A Little Friend

Ilyas regained consciousness in utter darkness. 

Everything was in pain. Pulsating, cold pain. His body was stiff, and his strength was depleted.

There was also a strange prickling sensation in his lungs, but it paled in comparison to the rest.

He killed a man.

He had killed a man and lost himself in a bestial, bloody frenzy. He created a new side of himself. A disgusting, inhumane side that made him want to retch every time it resurfaced in his battered mind. 

Those memories drowned him in a sense of regret, nausea, and repugnance. 

But he was currently in a somewhat hazy state, so for now, it was like a vague nightmare. But he knew that they would show themselves more vividly once he was more lucid and sharp, forcing him to confront them in all their odious details.

Something soft, cold and wet was padding his left cheek. It stung a little, but was comfortable nonetheless. Then, his hearing returned.

The sound of tweeting birds, fluttering wings and rustling trees soothed him. Also... there was humming.

Someone was humming a tune nearby. 

'Wha... What? I'm supposed to be dead. What happened?'

His lungs felt fizzy in an uncomfortable way. 

Really, though, why was it so dark? 

Ah.

His eyelids were unresponsive. He strained himself to open them - intense rays of sunlight hissed at him with all their might. He immediately shut them back.

"Oh! You're awake! And so soon!"

The voice belonged to the person who was humming. It sounded like a spry old man who tended to pause for heavy, rapid breaths every now and then. 

"Well, don't go back to sleep, my good sir. It isn't wise to remain in such a perilous place."

The voice paused, took a few more rapid breaths, then continued reprimandingly:

"I must say, I'm not aware of your circumstances and what led you and your... adversary to such a place, but if you have any sense left in you, good sir, you should be scrambling to leave before those vile scouts pass through here."

'Huh'

The soft padding to his temple gently continued, then retreated, then came back again, even cooler this time. Ilyas didn't resist and let the strange old man... wait.

Ilyas opened his eyes again, then frowned. Then his frown deepened until it hurt, and his eyes stared at what was before him. 

'Huh?!'

He stared with great confusion and bewilderment. If before he couldn't even open his eyes, now he was blinking repeatedly to make sure his sight wasn't betraying him. 

'What the...'

In front of him was a three-foot-tall... Pug-Man?

In a suit?

'Is that a speaking dog in a suit?'

The Pug stood straight, like any other man... albeit he was still three feet tall. His disposition was elegant and refined like a gentlem- pug! Gentlepug! His body was slightly pudgy, and his face was the only constant from what he was familiar with, precisely that of a Pug... just a bit bigger per his larger body. 

'Now the breathing makes sense!'

He wore a navy waistcoat beneath a dark, classy frock coat and dark trousers. A black cravat puffed out of his chest, bizarrely pronouncing his prestige as it sat directly beneath his pug face. Overall, the Gentlepug was... quite adorable?

"Now, now, good sir, it isn't very proper to stare as so," the Gentlepug said.

But Ilyas was too stunned to realise his gawking. He just continued to gape at the creature in bewilderment and shock, not muttering a single word. 

The Gentlepug grew nervous under his gaze, pulled away anxiously, cleared his throat and said, "Well, good sir, before you get any ideas, heh heh, uhm..." The Gentlepug swallowed, then said in an even more cautious tone, "I'd like to assure you, I carry no vile intentions akin to those your companion did four nights ago. I uh..."

The Gentlepug nervously looked at the bloodied Gauze pad in his unnaturally dexterous paw, then back at Ilyas with a tentative smile. "I couldn't in good conscience let you be after your valiant confrontation. So..."

Ilyas finally caught up with himself, then shook his head ardently with an apologetic look on his face, "No. No, no, sir. It's just..." He trailed off again, considering and comprehending his following words as if they were the most outlandish things he'd ever say. "It's just I've never seen a talking, walking dog before. I'm quite... ah!

Ilyas smiled in understanding and shook his head. "I see! I must have thought that I had survived that night for a moment there. It would have been a paralysing shock if I had seen you when I was alive. No, this makes now. Go ahead, sir."

The Gentlepug's look of trepidation and wariness vanished. Instead, he looked utterly affronted to the point that he brought his paw to his chest as if he was heartstruck.

"I'm sorry, good sir, but did you just call me a 'walking, talking dog' like I am some primitive, mindless beast?! What a foul tongue you have! I'm not here calling you a hairless, mumbling ape now, am I?

Ilyas, suddenly feeling a wave of utter guilt and shame despite still not comprehending what his eyes and ears were telling him, felt heat rise to his face.

He strained himself and said:

"I'm really sorry, sir! I didn't mean to offend you like that! Please accept my apology and forgive my foolishness!" He bowed his head down in shame and sincerity.

The Gentlepug regarded him for a few seconds, still aghast, but then his expression softened. He took a deep breath and returned to Ilyas's side to continue dabbing dried blood from Ilyas's head. "I must say, human, there truly are many peculiarities about you. But first things first, focus on getting better so that we can leave this wretched place."

Ilyas wasn't anywhere near close enough to fathom the conversation he was having, with whom, and his circumstances overall. But twice did the Gentlepug insist that they needed to leave their current location, fearing for their safety.

He reluctantly filed away the curious creature in his mind and assessed his situation:

First, he wasn't in that glade anymore; instead, he was near a river in the forest resting against a ginormous tree. The sun was directly above him, so it was the middle of the afternoon. And... wait... did the Gentlepug say 'four nights ago'?

Eh, he'll ask in a bit.

Second, the friendly, elegant dog, tending to his wounds, spoke in the same language as his, albeit in a very, very, very alien yet eloquent accent. 

Third...

Where the hell was his mask?

Primal horror suddenly washed over him, making something inside him drop. He began wriggling in panic, but of course, his body was barely responsive.

The Gentlepug.

He had to ask him!

"Sir! My mask! My brass mask, where is it?!" Ilyas cried out desperately. 

The Gentlepug was taken aback, "That disturbing bloody thing? Well, I figured since you valued that thing so much, I'd wash it in the river. It's drying somewhere downstream where the sun always shines."

Ilyas forced his devastated body forward and clenched his trembling jaw. 

'The prickly lungs make sense now! Shit!"

He accepted the uselessness of his body, looked at the Gentlepug pleadingly and said, "Sir! Please sir! I cannot survive without it! Please, I beg you!"

The Gentlepug's already wide eyes widened even further, and he nodded resolutely. Without wasting a second on words and hesitation, he dashed away with all his might downstream. 

'Four nights ago?! That means three whole days passed! How am... How am I still alive?"

Granted, his lungs were slowly succumbing to the atmosphere, but why was the process so slow? 

'Agh, I'll think about it later. But at least for now, I found someone!'

Someone who found him in that state and brought him back from the fringes of death. Someone who spent three full days with him in a forest he claimed was dangerous—someone who witnessed his fight and knew Benjamin.

Why?

Why did the Gentlepug do all that when he didn't need to?

Why did he risk his life for him?

What did he want from him?

What did he want to use him for? 

He barely knew the surface, let alone this strange creature, so the possibilities were limitless. 

But most importantly, could Ilyas get the Gentlepug to guide him to one of those 'big places' his father told him about without having to be extorted? 

'They're cities, right? They have to be cities.'