His emotionless expression and low hanging gaze made it even worse as I began to pity him, however in my focused state that too would be turned into rage and more of a reason to just end his suffering.
                At any other time and with any other person, I would sympathize with such an apathetic face, but I was so enveloped in my prejudice I couldn’t feel anything for him other than disdain, I thought ‘Just what does he expect looking so pathetic? Mercy?’

                 I grinned, for he was getting none of that from me. “Welll, well…”

                “No insults today…” Alex tried to get my attention. “… You sick or something?”

                “No… I’m having a wonderful day Corporal Alex… I can finally get me some company, no offense dog but you’re quite boring” His attempt wasn’t going to work, I had my eyes dead set on my prey and nobody was going to take that kill from me. “This one will do better, I hope.” I said just to watch the manned wolf shiver and lower his ears even further.

                “None taken…” Alex looked down as he revised his keys. “… I can tell you’re thinking about something Azreth… DON’T! The captain WILL kill you if you harm him… No matter who is paying us to have you back.” That wasn’t a good incentive for me to keep down, if anything, it’s a motive to do it.

                “Me? You wound me with your suspicion.” I teased him, my mood was improving by the second with the expectation of what came next.
                “You’re afraid…” I pointed out watching as every piece of fur in the wolf was starting to rise up defensively. “… Don’t be.” ‘When I get you it’s gonna be a lot faster than what the reds would do.’ I thought to myself.

                As the corporal finished selecting the right key, he looked at me, he was not as dumb as the dimwits outside.
                He knew I wanted something so he preemptively moved up and grabbed the electric baton turning it on and watching the current rise. “You’re up…” He motioned the tiny manned wolf forward and watched me carefully.

                I allowed the sickly canine to take his sweet time and get comfortable, every movement he made was reserved and anxious, I could heard his loud breathing going in and out repeatedly, his heart racing was music to my ears and the stench of fear suddenly turned into a delicious parfum… Remembering that makes me want to crush that version of me, I was doing exactly everything that I hated the most, and I didn’t even notice it.

                “See… That wasn’t so bad was it?” I teased. “You look like a kitten, all puffed up in a ball in fear. To be honest I thought you Redmanes were all meant to be tall, you know, large legs, claws, teeth and murder in your eyes… Like in the children’s tales.”

                I could smell his frightened sweat soaking his fur, I could see his yellow eyes glancing back and forth for a way out, trying to escape me, trying to elude me… He gulped, he knew there was no escape and he could tell I was about to end him.

                “Don’t worry…” I said calming my heartbeat and inhaling deeply. “I’ll make this quicker than you deserve!”

                As the air finished filling my lungs, I lunged forward driving my leg deep into his belly, the little meat he had in him did nothing against the power that struck him, causing his little body to contort forward.
                I used my chained arms for advantage lifting my legs and locking his neck in between my thighs before he fell, I squeezed as hard as I could.
                I wanted him dead! I wanted to see the life leave his pitiable eyes forevere… I pressed so hard I could feel his body starting to get limp and then…

                *CRACKLE!!*

                I felt numb… My head immediately began to drift, that sound was not the sound I hopped for, not the sound of a neck breaking… It was and electric shock aimed at my legs that caused them to lose tonus.
                I tried to keep pressing but the lifeless body of the manned wolf collapse as my legs retracted. “NOOO!!” I shouted in a hoarse and hazy voice that sored my throat. “LET ME FINISH HIM, I’M SO CLOSE!!”

                “LET HIM GO!!” Alex screamed and another hit of the baton sent shivers all over my body.

                I struggled against the numbness that overcame me.
                Without these restraints I could easily take that shock… I tried reaching my feet up to the Redmane again but I was so weak from the discharges I couldn’t press hard enough to kill.
                And before I could do anything else, Alex pulled him farther towards the outer end of the cage and shocked me again… My muscles stopped responding altogether, I could see but couldn’t hear well or move anymore, it was like being paralyzed, my muscles twitched violently and it hurt all over my body.

                He started massaging the Redmanes chest and pressing again and again, then he breathed into the smaller canine’s mouth trying to revive him. He kept doing it for what to me felt like ages, as I tried to determine whether I was successful or not.

                But somehow the lucky bastard lived… After all that, he lived.
                Back then I was completely appalled and fuming at the sight of him turning to the side and spitting blood everywhere as it became clear I had failed… Nowadays I’m thankful for it.
                From there on out there was this dark silence. I was ashamed of myself for failing like that, for failing on my personal revenge, failing the only chance I’d ever gotten of getting some closure... Or at least that is what I thought closure meant back then.
                I thought revenge was the only thing that could make me forget.

                I watched as Alex called in the commander, the both of which inspected the severely wounded Redmane and talked… Exasperated at each other.
                I watched for a while longer and I saw Alex coming back with medical supplies but the racoon stopped him and they traded this fierce glare... I thought there’d be an actual fight, but shortly after Alex backed down.
                He left behind some of the stuff that was earlier on the Redmanes pack, shoved him back in the cell as far away from me as possible, and then left begrundingly… I could feel how filthy he felt as he walked out.

                At first, I thought that this was a blessing, I had been given a second chance to end him. My mind was still clogged by hatred, however I still couldn’t move, and as I waited for my body to regain its normal functions I was stuck there looking at him… Just watching, powerless again… And naturally, a thought crept up.
                Any sane person would have taken him out and locked him away from me… I tried to kill him, it was only obvious to separate us, even if just to leave him outside the cell but still inside the prison cart… But they didn’t, they just had a small argument and left him there like a used rug you leave in the street for anyone to take.
                And so naturally I though… ‘Maybe he did die?’
                I tried to shake that feeling off, thought maybe Alex would be back and guard him, but that was wrong too, the auto-wagons began moving and continued traveling like nothing happened… Like this meant nothing.
                I remember thinking that if I wanted to, I could just reach out again and pull him with my feet, nothing would stop me, I could then just step on his throat and be done with that… If he was even alive, that is.
                However, the thing that made me stop, was precisely that I COULD do it.
                Before I was filled with rage and ready to do anything to end him, but watching them just leave him there like that was… Ravaging.

                Weren’t they supposed to be more on his side?
                I’m the villain here… My people repeatedly oppress and enslave them and yet they just treat each other like this? He is supposed to represent everything bad the Redmanes did, but even then deep inside me I thought he deserved more, at least a shred of decency, a place to rest away from a murderous monster like me.
                If they had taken him away and locked him somewhere else I would have kept hating him, but right now they effectively tossed him to me like you toss a piece of meat to your pets, they paid him no mind and no respect… They didn’t care about his life, at all.

                I focused my hearing as much as I could, trying to hear his pulse, but I heard nothing.
                I watched his seemingly lifeless body flailing back and forth still laying in a puddle of his own blood that no one bothered to clean… He was surely dead.
                I killed people before, heck, it’s how most of my messes usually start, but most of the time when I’m on top of their corpses and I begin to question why I did it I would conjure up what they did that made me snap…
                I tried to think about my mother, how I would never see her again because of waste of skin like him, I tried to channel all that hate into that small frail body that couldn’t hurt a fly, but it just didn’t work, it wasn’t sticking… I didn’t see him as menace that needed to be purged, I didn’t see him as a disgusting lord that looked down on me, or a sick and twisted sicko ready to violate some por woman on the street.
                I could only see a frail and weakened guy who was too afraid to even say a word before I did this, I realized then the harshest lesson of all… That I couldn’t find the monster here because it wasn’t in him, It was inside me.
                And then when I thought about my mom I started to remember, remember that of all the people that would never approve of what I did now, she would be the first one among them.
                She was a kind person, filled with love for all people and all things, she wouldn’t want to see what I’ve become now… She wouldn’t want to look at me like this.

                My heart felt heavy… My voice was distant. “Hey…”
                He kept flailing back and forth because of the vehicle’s movement. “I’m sorry…” I said.

                Like that was gonna do anything right? Like that would bring someone from the dead, like that brought my mother back to me, right?
                Like that would solve all the pain and misery in the world? BEING SORRY DID NOTHING! It never did…

                But what could I do? Chained and bound, flailing back and forth… what could I do that would help him? Or anyone?

                I stood up in my half of the cell and I tried to reach him… I stretched my leg as far as I could. “C’mon you gotta wake up.” My feet were just barely out of reach.
                His body just flailed from side to side with the motion. “SHIT! I know I’ve fucked up… Please don’t die on me!”
                I couldn’t accept that, I couldn’t handle the fact that I had just murdered someone with no reason. This was the world we lived in, that I could just go back home and pretend this was ok and nobody would know.

                My father’s words resounded in my mind
                ‘Stop caring for them, they are beneath you.’,
                ‘They are pointless in the grand scheme of things, don’t let them disrespect you!’,
                ‘You are my son, born to rule, their lives are yours to take HOWEVER YOU PLEASE!’

                This is what he taught me, this is everything I hated about him… if that Redmane died there, I would be just like my father wanted me to be… My heart filled with grief, my body ached like never before. “WAKE UP!!” I screamed to the top of my lungs and banged my feet on the floor as hard as I could.

                The sudden loud noise caused the driver to startle, the vehicle went from side to side wildly, causing us to get tossed around. “KNOCK IT OFF YOU TWAT!! You trying to get us killed?!” The driver lashed out.

                Yet even that did nothing, all it did was cause his body to turn slightly to the right with his face down.
                “I killed him… I’m no better than any of them, I’m no better than HIM... I deserve this.” I commiserated consumed in self-pity, I kept having theses flashes of my mother, I always wanted to make her proud after she died, but I never felt like I did her any justice.
                And now how would I ever after such a horrifying deed?

                *COUGH!! Cough…*

                I turned my head almost immediately towards him and just as I thought, there he was, coughing blood and trying to lift himself up… He lived, I was so relieved I forgot what I did for a moment. “YOU’RE ALIVE!!” I cheered.

                I was so engrossed in my happiness I didn’t even stop to think about him, when he heard me speak, he looked at me and instinctively hugged the cage like he had just seen a monster… And in a sense, he did. “Oh… Don’t worry… I’m not gonna hurt you again, I promise!” I was just so excited.

                He cowered and hugged the wall like his life depended on it. His voice was hoarse and he was running out of air, and crying. “I-I’m… Sorry… Please…”

                That was when it struck me. That horrid feeling of finally coming to terms with what I had done, the excitement all but disappeared subsided by an overwhelming feeling of… impotence.
                I did this, I made him fear me, I needed to make it right.
                At the merest gesture of mine, he closed his eyes shivering in the purest form of terror like a beaten feral thinking you’re about to do it again…

                Seeing that left sour taste in my mouth. “I’m gonna sit right here, and I won’t move again…” I sat as far away from him as I could and crossed my legs. “Please, I know my word means nothing right now, but I promise I won’t do anything, just treat yourself… Alex left your meds over there.”

                It took him a while to actually open his eyes, I’m sure he thought this was another setup, but I made a point not to threaten him anymore, I stopped smiling and lowered my head as sort of a way of apologizing… As little as that did.
                He looked to the side and grabbed the medications, he only took his eyes of me for brief seconds as he painfully reached for them… The wolf then tucked himself next to the corner.
                He slowly and painfully lifted his shirt, it looked like he was in great pain as he kept wincing, he lifted it up and held it with his mouth revealing a large bruise in the white part of his belly where I had kicked him in the stomach… It looked so bad I’m surprised he was still breathing.

                “Shit…” He muttered beneath his breath.

                “Are you gonna be alright?” I was concerned.