Tongue caked in sand
Relieved little by sweat
Seeping through her furred cheeks
Burning cracked lips
How much longer?
She cannot even count
The days they have kept her
Bruised and beaten
Eyes swollen closed
She sees naught but darkness
Naught but the cries of pain
Outside her cage
They prick her ears
Crush the back of her skull
Trailing thorns down her spine
Split her armor
Her fur matted
Prickles at his approach
Raises at his footsteps
As he draws near
He sets his sight
Shooting bullets at her
Showing her his victims
Her heart resists
You’re abandoned
He proposes once more
Her heart threatens to fail
He thinks he’ll win
Instead she snarls
Lip curling in hatred
Towards her tormenter
She can still fight
Her mind is hers
No matter what this dev’l
Tries to convince her of
She will prevail
Her snarl grows wide
As she strains past the chains
Holding her body down
Slinks towards evil
She is so slow
He thinks she approaches
Out of obedience
How wrong he is
Her chains go taut
But she presses onward
Refusing to back down
A small link cracks
He roars in pain
As she seizes his hand
Jaws clamped shut, teeth to bone
The crunch echoes
The hand dissolves
To blood stained on her lips
An iron memory
That she can taste
Her captor melts
Subliming to vapor
Revealing his true form
As she watches
Her tail twitches
Pensively as the mist
Expands and dissipates
Into thin air
The crater now
Feels empty and silent
A vacuum of anguish
Left in his wake
It bends her cage
With a resounding creak
Bar by bar careening
To the black hole
And bar by bar
Her prison vanishes
Her chains fall unshackled
Finally free
Her eyes adjust
Blinking against the fog
Spotted vision clearing
To the wreckage
They rise ashen
A field of blood and bone
Bodies sprawled out before
Her very eyes
You must save them
Mission courses her veins
They are trapped like she was
They whimper pained
Her legs find strength
She rises to the call
To save them one by one
Her thirst is quenched
Her battle’s won
But the war rages on
Tearing down the beloved
Killing the weak
Empower them
She runs to the fallen
Speaking words of courage
Healing their wounds
There’s so many
How could she save them all?
The thought overwhelms her
She shakes it off
I’m not alone
The thought resounds in hope
As the soldiers rise up
The captives freed
The army grows
And so does she