Chapter 2 A Warped Wound
A Warped Wound
You’ve probably already read the headlines.
Another killing. Another “lone madman.”
Another official statement that ties a bloody bow on something that feels unfinished.
We’re told Richard Berkins snapped. That he’s grieving, dangerous, and delusional. Maybe he is.
But the thing about delusions is—they don’t usually leave behind physical evidence.
And they don’t stain the sidewalk with a residue the rain won’t wash away.
There’s a story underneath the story. There always is.
I paused, my fingers freezing over the laptop keyboard, as I heard a slight shifting noise coming from the sofa. I looked at the time and saw it was almost four o’clock in the morning.
Leaving the desk, I walked to the sofa and crouched, looking at the dog, whose arctic-blue eyes were open after long hours of unconsciousness. Probably due to pain. The fact was that I was no medic, let alone a vet, and thus my medical skills were severely lacking.
“Hey,” I said now, as the dog’s eyes latched on to me, narrow and full of mistrust. Or so I interpreted the look he was giving me. “I need to check your wound, so it might hurt a little. I apologize in advance.”
The dog bobbed its head slightly, as if it understood me.
I wondered if it was just in my head. What were the chances of me finding some sort of a supernatural creature right outside my apartment building?
If there was one thing I’d learned about supernatural beings, it was that they hid themselves very well. Too well, even.
Still, unease burrowed into my gut as I gently unwrapped the bandages from the dog’s back.
After Chase and Jackson helped bring the animal into my apartment and left, I’d launched myself into work while the dog was resting.
I had forced myself to focus on the job I needed to do and put all my questions in the back of my mind.
Now, those questions rose to the surface and multiplied when I exposed the dog’s back, cleaned the dry blood with antiseptic wipes, and saw something I hadn’t earlier that night.
The wound looked like someone had carved the dog’s back with a knife. It had to have been methodical because the carvings were precise, creating a certain shape.
I disposed of the bloodied wipes and turned on the flashlight on my phone to see the shape of the wound better.
It looked like someone had scratched a deformed star into the skin.
One line ran vertically straight down the middle, while the other six crisscrossed it, with one of them having a little wave to it, contrasting with the symmetry of the others.
Returning my gaze to the dog’s, who seemed to peer at me with its piercing eyes, I couldn’t help but ask, “Who did this to you?” even though I knew it wouldn’t be able to tell me.
A low growl came from the dog’s throat, making my eyes widen. It looked away, leaning its head on its large front paws, as if it didn’t feel like responding to me.
My heart pounded in my ears as I stared at it—or rather, him. This dog gave off a masculine energy I couldn’t quite put my finger on, but my gut told me it was a male.
Which, in and of itself, made my suspicions grow. “I see,” I murmured as I grabbed a new bandage roll from the first aid kit sprawled open on the floor and began re-dressing his strangely shaped wound.
Silence reigned in the room as the dog let me care for his injury, but once I was done, he raised his head and turned to look at me again, his gaze so full of . . . something. It almost looked like he was trying to send me a silent message.
I sat down on the floor and stared back at him. “You know, I work as a columnist for an online magazine called The Hallowing Hour.”
The dog kept on staring at me unblinkingly, and I held his gaze, heart racing. “I write about the truth my human brethren refuse to acknowledge.” I paused, tensing, before I added, “Such as supernatural phenomena.”
No reaction, as if the dog was containing himself on purpose.
Scowling, I pointed at his wounded back. “I can tell a sigil from a random shape, even if I don’t understand its meaning.”
Still no reaction. Instead, the dog seemed almost bored with me.
But I refused to let him win. “You’re not just a dog,” I concluded, despite my incredulity over the idea that I had really come by a supernatural creature by pure chance. “The question is, what are you?”
The dog cocked his head, like dogs did when they heard an interesting sound. But his doglike behavior didn’t work on me. His brilliant eyes were far too intelligent and sentient for him to be a normal dog.
And I wasn’t born yesterday.
“You don’t have to confirm it for me to know the truth,” I told him, narrowing my eyes as he suddenly leaned his head back down and closed his eyes. “I’ll still take care of you.”
Because—supernatural creature or not—the dog needed help. And from my extensive research of the supernatural, I knew gaining his favor would be beneficial for me in the long run.
One thing I learned early on was that the supernatural repaid what they owed, be it good or bad.
The first rays of sunlight spilled into the living room as I finished up the article and submitted it just in time. Now I was free to do some personal research.
Pulling a thick notebook from the desk drawer, I opened it, pushing my glasses up my nose, before I glanced at the sofa. The dog was fast asleep. I let him be, for now; I was definitely going to grill him about his true identity when he felt better later.
But for him to feel better, I needed to find out the nature of the sigil carved into his flesh.
I returned my gaze to the notebook. Throughout the years since my revelation that humans were not the only rational inhabitants of this earth, I’d documented the various supernatural instances and markings I’d found. Markings like the knife-carved shape on the dog’s back I’d titled sigils.
Certain aspects needed to be present in a marking for me to recognize it as a sigil. They were usually shapes created by intersections of lines, dots, and sharp corners. As for their effect, which I had deduced must be magical in nature, I could only guess based on the related context.
Unfortunately, that was the extent of my knowledge about sigils. But I did copy every one of them I encountered into my notebook and guessed their meanings.
For instance, the most common sigil I’d found was what I called the Safety Spiral.
It was a spiral made of dashes instead of a solid line, with three small dots trailing off the end like raindrops.
I had only ever found this sigil in places of business, like restaurants or clothing shops.
I interpreted it as a protective charm of sorts, like those religious blessings some people believed in.
Now, I copied the shape of the wound on paper and tried to find some sort of meaning.
The straight y-axis line appeared in some other sigils as some sort of a base to the shapes, but that was the only similarity I could find.
I had never seen multiple lines crisscrossing like that, and that single wavy line concerned me, seeing as it broke the symmetry I’d noted in almost every other sigil.
I flipped through the notebook, still trying to find marks that could resemble this one, but there was something utterly unique about the sigil carved into the dog’s flesh.
Perhaps it was a personalized sigil? I didn’t know if that was even a thing, but I already knew not to quickly jump to conclusions when it came to the supernatural.
Everything was possible when the supernatural was involved.
Sighing, I closed the notebook and tried looking up the sigil on Google. Of course, the search engine found nothing of importance.
A knock on the door made me jump ten feet high in my chair. “Jesus,” I murmured as I strode through the living room and looked through the peephole. Seeing it was Chase, I unlocked the door and opened it, glaring at him. “You gave me a fucking scare.”
Chase smirked. “Good morning to you, too, Sunshine.”
Scowling, I moved aside to let him in. He walked inside and made a beeline to the sofa, where the dog was now awake, tense, and watching Chase like a hawk. “Hello, Big Boy,” my neighbor now said, crouching near the dog’s head with a somewhat strained smile. “Aren’t you a beauty?”
Chase was right. The dog was beautiful, with his shimmering bronze coat and brilliant eyes. He was also humongous enough, and sapient enough, to have raised my suspicions about his true nature in the first place.
The dog bared his teeth at Chase, but my neighbor kept on smiling, though his dark eyes flared. “Don’t worry, I just wanted to come by and see how you’re doing,” he told the creature before he rose back up and turned to me with a self-deprecating sigh. “He doesn’t seem to like me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How did you know he’s a he?”
My neighbor shrugged. “Just a feeling,” he said nonchalantly. “I would’ve double-checked, but I fear Big Boy here won’t let me anywhere near his balls.”
Of that I was convinced too. “He doesn’t seem extremely friendly,” I agreed, closing the door and approaching Chase and the dog, whose eyes now snapped to me. “Though to be fair, I don’t think he’s a dog at all.”
“Oh no,” Chase groaned, rolling his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Here we go again.”
I scowled. “I’m being serious, Chase. He is not a mere dog. I’m sure of it.”
He let out an exaggerated sigh and sat down on the empty couch. “Do you mind making me some coffee?” he asked. “If I’m being forced to listen to your crazy talk, I should at least pump myself up with caffeine.”
Still scowling, I obliged nonetheless. Chase was probably the only friend I had, even if I didn’t appreciate him calling me crazy. Still, he deserved his coffee, especially after his help yesterday.
He wasn’t the first to call me crazy, nor would he be the last.
Once I finished brewing his coffee in the old secondhand machine, I also made a mug for myself and headed back to the living room, handing him his cup.
“Thanks,” he said, leaning back and putting his legs on the coffee table while sipping the coffee, glancing at the dog for a brief second before resting his gaze on me.
“Now, what kind of interesting idea did you come up with?”
“It’s not an idea,” I immediately corrected, frowning. “Nothing I say is a mere idea. The supernatural is real, Chase.”
I could see my neighbor fighting not to roll his eyes as he murmured skeptically, “Sure. Whatever you say.”
Huffing, I sipped my coffee and sat down on the couch, looking at the dog, who was watching me now.
“Anyway,” I said, having no intention of getting into another argument with Chase about the existence of the supernatural, “I need to call in a vet, now that it’s morning.
I think the dog needs professional care I can’t really provide. ”
The dog seemed to tense, his brilliant eyes freezing over.
“Isn’t a vet house visit expensive, though?” Chase inquired, unaware of my staring match with the alleged animal. “Why don’t you just call animal control or something?”
Without looking away, I replied, “Because I told him I would take care of him.”
Chase was quiet for a moment before he said, “It doesn’t solve the money issue, though.”
He was right. Veterinary care was extremely expensive.
Up until a few months ago, I’d had a cat.
I’d adopted him when he was a little kitten and raised him on my own.
But the cat was diagnosed with prostate cancer—which was extremely rare in cats and often diagnosed when it was at an advanced stage, which was exactly what had happened in my cat’s case.
Treatment for that wasn’t just experimental but also astronomically expensive. I couldn’t afford it. So, I had a few choices: surrender my cat, let him wither in my arms, or have someone adopt him from me, someone who could afford the treatment.
In the end, I swallowed my ego and chose the latter, handing my cat over to my filthy rich ex-boyfriend, whose only redeeming quality was his love for cats—and my cat specifically.
It had been one of the hardest decisions of my life.
Looking at the dog now, I felt the pang of sorrow hit me deep. I didn’t want to give up another stray animal I found. Sure, I suspected the dog wasn’t just a dog, but whatever he was, he was still a living being currently under my care.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to cover the costs,” I said, the resolution settling down in my gut and squeezing it. I tore my eyes away from the dog to look at Chase. “Even if it means taking on a side job.”
Chase gave me an odd look. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I answered without hesitation, because I was. I was never surer of anything in my life.
I’d let my sisters down eight years ago when I failed to protect them.
I’d let my cat go when I couldn’t afford his medical treatment.
I was sick and tired of being incapable of caring for those I cared about. And while I’d only met this dog last night, I cared about his well-being. I needed him to make it, to heal.
It was hard enough to live with myself as it was. The least I could do was lessen some of the horrible guilt I would feel for the rest of my life.