The Hound at the Gates

I have three heads, each with a mouth full of fangs, each capable of rending flesh from bone. My paws shake the earth. My growl makes the dead turn in their graves—or would, if they weren’t already still.

They call me monster. Hellhound. Beast.

But I am only a dog.

A good one, I think. Or I try to be.

I do not remember the moment I was born, only the weight of the world that waited for me. I remember the warmth of Mother—Echidna, half-serpent, all patience—curling her tail around my brothers and me as we fought over bones and shadows. Orthrus, brash and sharp, always biting too hard. Chimera, flaring her little fire when we annoyed her. I didn’t bite much. I watched.

Mother said I watched too much and barked too little. But dogs are meant to watch, aren’t they?

I saw things others didn’t. Heard the shift in silence, the unspoken breath before a lie. That’s why Hades chose me. Not for my bite—though I have one—but for my stillness. My silence. My eyes.

My master never asked for much. Just loyalty. Just vigilance. He spoke rarely, but when he did, his voice was low and kind, like a storm that chooses not to break. “Guard the gate,” he said. “Keep the balance.”

And so I did.

I guard the gates of the Underworld—not to keep people in, but to keep the living out. They always come, the bold and the grieving, thinking they can steal something from death. A soul. A name. A song. They cross the boundary thinking death is a prison and they are heroes come to break the bars.

They never ask.

They take.

So I bare my teeth, and they see what they expect to see: a creature of nightmare. A hound forged from shadows and fire. The final fear.

But I am not cruel. I do not chase the dead. I do not toy with the damned. I do not snarl unless I must. I sit beside the River Styx and listen to the silence of things that no longer breathe. I let spirits lean against me when they’re too tired to walk. Some sob into my fur. Some just sleep. That’s fine. I don’t mind.

I have always been patient.

No one sees that.

They only see the story others tell.

That I feast on flesh. That I snap at every step. That I hunger for battle and howl with rage.

But the truth is: I remember every soul I’ve met.

I remember Orpheus, who sang so sweetly that my ears quivered and my eyes watered, even though he reeked of desperation and mortal grief. His fingers trembled on the strings, but the music didn’t falter. It poured out like a river, soft and endless.

I let him pass.

He scratched behind one of my ears—the left one, where it always itches. No one’s ever done that before or since. I still think about it. How he looked at me not with fear, but thanks. How he turned back, just once, when he thought I wasn’t watching.

I always watch.

I remember Herakles, too. Brash, strong, broken in ways he didn’t understand. He wrestled me until I howled. He didn't know what I was. He thought I was a trial to overcome, another beast to best. I didn’t want to fight. I didn’t want to be dragged into daylight, the sun scalding my fur and blinding my eyes. The sky was loud. The light hurt.

But he won, of course. That’s what the stories say. What they don’t say is how he whispered “I’m sorry” as he bound my neck. How his hands were gentle. How he fed me figs afterward, one at a time, until I calmed. How he stayed with me through the night, letting me rest all three of my heads in his lap.

They forget I came back willingly.

They forget I chose the dark.

It is quieter here. Peaceful, in its way. Not all who enter are damned. Not all are screaming. Some simply drift. Some hum lullabies to themselves as they pass the gates. Some kneel and thank me.

And sometimes Persephone comes. She is the only one who calls me by name and means it. She brings me pomegranate seeds soaked in honey. She calls me flower-face, a name I pretend to grumble at, but secretly I like. I pretend to resist when she braids dried flowers into the coarse ruff behind my middle head. I like those, too.

She says, “You’re not a monster. You’re a guardian.”

I believe her.

She is the only one who doesn’t flinch when I look her in the eyes.

I wish the others knew that. The poets. The painters. The priests. The ones who fill their temples with warnings and prayers to be spared my bite. They carve statues of me with slavering mouths and eyes filled with rage.

They never carve the moments I sit beside a soul too scared to move forward. They never paint the times I let children cling to my leg as they cross the final threshold. They never write the stories where I curl around the forgotten ones and let them sleep, undisturbed, in the cradle of my warmth.

But I do those things.

Would they understand that I grieve when the young die too soon? That I bow my heads in mourning, each time?

Would they believe I nuzzle each child’s soul as it arrives, letting them cling to my foreleg so they don’t feel alone?

Would they believe a beast could have a heart?

No. They never do.

They call me Cerberus, the terror of the gate. The great beast. The nightmare.

But I am more than that. I am the one who holds the line. The one who sees every sorrow, every secret, every farewell.

And I remember them all.

I remember a girl named Ianthe. She was small. Pale. She carried a doll in one hand and a crown of woven reeds in the other. She was afraid. Not of me, but of the silence. I let her climb onto my back. I walked her across the final threshold myself. She said she wanted to keep the doll. I let her.

I remember a soldier who begged to see the family he lost. I couldn’t grant it. I am not a god. But I sat beside him until the ache in his soul quieted. We never spoke. He leaned against my side until the end. His armor clinked softly when he breathed. That’s how I knew he was still there.

Sometimes, I dream.

Not of sunlight. I don’t want it. It burns. It blinds.

I dream of running.

I dream of a field without borders. I dream of grass beneath my paws, of clouds that don’t threaten, of stars that don’t mourn. I dream of being fast and free and seen for what I am.

Just a dog.

A faithful one.

When I wake, I stretch. My bones ache from stillness, not age. I rise. I watch the path. I wait.

Because always, there is another. Another soul. Another attempt. Another fool who thinks death can be undone. Another grief that wants to steal.

And I must stop them. Because I know what balance costs.

Without me, the Underworld has no teeth.

Without me, the living forget their place.

So I stay here, silent, dutiful.

Three heads.

Six eyes.

One soul.

Watching.

Waiting.

Welcoming the dead with gentler eyes than anyone ever gave me.

I am Cerberus.

I guard the boundary between life and death.

And I am not the villain of this story.

I am just its witness.

And its faithful dog.