"Okay, everyone ready?"
"I think so!"
"All the little ones rounded up?"
"For the moment!"
"Good!" the Leader of the group of fleas announced, "Then I think it's about time we got back to a more mobile lifestyle!" he turned around, and walked to the edge of the shelf, looking down at the floor far below.
The Leader hesitated, however. This entire situation was truly very strange. According to his memories, he had been a normal flea riding on the back of a dog. Then, one day a pale white light flashed past and he went into a cocoon.
And upon breaking out of that cocoon a changed being, he found himself in a strange space. No longer on a dog at all, and surrounded by other fleas just as changed as he was.
There had been a small degree of panic, but apparently he had a good head on his brand-new shoulders, and took charge of the situation. Getting his fellow fleas to calm down and focus on a direction to go in. Namely, off of the shelf.
But as he came close to the edge, instincts he had never had before pushed into his mind and made him feel nervous about the distance. He remembered jumping farther distances as an ordinary flea. There had been no instincts revolving around heights at all. But now there were. Maybe it had something to do with being bipedal.
But he was the leader! He wouldn't give into fear so early in their first journey into a new world with their new bodies. He leaped off the edge, and sailed through the air, landing on the floor so far below without any trouble at all.
"Come on down!" he called back up, "You'll be fine!"
Some of the others seem to share the same hesitance he had, but soon enough they all start jumping down as well. Once the entire crowd was on the floor, he began leading them towards the doorway. Shoving himself underneath, he poked his head out into the colder air, and looked around.
Sure enough, there were dogs.
Dogs as far as the eye could see. Dozens and dozens of them, barking, playing, rolling around, chasing each other. It was paradise. A smile pulled at his new face, and he pushed himself the rest of the way through. Part of him wanted to take a bounding leap towards the closest one and bite down, drink in that delicious warm nectar pumping through every single one of those adorable beasts. But he was the leader, and he couldn't just leave the others behind.
"Come on everyone," he said, helping fleas squeeze through under the door. As the others took in the same sight he saw he heard gasps of awe, and had to stop a few others from jumping off without them.
But eventually, all of them were free.
"Now, I know how tempting this is, but we do not know anything about our current situation," he said, "We need to look at this situation carefully and-"
"Look!"
He turned his head towards one flea on the outskirts of their little group, and followed where her hand was pointing. Then, he saw it.
The human.
The dogs flocked to her as soon as she appeared, barking and jumping and dancing and begging. She nudged them gently out of her way as she made a beeline for the fleas position.
"Everyone, to the side of the shed! Find a place to hide!" the leader ordered.
Everyone scrambled after him as he led them away from the doorway and to the side of the building, hiding behind a cluster of foul-smelling buckets and shovels as they watched the human come closer. She reaches the door without looking down, and disappears inside the shed. A few of the dogs seem to put together a kind of perimeter in order to keep her from being mobbed as she walks back out with a huge bag.
Then, she crosses part of the yard again, and starts pouring kibble into various bowls. The dogs attack the food in a rush, and the Leader watched with interest as the human looked on.
She was in charge here, that much was clear. She fed the dogs, they listened to her, respected her.
She led them, and the shed that he and his fellow lice had woken up inside of was her property. Did she bring them there?
He looked out over the rest of the fleas, and put on as calming a smile as he could, "Okay, everyone, I have a plan. For now, stay here. I'm going to try and make contact and secure permission."
"Permission for what?"
"To feed," the Leader said, looking out over the dogs. He waited until the human had finished pouring out the last of the bag, before coming out of his hiding spot and jumping up towards the human. One bound took him about halfway across the yard to her position. Another bound had him landing on the surface of her jacket. He climbed up to her shoulder, then, and cleared his throat, "Attention, great Lord of the Dogs, I am-"
Something impacted with his chest, and he was sent flying. He bounced off the ground without any real damage, but he was startled all the same. He looked up, and saw the human looking down at him with wide eyes.
"Um. Hello! I-"
She stepped forwards then, and snatched him from the ground, squishing his limbs to the sides of his body so he couldn't escape.
This was a mistake!
"I mean you no ill will, I simply wish to- to-" he stammered, before he found himself being brought close to the human's face. She stared into his face, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.
"What are you doing here?" she growled.
"I... don't know?"
"Who made you?" she asked, "This is
my territory. Everyone knows to stay away."
"I don't know!" the Leader protested, "Me and my fellows woke up inside the shed, on the top shelf!"
She frowned at that, confused, before something seemed to occur to her. Recognition flashed in her eyes, "Why were you on those dogs in the sewer?"
"To... drink their blood?" the Leader said.
She sneered, "Get out. Go back to wherever you came from," she began walking across the yard, coming to fence, "I won't have anything biting my dogs. Especially not whatever you are."
"We came from the shed! We don't have anywhere else to go!"
"You're not from my shed. I'm not stupid. You're a parahuman thing," she said, before getting to the fence and dropping him on the other side of it, "Just get out. If you come back, I'll squish you."
He turned behind him, and looked at the long expanse of snow-covered gray roads and gray buildings. Not a dog in sight. Already, he was starting to shiver despite his fur. He and his band were lucky enough to hatch into a kind of animal oasis in an apparently dark, cold, otherwise dog-less world.
"Can't we come up with some kind of deal?" he asked desperately before she could walk more than a few feet away.
"A deal?" she asked, turning, "For what?"
"This place- it's
paradise! We don't know why we're not ordinary fleas any more. But we aren't, and we were brought here by... by you, right? There's no dogs out there. We'll starve or we'll freeze!"
"That's not my problem," she said coldly, "I don't like my dogs having fleas."
"Look, isn't there anything we could do for you to let us stay?"
"No. Go away."
She turned away, only to stop and sigh as she moved around a piece of poop she was about to step on.
An idea popped into the Leader's head, although he didn't much like it.
He jumped back through the fence, and darted between her legs, picking up the thankfully dried-out piece of poop as big as he was, he lifted it effortlessly over his head, "We can help you clean!"
She considered him coldly for a few seconds, "I don't want you to bite my dogs."
"We won't drink much! I promise we'll be cleaner than ordinary fleas!" he said, "We can help keep the ground clean, and help feed them, and we can even pick away ordinary fleas like we used to be! Just let us stay!"
She narrowed her eyes down at him, "If any of my dogs get sick because of you, I'm squishing you," she threatened.
He gulped.
"Throw that in the trash," she ordered, pointing at a silvery large can in one of the lot's corners.
He jumped forwards, making it there in just a few bounds, before leaping up to its lid. He dropped the poop inside, and then made his way back to the human, "What next?"
"...Where's the rest of you?" she asked.
The Leader hesitated once again, but ignored his fear just as he did on the shelf, leading her back to the shed, and clearing his throat, "Fleas!" he announced, "The commander of the dogs has agreed to allow us to stay in her domain, for as long as we assist her!"
The human went wide-eyed again as the fleas started moving forwards. She considered the group for a bit, before glaring back down towards the Leader, "You can start by cleaning the yard. If the dogs give you any trouble, shout and I'll come over. If any of them hurt a dog, I'll squish them."
She walked off then, and whistled, gathering the horde of dogs towards her as she moved across the yard.
The Leader let out a sigh of relief, "Okay! Then, let's start. We'll begin by picking up poop and bringing it to that container over there and then-"
"Why are we 'assisting' her?" one of the fleas interrupted, "What's going on?"
"...I don't know what happened to us, my brethren," the Leader began, "I don't know why we were brought here. All I know is that
this is where the dogs are, this is the only place we
know of where we can actually build a livelihood. And that human commands the dogs," the Leader shrugged, "It seems to me that for now, our path is obvious. We help the human, the human allows us access to the dogs, and possibly information."