Love at First Sight

A love story as old as time. A girl and her twin meet a dog-shadow-thing. 

Set about 15 years (give or take a year or two) before the start of Speaker, when the Speaker and the Seer are 10 years old. 2nd person, no pronouns used for the Speaker and Seer is referred to only as "your sister"

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“Are you sure this is the place?” you ask nervously.

“You know I can’t tell you that,” your sister replies, but she keeps moving forward in a way that gives you your answer anyway.

You shouldn’t be here. Or at least you should have told your parents first. They think you’re at Li’s house for the night - and you will be, once you’re done here, but Li is covering for you until then. It’s so rare your twin has a vision that takes place in Nivio that no number of warnings about the danger would be enough to keep you away.

Your progress is slowed by a crooked chain link fence, old enough that it’s started to rust at the edges, the top of it sagging under the weight of time but the gaps at the bottom are big enough to squeeze through. Behind it is a house in much the same state, the paint faded to an off-gray and chipped and peeling, the roof sunken and windows broken and boarded up. From somewhere nearby you hear something dripping, though you don’t know what the source could possibly be on a sunny day like this.

Your sister has stopped a few feet back, the telltale expression of concern and helpless frustration on her face meaning you’ve found the boundaries of the vision. Until whatever she foresaw has finished happening, this is the closest she can get. You turn to tell her you’ll be right back, but you never get the chance.

There’s a bright flash of light and a sound like a bad recording of thunder, all bass and static and loud enough that you feel it in your bones. Your twin collapses as if she’s the one struck by lightning, and you forget your mission immediately, running over to make sure she’s okay.

She lets you help her to her feet, though you can’t hear what she says over the ringing in your ears. You try to tell her that, but you can’t hear your own voice either. She just shakes her head and takes your hand, pulling you along toward the house.

She steps over the boundary that previously held her back without so much as a blink. Whatever vision she had, it’s already over. You missed it.

The ringing in your ears starts to subside as you step into the dilapidated house. It shows no sign of being struck by lightning, though you don’t know what signs of being struck by lightning look like. You also don’t know if that’s what actually happened - lightning can’t come from a clear sky, can it?

“Is that what you Saw?” you ask your sister, once you can hear yourself again. You hope you’re whispering, but you aren’t sure you can tell anymore. “Someone getting hit with lightning?”

“No one got hit,” she says. “The house was empty, and then there was a bright light and something was there. I don’t know what.”

Oh. Well, that’s nice and ominous.

Hand-in-hand, you creep through the house as quietly as possible. The floorboards are oddly spongy under your shoes, but they don’t make any noise as you move through the dim interior.

The living room is well-lit by the sunlight streaming in through the hole in the roof, and your sister pulls you to a stop at the edge of it.

There’s something there, she mouths, pointing, and you squint into the circle of light to try and see what she does. The irony of that is not lost on you.

There is… something. It doesn’t look like any living thing you’ve ever seen, and in fact, you would almost think it wasn’t living, if not for the steady sound of breathing.

What is that?

"What is that?" your sister asks, voicing your thoughts as she takes a hesitant step forward.

You have no idea. From this far away, it mostly resembles a poorly-doused campfire, if campfires could breathe. But there's something about the shape of it that's familiar. It almost looks like... "A dog."

"I've never seen a dog like that before."

At the sounds of your voices, the smoking campfire/maybe-dog shifts, opening one eye. Or, you think it’s an eye. It’s a pinpoint of red light, as hazy as the rest of the form but you definitely get the feeling you’re being watched.

“Hey,” you say, trusting your instincts that this smoke dog thing doesn’t mean you any harm. “It’s okay. We won’t hurt you.”

It stands, fast enough to have you scrambling backwards with a yelp, but it doesn’t move toward you. It - he; you don’t know why, but you feel like it’s a he - just stands there in the middle of the room, watching you.

He resembles a dog the same way a will-o-wisp resembles a lightbulb. The same general shape, perhaps even a similar purpose, but so many more teeth. So much more intelligence in his pinlight eyes than in any dog you’ve ever met. Maybe even more than in some humans you know.

He seems to fill the room, the actual size of him impossible to tell when he’s more smoke than he is substance, but as you watch, he shrinks and solidifies until he’s about the size and shape of a German Shepherd. Shadows still trail off his tail and drip from his lolling tongue, but he resembles something just left of familiar now, and you find yourself relaxing just a little.

You manage to stay calm when he moves again, even though this time he does move toward you. He stops about a foot away and sits down, watching you and your sister. Waiting for you to move.

Your sister is the one that moves first. She holds out a hand toward the dog-thing, and he presses his nose into her palm, the shadows behind him waving as if he’s wagging his tail.

Your sister giggles, and you know then and there that you have a new pet.

You reach out now too, putting a hand on top of his head. He’s warmer than you expected, and more solid, but not solid like an actual dog. More like petting a vaguely fluffy clay figure before the clay is fully dry - there’s more give than there should be, if he had bones or inhabited a fully physical form.

You wish you could say that this is the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to you, but even at ten years old that isn’t the case.

What you do say is, “You know Mom’s not gonna let us keep him.”

“We’ve got the rest of tonight to figure something out,” your sister says conspiratorially. “First things first. You think Li can help us smuggle him past Mama?”