Omf it's finally done. I hope I get in 8D

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Duncan slowly followed Quinn, the supposed second in command dog, down a series of long, pitch-black, tunnels. Even though he had one of the worst noses, he could still detect an awful smell so strong that it gave him the urge to vomit. He wanted turn around and run away. Even though Quinn told him she was just bringing him to the other dogs, he knew that was not the case. All the dogs he ran into told him there was an initiation test, which made sense. You can’t just let anyone join a thing like this.

As he struggled to follow Quinn, he noticed something strange, something that he wasn’t one bit happy about. He was stepping in puddles. Where there’s puddles there’s usually water, or something like it. He stopped for a second to examine puddles. They smelled even worse than the tunnels and they were slimy and green. This wasn’t water, and he didn’t want to know what it was.

“Will you hurry up?” Quinn barked. “We should have been there at least 20 minutes ago.”Duncan nodded and picked up the pace. As the two dogs continued down the long series of tunnels, the terrible smell got stronger and stronger, and they were pretty much walking in one giant puddle. Finally, they reached a section of the tunnels closed off by metal and barbed wire. Duncan was confused at first, but Quinn quickly showed him to a hole in the barrier. “Alright.” she said. “Lets make this quick. Atro’s gonna be pissed if we take any longer.”

Duncan assumed he really didn’t want to see Atro pissed, but he knew that he would much rather have to do that than whatever this initiation test was. There was a long pool of the sludge he was stepping in before, and it looked pretty deep. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stand in this. To top it off, there were no ledges to hold on to. If he was stuck, there was nothing he could do about it, and he doubted Quinn would save him. Now was not a good time to learn how to swim, but if he didn’t learn now he would never learn because he would be a rotting corpse at the bottom of the pool.

“What are you waiting for?” Quinn asked. “All you’ve gotta do is swim to the wall and back. If you’re a dog that belongs here, then it should be easy. If you’re not, well then good luck making it out of here alive.” She paused, and waited for him to jump in, but when she saw that he had no intention of moving, she grew angry. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid!” she laughed. “That has got to be the funniest thing ever!” She continued laughing for a while, but then she did something that Duncan never imagined she would do.

She pushed him in.

He was under the water for what seemed like forever. Surely, he was to die like this, drowning in a pool of sludge. It’s not like he could magically learn how to swim and there would be a happy ending. That’s how it worked in the movies, and the movies weren’t ever the same as real life. He started to run out of air fast. He was prepared to die, but something happened that changed his mind. He remembered how far he had to travel to get here and why he did it. He remembered all of the struggles he had been through that were worse than this where he didn’t give up. He was no longer prepared to die. He hadn’t even made it into the mafia yet! He hadn’t even met that leader everyone talked about!

So he kicked his legs. He wasn’t what you would call a professional swimmer, but he managed to get to the surface for air. Now all he had to do was swim to that wall and back. Soon he figured out how to move his legs to move him the farthest with the least effort. Who would have known that swimming was this easy all along? All he had to do was nearly drown to figure it out. Kicking his legs, Duncan somehow made it to that wall and pushed off of it with his hind legs to give him an extra boost. He was aching all over, but he somehow managed to get back to where Quinn was standing and barely drag himself out. He coughed up all of the sludge that had gotten into his mouth, which tasted even worse than it smelled, and looked up at Quinn and smiled. “So, am I in?”