Black Dog

A Story by Flowerpout

I don't really know how to describe this... just read it- but fair warning it is bittersweet and kind of depressing...

He was watching me from across the road, this massive black scraggly dog. His eyes shown like gold ink in the pale moonlight and his hallow gaze held me captive. I wanted to run, my gut screamed "flee!"... and yet... my heart didn't race, panic didn't swarm my veins, and terror didn't invade my bones- I was calm. Despite every instinct I had telling me it wasn't wise to linger in the presence of this beast, I was calm.

All the stress from work and all the pain from my aging body just melted away as the dogs eyes dug deeper into my soul. It was as if I could feel him searching through my thoughts and making a home in my mind, like a parasite.

I could feel him.

But still, no fear- none.

I found myself actually creeping closer to the jet black beast. His thin, matted, and filthy coat sagged over the skeletal outline of his starved figure. The flesh around his legs showed battle scars: teeth, claws, you name it. The overall posture he had was that of exhaustion. It was evident that this creature had endured more than his fair share of hardship. He had seen blood and he had seen hell.

He didn't stir from his spot on the other side of the road, he didn't even blink at me. I crouched and gingerly reached out my hand to touch the top of his starved head and when I did a cloaked figure stepped into my peripheral vision. Now the terror flowed freely through me. Wave after wave of endless and paralyzing horror hit me.

Tears clawed at the corners of my eyes and my wrinkled hand began to shake. I knew what this was. I knew what was happening but something inside me refused to admit it. I clenched my eyelids shut and water dripped onto the black dog's snout. I slowly rose to an upright position, not opening my eyes. I stood there silently sobbing for a moment. I knew what this was.

I looked back at my original location on the other side of the asphalt road. A car was wrapped tightly around a tree and a wrinkled hand dangled from deep inside the wreckage. Blood dripped like delicate petals off the fingers and onto the muddy ground.

I had died.

My heart hadn't raced because I wasn't alive. My blood didn't rush with panic because there was no solid blood to pump.

My sobbing turned into painful wails as I remembered the agony. As I remembered the feeling of the engine coming up into the driver seat and crushing my ribs. I could feel my bones break and my lungs collapse and I fell to the ground with invisible distress.

I was dead.

The black dog laid down beside me and rested his hard skull on my abdomen. I screamed out as I watched the hooded figure inch closer. I didn't dare look directly at him, instead I used my peripheral vision to see the dark form sneak closer and closer until finally he was looming over me. Only then did I look into the face of death.

I peered into the mouth of the hood and I smiled.

The pain had left me and I felt bliss pulse through me. He extended a pale hand out to me and I accepted. In silence we walked on and out of the physical planes of earth with the black dog. Then in a flash of great white light I felt peace.