Inside a large building late at night, Alex walked down the stairs towards the clear glass doors leading to the parking lot. With only a few steps left he yawned out a good night to his coworker who stood at the bottom of stairs conversing with a man from a different department. The bald one with dark shades and a dark tuxedo bulging around his biceps and chest was trying to convince his coworker to hold a briefcase while he went to the bathroom.

"Come on man! Please? The boss has had me standing here for two hours waiting for someone to pick this up and I GOTT'A take a whizz," he whined quite unlike the macho getup he had on.

Still listening in, Alex thought, 'What was the name of that guy again? Coby? Charlie? Alvin? Ah, Calvin!'

"Fine, but be quick about it, it's my three month anniversary and my beautiful wife and I want all the time possible to make sweet love," Calvin said with a gloating smile and over pronouncing 'beautiful wife' and 'sweet love'. Even though the not-so-macho-looking-man was already faltering his way to the bathroom like a penguin trying to run.

On his way out he felt the urge to go to the bathroom himself and backtracked to Calvin and asked him the same question.

"Sure, whatever," Calvin said with shrug. Alex and Calvin have worked in the same office for over a year, but since their projects are different they rarely interact.

"Ay, thanks man, owe you one," Alex replied while putting his briefcase right next to the one put down by the macho man.

Walking out of the bathroom and still hearing the psssssing sound, he thought, 'Whoa, and I thought I drank a lot of water.'

While letting his mind wander and thinking of his dog, Artemis, he absentmindedly picked up a briefcase and walked out. "I can't wait to hug and kiss her!" he thought out loud and earning himself two burnt holes in his jacket.

Artemis was the most adorable dog on the planet. She was small, but not too small. She was soft and so huggable. She was loyal too. If Alex were to ever get in a fight she was the first one to jump in. She was also protective, while normally she would not ever bark, even at a squirrel (though the mailman is another story), if she thought something or someone was dangerous, she had a pair of lungs and sharp teeth that would deter anything coming their way.

Now outside, Alex got in his car and drove home. Pulling into the apartment complex he was currently living at and getting to the elevator he pressed the button and waited.

Ten seconds.

Twenty.

Thirty.

One minute.

Two.

Noticing the elevator was not going to open up no matter how much he wanted that oh so beloved 'Ding!', he looked towards the stairs and groaned.

"Seriously, is this what I get from working sixteen hours straight?"

Picturing hugging and kissing Artemis was his only motivation that moved his body up the dreaded stairs.

One flight.

Two.

Three.

Six.

Ten.

Fifteen.

Slightly out of breath, he breathed a sigh of relief and reached for his apartment key, only to remember he dropped it in between the seats of his car earlier in the day right before he went to work. Groaning in exasperation he repeated his journey of a thousand steps. Finally, opening his door he sees the world's cutest dog in the whole wide world and his countenance lit up.

She strettttched, then sleepily swayed forward to give Alex kisses. Then when she was thoroughly satisfied inspecting the new smells on him like a jealous girlfriend she went back to the couch and curled up in a small ball.

And even though she could heal a broken heart, and she could take away the pain from a broken soul, she could not remove the fatigue that plagued Alex. He walked into the room he so rarely uses and after sneezing from all the built up dust he told himself to clean the room sometime this week. And after setting down his briefcase on the kitchen table, he weakly walked toward his bed while taking off his clothes, leaving a trail in his wake. Plopping on his bed he instantly fell asleep.

*CRASH* "ouff."

"wa? I tol you Bet-a don-p use a condem... bu bu." (What? I told you Bettie don't use a condom. Bye-bye.)

"Bark. Bark. Bark. Barraa. Aaaawwww. Wow. HmmmAA."

"WHAT WAS THAT!? Artemis?! Baby you okay?!" Alex scrambled out of bed and desperately searched for his baby girl and what was wrong with her.

His thoughts were going light-speed.

'Is she sick?!'

'Is someone in the apartment and they just hurt her?! Was she trying to warn me?! Were her last moments spent warning me?!'

'Or, is it something!- ...else?'

He found her sitting by the door, perfectly fine. Not a scratch on her. In fact...

'She looks...better than normal? Like a light that wasn't normally there.'

He couldn't put his finger on it, but she looked different.

'Whatever.'

He looked down on the watch and saw it was already 5:00 AM.

"Baby you saved me, I would've been late without you. You weren't trying to wake me up, were you?" he said jokingly.

Not wasting a moment, he took a shower, got dressed, brushed his teeth, and ate a bowl of cereal.

"Ah! The food of the gods, Bunches of Honey Grains." He said out loud while doing a chef's kiss.

Then in a sudden realization, if not delayed, looked at Artemis and then he looked at the door.

"In a moment baby, I just got to finish up something on my computer," he said.

"Bark," Artemis responded and lies down in patience.

*But I said no, no, no, no, no, no

I said, no, no, you're not the one for me*

"Yes? What was that? The SAP security launch upload failed? Just try again. What? You have? Try uploading the raw packet on- you tried that too? Hmm?"

Holding Artemis' leash in his left hand and his phone in his right he turned around to get out of the wind. He was trying to get Artemis to go to the bathroom before he left for work. Reaching in his back pocket of his jeans for something to write on instead of his briefcase that mysteriously disappeared.

He stopped his search, thinking, 'I swear if that klepto Molly (my neighbor across the hall) stole it while I was asleep again, I will call the police, no matter how many times she's slept with me.'

While holding his phone with his head and shoulder, he found an old receipt, a gum wrapper, and his grocery list. Taking the grocery list into the left hand and a pen out of his shirt pocket, he started writing down numbers and letters into a password. Holding up the paper to the sun, he took a picture of it.

"So what you got to do is, go to my computer- and where's my leash?"

Pivoting around to his right just in time to see a dog get smashed to a pulp by a huge truck.

His phone rang out, "What was that boss?"

"ARTEMIS!"

He dropped his phone and the paper; and ran to the road.

"ARTEMIS! It's going to be fine. You're going to be fine baby. Everything's going to be just fine. JOSH GODDAMIT! CALL AN AMBULANCE! MY DOG WAS JUST RUN OVER!" he yelled over his shoulder in an attempt for Josh to hear him over the cellphone and twenty feet of distance.

Cradling the deformed head of a dog, Alex lost track of time. He only woke up from his daze when flashes of blue and some red came into sight.