Ghostly dog

Lara was one of those annoyingly cheerful people who wake up easily and with a smile. That day was no different; she turned off the alarm a minute before it was set to ring and stretched with vigor. She had been dreaming of something wonderful: vast, ancient halls, candles flickering in the darkness, semi-transparent silhouettes bowing in reverence, and, most importantly — Him. Her imagination had kindly sketched him as the "archetypal dark lord": gaunt as a skeleton, pale, tall, yet with a magnificent mane of black hair and an aura of immense power. Like any proper dark lord, he was wreathed in a gloomy shimmer, his eyes sparkled like molten gold—as if anyone had ever seen actual gold, let alone molten, in real life—and he held a magical staff that looked suspiciously like a fish fork. "If only I never had to wake up," Lara smiled dreamily, recalling how the dark lord had looked at her. "Ooh! Goosebumps! And he was so handsome," she buried her smiling face in the pillow, but soon frowned. "No, I can't think like that. I have a boyfriend. We love each other. I shouldn't be thinking about others, even if they are gorgeous. Then again, it was just a dream. That's definitely not cheating or anything of the sort." Lara brushed the fantasies aside and finally got out of bed. She blinked in surprise: a vase with a strange lilac-blue flower stood on the windowsill. The flower drooped sadly, shedding its petals: three already lay around the vase, and one had fallen to the floor. A chill ran down Lara's spine. This was strange. Once or twice in her life, her mother had bought flowers for herself—but she always put them in the living room, not her daughter's bedroom. Besides, her mother liked gerberas, and this lone, sorrowful bloom was unfamiliar to Lara. And who would ever think to buy a withering flower? "Curiouser and curiouser," Lara marveled, getting dressed slowly. "I hope I haven't stumbled into some horror movie. All it needs is some ominous background music," she smiled at the silly thought and looked up a playlist called "Ominous Music." Lara sometimes enjoyed giving her nerves a little tickle. Another surprise awaited her as she left the house: sitting opposite the gate was a mangy, skinny black dog, who in better days might have been some kind of wolfhound, drilling Lara with an unblinking, sorrowful gaze. Stray dogs were a rarity in their private neighborhood, and this one might as well have been wearing a sign that read "I belong to no one." "Now that's a grim!" Lara exclaimed, amused by the sudden coincidences. The dog tilted its head, as if puzzled. "Well, a giant dog, a harbinger of doom, a cemetery ghost,"—the dog certainly resembled a ghost, or a skeleton. Especially when it rose to its feet and trotted towards her—all skin and bones. "No, no, don't come closer!" she shielded herself with her backpack. "What if you're flea-ridden!" The dog obediently sat back down and looked at Lara as if she had broken its heart. She felt a pang of guilt. "Hey, come on. Do you want some sausage?" It wasn't good to feed strays; they could form packs and start attacking people, but Lara felt sorry for the dog. It had a sorrowful life: kicked out by its owners, or perhaps never having had any, hungry, cold, chased away from everywhere. She almost cried, moved by the tragic fate she had just imagined for the unfortunate grim. "Here, take it," Lara rummaged in her backpack and threw down some sausage from her sandwiches. "Good boy." The dog wagged its tail and devoured the offering in two bites. "You're not a grim," Lara sighed. "You poor thing. I'd take you in, but my mom would never allow it. She doesn't like dogs." The dog also seemed to sigh and plodded along the road beside her, not trying to get closer, but not running away either. Lara's heart ached; she felt like a traitor, as if she had tempted the poor animal with a glimpse of a better life only to turn her back on it. "I can't, I just can't, mom won't allow it," she repeated to herself, but her conscience gnawed at her nonetheless. "Did you see that dog that followed me? Horribly skinny," she complained to her friend, catching up with her at the school gate. "Dog? What dog?" her friend blinked in surprise. "We came different ways." "But he's right there, sitting by the gate," Lara gestured towards the dog, which seemed to be waiting for her. "There's no one there." "Are you kidding?" Her friend looked at her as if she were insane. "Did you not get enough sleep? Come on, let's get to class before we're late." Lara allowed herself to be led away, glancing back at the dog every minute. Either they were trying to prank her, or she really should have turned off that ominous music.

***

The dog did not disappear. It accompanied Lara to and from school, followed her to the shops, ate sausage and gnawed on bones, and still, no one but Lara could see it. And she didn't know whether she was losing her mind or if a very peaceful and miserable harbinger of death was genuinely trailing her. The sausage did the grim no good; it still resembled a black, woolly skeleton. The vase with the withering flower stood on the windowsill — and Lara's mother had no idea where it came from and demanded she throw out the "ugly trash." Lara liked the flower, even though it evoked a sense of dread: she honestly took it out of the house once — and found it back on the windowsill the next day. The petals kept falling and falling, but new ones seemed to grow in their place. Or someone was replacing the flower every night — and it was hard to say which was more terrifying, because Lara had already started imagining the flower drinking blood and mending summer clothes to sustain its own life. "Well, at least my mom can see the flower," Lara complained to the grim, sitting down on the porch. "Admit it, was it you who brought it?" The skeletal dog curled up into a cozy ball beside her and snored peacefully. "It's a shame you can't talk," she sighed. "You could at least explain who you are: my godfather escaped from prison, a bad omen, or just the result of a fanfiction overdose." The dog didn't even twitch an ear. "Hey, I'm talking to you, you know," Lara feigned indignation, half-joking. "If I'm the Chosen One, you could just say so. You know, in my final year I don't have much time for saving the world; I have exams to take. Mind you, if your apocalypse is scheduled for my English exam, I'm not coming! Sort it out yourselves." The dog, obviously, was deeply indifferent to exams. "Or have I actually gone mad? Huh?" Lara reached out and, for the first time, carefully touched the dog's coarse fur. Well, her hallucination was quite tangible. The dog trustingly wagged its tail, lolled out a pink tongue, and pressed against her hand. "Wow, wanted a dog so badly I ended up with a grim," Lara laughed. "It's actually convenient. Mom can't see it. And she doesn't complain. What do you say, Padfoot?" The dog lifted its head and suddenly let out a piercing bark. A lapdog in a neighboring yard started yapping, a Great Dane across the road began to howl. Lara felt a terrible, piercing cold — and saw the very man from her dream standing by the gate. He was gaunt as a skeleton, pale, tall, with yellow eyes, dressed in something resembling a black cloak. He looked at her with an inviting, yearning gaze, filled with centuries of suffering. And he was silent.