This chapter begins the exploration of the other animals trapped on the island. Particularly the dogs, and particularly the dogs who have been so far unable to control their weight. Well, now their gluttony is coming back to bite them on the ass in these two parrallel struggles between two very different dogs.

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The night was long for others besides the tigress. However, while she dealt with - in her own way - her emotional baggage, two others had to deal with baggage of a much more physical sort.
The German Shepherd with a magnificent mind had spent most of his life from the time his eyes opened for the first time under the tutelage of the lab faculty’s brightest minds. He was special in a community of special animals, he had been chosen to receive extensive education and training that would have matched any Ivy League university. It was an honor and a privilege to work along with humans rather than just be studied by them; he felt, in the lab, almost as if he were an equal among those who were responsible for his creation. As they shared the secrets of their god-like works, so too had one German Shepherd felt almost god-like in their presence.
Einstein collapsed face first in the mud. He was so exhausted he could not even put his paws forward to spare his face from the impact. All of his more than considerable weight behind him served only to drive his entire snout into the wet goop like a nail. His tears of agony were lost in the rain streaming down from above. All four of his legs hurt so much from the demanding - for him anyways - pace the alpha-female set that he didn’t even care about the muck and filth coating every inch of him, though he was normally a very fastidious canine. He felt like he had forty or so pounds of mud stuck to him, but in his head it knew it was an illusion; it was his own fat that was stuck to him, his own fat that had dragged him down into the mud countless times so far on this trice-cursed “hike,” his own fat which had brought him and his friends to this situation in the first place.
‘Still, even if it is my own fault that I’m here, that she-wolf is a banshee.’ He thought miserably to himself. Bubbles arose from the mud in front of his eyes where his snout was buried and the muck invaded his nostrils. All the while torrential rain fell from the canopy everywhere like vertical streams, washing away ferns, bushes, even saplings and turned the ground into a pig’s wallow for as far as the eye could see in the gloom. Thunder boomed overhead constantly and deafened him to the words and shouts of his compatriots around him… all except one however.
As the Shepherd dog worked his front paws against a root under the surface of the clinging slush to lift his nose clear so he could breathe, a harsh voice shouted in his left ear. “Get your fat ass out of your sty right now, we’re not stopping until dawn! Move it!” The alpha-female punctuated the last with a head butt to his engorged flank; he hardly felt it, but knew it for a warning of teeth to come if he didn’t move, and quickly. Einstein gasped as he brought his snout free, clumps of mud and goodness-knew what else dripped from his chin and over-stuffed jowls. He tried weakly to get to his feet, his belly and chest were so low, they couldn’t clear the water even while standing. He didn’t know how he would be able to do it once again.
Teeth pinched a spot on his round flank which was already bruised from an earlier assault and Einstein cried out even as his legs somehow managed to jerk himself upright; it hurt three times as much as the first time she had bit him there an hour ago and there were now plenty of sore spots to choose from all over the vast area of his hide.
The voice of the alpha female mellowed until it was almost kind, “Good, now keep moving, we need to get as far as we can tonight. Remember, you can rest as much as you need tomorrow.”
Einstein moved his stiff, hurting legs once more as he waddled through the muck. The forest was out of focus, his friends beside him were out of focus, after a time, even the alpha-female and her motivational techniques were out of focus. It was as if his ears were stuffed with cotton and thick, plastic goggles were over his eyes, but he kept his feet moving. The she-wolf drove him hard, he wasn’t at the very tail end of the procession as he had expected. No, she kept him near the front, kept him at his labor and allowed no leniency due to his weight. It seemed like she was at his side even more than his friend Betsy who he frequently lost track of in the rain and the gloom.
He continued to stumble frequently, his gut often making an enormous splash in the water or mud they were traveling through and spreading out like a pontoon to his left and right. It was humiliating, no one else, as far as he knew, was having nearly as hard a time as he was. And yet… and yet every time the Alpha shouted at him to get his gut off the ground or to move his ass, he did. Every time he felt sure he wouldn’t be able to get up again, sooner or later, he’d find himself rising. Walking, while still painful, became automatic, it felt like he couldn’t stop even if he wanted to. He rocked his flanks side to side drunkenly, making room for his hind legs to move forward against the squishy wall of his belly. His thighs were spread out awkwardly for his belly’s girth as well as the thickness of the thighs themselves and the right side of his hip began to flare and burn after a while. His heart was racing in his chest almost as much for the pain as for the actual exertion. At the very least, he was free of the hunger… for now.
Einstein honestly didn’t know what kept him going. Later that night would be a scarcely remembered nightmare for him. The only thing he knew for sure was that he didn’t want to bed in two feet of filthy water. But there was also something else; he really didn’t want to be a mindless dog in a seal-like body, thinking only of sating his hunger, a slave to the food source he had initially thought would save them all. His weight had finally started coming between him and his friends; the way they looked at him when he ate all of the disks they threw away even after consuming all of his own… he couldn’t bear the looks. He hated what he had become, how he felt hindered by all his bulk and the way his fur brushed up against things that should have been far from his body. He was simply too large. He felt like he was stuck in a massive suit he couldn’t take off; he no longer saw himself in his reflection and that scared him even more than the way his heart raced when he walked and sometimes lurched strangely even while resting. A hike in the jungle could only do him good. Sitting on the beach and thinking constantly of Manna certainly had done him nothing but harm so far. He had to believe that the she-wolf could help him. He had to believe in her, because he had nothing else to believe in.


* * *


Less than a mile south and east from where the German Shepherd labored at the unforgiving claws and teeth of the alpha-female, the Golden Labrador wandered through the rain and the dark. He was struggling too, but, unlike the shepherd, he had no one to push him up when he fell. No one but himself. Sight and scent of him hidden by the rain, the Lab made his slow, laborious progress in the muck ridiculously close to those who might kill him on sight. He moved, slowly, methodically, each step was a careful calculation to avoid slipping and a heavy fall which was painful at his size to say the least. His breath came in great raspy draught and sometimes the fattened canine felt like he was breathing as much water as air. He was tired, but at least he went at his own pace and stopped to pant furiously here and there as he made his escape at a snail’s pace through the unfamiliar and often frightening jungle night. Despite his apparent slowness and frequent breaks, he made decent progress for though he was a good deal heavier even that the shepherd and did not share his keen intellect, he didn’t dwell overmuch on his situation nor did he have the burden of broken pride.
There was one other thing that helped the Lab forget the pain in his four legs: the pain in his neck. The flesh flap still dangled heavily from his neck and as the water poured down from above and ran down his neck, it turned pink as it left his throat. The rain was actually a relief for the struggling dog and he went out of his way to waterfall openings in the canopy to let the cold water drench him for it eased the stinging of the wound at least momentarily. He knew vaguely about infection and that leaving his throat open like that was a bad idea, but his thoughts were centered simply on getting as far away as he could, far away from anyone who wanted to hurt him; Besides, he hadn’t the slightest idea how to treat such an extensive flesh wound.
He made a drunken path through the jungle vaguely north and wound up wandering east towards the shore. The Lab didn’t know that, however, it was just enough trouble picking up his feet. His expansive yellow hide was black with mud up past the widest point on his round, low-slung flanks. So far, the rain constantly sheeting down kept his fat back clear as it rippled and shook with his movements; it jostled left and right above his hips and shoulders with its own inertia as he plodded along and swung his belly counter to his steps. He could feel the mud grinding in between his thick thighs where they rubbed as he walked, and it congested his altered sex. His weight wore on his muscles and joints like a concrete sweater. More than two out of every three pounds he contained within himself was fat and fat did no work in helping him on his way. Eyes bloodshot with the stress of the day he slumped bottom-first to the mud.
His soft pink, mud-covered gut hit the ground long before his knees finished folding and welled up against it in a massive roll until his could feel the pressure of it pushing not gently against the backs of his front legs. He rotated his hips as far as they would go to help alleviate the press of his gut. From above, the rain poured down and each drop striking his wide back made a little crater in the soft skin before splashing away in a fine mist; the Lab could feel the rain on every inch of his back and it was impossible not to realize how he had tripled his girth since landing on the island. The fact that he was fat didn’t weigh on the Lab’s mind, however; he’s always been “fat” it was just a part of who he was. Only the fact that he was so drastically hampered in his escape was a concern. The Golden Lab would have liked nothing better than to have been alone on the other side of the island, far from anyone else… and free to gorge on Manna as he pleased. ‘Sweet, delicate crisps. Beef kibble, the meaty kind that makes its own gravy…’ His mouth watered at the thought.
But instead, he was nearly rooted to the spot. Better almost to have been left with broken legs. He might as well have been crawling away. His chest burned as he fought to catch his breath and his ribs ached with pulling in such big breaths. Oh, how his legs pained him! They hurt worse just after stopping than how they felt while he was walking. Water dripped from the Lab’s forehead into one of his eyes and he shook himself by instinct. He immediately forgot about the pain in his legs.
The hanging fold of fat and skin on his neck pulled and jerked on the wound, nearly paralyzing him with pain. He yelped, but immediately cut off the sound in fear even as fresh tears leaked from his eyes. More red leaked down the mound of his chest as fresh scabs broke with the movement. All the Lab could think of though was if anyone had heard him, or if there was even anyone around to hear him. The jungle seemed suddenly darker and closer about him, as if eager to swallow up a plump little morsel like himself. The wind kicked up and he heard something fall in the forest near to his left. The Lab was instantly on his paws and moving away as fast as he could; which amounted to an odd lolloping jog like a cross between power walking and skating.
He moved for another hour in the darkness before the sensation of exhaustion once more overcame the cloud of fear that hung about him like a vile miasma seeping from his fat brimmed body. He slid down forward, letting his well padded chest break the fall after which the entirety of his wide undercarriage struck the mud a moment later; the next morning, the trees all around where the Lab had landed would have a coating of mud five feet up their trunks from the ground. He barely had the strength left to lift his head and his thick, heavy necklace of rolls. He’d been running purely on adrenaline for the last quarter hour and he was at his limit.
He struggled for several seconds with both his left legs and managed to roll the doughy mass of his body onto its side. Shining circles appeared on his exposed flank where the rain drops cleared away the mud. His neck flap lay carefully onto the top of the soil, fur-and-skin-side down, but while the rain fell upon it as well, there was nothing he could do to keep flecks of mud from landing on the exposed meat of his neck. The Lab, however was beyond caring, he could do nothing else but sleep. That night, though drenched and lying in a pit of mud, the Lab felt as though he were sleeping on the softest of pillows.
That night he dreamed long and deep. He dreamed hands were holding him, real human hands. They were gentle, they didn’t pinch or prod, but lovingly supported him and his great bulk. They set him in a soft, comfortable place where he could be safe at last.
Darkness.
The Lab twitched and jerked trying to get them off of him. His paws extended and folded against his fat deepened chest and his sagging, pink belly cleft like a female’s between his rows of tiny nipples. He could feel them all over him, their little feet, but a force held him down, he wasn’t even able to roll over, he was helpless as they crawled all over him. ‘Am I finally too fat to move?’ he thought in a delirious panic. It was the ants, he could feel them, could feel them biting at the wound on his neck. They were biting the edges of his exposed meat, they wanted to open him up to get the rest of his meat! He wouldn’t let them get his meat, it was HIS meat! But he couldn’t move, he couldn’t move…
Darkness…