The next morning, Momo walked to school the way she did every morning, her bag slung over her shoulder, the breeze tugging gently at her school uniform.
It was a beautiful, bright day, the sky blue and cloudless, a stark contrast to the stormy darkness of her dream. Yet there were puddles on the ground and dark spots of wetness were the earth was still soaked with water.
Had it rained during the night? Everything looked like it had, but Momo's memories were fuzzy, mixed up with her unsettling dream scenario.
As she passed the playground, her gaze flitted over to the familiar scenery. A young mother from the neighborhood was there, sitting on a bench, stroller next to her while a toddler and a preschooler climbed all over the slide. Momo frowned as she remembered her strange dream. Why had the playground featured in it so prominently?
She shook her head at herself and sped up her pace.
After a few steps, she noticed a strange noise behind her, a faint clicking.
Momo stopped dead in her tracks and turned around.
There was no one in the street, only a dog. A shiba inu who looked at her with his small brown eyes. He wagged his cute curled tail a couple of times. Momo couldn't see a collar on him or anything that might indicate that he belonged to someone and when she scanned her surroundings once more she could still not see anyone but the woman and the kids at the playground who weren't paying the dog any attention.
"Um..." Momo had never seen the animal around before. She figured if he belonged to someone living close by, she would have noticed him. So what did that mean? That the dog was far from home? Perhaps lost? She'd have to be in school in less than fifteen minutes if she didn't want to be late, but she'd feel bad if she just abandoned the animal.
Momo wasn't an expert, but she'd seen plenty of shibas in her life time, mostly on tv. They were an incredibly popular breed and to her this one looked like the real deal, purebred. Perky triangular ears, fluffy round face, white around its muzzle and down its chest, curled tail.
She took a few tentative steps toward the dog. He looked up at her, his brown eyes seemingly lighting up with joy. Did he know her?
"Hey, buddy..." Momo extended her hand, not sure whether touching him might be dangerous. This was a strange dog, but he appeared healthy and friendly. "Are you lost?"
To her surprise, the dog made intense eye-contact and suddenly she heard a voice in her head.
"Momo. We must speak."
She yelped, falling back onto the wet pavement. Her bag slipped off her shoulder, landing with a dull thud next to her. "Wha—who—" Her eyes darted around wildly. The street was empty except for her and the dog, there was no one who could have spoken to her.
"It is I, Plosort," the voice continued, calm, unbothered by her reaction. "You appear surprised. Did you not expect my return?"
Momo's jaw dropped. She stared at the dog, her mind scrambling to piece together what was happening. "No way," she whispered. "No way this is real."
The shiba inu cocked his head, his tail wagging once. "You seem distressed. Have you forgotten our encounter last night?"
"Forgotten?" Momo's voice pitched higher as she scrambled to her feet and grabbed her bag. For a moment she held it in front of her like a shield. "No, I didn't forget! N-nothing happened! That was a dream! Just like this isn't happening right now! Dogs don't talk." She backed away, her eyes never leaving the fluffy creature in front of her.
"I am not normal a dog," he told her, stepping closer. "As I said, I am Plosort. I have assumed this form for ease of communication. It is visually pleasing and non-threatening to humans."
"Not to me, it isn't," Momo muttered as she turned on her heel and started marching towards the school building looming in the distance. This wasn't real and the sooner she left it behind for the calming reality of the school, the better.
Instantly, she heard the clicking of dog nails on pavement behind her. When she quickened her pace, so did the shiba inu.
Momo cast a look over her shoulder. Just as expected, the dog was right there, trailing after her, his gaze fixed on her.
"Stop it," she hissed, the words rushing out between her clenched teeth.
"I cannot. You have been chosen. You are a champion of this planet now."
"Ugh." Momo clapped her hands over her ears in an attempt to silence the strange voice ringing in her head and started running towards the school grounds. Her bag slapped rhythmically against her side, the strap sawing into her shoulder. After an embarrassingly short period of time, no more than a couple of minutes, she was out of breath, staggering to a stop, finally doubling over and panting.
Some champion I am, she caught herself thinking, then pushed the thought away because she didn't like the idea of that word planting itself in her mind. Champion. No, no, no, nope.
The shiba inu went around her and plopped itself down on its fluffy butt right in front of her as if to block her path. Momo decided that she hated the eager little look on his face, the way his eyes seemed to curve into half-moons, giving him the appearance of a joyful anime character.
"I congratulate your valiant effort, but you cannot outrun me, Momo. This new body of mine can reach speeds of up to forty kilometers per hour!"
"Shut up," Momo gasped. "You're not real. This isn't happening. Please go away before people see me arguing with a dog!" She was begging now, which wasn't great, but was probably the only option left to her.
"No one will see us. I have created a parallel bubble of existence for us to converse unobserved."
Momo straightened and pinched herself, just to make sure that she wasn't having another weird dream or hallucination.
If she'd even had one in the first place. Dammit, she was all confused now, no longer able to distinguish between what was real and what was not.
"What? What does that even mean?"
The shiba inu gave her a small jerk of his snout, indicating the world at large, it seemed. His expression was the picture of smugness. "Look around."
Grimacing in disbelief, Momo turned her head, her gaze scanning their immediate surroundings. The empty street, the playground now behind her, the school grounds further ahead. The gate was open, but there were no other students. Everything was preternaturally still and quiet. No people, no sounds of traffic, no birdsong. Not even the tiniest breeze. She held her breath, really focused on listening and watching. Nothing. There was nothing but the dull throb of her own heartbeat and the dog sitting in front of her.
Momo waited, hoping that she'd either wake up or that someone would come by to break this eerie spell or whatever it was.
She released her breath in a soft huff.
Still nothing.
The dog cocked his head, his ears flicking.
"Do you not believe me?"
A flare of anger burst like fireworks in her chest. She balled her hands into fists and stomped her foot. "Of course I don't believe you! How could I believe you? This is crazy!" The shiba inu blinked, his expression unchanged. She suspected that if he could, he would shrug his shoulders which only made her more angry as a wave of helplessness crested over her head.
"I understand that this is a confusing experience for you, but you agreed to become a champion last night. You summoned your sword and armor, taking up the mantle."
"I didn't--" Momo shook her head. She didn't want to keep this situation going. "I have to get to school, okay? I can't be late and this is a waste of time," she announced, nodding to herself.
"It is not a waste of time as time is currently in standstill," the shiba inu replied, but she'd already decided to stop listening.
Momo started walking again, determination in her steps, her back ramrod straight. She was staunchly ignoring the dog as he fell into step beside her. She would just pretend he wasn't there and maybe if she did that for long enough, he would actually vanish.
Because all problems disappear if you just don't pay attention to them, right?
Right, that's how life works, everyone knows that.
Momo bit her lip, trying to silence the sarcastic voice in her head. She kept walking, shoulders stiff, eyes on her goal. She would not look at the dog and she pushed away the sound of his paws on the pavement. Sooner or later he would give up.
The school was too quiet and empty. Momo stopped by the gate where students were supposed to stand in clusters, waiting for their friends, chatting before class. Why was she the only one here?
She glanced at her digital watch. After a few seconds, she tapped on the unchanging numbers. Nothing happened. It was frozen. Momo shook her wrist as if the frantic movement could somehow make the seconds start to tick by again, but her actions had no effect.
Despite herself, she looked down at the dog standing beside her. He wagged his tail, the expression on his face still far too cheerful.
"This isn't real," she said firmly. "None of this is really happening, but please make it go back to normal! I feel like I'm losing my mind!"
"This is real and you are not losing your mind," Momo heard the shiba inu say in his eerie voice. "It would be best if you simply accepted this fact and stopped being scared."
"That's not how human emotions work! When crazy stuff happens, we can't just accept it and move on! When aliens turn into dogs and stalk us, we get upset! That's the appropriate reaction!" Momo angrily rubbed a hand across her face, close to tears now. Here she was, doing what she'd sworn to herself she wouldn't do: arguing with a dog. A dog that might be a hallucination.
The dog/hallucination blinked. "I see..." His ears twitched. "You refuse to believe me. You are in denial. Humans are very stubborn when it comes to the denial of factual truths even when confronted with evidence, I have heard that before, but it is interesting to witness it firsthand." The dog nodded as if he had come to a great realization. He plopped its butt down on the pavement. "I shall sit here and observe your behavior until you accept your fate."
"Are you kidding me right now?!" Momo's anger was like a small dense ball of energy in her chest, radiating heat. "Go away! I want things to be normal again!" She took an uncertain step towards the dog and made a pushing gesture with her hands. "Go! Get lost! Shoo!"
The shiba inu continued to stare at her. Momo gathered her courage and tentatively reached for the scruff of his neck. She didn't actually want to hurt an animal, but she couldn't think of anything else to do. The fur was soft beneath her hand. The dog was solid and warm, a real living creature, not a hallucination. When she tugged on him, he gave a startled yelp.
"Unhand me, champion! I am your trusted guide! You must not mistreat me!"
"Or what?" Momo snapped in defiance, even as she let go. "What are you going to do if I fight you, huh? I mean, who's to say you're not an alien threat? M-maybe I should call NASA?" As the words tumbled out of her mouth, she wondered how one was supposed to do that. Could she simply google NASA and find a phone number? Was there a "Help, I had an alien encounter"-hotline? And if there was, would help come all the way to Japan?
The dog, now wide-eyed, gazed up at her, a drop of saliva clinging to his open black lips. His calm detachment and smugness seemed momentarily shattered.
"You have to trust me, champion," he beseeched her. "You simply have to."
"I don't! This is too weird!" But despite her threat, Momo wasn't ready to punch a fluffy shiba inu in the face. She could merely raise her fists and glare.
The dog huffed a breath. When he spoke, his tone was somehow even more self-important than before. "Soon, corruption will start to spread and you will see the evidence of what I told you everywhere around you. You will have to fight and it is my duty to prepare you. I cannot do that if you continue to oppose me." He puffed himself up, trying to look as imposing as something shaped like a goofy internet meme possibly could.
Momo wasn't impressed, but she lowered her fists, putting her hands on her hips. "Okay, so what is that corruption supposed to look like?" she asked. "Because the only creepy thing I'm seeing is the talking dog right in front of me!"
"Very well," he said. "You thirst for understanding. I am willing to provide the information you need."
Momo shifted uncomfortably, unsettled by this sudden agreement. "I don't like how ominous that sounds."
Plosort ignored her comment, his expression as serious as his current form allowed. "As I said, this world—your world—is under threat. A threat far greater than anything you have ever encountered. It is a being unlike any you can comprehend. A formless entity. A parasite that preys on sentient life."
Momo blinked. She looked around as if expecting the thing to pop up. Her face scrunched into a frown. "A… parasite?" She pictured ticks, fleas, leeches, just waiting to attach themselves to her, to suck her blood, drain her completely dry.
"Not in the physical sense," Plosort clarified. "This entity exists on a plane of consciousness beyond your current understanding. It is not bound by physical form. Instead, it invades the minds of its victims, preying on their desires, their dreams, and their innermost wishes."
Momo stared at the dog, her hands falling from her hips, smoothing down her skirt in an unconscious, nervous movement. "What do you mean, 'preying on their desires'? Desires aren't made of anything but thoughts and feelings. How could something eat them?"
Plosort's ears flicked back. "It's not that the desires are being eaten. They merely serve as a tool. The entity creates a world within the mind of its host. A false reality where everything they have ever wanted is theirs—love, power, recognition, peace, whatever their heart craves most deeply. The victim becomes trapped in this illusion, unable to distinguish it from reality."
"That doesn't sound terrible," Momo said cautiously. She herself had found herself lying in bed, wishing she could dream forever. "I mean, if they're happy…"
"They are not happy," Plosort interrupted, his voice sharp. "The illusion is a prison. While the host is distracted by this false paradise, the entity siphons their life energy, feeding on their very essence. What remains of them in the real world is a husk—an empty shell, stripped of autonomy. These shells become its servants, spreading its influence and carrying out its bidding."
Momo's stomach twisted into acidic knots. "So… it's like turning people into zombies?"
"In a manner of speaking," Plosort said. "But these 'zombies,' as you call them, are still alive. They feel no pain, no sorrow, no joy. They exist only to serve the entity's will."
Momo wrapped her arms around herself, trying to process what she was hearing. She looked at the school building sitting eerily in front of her. If this was a dream, it felt way too real and if it wasn't... It still didn't make sense.
"Why Earth? Why us?"
Plosort sighed, a huge release of air that spoke of long suffering.
"Your planet is abundant with life, rich in emotional and mental energy. To the entity, it is a banquet," he explained. "Its arrival here was an accident. It escaped from an intergalactic prison, a containment field designed to keep it isolated from all sentient life. But when the field broke down, it drifted through the void until it found Earth."
Momo chewed on her lower lip. This sounded like some manga plot, a made-up story for kids, not something that could ever happen in real life. "And now it's… what, hiding somewhere and picking people off one by one?" Her voice was dripping with disbelief. In truth, all she wanted was to wake up and find herself in bed again.
"Precisely," Plosort said. "It is already here, spreading its influence. It starts small—isolated victims, subtle manipulations. But its power grows with every mind it consumes. If left unchecked, it will not stop until every living being on this planet is under its control. You will start seeing unfortunate souls caught in its web soon enough."
Momo stared at him, her head spinning. "And you… you're here to stop it?" Her gaze returned to the dog sitting before her. He was such a small creature. The thought of a single shiba inu battling some intergalactic monster was ridiculous.
"I am here to stop it," Plosort said firmly. "But I cannot do it alone. That is why I chose you."
"Me," Momo said, her voice flat. So they were back to that.
"Yes," Plosort said. "You have the potential to wield the power needed to combat the entity. Your resilience, your ability to endure in the face of hardship—it makes you uniquely suited to this task."
Momo let out a hollow laugh. It was half disbelief and half derision. "Resilience? You've got the wrong person. I can barely get through school without embarrassing myself. I'm not some hero." She didn't want to go into detail about how pathetic her life really was and she shouldn't have to. Even if she had been the best of her class, the most accomplished or whatever, she was still an eighteen-year-old high school girl. She shouldn't be anyone's choice for defender of the planet. That was madness! Actual adults existed! People with experience, skills and training! Police officers, soldiers, astronauts! She was about to say that but Plosort was already shaking his head.
"You are more capable than you believe," he told her. "The entity thrives on despair and desire, but it cannot control those who confront their fears and accept themselves for who they truly are. That is your strength, Momo, even if you do not see it yet."
Momo scuffed her shoe against the pavement. "What if no one does anything?"
"Your world will fall," Plosort said simply. "Humanity will become the entity's puppets, and Earth will be drained of all life. When the entity has consumed everything, it will move on to the next world, leaving behind a dead, empty shell of a planet."
Momo swallowed hard. "Awesome, no pressure or anything."
"You are not alone in this," Plosort said, his voice softening. "I will guide you. Together, we can fight back. But you must be willing to accept this responsibility and trust me."
"What if I can't? You expect me to believe a talking dog..." she muttered. "I haven't seen any zombies or evil entities, for all I know, I'm just losing my mind. Or you're pranking me or something..."
Plosort's voice was gentle but firm. "You will, Momo. You will encounter the entity's prey soon enough. It will be shocking."
Momo stood in silence for a long moment, the absurdity of her situation sending spikes of anxiety through her body. She wanted to eject herself out of this entire thing, but she could tell the dog would not leave her alone. Whatever this creature was, it had decided to invade Momo's life.
"You're not going to go away, no matter how much I beg, are you?" she asked glumly and the shiba inu shook his head.
"Can you at least let me go to school?"
He nodded.
"I will be by your side, Momo. I fear that the entity is already close..."
Momo sighed. There was no need for a shiba inu to talk so ominously.
Well, there was no need for a shiba inu to talk period, so what did it matter anyway.
She squared her shoulders and with a strange plop Plosort's little time bubble burst.
There was birdsong and a breeze, chatting students passing Momo on their way through the gate and if it hadn't been for the shiba inu still sitting in front of her, Momo would have thought that she'd once again awakened from a strange dream.