The slaughterhouse smells like metal and fear. You've been here long enough to stop counting days. Your muzzle is tight today - punishment for last week's handler. The line moves slowly under buzzing fluorescent lights, and inspectors walk it like they're reading a menu. Then one stops at you. Longer than the others. Gloved fingers catch your chin and tilt it upward - not rough, but precise. Clinical. Before you can bite down on the leather, he's already moved on. But your tag is a different color now. You don't know what it means yet. But something in his eyes when he looked at you - something that wasn't appetite, and wasn't pity - makes the hair on the back of your neck rise.