Tw - mild gore, reference to death
I was dead. I knew that even if just by looking at the wasteland before me, crumbling bushes sprouting from the dehydrated soil.
I had just expected a bit more from the afterlife, something along the lines of endless gardens, with apple, peach, and pear trees, with sweet-scented flowers and wooden benches sprinkled here and there for people to sit on with a cup of coffee on their laps. Or, why the hell not, a cauldron of boiling lava.
As always, I was wrong. Running experiments with werewolves in the dead of night hadn't been the best decision either. How was I supposed to know they were suckers for nicotine?
My fingers lingered on my throat, checking for the gash Marcus' fangs had left on my jugular. Was Marcus his name? It was something with an M, that much I knew. It didn't matter anymore, anyway. Death has a nasty habit of putting things into perspective and outshining the miracle of life.
I walked across the wasteland, muscles tensing as I passed every dry bush. The sky was grey, the soil was grey, even my hands were grey. My eyes, unaccustomed to such a plain landscape, smarted in their sockets, emitting a dull throb inside my brain. My ears rang like the toll of a monastery bell, warning me I was walking through uncharted territory.
The beginning of a nasty headache.
Hurray for me.
Destination unknown, I kept roaming the empty wasteland, my brain as frozen like the scenery around me. I couldn't form any coherent thoughts, but instinct urged me to continue trudging along, as if stopping equaled certain death.
In this weather, I had a hard time disproving it.
I'm fairly sure I even fell asleep at one time, but don't take my word for it. Do dead people even need sleep?
My feet stopped of their own accord and my eyelids unglued themselves so that I could balk at whatever had made my brain halt.
A cottage. Small, built from a fairytale blueprint, with a portico and a welcome mat. The windows were smashed in and there was no door, but it was the first sign that someone – maybe? – had been there. No roof either. Whoever had built this had been a lousy architect.
It was a miracle they had found wood to build it with. Although inside the planks, mold had found its dreamscape residence.
Uncaring of any dangers lurking in the shadows, I entered the house and pushed away the cobwebs, making a mental inventory of what was missing. No bed. No chairs. No fireplace. There were, however, a table and a few mugs. A bowl, chipped and dusty, thrown in a corner.
I crouched and grabbed a lump of dust on the ground, extricating a couple of hairs from it. Someone had definitely been there, but those weren't human hairs. They were much too coarse, and I had worked with animals for too long not to be able to tell the difference.
A beast – maybe a pet – had slept in there too. Knowing my luck, it was probably still alive.
I dropped the lump and turned to exit the house. A massive form filled the space of the non-door, taller than the house. A paw. With claws as big as my forearm and sharper than steel. My eyes followed its calf until it melted into its body. Torso became furry chest; furry chest became trunk-thick neck. No...necks. Three necks.
Three heads with three maws, all growling at me, grey saliva dripping on the floor. Six eyes, the color of ash, glared at me from a hairy face. Six ears listened to my uneven breath, as I struggled not to make any menacing sound, lest I anger the dog.
I had read in thousands of books how the last Cerberus had been killed and dismembered, but it never occurred to me dogs have an afterlife too.
I guess, when dealing with magic, you should be prepared for anything.
My mind played images of a Cereberi army toying with me as I searched for a hiding spot and found none.
I burped.
I do that when I'm nervous.
The beast glowered at me as if I had hurt his feelings with my indecency. How dare I burp in front of him?
I burped again.
Cerberus' three tongues lolled out and a rumble vibrated from his belly. My diaphragm thrummed in return and I felt a strange connection with him as if he and I were more alike than different.
Death can really screw with your mind.
I almost didn't see him coming. He was so huge and I was so lost in those eyes that, for a moment, I forgot he was a dog and, like any dog, just before he attacks, his muscles tense and his eyes covered with a sheen of malevolence only an animal can have.
Humans don't have that look before they kill you. Humans smile.
Three heads lunged to grab me, wrecking wood. I dived towards the foot blocking the doorway, managing, by a millimeter, to push my way out. Stumbling and nearly tripping over my feet, I ran in zigzags, laughing at my own ridiculous attempt at evading an enormous dog on a grey wasteland.
If I get reincarnated, I should put this in my resume.
Behind me, a rhythmic thudding was the sole evidence I was being chased. I threw myself on the ground and rolled, hoping the dog would get carried by its own momentum and it wouldn't notice my disappearance.
Cerberus skidded to a halt and rested a massive paw right beside my head.
Slobber dripped on my right cheek.
"Hi," I stammered, holding in a silent scream when a giant nose sniffed my hair.
A whiff of my perfume; he sneezed.
Maybe he's friendly, I found myself thinking of the last dog I had owned, a feisty chihuahua named Pebbles, due to grey fur and an unhealthy obsession of chewing stones. I raised a shivering hand to pet Cerberus gently on the snout as he continued to sniff me, thick mucus dripping on my face.
I choked and diverted my attention back to him.
There was no way to tell how he would react if I barfed on him.
"Huh," I whispered when the snout pushed back, a gesture I had only seen in horses before. "You're cute. In a terrifying, probably fatal way."
His eyes – I had to crane my neck to check – were the brown eyes of a German Shepherd, intelligence, mixed with amusement, brimming from his irises as he watched me smile.
His pupils – dilated with curiosity – showed a frightened girl, staring back at him, face red from exertion.
"Hi," I said, a bit louder, exuding the friendliest energy I could muster.
Three tongues lolled out as he lifted his heads and sat back.
The sky was still grey.
I was alive.
I covered my mouth with both my hands, wary that I would scare him with my victory shout and engineered my way up, looking at the rows of needle-point claws. My finger traced one and he flinched at my touch but didn't move or growl.
"You're a good boy, aren't you? I crooned, feeling more at ease with every passing minute. "Do you have a name?"
Cerberus stood up and I took a step back, holding back my fear.
He was friendly...wasn't he?
He could have eaten me before.
My paranoia turned out to be just that when he lay down so he could take a better look at me and offer me a million-dollar smile, that doggie grin everyone loves to see, heart-melting and tear-sprouting.
My chest tightened when I saw it.
"You're a piece of work, aren't you?" my pup-voice came back, and I scratched the top of one of the snouts.
Two more prodded my sides, fighting for supremacy.
"You need a name, don't you? What should we call you, huh?"
A thousand names demanded my attention, from family favorites to gross but oddly comforting. He appeared to like none of them, growling whenever I mentioned a new one.
"Mozart?"
Who names a dog Mozart? He growled.
"Nelson?"
Yuck. He growled again.
"Nicko?"
Another displeased growl.
This was impossible. Then it hit me. This was the afterlife.
And everything was...grey.
"Ash?"
His ears perked up and a bark sent me whirling to the ground. I laughed and yelped when a tongue rolled down my clothes, thick saliva washing off the dust.
"Ash," I muttered, keeping my mouth half-closed, so the slobber wouldn't find a way past my lips.
My thoughts drifted to the cottage he had caught me in, to an empty hearth and a bowl.
"Let's go home, buddy."