More Francine.

She awoke to the man’s half-beard hovering above one of her nostrils, tickling the tiny hairs and inducing a sneeze. “Time to get up pup” crawled out of his face-slit like a stumbling drunk at closing, the oppressive stench wafting over her and instilling her ocular orbs with wet. Obedience entrenched too deep within her psyche, she stretched and stood, ignorance not even an option to her docile mind. She found a fresh heap of food and a new pond of water in what she thinks of as her bowls. Quickly engorging herself, she looked upon her new master to find him completely nude but for a ski mask. “Skeeters only like ta bite ma face, pup, so don’t look at me like that. You’re naked too. Ya can just call me Master, since that’s what I am to ya.” He then led her from the cabin, determinedly trotting along a serpentine path to a near-pristine pond of quartzlike water. Without slowing, Master had jogged right across the top of the water, barely disturbing the glass surface. He had to wait for her to paddle across, a task she took longer than she could have, the liquid seemed to have a strange restorative quality to it, easing her frantic mind and mending her body of even the smallest of maladies. Upon reaching the opposite shore, the man awoke from his dirt-nap and shook himself off without breaking eye contact with her. “Sorry, Pup, fergot to give ya ma gift. You’re gon’ need it if ya want ta still follow.” She found that she could understand his speech perfectly, even though he spoke the same language she’d always heard from other humans. He removed his ski mask and spit a smooth black spheroid into his palm. He walked up to Francine and promptly jammed the object into her stomach by way of her mouth. She felt no pain, and was overcome with an overwhelming wave of awareness. She could feel all the miniscule organisms beneath her paws, could smell every branch of every tree. Master glided to the water’s edge 3.452898 millimeters above the dirt and cleaned her inside-juice from his entire forearm. “C’mon now, Pup, we gotta meet someone we ain’t never met befo’.”