There it was, guts spittered and splattered across the asphalt.

Its lungs spilled onto the back street, blood pooling around its tiny, lifeless legs.

Its eyes were bloodshot, two tiny pupils in a sea of crimson.

Its limp body curled and twisted and contorted.

I knelt. And as I squatted inches away from the carcass, a tear plopped onto the pavement.

Death.

I bore into its eyes, trying to find any semblance of life, a twitch or a twitter, a jolt or just a tiny flitter, anything to see if it was still alive.

Nothing.

A once thrumming, humming bundle of nerves, pumping blood, scurrying feet and whipping tail, now reduced to a shell of itself, a throng of bloodstained fur and wartorn skin and dead eyes.

How can life be so vibrant and virile one day, yet gone the next?

How?