and when you wanted someone else, i withdrew [van crash]

Truthfully, it was a miracle that Axel hadn't been killed already. He had never been a very cooperative dog at the lab. He cowered, he snarled (and sometimes snapped) at gloved hands that reached ominously toward him in his cage, he writhed and he tugged when handled or moved, and he frequently urinated on himself and whatever unfortunate humans were tasked with dealing with him. But it was cheaper to deal with his shit than it was to replace him, so he continued to live...probably much to the dismay of many a piss-stained and angry lab employee.

So he had struggled and fought when he was ushered into a cage, whining and growling at the fingers -- oddly ungloved this time -- that touched him. There was a rumble and then the odd sensation of moving without the aid of his own legs. He cowered in the back of his small cage, eyeing his surroundings with a mixture of feral distrust and paralyzed terror. After a while, though, the steady rhythm of the engine and the gentle swaying motion of the van soothed his nerves somewhat and he began to relax a little.

Then all hell broke loose.

There was horrendous noise all around him. He was tossed violently in his cage, catching a brief glimpse of the ground spinning toward him before his head smashed the side of his cage and he blacked out.

When he came to, it was his hearing that returned to him first. He could hear voices, whimpers, and other dog noises. He cracked his eyes open slowly, wincing at the light and the thunderous pain in his head. He was dimly aware of the warm sensation of blood oozing on his head; there was a bizarre, morbid sort of comfort in the familiarity of it, as bleeding was something he'd done a lot of in his years at the lab. His cage was upside down and he lay in a ragged heap on its ceiling; he could see other dogs roaming around outside, and while he felt a small urge to join them, he felt an even greater desire to just stay in his cage. Fear, trickling back into him as his awareness returned in full, set its icy grip around his heart and squeezed.