PEEKO & RYAN - EXTENDED ABOUT

Being a caretaker of an energetic puppy chimera wasn't always in Ryan's plans.

Ryan wouldn't describe himself as atypical; before Peeko, he was an ordinary young man—a college student, a juggler of part-time jobs, and a resident of a cheap apartment in the city. Ryan had his future planned out already: he was to finish his fashion degree, undertake several apprenticeships, then place himself as an in-house designer before eventually creating a label of his own. His life, of course, did not go without its own unique set of struggles, but Ryan wouldn't describe his life as anything beyond customary.

That is, until Peeko arrived.

Ryan was going about his weekday night as usual, emptying out his apartment of trash, when a little whimper came beyond the large bins in the alley. Thinking it was his own cat—who had the habit of dumpster-diving and being unable to get herself out—Ryan reluctantly fished around the trash container, searching for the source of noise before, to his shock, a little infant hand poked itself out of a black trashbag, a corner away just from where Ryan had placed his own garbage. Dumbfounded, the shocked Ryan stared at the little starfish hand, moving around tentatively. The young man, not wanting to think it was anything other than a silly doll someone threw out, began to turn away—except curiosity was already planted into his mind, and there was a burning urge to investigate that tiny moving hand. Ryan relented, returned to the container, and gingerly touched the doll's moving fingers—before letting out a shocked scream when it curled around his thumb.

Fearful but no longer able to ignore the reality of what he was witnessing, he pried his thumb away from the human-like hand. With baited breath, Ryan slowly tore away at the black bag, unsure of what to expect. The last thing he realistically expected to see was the light entering the bag to reveal a pair of blanking eyes, staring at him. The more Ryan tore away, the more shocked he became: those eyes belonged to a human. A little infant boy, adorned with red hair—Ryan was ready to pull out his phone and call the police before he noticed something else: a pair of ears. No—not human ears, the boy had those already. Puppy ears, resting just above the boy's temples, clearly too big for his little face. Ryan couldn't even stop his own eyes from looking further before he noticed a tail, limp but nevertheless attached below the boy's spine.

A clever lifelike toy, Ryan rationalized, and he picked the little puppy-boy up, laughing, relieved that it was not alive. To Ryan's shock, the supposed doll chortled back at him, exactly like an infant would. Almost dropping the certainly-alive creature, Ryan let out a scream, shocked—before the boy's features turned sour and he began to cry, upset by Ryan's loud response. Finally coming to terms with reality—and moved by the little infant's saddened face—Ryan rested the tiny creature onto his chest and silently climbed back to his apartment, unsure of what he had just confronted.

After fully making sure that the boy's puppy ears and tail were indeed real, and not some glued prop (it was cruel to stick such things to an infant anyway, he reasoned), Ryan began to assess his situation. Despite his little cry earlier, the infant seemed content in his arms. Ryan sized him to be barely a year old—or able to sit up and crawl around, anyway. Besides the boy's ears and tail, heterochromia was also apparent: a left blue eye and a right brown one, both bright and glittering with earnest. Had it been a human boy, Ryan would have easily processed this situation—the boy's inhuman additional features however, made Ryan hesitant to contact anyone regarding the situation.

The infant was, otherwise, extremely content with Ryan. Too content. He would whimper the moment he separated from Ryan, and liked latching onto the man. Ryan found handling him to be no problem, except for the fact that the boy was exceedingly playful, crawling after him whenever Ryan moved. After an internal debate, Ryan finally contacted the authorities. A peculiar investigation ensued.

An analysis as to whose DNA the puppy-boy was harvested from—human and animal—yielded no results. Curiously, the infant was not merely two creatures frankensteined together; his DNA was consistent, both in his human body and his dog parts. His additional ears and tail seemed to have been apparent from conception, not mere parts stitched together. Intensive research as to who had created or conceived the little boy yielded no results (in fact, not so much as a lead). It was believed that the boy had actually been discarded into the streets—or abandoned and left to die—much earlier, surviving with a stray dog before getting lost by crawling into the trash container where Ryan found him, getting trapped in the bag before he was found. During the ongoing investigation, Ryan had stayed with the boy, the investigators finding that the little baby was restless and constantly crying without the young man's presence. Not wanting the news of a human-puppy chimera to be public, Ryan was sworn to secrecy and took a brief leave from his college to aid the investigation of the boy's origins. A year passed, and nothing was found.

During this time, the puppy-boy gained his name: Peeko. Having been proven that the boy was intelligent in all human sense, the infant had one pitfall: he couldn't talk. Or at least—he wouldn't. It was only after a game of peek-a-boo that Peeko spoke his first (and only) word, now almost two years old. Peeko, eager to play with Ryan, returned with his own little peek-a-boo, missing the "a" and "b" entirely. Needless to say, if Ryan had any doubts about his growing fondness of the boy, it was all dispelled. From then on, the human-puppy was referred to as "Peeko"; later on, Peeko would learn sign language to communicate—though before this happened, Peeko could only respond with his own name, unable to articulate any other word on his own (questions and statements—for example "How old are you, Peeko?" or "I think you the weather is great outside"—would only yield an incoherent response, or simply the word "Peeko!" in reply; that is, if Peeko decided to respond back).

With the investigation yielding no success, Peeko's life was now simply a matter of being lived out. His chimera status, however, was forbidden to be publicized—Peeko was not to exist in any paper or record. He was to live in secrecy or to be euthanized, lost from any human chapter; Ryan, conflicted in wanting to carry out the life he had planned before but unable to allow Peeko's death, reluctantly decided to become Peeko's legal guardian. Ryan was to abandon his life and move out into a remote location, where his living and provision were to be funded by the authorities. Ryan ceased his education, emptied his apartment, and began a new life in a little cottage, hidden from human civilization.

Life was, at first, difficult for Ryan: he was cut off from everyone he knew, was not able to venture into society, and most of all—he had to learn how to take care of a child at the tender age of his early twenties. Peeko is an explosion of energy, and it only got worse when Peeko learned how to run. Ryan thought he would eventually despise the life he had hurriedly and reluctantly chosen—except the opposite happened. After some strenuous lessons in taming Peeko's endless energy, Ryan grew fond of the boy, unable to resist the child's exhausting but endearing antics. After a few years, the restrictions on Ryan's life lightened—while he was still to keep Peeko low-profile, Ryan could finally venture into human society, as long as he could keep Peeko appear as human as possible (oversized hoodies and raincoats came useful). Ryan re-enrolled in college online and once more pursued his dream career—now without worrying about paying his rent in time, as well as having an all-too-willing model who conveniently only sat still if Ryan was dressing him up.