It’s odd when you think about it. I’ve always hated dogs. Always absolutely hated them. Always barking and being a general nuisance. And I also hated the kind of people who kept dogs. They just seemed naturally dumber than the right minded people that hated dogs. And hey, the kind of people who like dogs are the kind of people I avoid. It all worked out. Sort of.

At any rate, the only reason I mention this is because on the last day that I could remember before I was taken... hostage? Into Slavery?

I’m kind of a huge nerd, you see. But I was also a smart one. Ha. Bullies. They make me laugh. It’s so easy to manipulate idiots. Just say just the right thing and they are looking the wrong way when you need them to. It was just so easy to lightly imply that their girlfriends were sleeping around, or that I had access to secret answers to tests they needed or that if they went to x location at y time, z good thing would happen.

Making friends was a bit harder. They just seemed... pointless. And foolish. Trusting me? Didn’t they realized that it was a dog eat dog world? As much as I hate to use a dog related saying, that described my attitude.

Playing Dungeons and dragons by yourself is a hard task so I never really got to play it. I had all the books and all of the supplies I needed to play, but nobody wanted to.

I had one friend, if you can call him that. He was obsessed with this show, maybe you heard of it, called my little pony. It was girly and sugary sweet and it made my teeth ache. I mostly ignored his odd fixation and let him talk about it while I was thinking.

Pardon my tangents. if you will. The point of the matter is that I was not, and maybe am not the nicest person.

So when I was cornered by more than a few people I had stepped on or otherwise slandered or inconvenienced, I knew that they were not going to go as easy on me as I would’ve liked. There were eight of them and two of them had knives.

“Stand still, Ivan, me and these guys just wanna carve our names into your hide.” And I was ambushed on a day just like any other day on a nice walk to the store. It was only a mile or so and I needed the exercise.

That was a lie, my mom forced me out of the house and told me to get milk.

I looked at all of them and kept my cool. “And why would you want to do that?” I asked calmly, an uneasy smile on my face. I assessed my courses of action while I waited for their reply. They were dog people.

The lead one, and I recognized him as being Gareth, an old friend, turned red. “My sister killed herself after you broke her and her boy friend up.” I knew at that point that I was not going to be able to talk them down. While the slight pang of guilt filled my head, I threw the gallon of milk out of hands into them and took off running as fast as I could.

Admittedly, I was good at running. But hey, the one who was after me for the death of his sister was the track star. After recovering from the milk gallon being thrown at his face, he dashed after me.

“I’m gonna kill you!” He screamed. At this point I should mention that my name is Ivan.

I was barely ahead of him and he had a knife. A nice busy intersection was ahead of me and I managed to not think through my actions. I dashed through traffic, the three lanes disappearing by me in a flash. I heard cars try to throw out their brakes and I turned around.

It almost happened in slow motion: An old beat up pickup truck slammed on its brakes. Gareth ran in front of it. I could only watch as Gareth was hit head on by the truck at around fifty miles per hour. He was lifted off of his feet and thrown through the air. His body hit a van in front of it and his head went through the back window. Glass shards stuck out of him as I watched with horror.

Almost instantly, traffic stopped. The occupants of the van got out. A mother and her small child, covered in glass and spatters of Gareth’s blood. The truck driver himself, recovered from his air bag deploying walked out of his truck. Across the street, the group of guys watched as well. I stared at Gareth, his head at an odd angle and his body maimed.

The police arrived quickly within a few minutes at the most. I was escorted into a police cruiser, mostly oblivious to the world. It wasn’t until the handcuffs were put on me and I was placed in the back seat did I come to.

The police officer in the front passenger seat turned around to face me. “You are in a lot of trouble, young man.” He said.

I looked at him. “Y-yes...” I stuttered slightly, my tongue catching. It was slowly dawning on me that someone was dead that was directly my fault.

He smirked at me. “I could take you to the police station, but I think you need a second chance.”

My breath caught. “I’ll take it.”

He laughed. “I wasn’t finished, but fine. I was going to ask you if you liked dogs.”

My eye twitched. “I hate dogs, but what does that have to do with anything?”

He nodded. “Good. I’d hate to ruin you.”

At that moment I realized that the driver hadn’t moved an inch since I had gotten in the car. It unnerved me and I looked at him.

And that’s why I didn’t see the guy punch me until his fist connected with my face. My vision swam and I saw stars before my vision blacked out.

--------------

I kind of wish that had killed me. To be honest, I did deserve to die, I guess. I mean, Gareth is dead because of me, his sister died as a direct result of something I did and I guess I was and maybe still am an overall dick.

I almost want to stop this tale right here because what happened after I woke up is quite a few things I am not proud of and I will not go on to support my actions.

This is what I woke up to, I guess.

“Hey boss, I think da Zebra’s wakin’ up. Can w’ eat ‘im now?” Followed by a fleshy smack.

The voices were gravelly and they continued speaking. “You idiot. We aren’t going to eat him. He already looks half dead and the last time we ate something half dead you threw up everywhere and then we had to clean it up.” There was another slap.

“Silence!” The voice was a bit higher pitched than the other two and I placed it as being female. “I did not give either of you permission to speak! I cracked my eyes open and my vision slowly went into focus. I was staring at the stone wall of a cave. My arms and legs were tied tightly to my side.

The female voice continued. “Any creature capable of magic will be sent to the mines. That’s our orders and we are sticking to them.” I blinked. Was my nose bigger?

“But ‘m hungry!” The first voice I heard complained. There was another smack.

“So am I, Scraps, and we’ll get something to eat when we turn in our captive.” My back was prodded. Scraps must be the first voice, I was guessing. I tried to open my mouth, but it felt glued shut.

“”Boss, he’s a zebra! What if while we are talking he decides to use his magic and kill us all?” Zebra. My nose was most definitely longer than it was supposed to be... it suddenly occurred to me that something was horribly wrong. I was picked up from behind and then thrown through the air. I hit the ground with a hard thud and got a chance to see my captors.

Dogs. I hate dogs.

“You idiot. He’s bound and he has no components. He couldn’t use magic if he tried.” The dog with the higher pitched voice was an odd brown color. Anthropomorphic dogs. What was I at, a furry convention?

The female slapped a dog with torn ears. “‘m sorry boss...” Scraps whined. I gulped. A costume doesn’t make that noise... My back hurt.

It was around this time that my sense of smell kicked in. It smelled very strongly of ammonia and my eyes watered.

“Now help me carry our meal ticket.” The female walked over to me and picked me up easily by herself. I let out a shiver of disgust. Dogs. Why must they be dogs? Why couldn’t giant cat things be taking me to some place I probably don’t want to go to?

And then at this point I thought back to just how I got here and froze. Gareth’s body hit the van and blood went everywhere. I heard the brakes of the truck and the wet thump.

The scene I had witnessed before seemed to repeat itself over and over again and my eyes teared up. Gareth was dead and I’m hallucinating.

It hit me that that was the explanation. I had passed out or something after seeing Gareth die and I was just hallucinating the dogs around me and my new long nose. Or the new positioning of my eyes. None of this was real. I made a choked off laughing noise and the lead dog dropped me hard on the cave floor.

“What’s so funny?” She snarled, and buried her foot in my side. Instantly intense pain overwhelmed me my mind and I tried in vain to come up with a reasonable explanation that would place me elsewhere. It didn’t work.

This was actually happening. Damn it.

My eyes began to release their tears in a flood down my face.

“Aw... what’s the matter, baby? Upset that we caught you? That’s ok... You’ll get used to being in pain in the mines.” She kicked me again. I swore that right then and there that if I survived I would personally be in charge of killing her.

Scraps leaned down and his face filled my vision. “‘re you sure ‘e can’t ‘ave a nibble?” He slurred.

His face was torn away from mine in a heartbeat, the lead dog throwing him against the wall. His stomach growled loudly as he stood up.

I was a bit too busy to care at the time. Gareth’s death was filling my thoughts.

“Scraps. As a diamond dog you should be able to understand that we will get more food from turning him in than we will from eating him.” The boss said, finally figuring that violence was not the answer.

Diamond dog. Oh. I’ve only heard of that name in two places and only one of those places is applicable. I’m hallucinating I’m in Equestria. I decided that going back to the hallucinating explanation was better than whatever else I could come up with.

I brightened up. Logically I should be rescued before anything too horrible happened. This is Equestria! Nothing bad happens. I had a stupid smile on my face as I managed to convince myself yet again that nothing bad would come to me.

The lead dog picked me up again and pressed a paw to my face. My vision faded and I knew no more.