It was midnight on a Friday. The Moon hung low in the sky, shining down on the Golden Bough Shopping Center, a beautiful example of urban decay. Jordan Moss squatted by a chain link fence, taking deep, even breaths. She desperately wanted to put on some music, some Brian Eno or something else just to calm her down, but she knew that she needed to save battery life in case of an emergency. Why, though? What kind of emergency? What, really, did she need her battery life for? The cops would probably just shoot her if she called them. And if she had anyone else she felt safe turning to she wouldn't be breaking into an abandoned mall. But it was still an emergency flashlight and she could still use Google Maps and things. There were numerous uses to a phone. She couldn't waste battery playing calming music.
But didn't she need to calm herself? She was in a panic. This came to her in a flash. Her heart was racing, she was breathing manually, her legs were shaking, she was sweating, etc. What the fuck was she doing? She should just find a homeless shelter. Or off herself. Or call a hotline because she was even thinking about offing herself. But all of that felt like too much effort. She felt like she had no idea what to do. She felt like she would rather just collapse in on herself rather than do anything. Even continuing on into the abandoned mall to have shelter for the night, which in itself was like a non-choice, seemed impossible.
Jordan fell back, wrapping her arms around her legs. She was shaking. This wasn't possible. This wasn't real. She'd gone to a good school, she'd done well, she'd had prospects, she'd had a plan, etc. Why was this happening? Why did it all just fizzle out? How did she let it fizzle out? What was happening? Why was she even running away from home? Because she couldn't take it anymore. But why? She felt trapped--trapped by expectations, by the alien dreams forced upon her. But weren't they her dreams, too? No. They were his dreams. But he hadn't questioned anything. He'd been a naive fool. Who was she then? Who was she supposed to be? Wasn't she him? Or rather, wasn't he her?
It broke her brain. She lost all control of her breathing--just full hyperventilating. Tears were running down her face, but that was good, that was comforting, that was incredible, that was proof that the pills were doing something and it made her smile for a second, but that just made her wonder again why she was doing such an asinine thing as running away from home at the age of 22 (as if there was such a thing, surely she was too old for the concept to apply?).
Lying there, in the light of the moon, tears trickling, body shaking, Jordan felt something wet and soft against her skin, lapping at her face. Involuntarily, she let out a little giggle. The shock of recognition at this expression of girlishness, a kind of deep sense of identification with herself, sent a shiver through her and she found her breathing immediately slowed, her body immediately still (or as close to still as her body got).
She wiped the tears from her face, immediately cursing herself when she realized she'd probably just ruined her eye shadow. Another lick though and another giggle and she felt that warm tingling sensation run through her body. Turning over, she found herself face to face with a large, black dog, wolflike with intelligent, yellow eyes. Though unaccompanied, the dog was well-groomed and--Jordan blinked--wore a gold pentacle around their neck, a circular talisman with a pentagram inscribed upon it. The dog panted happily, seemingly oblivious to any sinister connotations to their appearance.
"Cute little doggo," Jordan sniffed, sitting up and reaching over to scratch behind the dog's ears.
They whimpered appreciatively.
Jordan's look of consternation softened into a smile. She pressed her legs together happily. "Good little pupper." God, she was cringe.
The dog shut their eyes as she kept scratching more vigorously. Jordan lost track of time for a moment, just concentrating on this strange wolfdog and enjoying how much they were enjoying being scratched.
Finally leaning back--to an annoyed whine by the dog--Jordan decided in her classic impulsive way to make it her life's work to reunite this dog with their owner. Because of course this dog had an owner. Pentacles don't just grow on trees, do they?
She stood up, keeping one hand on the dog's collar in case they tried to run off. It couldn't have been long since this dog had been lost, given how well-groomed they were. She supposed the first thing a dog would do when separated from their owner would be to roll around in some muck. But then again, she had only had one dog in her life, so maybe she was just a particularly mucky dog.
A few seconds passed before Jordan decided that her precious battery life, though more important than protecting her fragile mental health, wasn't as important as her new quest, which had quickly become the only thing that mattered to her since the alternative was facing up to the consequences of her own actions. She waited for her phone to power up and was immediately sent reeling back to the ground by a flood of missed messages and calls from her parents, telling her how worried they were, asking where she was, just saying that they loved her, that they weren't mad, etc. It was a veritable flood of passive aggressive shaming and deadnaming.
The dog, seemingly instinctively, began lapping at her hand. The regular sensory stimulation seemed to calm her slightly and she redoubled her efforts. Jordan's own problems could wait, she had a dog to save! Quickly, she installed a well-known neighborhood networking app and started a post in all caps (reasonable looking posts probably got ignored--people only went on these apps to gawk at weirdos, or so she assumed). She went over to snap a pic and finish off the post, but what she saw in her phone made her recoil in horror.
It was a middle-aged man, semi-erect, on all fours, naked, bald (completely hairless, in fact), tongue lolling out and eyes staring right at her.
Her entire body froze. Breathing seemed impossible. She dropped her phone to the ground, leaving him to pick it up with his mouth.
The world seemed to close in around her. It wasn't just that she had seen a middle-aged man through her phone when her eyes saw a dog, it was that the man looked strangely familiar. Almost like her father. Almost like her mother. A lot like her grandfather. Almost like...
She collapsed, arms once again wrapped around her legs, hyperventilating, shaking uncontrollably. She heard her voice murmuring. It sounded deep. So deep. So monotone. So...
The dog kept licking her. But its tongue, its wet, smooth tongue, she knew that it was his tongue, which of course meant that it was her tongue, and some disgusting part of her brain was trying to decide what made a tongue "feminine" or "masculine" and the fact that that was ridiculous didn't make it any less painful because Jesus fucking Christ she would find any excuse to hurt herself, wouldn't she?!
"Sit, boy," came a smooth, commanding voice. The horrible licking stopped.
Jordan blinked. She started to breathe normally again. Then it struck her that she had understood "boy" as addressed to her and that made her start shaking all over again.
"Stop that!" the voice shouted and snapped their fingers.
Jordan's body shut down. The noise seemed to reverberate through her, drowning out everything. Immediately, her attention started to dissipate. Her mind started fading.
The voice laughed maniacally. "Oh, you're a natural, girl! Now sit up!"
A wave of tingles went down Jordan's spine at the praise. And "sit up" was less of a command and more of a statement. She simply was sitting up.
Breathing deeply now, eyes wide open, Jordan saw a tall woman standing in the moonlight, wearing a long black dress which showed off her ample cleavage. Her head, she saw, was round and her face full but with deep set, dark red eyes which seemed to sparkle. Black spikes extended from beneath her curly red hair. In each hand she held a torch and from her waist a set of keys hung from a cord. The dog sat patiently at her feet.
