Don’t be dead. I love you and Daddy so much. I don’t want you to be dead!” There was no use now, however, as his parents were not coming back no matter how much he cried. He felt all alone in the house, having no one to turn to in his time of need. Those supports had been taken away from him for no reason he could fathom. It wasn’t fair.

*   *   *

	However, there was one thing wrong with the wolf and bull terrier’s assumption not being watched. It wasn’t as if they were being careless, for beyond those stars was a realm that no mortal on Earth could have comprehended. This place was far off beyond the universes that had been discovered by any living organism in existence. It was in hiding, being very dark and lit up by the different clusters of galaxies on all of its sides. The formation was a huge platform made of floating rock that stayed in one spot, seeming to be the axel for everything spinning around it.  Everything had a midnight blue hue, speckled with bright pink, purple, and white around the charcoal colored rock mass. 
	Throughout the center mass, there were multiple stone structures that were also disguised by the same charcoal gray color. Everything seemed to be monotone, with subtle variations in some of the mountainous terrain that provided an idea of different elevations. The light from the rotating galaxies would be able to reflect off the lighter colored stones. While the formations were scattered around the mass of rock, there were clear paths and open areas that provided walkways and places large enough for gatherings. However, while the mass was huge and stretched over a great distance, there wasn’t too much complication to the paths or a bountiful amount of open places. There was one long walkway going down the center of the rock. It was really wide and leveled out perfectly to provide easy walking. At one end of this main walkway was a large structure that seemed to be made by intelligent beings. It was as big and tall as an average billionaire’s mansion would be on Earth, taking up most of the back half of the rock mass. Its roof was dome shaped at the top and spanned out to other sections on either side that had smaller domed roofs. There were columns in front of it that were tall and wide, and the front steps led up to what looked like a huge front porch area also made of stone. The color of the stone distinguished it from the surrounding structures, being a lighter gray than anything else that could be seen on the mass. The crafted building was obviously a housing structure with incredibly detailed walls that made it look amazingly beautiful from the outside. It was undoubtedly more intelligently designed than any other architecture that had been crafted in history.
	The long and wide path continued from this building, passing two raised rectangular structures in front of it on either side, and to the other end of the mass. It seemed to be a decently long walk, but since the mass wasn’t anywhere as big as a single city on Earth, it wouldn’t have taken long to get to the other side once someone got used to it. When reaching the other end, one would see a large, circular clearing that seemed to point out towards a wonderful view of the rotating vastness of space. The spinning was slow, but the sight of all the stars, planets, and solar systems was truly a beautiful sight that no one had the pleasure of seeing except for two beings. The perimeter of the clearing was lined with grand rock structures, all spaced out evenly as if they were meant to be decoration. At the furthest point away from the building in this circle, there stood a chest height platform with stone legs and what seemed to be a complete clear diagram. The only thing that would mark this diagram as present would be images put on it by the inhabitants. At this moment, that clear diagram was in use, showing a little tiger cub crying over his dead mother in their bedroom. He had been presented on that panel throughout the entire unfolding of events from that evening, being watched carefully.
	Watching the turmoil of the Siberian tiger cub were two forms that resembled wolves with sleek black fur that matched perfectly with their surroundings. The only thing that lit them up was the stars surrounding the mass which also made their yellow eyes glow bright. There was a female form and a male form standing side by side, looking down at the panel with not much expression on their faces. They were obviously deep in thought, observing what was happening with keen eyes. It seemed as if they were watching from a perspective of infinite wisdom, calculating what to do from millions of years of experience. The male form spoke up after a few minutes of watching the finality of the tragic scene. “Now is the time to take our actions,” he said sternly, almost to a point of being monotone. However, he sounded very serious and could be mistaken for menacing to any mortal. 
	The female figure just simply nodded, the backdrop of space casting a slight shadow over her face. “Yes, let’s bring them home,” she responded in a slightly more feminine version of tone the male had spoken in. She reached down and touched the picture of Sambinon hunched over his mother’s body, making it disappear instantly and leaving just the two stone legs in front of them. They both stepped back slowly, closing their eyes and tilting their heads down a little in concentration. Suddenly a dark vortex started to swirl around both of their bodies individually, beginning very big and growing smaller to fit their forms. There was a windy sound that came from these vortexes as they closed in on the canine figures, eventually closing in completely and sending the two into what seemed like a black hole of space. They were gone in an instant, travelling from their home to the destination in an invisible line through all of existence.