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Amongst all the traumatizing things that have happened, its easy to lose sight of the small things. Foods. The textures of bedsheets. The feel of the sand as it scratches into your ankles.

Ryan's life eased up over the next few days. Once the lovely hyena snuck from his tent, and Bandit had let him out, "Mate, we can't afford fuckups like this." Was what the cat had said. Ryan knew better to apologise, knew how blank it would be in his mouth.

If guilt were a currency, the coyote would be a broke man. Not an ounce. Every now and then he remembered the look on that cheetah's face, how he had felt around blindly at the bleeding stump on his head. It made him grin. He grinned often, but what would always daunted his smile was the realization that he had most likely passed through the cheetah's ear in one of his bowel movements.

"Am I sadistic?" He had asked Flack later that day, when most of the other boys had began the half-day trek to Camp D - Bandit needed support for the demands he wanted to issue. No more bullshit, it was going to be an official rule.

The hyena played with his fur, stroking small circles and picking out red gravel. Ryan stared indifferently up at the sky. "Yer not sadistic, lad. I've seen sadistic." He chuckled. "Its a lot uglier than you are."

Ryan had smiled, although at this point he wasn't too sure whether or not he would've eaten the rest of the cheetah had he had the chance.

The wolf - to be informally known as Bandit's bodyguard - had brought up this topic with Ryan over some expired cereal in what was meant to be the cafeteria, which was just an outdoor area with a few picnic tables shoved into the soil. The food here was one of the 'small things', meats and cereals and breads for breakfast, something hot and soupy for lunch, a platter of leftover scraps for dinner. Ears weren't often on the menu.

"Ah, tastes like toffee." The wolf said through a mouthful of gingery meat. "Probably not to yer' fancy though, aye puppy?"

Ryan wasn't sure whether he liked 'puppy' as his nickname. Luckily, it was just Roadrage (the wolf, named that way from a disgustingly violent banground) who now called him that.

"I still got his blood on my car." The wolf said to himself, and scratched at his raggedy ears.

"Huh?"

"His blood stains my windshield. Ah, too many syllables..." The meat on his paws, drummed into his torn trousers. "Ehh... blood on the windshield. His eyes... worn, and dripping red."

The bird, looking as tired as ever, gave an approving nod as he feathered at some cereal. He coughed silently.

Isolated to a corner, almost begrudgingly, Bandit sat and smoked.

The bear sat close to Ryan and chewed on something unchewable.

Kyle rolled around in the dirt, spluttering and laughing as if the dust in his dirt and eyes was a well-told joke.

"Worn, dripping red. His kids want me dead." The wolf snarled at something that could only exist in his imagination. He cocked his head at the bird. "Rhymes, too."

"Not bad." The bird said, before a fit of hoarse coughing forced him to bend over and clutch at his abs. He spat something phylum-like into the dirt. "Lungs are burnt, weakening." He said. "How does it work, Roady? Is it five syllables then seven then five?"

Roadkill ignored him, clawing feverishly into the sides of his own head.

"Five, seven, five." Said Bandit. "Standard haiku format."

"Ha... haha." Kyle wheezed against the ground.

"Lungs are burnt, weakening. I've been bitten by decay." A tear slowly formed at the edge of his beak and he discreetly wiped it away, before he peered down at the bread in his lap and smiled. "I asked for wholegrain."

Bandit grunted. "You get what you get."

"Part of the haiku." The bird snickered, and he and Ryan made eye-contact before they both grinned stupidly. The bird coughed.

"That's funny, aye?" Bandit was deadpan. "Here's a haiku: never fucked nor been fucked. As virgin as I am young. Yet I have children."

The boys shared some laughter.

Mortar fiddled with his large paws, and licked some sort of onion relish from his lips. "I got one."

Bandit's expression softened, and Ryan swore that it was the first time he'd seen the cat so much as smile since the incident. "Righto then Mortar. Lets hear it."

The bear looked suddenly uncertain. "Um." He strained his head. "Syringe in his arm." He looked around, expecting some sort of snickering or other excuse to feel embarrassed. He found none: the boys all watched in silence, not even moving to swat at the flies that swarmed their meals. "Spit flying, I pushed, he fell down." He looked down at his feet. "Cracked his skull, broken glass."

"That's manslaughter." Said Flack, who was eagerly perched behind Ryan's chair. "Ya shouldn't be 'ere."

"Nah, mate." Mortar said quietly. "Big guy like me, they figured it was intentional. Didn't help that I was drunk, neither."

The hyena squinted, "Shit, are ye' not 18?"

"Am now." He grumbled. "Wasn't then."

Ryan couldn't help himself. "Fuck me, I thought you were in your early twenties."

"That must be Roady you're thinking of." Said the bird. "He's twenty-one in a month."

The wolf drew blood to his own face, yet he kept on digging, tapping his hind paws on the ground. Ryan watched as Bandit stood up and walked over to the Roadkill, whispering something into his ear before the wolf nodded and went off with him somewhere away from camp.

The bird must've noticed the concerned expression on Ryan's face. "Don't worry 'bout him." He coughed into his feathery arm. "Got anger issues. Small things, like poems, often help."

"What's making him angry?"

"You are." The bird said bluntly. "We've had out food supply cut. Thanks to the command of a certain cheetah - ye know, the earless kind."

When it goes as silent as it is now, Ryan liked to listen for the small things that didn't make him nervous. The sound of the wind peeling away on the tent tarp... the sand flapping up against it in that brittle, shushing sound.

"He killed someone with a car, didn't he?" Ryan asked softly.

The bird didn't respond. For the coyote, that was all the response that was needed.

Two days later, when distortion was just pitching its tent pegs into he warm air... something horrific and four wheeled stood against an otherwise flat horizon.

It kicked up a wondrous amount of sand behind it, driving it the perfect angle that the sand blocked out the sunrise and eclipsed the camp of Bandit and his boys.

This eclipse, in its pure unlikelihood and coincidence, slowly blotted its shadow over the walls of Ryan's tent. For once in his sleeping career at Camp Loosewater - as he followed the recommendation of sleeping only throughout sunrise and sunset each day-, Ryan had actually been woken up from his tent darkening.

Before he could even warn Mortar, Bandit had his head stuck in through the tent's opening. "Get up boys, right now." There was urgency in his voice.

The bear yawned, clutching at an absence of teddy bear that he still hadn't adjusted to - it made him frown deeply, and Ryan had grown to feel sympathetic of this.

"Is it bad?" Asked Mortar.

The cat's stained face deepened to pure crimson is the sudden shade. In his concern, he looked a lot older. "Mate," He muttered "It's bad."

Mr. Hyde stepped out of his vehicle with all the authority of a concentration-camp owner. This time - Ryan noticed with relief - he was wearing clothes. A cowboy hat occupied his rough hyena ears, while a stern expression occupied his quite-pissed-off hyena face. "Hey boys." Were his words, and they were fatherly in the way he said it.

The boys didn't move, least of all respond. Ryan and them were all sitting on improvised chairs made from food crates, as though they were all eager on a round of cards.

There was a gun-holster, occupied, perched on the side of Mr. Hyde's belt. Ryan gulped as he noticed it, and if there's something I can tell you - its that cards were the last thing on his mind right now.

"Ya know." Mr. Hyde started as he helped himself to some of the carefully preserved food that Kyle had been cooking up for the past day now. He wolfed it down amongst his next words, shoving it paw by paw, as though he were wanting the arctic fox's eye to start twitching.

"Back where I come from,"

"And where is that exactly?" Said Bandit, with some real 'no-fucks-given' tone.

Mr. Hyde licked his lips, not caring, "on the edge of Tennessee, we had this game we played, where we'd point to a limb, and whoever had heard the best war story for how that limb got blown off would get their round of whiskey paid for.

'I've heard all sorts of shit." He went on, grinning. "I've seen all sorts of shit. Tails getting hit by shrapnel. Um..." He scratched his whiskers. "Arms that have been burnt clean at the stump, even... fuck, even some balls that were blown off in action."

The boys stayed silent.

"But fuck me that I've seen a cheetah with his ear chewed of," He yelled, "and then have him tell me, that said ear, had been swallowed."

Ryan raised his paw, despite Bandit silently ordering him not do.

Mr. Hyde spat on the ground. "The fuck is this, a classroom? You got a question, boy?"

"I did it." Ryan said softly.

The cigarette dropped out from the hyena's mouth and he hadn't even the chance to light it. "Well... damn." Mr. Hyde scoffed to himself and tilted his hat down to keep the rising sun out of his eyes. "The fresh meat, eats fresh meat."

"It ain't the Ripper." Bandit was dead-pan as he said it. "It was me. I chewed that fuckers ear off."

"Did ya now, Henry?"

Bandit flinched.

Mr. Hyde noticed this and cackled. "Ooh. That hit a soft-spot. Ya know, while I'm on the... personal topic; I've also read your report."

The cats ears flicked back, and Ryan noticed that for once he didn't look confidence. For once he looked like a scared kid. A scared little kitten.

"That's right." Mr. Hyde chuckled with a wink. "I wonder if 'Bandit's boys' know that their leader never even killed anyone. What was it... petty theft?"

The boys all exchanged glances, making uncertain fidgets. Bandit tail lay dead in the dirt behind him, staring down at the ground.

"So, Henry, tell me. Tell me why I'm supposed to believe that you at that ear, when you can't even kill a fur?"

"Doesn't matter." Came the deep voice from Roadkill's snarling jaw. "Besides, we can change that with you, if you're not careful." The wolf threw Ryan a long glance. "Oh, and you're not taking the Ripper."

The hyena pawed at the metal on his gun to make a point. "That's a new nickname, haven't heard of the Ripper yet."

"And you don't need to." To Ryan's amazement, it was Kyle who had spoken up. For once he sounded quite sane. "I ate that ear... mate, fucks sake I was hungry."

The hyena squinted.

"Have you even seen the food supplied with got?"

Mr. Hyde chewed on something. "No."

"Probably 'cause its in your mouth. That you just ate, was all our rations for this week."

The hyena looked indifferent.

"We had less last week." Kyle said. "Mr. Hyde, you didn't tell me in my starting interview that we couldn't eat people for sustenance."

In minutes, despite Ryan's frantic insistence, Mr. Hyde had driven off... with the arctic fox shoved into the backseat of his car.

"Nothing we could've done." Bandit had weakly told him.

The coyote didn't listen. In the depth of his thought, and this growing, bubbling rage brewing up in him... he stared at the way of spit that Mr. Hyde had left in the camp's soil. The wad of saliva, catching the now midday sun, and Ryan still stood and stared.

He watched, almost sadistically, as the beating sun gradually killed it. Dying it up. Dying, as it was drying it up.