The Black Dog

CW: Body Horror

His head hurt.

Pain was the first sensation he recovered. The building behind him was crumbling. It had clearly been caught in a raging fire, and no one had been brave enough to try and put it out.

He couldn’t remember much other than the fire itself and rushing to escape it. He wasn’t sure who he was or even… what he was. That was until he noticed his reflection in a shattered window. Much to his surprise, he was a dog. A black dog. A black sighthound of some kind.

A borzoi.

The specific breed came to mind but was remembered in a child's voice, a soft reverie like they were her favorite.

He was fairly certain he’d been human, but given he couldn’t remember anything before the fire, he wasn’t so sure any more.

He stumbled a bit as he tried to get to his feet. Had he really made it outside in this condition? He wasn’t entirely sure how to run the motor controls of a dog. Everything felt clunky and wrong, like he was pulling at all the wrong strings. Nothing moved like it was meant to. Had something before the fire messed him up? Was this something to do with his being human as far as he remembered?

No, he was definitely a dog before. He remembered running and playing, and sniffing smells he’d never known a dog's level of depth of. But… he also remembered being human. He remembered vaguely the warmth of his childhood home as he ate his favorite meal, the sensations of taking a shower, and the weary exhaustion as he climbed into bed.

And yet. He was most definitely a dog. At least, he was now.

Slowly, his motor controls started to get better, and he was able to stand steadily and take a good few steps.

Almost as soon as he’d gained full consciousness and the ability to control his body, he felt this… pull. A sensation that drew him to the back of the building. It was like every fiber of his being had to go back there. It was not a choice. It was a one way street- no- not even that. It was a fishing line in his very soul, and he was being reeled in.

He stumbled forward, his body seeming to pull him without his need to guide it. A memory flashed through his mind.

He had run through this yard before. Running, chasing a ball, looking up to his owner who gleefully threw the ball time and time again. The owner held a child, who he remembered being his favorite, giggling as the dog ran around. Their faces were blurry, like something was scrubbed from his memory.

He stood above where the tugging sensation originated from, and he knew what he had to do.

dig

The thought started like a whisper in the back of his mind. Quiet. Barely there.

His paws tore at the dirt, ripping up the grass with ease, and tearing into the earth with an intense fervor.

Equations scattered across every whiteboard in the room, and his hands moved to write another, copying some scribbles from his notes. Another doctor, a woman stood beside him, muttering something unintelligible, and they both nod in agreement. He could feel a fondness in his chest for the woman, something familiar to her.

He tugged out roots and rocks as they impeded his digging, desperate to get to whatever is drawing him in. Something… like guilt washes over him. A cold sweat rushed down his back, his haunches prickled and a growl escaped his mouth.

No. That guilt wasn’t his. Whatever was drawing him here was trying to make him feel guilt. But some side of his segmented soul knew that whatever it was, he did not regret it for even a moment .

He was at the girls side, calm when he needed to be. He wore a vest, head resting on the side of her bed, nose alert despite his eyes being closed. He had been trained for this. He was very good at his job.

What was he staring at?

In the hole he had dug rested a now grimy and weathered box. The box had been torn open from the force of his claws, and inside was a rabbit with a human child’s arm sewn to where its front leg should have been.

Before he had time to process what he was looking at, that fishing-line-pulling yanked him to another spot in the yard. No. Were there more of these? More of this horror here? What was that rabbit supposed to mean? Why did it look like that? Who did that?

His body stopped at the next source of the pulling, and mechanically, started to move.

Dig.

He was coughing into a handkerchief, blood spilling from his mouth. He was sick, but his gaze shifted over to a small girl in a glass box. She had a colorful living space, with lots of toys and colorful stuffed animals and drawings on the wall. She was laying in bed, hooked up to several machines. The dog was at her side, her sickly hand resting on its head. Whatever he had, she had it worse.

His head hurt.

He paused digging to shake his head, pawing at it, and letting out a whining grimace as he agitated an old wound, tugging at something that felt like string from it. Soon enough, he could feel the blood run down his fur. He must’ve hit his head as he ran to escape the burning building and just re-opened the matted scab.

A bit more digging revealed another box below him. He tried to fight and will his body to move back, to leave it unopened. This was bringing back more memories. He could feel it.

He was scrubbing in for surgery, getting ready to turn those calculations and theoreticals on the board into something real.

No.

He ripped open the box. This one was larger. This one was a cat, with human legs. It looked like a normal, orange cat, except at the knees it was replaced with the knee-down of a human child. It looked like the skin tone was the same as the arm attached to the rabbit, presumably the same child, except the legs looked like they’d grown more. Like the child had been older when this one was done.

Nerve connections were good. The tests were resulting in successful transplants and everything was moving forward.

Necessary. Something within screamed that all of this had been necessary.

Necessary? Who in their right mind could be convinced that any of this was necessary?

Necessary.

Another pull. This one was incredibly strong, dragging him to a spot under a tree. The dirt here hasn’t regrown any grass yet.

Necessary. That’s what he’d told her.

dig!

You won’t need those limbs once this works.

Just a little longer sweetie.

I’ve got it figured out now. The next one will be for you. You’ll get to run like you never got to before. Just like I promised.

DIG!

His obedience never wavered. No questions raised. Not even as he was led up onto the table and told to lay down.

Dig!

He knew what he was going to find there.

She flatlined before he could even start the procedure.

Dig.

The Borzoi looked at him with pleading, aware eyes. It had to be awake for the transplant. They both did, to make sure it worked.

dig.

The world erupted with pain, his vision splintering, and swirling before he hit the ground. And suddenly he was the dog, watching the doctor drop to the ground.

He knew why she did it. As he’d become obsessed, he’d forced her to keep going along with it. She’d become horrified at the lengths he was willing to go. She had to stop him.

He didn't regret it.

The fresh dirt made digging much easier, even though it was a much larger plot to dig up.

A horrifically uncomfortable feeling started to overcome him, his joints popping and shifting under the fur, and he let out a low and hoarse growl-groan.

From his paralyzed position on the table, he watched the woman doctor approach, carrying something from the bloody body.

Just as he starts to regain feeling in his limbs, he smells it before he sees it; the gasoline being poured.

And then the wall of fire consumes all. The dogs' remaining sense of self working to get them out.

The grave was empty.

They had been burned in the fire.

His wife and daughter.

He let out another low whine-groan that turns into a yowl of pain as his body starts to transform. He lets out wails of grief unsure what hurt more, the pain of his body becoming something else entirely or the weight of his losses.

He stands.

He stands on two feet. He is now something else entirely. His hands rake over his face. They’re more like paws covered with fur and definitely not human. He is no longer human. Perhaps he never was.

Perhaps that was what the pulling was trying to remind him of, by digging up the past.

Trying to remind him he was human.

Could someone human commit such atrocities?

It was necessary.

Ah. Interesting. The guilt was not his. No, it was the dog’s.

The dog, was now some fraction of his subconscious. Some sort of angel on his shoulder?

Not that it mattered.

He was now something made by the devil himself. No tiny voice was going to stop him now. Not now that he knew his disease was curable.

With the right methods, of course.