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 dogwasbeautiful, with his shimmering bronze coat and brilliant eyes. He was also humongous enough, andsapientenough, 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 ahe?”
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 ofinterestingidea did you come up with?”
“It’s not an idea,” I immediately corrected, frowning. “Nothing I say is a mere idea. The supernatural isreal, 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?”
