Benne the dog has been loyal; as that’s what his owner initially taught him. Benne protected him and often rewarded him a treat or lick his ketchup stained arm when he came home from a long days of work. Benne found his owner, in which he learned his name was Keith. Benne noticed that the ketchup on Keith’s arm was always sweeter and richer than the Heinz ketchup he usually bought—but Benne dismissed it, without thinking twice.

For some reason, Keith was always fighting for his life, as people and policemen seemed to always be trying to find him. In turn, Benne and his owner always had to move to different locations to avoid being spotted and for his hunters to lose track of where Keith was. 

Oftentimes, Benne actually had to step in and fight against whoever was hurting Keith. Benne could never understand the human language fully, and never heard what the policemen said about Keith—like how he was actually the highest wanted criminal known to man…

Benne sat down besides his owners side, licking the ketchup stained arm again. Keith sighed and said the one thing Benne actually understood. 

“Good dog,” Keith exclaimed, patting and stroking his fur. 

Keith repeated the motion and then with his other hand scratched Benne’s back, exactly what Benne had grown to adore. Benne sometimes continuously questioned himself. He was slightly confused of why his owner was always being hunted. Benne always thought of his owner as loving and kind, but that was something that should help Keith not get hunted, or perhaps there was a bigger reason behind it all this time. 

Keith knelt down, his old, worn out back cracking. Benne himself had also developed highlights of white in his fur, especially around his nose. The white fur had creeped up, stretching toward his eyes, but Benne hardly understood what he even looked like, so he never thought of it as getting to the end of his dog life.

Not to mention it, but Benne had noticed Keith burying plastic bags in the backyard. Benne watched Keith struggle through the hard, winter ground as the whole process seemed to be immensely tedious. Benne sometimes laughed when looking at the large plastic bags, but never knew what could be inside of them…

As Benne thought, head planted on the warm wooden flooring, staring up and down as his owner offered pieces of meat to him that he had gathered from the backyard. Keith dipped the meat in ketchup, and it was always unexpectedly chewy, but Keith never revealed where the meat had come from. Benne knew it couldn’t have been a cow, or a pig. The meat was even tougher than steak. 

But then Benne knew that the meat was raw, uncooked, so it had to be hard, and suddenly it all made sense. Keith never cooked meat raw, and never seemed to ever enjoy ketchup. Keith never ate ketchup. Suddenly it all came pouring into Benne’s mind. How could he have believed it was ketchup. He had really thought that the Mason Jar filled with a thick red liquid was ketchup…No, this was something worse than the confines of just regular ketchup. It was some sort of specialized, sugary ketchup, if that even was a thing. And then Benne became hesitant as his owner dropped the piece of meat into his rusting metal bowl and realized that his water bowl too was filled with the red substance. Benne had never realized any of this before, that he could have been protecting someone, someone who was evil…Benne was the protector of evil; he had been an accomplice to Keith’s own crimes that Benne thought were just friendly walks. And it all came to Benne, all at once. All the dark secrets that he had just uncovered. He did not yet know what the red liquid could be; his best guess was blood…