The Other Side...

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Olivia hummed to herself as she took her bath. Life was beautiful, no life is beautiful she thought. More beautiful with each passing minute. She changed imto another tune, and as she scrubbed, she wriggled her body in unison.

About seven minutes later she was out, clean and dry. She still hummed, but this time she did it a bit unconsciously. Olivia's mind instead dwelled on other events...

Today will be the day she makes history. She, Olivia! She still found it hard to believe sometimes. Only six years ago, Kurt had dumped her rather unceremoniously, and her career trajectory was on a heavy nosedive. The latter was also thanks to Kurt.

Her entire life had been at a standstill. And then in her confused state she had decided to revive her career. A decision which had paid off in the strangest of ways. Frustrated by her failure to perfect a set of codes she had been working on for years, she had in a fit of anger thrown her head at her computer. And she had inadvertently sent out the now famous signal.

Today she was a national figure, the one to establish first contact with another planetary being. An actual inhabited planet apart from earth. It had been difficult to communicate at first, the languages being different. But that had easily been solved due to the more advanced technology of the beings at the other end. The only problem was that it had been impossible to send or receive any sort of visual or audio feed. So typed messages had been the only sort of communication possible. But that in itself was an achievement. Messages through galaxies!

But today it would be more. With help from them the first intergalactic travel would be made. And who else but Olivia to pioneer?

She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked the same way she felt; confident and happy. Olivia couldn't resist pointing a cheeky finger at her reflection.

"Destiny awaits..."

---

Joe stood on all fours as he addressed the council. He knew the magnitude of this day, and he wanted the rest of the council to realize it as well. It was important that the right decision was made. And as he barked and howled, he studied his audience with roving eyes.

From Jody's loose stance and hanging tongue, he could tell that Jody would take any decision that the majority favoured. Sam's wide eyes and twitching ears on the other hand, meant he remained suspicious of the whole event and still needed more convincing. That could be done. The rest of the council would likely lean towards his decision, and he knew it had to be done.

The only problem to be expected would most probably come from Deal. Her one remaining ear twitching terribly. She stood on all fours too, but only to show her dominant stature. She listened, but with the whole of her face wrinkled. She didn't even bother to hide the curled lips, displaying her sharp tooth without care. She tettered always, at the edge of civilization, never truly leaving her wild nature.
But the council needed her as well. And this decision could be the biggest in decades of no new technological advancement.

He finished his speech, and waited.

"You say this err, beings could help us progress?" Sam barked at him.

"Yes." he responded promptly

"They know real science?"

"They know their science. But it's as real as ours." He almost adds that It's also a little behind on ours but he decides against it at the last possible second. No need to give Deal a stick with which to beat him, that is if she even needed one. As it were any little thing out of place would trigger her.

"I say let's do it and be done with this blasted meeting" Jody barked.

Joe looked around questioningly at the rest of the council. As the tails started wagging and more barks of assent rose across the hall, he breathes a sigh of relief.

They were coming...

From the corner of his eyes, he watches as Deal growls and leaves the hall...

---

Olivia sat next to the captain of the ship. The silence hung heavily upon them like a heavy cloth. It made her feel physically and mentally weak. They had been locked in this small room for the past eight hours now. They had tried talking about it, but it had only made their situation feel worse. So they had simply sat, and waited. It was difficult now to even imagine the elation she had felt when the day had begun.

It was supposed to be the day she wrote her name into the history books. Well, it still is. But the way it had turned out, oh.

It was pure adrenaline when they had took off. The rush, the feeling of success, of conquest. The trip had not been the most sight-full one, there was literally nothing to see out there but darkness and tiny lights. But then the arrival had more than made up for it.

She had first sighted a large field full of blue butterflies. It was as stunning as it was magnificent. And then the houses. They were small but talk about architecture. Earth paled in comparison. Something had struck her mentally about the size of these beings then, but she had ignored it. Whatever could make a planet as beautiful as this was a worthy host, alien or no. And they had beautiful dogs, lots of them too.

She had begun to feel like a child visiting Disney World by the time the ship located the hangar. But then she had alighted, and two steps upon hitting solid ground she had stopped dead in her tracks, as the truth suddenly hit her. Her alien beings were dogs.

In retrospect now, Olivia felt her shocked scream may have been misinterpreted as hostile by the one eared dog who had attacked her. But she was amazed at the cooperation the other dogs showed when they fended her off. It was amazing.

Then they had arranged themselves in a manner that had made it so obvious where Olivia and the captain had to go. They had followed, and that was eight long hours ago. What worried her the most now was whether she had led them to their death, or if...

The door opened. Three German Shepherds entered the room. One had two pieces of an equipment that looked like a head set with a mike and... a third speaker? He handed one of these to Olivia and the other to the captain. As he did Olivia noticed that these dogs had opposable thumbs, unlike their counterparts from earth. The dog gestured that they use the equipment. They did.

Suddenly they could understand the dogs. Everything that was grunted or barked came through in perfect english.

"We developed these into suiting your head shapes just after your arrival. I hope they work perfect." The dog by the door barked.

Olivia nodded her head, speechless.

"Alright then. The council will see you soon. Meanwhile we brought you some food."

At this, the third German shepherd who all this while had stood at a corner, walked outside and came back with two plates of a mushy substance. He walked in on two feet and placed one beside each human.

"We'll leave you to it then. The council will require your presence soon."

As they left, the captain looked questioningly at Olivia.

"Help yourself" she murmured. "I am not eating that."

The device on her ear backed out in unison.

"ruff-ruff, arf-arf"

THE END

#SladenSpeaks

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Written for @tygertyger's Electric Dreams Contest.

Prompts were #1 your protagonist lives in a world where dogs are the dominant species. Unlike their counterparts in our reality they developed opposable thumbs and thus the same ability to create tools ect. as we did in our reality. #2 a field full of blue butterflies #3 the story must include the sentence - “I am not eating that!”

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