A Story

It was a bright and sunny day in the middle of Fall.--
The leaves were just turning, though as always, they weren't falling. A doe and her fawn could be seen down in the meadow making they're way back to the forest.
The old rusty tractor was resting right where it had broken down. Missing its back wheel and coated in graffiti.--
The gravel road was quiet, as usual. There was a dog trotting along - no doubt on his way back home from some adventure.--
A loud rumble started to break the silence. The dog made his way into the weeds presuming it was your average car making it's way to town.
The rumble got closer, and the air began to reek. The dog turned his head to look at the passing vehicle. All he was able to see was a yellow blur flowed by horrid black haze.--
He was confused. What the heck was that thing? It looked like a blurry banana and smelled like rotten eggs. He had never seen nor heard anything like that before.
He stepped back onto the road and watched the smoke fade in the distance. It seemed to linger for a very long time. He wasn't sure what it had been but had a bad feeling he hadn't seen the last of it.--
The faint calling of his name in the background snapped him back to awareness, and he headed off again.
"Here he is! Come 'ere Laurence." A little boy was calling from the driveway of a barn-like house.
The dog raced up and skipped up to lick the child's face.
The child's mother came up and rapped Laurence on the muzzle to make him stop jumping.--
The little boy protested, "Don't hurt him, Mom!"
"He has to learn not to jump Scotty." The woman was not happy that they had the dog, to begin with. She still didn't know why Scotty's dad had collected the stray up and brought him home. Scotty did love him though.
Laurence knew the woman didn't like him, but he didn't let it bother him. Scotty was his person, and Scotty loved him. He loved Scotty too.
He and Scotty went into the backyard to play fetch for a while.--
They played until Scotty's mom called them in for supper.
Laurence laid under the table and waited for someone to drop something. Laurence caught bits of the conversation between the two parents.
It was starting to worry him. He didn't fully understand human langue, and it often sounded like garble, but what little he followed from this wasn't sounding very humane.
Recently there had been a severe rain, and it had lead to the roof of the school falling in on its self, this is why Scotty was home. They were going to destroy the old school a nearby store and the woods behind the school to build a bigger one.--
Laurence loved those woods behind the school. He got to venture there on occasion and always found adventure.
He wasn't sure if the humans even knew it, but there was an old town and cemetery hidden in those woods. The old buildings were starting to fall apart and crumble but were neat to wander through. The old cemetery was a bit creepy. There were a few remarkably enormous markers for the human graves and a /lot/ of small stones with no writing on them.
The creepiest part was the section that had pictures of animals on the stones with, what Laurence assumed, where the animals names on them.--
Shaking off a sudden shiver, he stood. He padded out from under the table and scratched on the back door letting out a yip like howl. He needed to go tell Pistol what was going on.
Scotty hopped off his chair and went to let him out. Laurence zipped off to the barn, Pistol should be there.--
Pistol was snoozing in the barn when Laurence came bounding in. The young dog frightened the older cat and made him jump.
"What the heck young'un?!" Pistol hissed.
"Sorry Pistol - I didn't mean to scare you, but there is BIG news!"--
Pistol sighed his tail twitching in irritation, "What?" he snapped.
"They're going to get rid of the forest!"
"Who's 'they'?"
Pistol's new question threw Laurence off. Who is going to do this?
"Do ya'll not know?" Pistol was aggravated.
"Well, no, no I don't know who's doing it."
"Then don't come waking me up! For all you know you heard wrong."
Laurence sighed his tail curling under his stomach as Pistol curled into a little ball again.
He had to figure out who was going to destroy the woods.
[End Chapter]--