There's a sudden slamming noise at my door.

I check my nightstand clock from the vantage point of under my bed. Not even fifteen whole minutes since Pillow Cormo was shredded in the streets outside, and it already sounds like they're trying to beat my door down.

Fuck me, that was fast.

"Open up!" Betty's voice booms from the other side of my wall. I retreat further into my wool, shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. For the record, the irony of this situation isn't lost on me at all: the savage epidemic may be officially over, but I'm about to get torn to pieces by feral mammals anyway.

"I SAID OPEN THE FUCK UP!!" she shouts before what I'm guessing is her boot bashes the door again. I don't know why the fuck she hasn't just picked the locks already -- a locksmith should have no problem forcing her way in. Intimidation, maybe? "I know you're fuckin' hiding in there! I can smell you all the way out here!"

"We can ALL smell you," a muffled Avo adds. "Fuckin' shower, cotton swab -- you ever heard of it?"

"That's fear you're smelling," Al grunts. "Stand back."

"Al, I'm almost--" Betty starts to protest.

"Don't MAKE me tell you a second time."

There's some more murmured scuffling outside, and then, without warning, I hear what sounds like a meteor impacting my front door. Al just rammed it with enough force that I'm pretty sure a couple of my window panes just cracked. You could convince me he's going to level the building trying to get in, and if anyone here could pull it off, it'd be him -- a literal forklift. I can hear the door locks creaking underneath the strain with each repeated blow -- it's obvious they're not going to hold out much longer -- and yet here I am, hiding under my bed like a scared kid during a thunderstorm.

There's no win condition for me here. Hiding won't do me any good -- they can smell me through the wall. The second they breach my apartment, I'm fucked six ways from Sunday.

Maybe -- maybe they'll have mercy on me if I surrender. It's the only card I've got left to play.

I force myself out from under my bed, stepping past my discarded burga on the floor. The very sight of it is making me sick to my stomach. I make my way to the center of my apartment, but my legs buckle and give out from beneath me. I slump against my table, clinging to the side of it pathetically as Al wins the war on my security system. The chain latches snap, sending bent links clattering across my floor as the wolf pack posse storms inside my apartment.

The Alpha, the Beta, and the once-Omega converge in my living room -- seems everyone else is suspiciously absent. I guess they only need three people for a lynching.

"Couldn't make things easy on yourself, mutton," Al fumes as Betty grabs me by my pompadour, yanking me to my hooftips. I let out a warbled, pained bleat, my arms dangling limply from my sides.

"Can you blame me?!" I choke.

"That's -- yes, that's EXACTLY what I'm doing," he responds, brow furrowed. "I SURE as hell hope you're sorry."

"S-sorry?!" I stammer. "Y-you just k-kicked my door down! Shouldn't you apologize to me?"

"Why should I apologize?" Al asks. "I'm a predator and we're always right, and you're a prey and you're always wrong."

"The Alpha asked you a QUESTION," Betty snaps, kneeing me in the side. "Now -- are you FUCKING sorry?!"

"Ooh, you have Bubble Pops here?" Avo asks, rooting through my candy bowl. "Nice. Any cherry ones?"

"Fine!" I blubber as tears begin to pour from my eyes. "I'm s-sorry! This is what I get for n-not bending over ba-backwards for everyone!"

"Fucking specist-ass sheep make me sick," Al hisses.

Betty drags me down the stairs -- still by my pompadour -- my hooves clattering and banging on every single step. This is where it all goes straight to fucking shit for me. I'm being marched downstairs for the ass-beating of my life -- and if I'm LUCKY that's ALL they'll do to me.

As I watch my apartment fade from view, I find myself wondering why I didn't just call the fucking cops in the first place.

Turns out everyone else was downstairs, waiting for me.

Charlie, Marty, Ozzy, the twins -- everyone's here. Most of them seem either disgusted or just plain non-plussed, apart from Ozzy who's wearing his usual, easygoing smile. If I didn't know for sure that I was about to get my shit kicked in, I'd almost assume they were just staging an intervention for me instead. After tossing me onto the couch, Betty moves to block the escape while Al and Avo flank me from either side.

"Wh-what are you going to do to me?" I ask.

"Good question. I hadn't thought that far ahead," Al responds, brushing his shirt off. "Now shut the fuck up and don't have an opinion."

"We could just, you know, make him our sex slave," Anneke says, drooling.

"Oh my god. Is it ALWAYS fuckin' sex with you?! We should just kill him and be done with it," Marty proposes, wiping saliva from his arm.

There it is. There's the lynching that I knew was coming. I knew it -- I'd feel so vindicated right now if I could just manage to breathe.

"Too messy. Kill a ram, we'll have ram cops crawling over us. No, it can't be permanent," Charlie argues. Oh, well, that's a relief-- "What about branding him?"

"The FUCK?" I bleat, eyes wide.

"Painful, humiliating. Minimal bleeding. And if he ever wanders out of your territory, he'll serve as a warning to those foolish enough to cross us."

"So like a bellwether then?" Marty clarifies.

Wolter scratches the side of his head. "I don't get it."

"I mean, I guess we could do that," Al interrupts. "But where the fuck am I going to get a branding iron at three in the morning?"

"Right here." Charlie reaches underneath her sweater and pulls out a branding iron, tossing it to Al. "I never leave my apartment without one."

"That was surprisingly convenient. Maybe I shoulda promoted you to Beta instead of Betty," Al says.

"Don't say that," I argue heatedly. "Betty is best girl. She's like a mom to me."

"That's true," Betty adds from her vantage point by the front door. "I made him soup once and everything while he was sick."

"Sheepdog confirmed. Get fucked, Charmy fans," Avo grins.

"Aren't you one of the competitors, though?" Al asks, turning to look at her.

"Eh. Nobody takes me seriously -- apparently all I do is eat candy and bitch."

"I like soup," Anneke says as she begins to hump the coffee table's leg. "Almost as much as I like sex."

Al plugs in the branding iron, and I find myself worriedly staring at it sparking.

"Didn't know they made electric branding irons," Avo frowns. "The fuck did you get that, Charlie?"

"Wednesday is fish sticks," Charlie replies. "Lime gelatin for dessert."

"...never mind," Avo replies, pinching the bridge of her muzzle and exhaling slowly. "I forgot you were autistic."

"Y-you know, I don't--" I start to bleat as one of the sparks gets a little too close to my wool for comfort. "I'm not -- this isn't--"

"What did I say about having an opinion?" Al snaps, cuffing me in the side of the head. "Betty, Avo -- hold him down. Annie, Wolt -- go get some rags or something. This is probably gonna be messy."

"And then brand him afterwards?" she prompts as Avo takes hold of one of my arms.

"Al, I'm -- I'm not sure I'm okay with this after all," Betty murmurs, raising a paw to her mouth. "I-I mean, it's not like I LIKE the little yarn ball or anything, I just... even if he IS an idiot, I think he's..."

"This is getting boring. Ozzy, do you want to go fuckin' make out then?" Wolt asks.

"You're gay?" Ozzy grins. "Oh, I'd always hoped!"

"HAH! I always KNEW you were gay, Wolt!" Anneke says as she moves onto humping the handle of the branding iron, accidentally flinging the hot end toward me in the process. "That explains why you go limp so much."

The front door blasts open and Velvet storms inside with her clipboard tucked under her arm, stomping her feet on the tiled floor.

"What's going on in here?!" she snaps. "Have you LOST your mind?!"

"Oh thank god," I cry as my wool begins to singe, yanking myself away from Avo's weak, pathetic grip. "Ms. Roe, I'm so glad to see--"

"Do you have ANY idea what kind of hostile environment you're creating for Ozzy?!" she shrieks. "He's fragile and best boy, and there's nothing worse you could do than ruin everything with your toxic presence, Mr. Cormo! Apologize, right now!"

"For what, exactly?" I blink.

"You know, for everything! To everyone," she adds. "Just like, go in a circle and start apologizing."

"But he hasn't really done anything to warrant apologizing?" Betty interjects as he looks around the room in confusion. "Ms. Velvet, please -- won't you spare my precious Remmy-kun?"

"Gomen nasai," I hurriedly insist, getting down on my knees and kissing Al's feet, then Betty's, then that one wolf guy's who was rude to me the other day. "Gomen nasai. Gomen nasai! Gomen nasai!"

"The fuck are you doing?" the wolf asks, in between Ozzy and Wolter sloppily making out and Charlie writhing on the floor.