Pet King

It was a normal day.

The sun was shining brightly, and there was good weather for miles.

The few big vehicles were busy at work. The roller truck driver seemed to be making magic, turning the piles of rubbish from 3D to 2D. The forklift driver then picked up the sheets of trash and dropped them into the landfill, filling it up layer by layer. This was their job every day.

The wild dogs that could be seen everywhere didn’t seem to be afraid of people, boldly yet cautiously digging through the trash piles tens of meters away from the vehicles.

Even further away, the strays outside of the landfill area were also showing each other love through their teeth like they did everyday.

Could one dare believe that all this was just because of a bag of pork ribs that hadn’t gone bad?

This pack of ribs might have been forgotten by its owner in a corner of the refrigerator, who only realized that it was still there one or two years later. It had already been frozen into “zombie” meat by then and thrown away sadly by the owner, ending up here in the landfill.

When it was thrown away, the bag of ribs was still frozen solid. Through the long journey from the trash bin to the landfill, it had only just thawed. Strays didn’t care whether it was zombie meat or not. This bag of meat was comparable to the finest delicacies on earth when compared to the stinky, rotten food that they usually got.

First, a dog from the mutt group found the bag of ribs. It followed the scent, digging around the heaps of trash, and finally fished it out of the whole pile to tear it open, devouring the first slightly chilly rib free of any weird taste or smell excitedly. It even chewed the bone into tiny pieces without any consideration, swallowing the whole mess of meat and bones, before reaching for the next piece of ribs.

But this dog had forgotten that it had enemies all around it. The moment the packaging was torn open, the smell of ribs had taken a ride on the wind and spread all around the landfill. For the dogs that had an extremely keen sense of smell, it was just like a shark that had smelled blood.

Just as the second rib had entered its mouth—even before it could bite on it—the dog could feel the hostilities coming at it. It abandoned the ribs on instinct, quickly rolling away.

A stocky black Tibetian mastiff pressed firmly onto the bag of ribs with its front paw, claiming it as its own. Its copper-colored eyes glared at the mutt coldly, its long fur swaying with the breeze, saliva dripping out between its teeth, and a deep growl rumbling from the depths of its chest.

The mutt quickly recognized this dog, similar to a lion, as the head dog of the mastiff pack.

Its own size was way too different from the Tibetian mastiff, and it didn’t stand a shred of chance. Even if it rushed up to snatch its own food back, it would only be inviting death to its door. Besides, there were still a few other dogs behind the lead dog.

The mutt swallowed its saliva. There was only one thing it could do, and that was to run away with its tail between its legs, treating the bag of ribs as something merely from its imagination.

The mastiff clearly thought so too. Under normal circumstances, the mastiff would’ve chased the enemy away before enjoying its food, but the smell of the ribs was too enticing. It couldn’t wait anymore. The dog before him was of no threat to it anyway, so it lowered its head, enjoying the delicacy before it. Even the other dogs that it had brought with him were salivating behind it, waiting for their alpha to finish eating before it threw a few bones for them to chew on.

But faced with such humiliation, the mutt didn’t flee in terror like that mastiff had anticipated. Instead, it raised its head, howling at the sky constantly.

Even before its howls ended, a furious roar ripped through the air, and a mixed-breed that looked extremely ripped came rushing over. That was the mutts’ leader along with a bunch of buddies behind him.

The mastiff could look down on the mutt, but, hearing its old enemy’s roar, it could not help but give up enjoying its meal for the time being, replying with a ground-shaking growl of its own and staring at its enemy. Its packmates knew that another war was about to start and gathered their energy, waiting for it to begin.

The mixed-breed dog had a lot of hunter dog genes in it, and it had the external characteristics of a Rottweiler, so one could just call it a mixed-Rottweiler. It rushed forward first, and it understood what had happened when it saw the pack of ribs.

It flashed its bright, sharp teeth at the other dogs, giving the other members of its pack an encouraging eye, meaning to say, “Good job! We mutts can break our heads or bleed out, but we can’t lose our ribs!”

The rottweiler-mix and mastiff didn’t tumble together in a fight the moment they met, because that’s what wild dogs would do. They were civilized dogs and had to trash-talk each other first.

The mastiff noticed that the other party had more dogs, so it constantly sent out angry growls to both scare the other party and gather its other pack members.

The Rottweiler-mix didn’t want to lose either, and it similarly growled, its other buddies rushing to the scene.

The amount of dogs gathering here was growing by the minute, with a clear line separating them in between. Across the dividing boundary, all of the dogs were noisily barking at each other, supporting their leader it was like a party.

But since they had already declared war, the winner had to be decided. Just trash-talking each other didn’t solve the issue. If this were a human society where whoever was the loudest was the winner, the great mastiff would have won, but strays didn’t go by that rule.

The mastiff and Rottweiler-mix instead quietened down, maintaining their eye contact like their lives depended on it. They carefully approached each other, looking for an opening.

One move, and war would erupt.

Even though they couldn’t explain it, the both of them had a premonition, a premonition that could only be honed by years of battle. No matter who won this battle, it might be their last one.

This battle happened in the southeast side of the landfill near the sea but still a good distance away from the ocean—since they had to prevent the landfill from contaminating nature’s water.

The mastiff and mutt packs were too focused to notice that a dog had showed up in the midst of the ocean while they were at odds with each other.

This was a middle-sized dog. It didn’t look very strong, and its fur was a creamy white, an adequate length. It was just a normal mutt.

No one had seen how the dog had emerged from the sea, but it had, stepping onto the shore with poise and leaving footsteps in the sand, proof of its existence.

Finally…it was back again.

It smelled the humid air, saturated with the scent of the sea, and shook its entire body to fling all of the seawater from its fur into the air.

Just shaking it wouldn’t completely dry it, and it had to dry itself in the sun.

It jumped onto a dry reef stone, watching the white clouds as they floated past, enjoying the first rays of summer’s sun leisurely.

But there was a cacophony of barking coming from a distance away, severely disrupting its enjoyment.

It tried its best to bear with it, but the barking showed no signs of stopping, instead getting worse and worse.

It finally couldn’t stand it anymore. It jumped up from the reefs, glaring at the direction where all the barking was coming from and scolding under its breath, “Barking hell!”