What is Normal?

He'd thought it was normal.

The rusted chains around his paws and neck, binding him to the concrete pillar. The basement, dank and cold, filled with his excrement. The gnawing hunger in his belly and the dryness in his mouth. Blood-matted fur and re-opened wounds. Aches and scars. Loneliness and isolation.

He could never remember how he had ended up there. There were only the vaguest flashes of memory, of snuggling close to his mother, of roughhousing with his littermates in the woods. When he was younger, he'd thought it was a dream, some remnant of a fantasy he must have conjured up in some delirious state. How could the smell of trees or the closeness of other pups be real, when he'd been locked up in this basement for as long as he could remember?

The humans brought him out only when they needed him. There was always a man, stocky and muscular, unshaved and unwashed, with a deep gravelly voice. He always wore a dirty white T-shirt and smelled of unpleasant things.

"I am your master," the man always said. "You have to listen to me."

There were others, too, that came and went - one a blond tattooed teenager, another a middle-aged woman, yet another a green-haired girl, and more that he could not distinguish between. Those humans did not matter, though. The ones that did matter were the ones on the table.

The table was a large, oak table in the middle of what the master called his Workroom. And on the table, there usually lay a petrified human.

Sometimes it was a young man with his eyes wide, hands shaking, pants stinking of urine.

"Pay up," the master would thunder overhead. "You owe me five thousand bucks, and you know what happens to people who don't pay their debts?"

Sometimes it was a young girl, her faces streaked with tears and her blouse unbuttoned.

"Do you still want to defy me?" the master would leer, his yellow teeth forming a wolfish grin.

Sometimes it was a middle-aged man, his previously-fastidious business suit now torn and tattered.

"You will, of course, give me half the shares to your company," the master would say slickly.

Whoever it was, by this point, Estranged would be dragged to the table, the chains digging into his flesh. Usually the merely sight of him, savage and snarling and half-starved, was enough to convince the humans to give the master whatever he wanted. And if they still held out, whether for honour or pride or sheer stubbornness, Estranged was let loose. If he stayed still, he would be whipped. If he turned on his master, he would be beaten. So he did would attack, swiftly and brutally and cruelly, the victim's screams filling the air. If he did well - an arbitrary rating measured by the decibel range of the victim's shrieks - he would be given a morsel of chicken or a cow's femur. Just enough to keep him alive. Just enough to keep him hungry enough for the next attack.

Even then, back then, he'd thought it was normal.

Until they brought a dog in.

It was a beautiful little poodle. White fur immaculately brushed and groomed, sparkling and trusting eyes, permanently wagging tail.

"Got this off an old lady down the street. Let's have a little dog fight here, shall we?" the master guffawed, as Estranged was once again led into the Workroom.

And the poodle, heaven help her, wagged her tail and barked happily at him. Estranged stopped, stock still. There are other dogs, he thought. There are other canines, and what lives do they lead? The poodle's fur was so soft and clean, so unlike his own tangled, dirty fur. The poodle looked so healthy and well-fed, worlds away from his own emaciated frame. But most stunning of all, the poodle actually looked happy.

What did happy feel like?

In what world could dogs actually be happy?

The world outside, he realised. The world outside the basement and the Workroom and the whole entire house. The world of his fading memories, the world of the woods and his mother and his littermates. That world, the world he had thought was a fantasy. What if it was actually real?

The master was behind him, laughing at some private joke on his cell phone. He was standing there, slack and uninterested, his usual whip two full strides away.

Without warning, Estranged pounced. He leapt with the anger of years of well-honed savagery. He landed with the weight of years of abuse. Before the master could scream, his throat had been ripped out, crimson blood soaking the carpet. And Estranged stood over the body, heart pounding and light-headed. He was free. No longer would he be chained and starved and beaten. He was free. He could not grasp the enormity of it. What was freedom? What was happiness?

Slowly, he turned around.

The poodle was sitting primly atop the oak table, her head cocked to one side.

"That was not bad," she remarked. And then she daintily jumped off the table and walked out the door, careful to step around the welling pool of blood.

Numbly, Estranged followed her. For the first time, he stepped over the threshold of the front door, into the outside world. The sun - the sun was so bright and glaring, he could barely open his eyes. And the sky - the sky was so blue, he felt as if he could fall into it and float away, and he clung to the ground in terror.

"It's alright, you'll get used to it," the poodle said gently.

He started. He had forgotten that she was still there. The poodle smiled. "Follow me," she tossed her head.

And he'd followed her. Followed her to a warm hearth and fire, to hot meals and a good night's sleep, to baths and comfort. To a home. To freedom. And, maybe, just maybe - even to happiness.

And now he knew, this was what normal was.