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"Can I have some water?"

To describe Ryan simply, he was that special, soft-spoken guy that no one would actually know in person. You'd only hear of them in an interview, or in an online story-telling of some sort as they describe a life that could make even your darkest days bright in comparison. That horrific life that made them special. Made them soft-spoken.

If you were to walk up to Ryan from across the street and ask directions to the nearest something, he would hesitate - even if he knew that something well - and gesture awkwardly with shaky paws, and you would probably see the fluff on his chest rapidly expand and contract as he borderlined on hyperventilating. If you thanked him afterwards, he would apologise needlessly and be the first to walk away. If you followed him - which his paranoia made to be an expectation - and had an acute ear, you might catch him scolding himself without swears.

As a hobby, he would walk laps through the city and try to find the few homeless people who weren't sleeping and were in enough of a quiet area for him to start a conversation with. He had no money to give them. He liked to listen to the stories that they had, as opposed to sharing any of his own - which, despite his young age, he had a great many to pick from. So many were bitter, so many would get stuck in his throat. It would be like picking a charred book from a burning library.

Without his scars, he is quite a handsome young man. That being a coyote, with a very matter of fact way of saying things. To describe him as desensitised would be putting it bluntly.

He had also eaten his own father alive.

"Can I have some water?"

The heads of the officers twitched in each others direction and there was a noticeable hesitation that lingered in the front of the car. A squinting sensation of 'I don't know boss, does this kid deserve water?'. Perhaps they silently decided that he did, or maybe there was some obligation, regardless, the cop riding shotgun flung back a plastic water bottle that hit Ryan's leg.

Still, the water was appreciated. Ryan twisted off the bottle cap and nearly missed his mouth on the way up - his wrists were still adjusting to the weight of the handcuffs, and his malnourishment wasn't exactly a 'saving grace' either. The wet sensation made him shiver and he licked his lips to finally soak them with something that wasn't spit or blood. The latter hadn't even been his.

"Hey." The husky's eyes met his through the rear-view mirror. "When you get there, I don't want you telling anybody what you did." You cop made Ryan nod to show he was listening. "Not the staff, not any degenerate friends you make. I don't have to remind you of how lucky you are to be going here." he put firmly.

Ryan filled the growing silence with another quick nod.

"How old are you?"

Ryan opened his muzzle to speak, but then closed it. That's a good question...

"You don't know how old you are?" The amusement in the cops voice did not match the hardiness of his face.

"No sir."

"Well you look around 19, and that means you get big boy punishments." the cop allowed the ghost of a smile, "Do you know what the big-boy punishment for cannibalising a living person is?"

And just like that, Ryan's mouth was feeling dry again. "No sir."

"No?" The eyebrows in the mirror lifted. "They didn't tell you this stuff in cannibal court?"

Ryan silence was that he had exhausted his daily amount of 'No sir's.

"I'll give you a hint: that answer may shock you."

"The electric chair."

"Bingo!" The cop explained with such brilliant excitement that Ryan flinched. "The electric chair. And boyyy do I like me some cooked coyote." He pursed his lips as if he'd said too much. "Just not as much as you do."

Ryan looked down at his lap. The craziest thing had been the blood, the taste of the iron washing down through his teeth. How tender the meat had been and how it had sponged so much of that guttural, red fluid. Blood of my blood, isn't that what fathers traditionally called their sons? blood of my blood, and boy did that blood taste familiar, like his own, oh yes the proverb was real and kicking.

_(I love you son, I love you so much that I just want you-)

That horrid meat sliding back to the back of his throat, like a patty of

(-eat me eat all of me. Save me and savour me son, I need you to save me please save me-)

hard and horrid chunks of fuzzy brown fur that he had looked at for his whole life, but now it was all sliding to the back of this throat

(Jesus save me, if there is a god. Let my son consume me. I love you, my boy. Blood of my-)

blood dripping down his fangs and tears dripping down his face, but he just had to keep swallowing. He could'nt disappoint his old man. He wouldn't be a pussy, he would be his son, the blood of-_

_(god if there is a god lend me his strength, and may I pass that strength to the blood of my blood of my-)

_

The car's clunk over a pothole in the road snatched Ryan's mind back from that wood cabin. Halfway across the country, it would still be standing, littered with evidence markers and flash photography. But all he could see was the bloody past... the notion reminded him of a video on 'light travel and the stars' he had watched in his only year attending kindergarten, as part of a weekly 'subject sundae'. Subject being the topic on the small black and white television spewed out to 26 happy kids (or pups if you so fancy) whilst the sundaes made themselves present in the paws of many who had behaved enough to earn them. Top shelf quality, that episode was. SPACE. If it had been a commercial it could've sold space itself. But it wasn't; it was a documentary, and it dropped that unforgettably fun fact that when you look up into the night sky, the stars you see might not even look like that now. If they had exploded, been stolen by aliens, we'd never know until thousands - maybe even millions - of years later. Just imagine that shit, you look up one night, see the stars twinkling, and all that midnight morse code is just old news and we'll never see the new until its aged its share as well.

And that bloody house, full of horrors, full of fear, was all the news Ryan thought he'd see in that place for many years to come. Even if it burnt down and grew over, he'd be getting that old feed. That old feed of being fed... and it'd be all he could see.

"But I gave you another chance, kid." The cop was saying. "When - if - I come back and pick you up in a few year's time, I expect to see a great big tattoo going down your back readin': Officer Dickson saved my life."

Save me and savour me.

The officer who was riding shotgun, silent until now, cleared the phlmyn from his throat and threw a distasteful glance back at Ryan, and grabbed the water bottle from his hands before taking a swig himself. It had been his.

"We're here, any last words?" The silent one said, and Officer Dickson chuckled.

In perfect timing, a shadow loomed over Ryan's car window and it became apparent that in all this country nothingness, dirty nothing spreading for miles and miles; there was actually something out here.

He peered out the window and his eyes immediately widened. "What the fuck is that." Were his supposed 'last words', and he was too scared to even feel himself saying them.