1. The Dying Thing in the Clearing

The creature was roughly the size of a man, maybe a bit larger, but its limbs were wrong. Too long. Too curved. Its hands—if that’s what they were—ended in black claws that caught the light. Its chest rose and fell in shallow, labored breaths.

Its head was the worst thing.

It was canine, unmistakably so—long snout, angular jaw, ears that would have stood tall if they weren’t slicked back. But the eyes…

The eyes were human.

Not in shape—they were still the gold-amber of a predator—but in the way they moved, the way they focused. They tracked Scout and Ethan with the awareness of someone who knew exactly what it meant to be seen.

Scout barked once, a sharp, alarmed sound, then fell strangely quiet. Her tail was low, but she did not cower. Instead, she stood between Ethan and the creature, muscles taut, as if unsure whether to protect him or the thing on the ground.

 

 

The creature tried to rise.

A wet, gurgling snarl tore from its throat. One hind leg kicked uselessly, the other twisted at an angle that made Ethan’s stomach turn. The fur along its flank was burned away in places, exposing charred, blackened flesh.

A gunshot wound, he realized distantly. Or something like it. Something had ripped into this thing with serious intent.

“Easy,” Ethan said automatically, as if speaking to an injured dog. “Don’t move. You’ll make it worse.”

Stupid. He didn’t know what “worse” meant for whatever this was.

The creature’s gaze snapped to him.

For a heartbeat, the world seemed to narrow to those eyes.

Pain lived in them. And something else.

Recognition.

Ethan took an involuntary step back, breath clouding in the cooling air.

“You… can understand me?” he asked, feeling ridiculous for saying it.

The creature’s chest hitched. Its lips pulled back, revealing long, yellowed teeth.

Then, in a voice that sounded like gravel rolled over broken glass, it spoke.

“Help… me.”

The word wasn’t quite right. The consonants were shredded, the vowels dragged. But it was undeniably English.

Ethan froze.

Scout whined.

“Okay,” Ethan said, because what else was there to say when something that should not exist asked you for help? “Okay. Just… don’t bite me, alright?”

He took a cautious step forward, hands raised, palms open.

“Where are you hurt?” he asked.

The creature made a noise halfway between a cough and a growl. Blood sprayed the leaves.

“Everywhere,” it rasped.

Up close, Ethan could see more clearly: there were bullet wounds—three at least—in its side, dark and oozing. One shoulder had been torn open by something larger, jagged, as if it had been hit by a car or hurled against a tree. Its breathing rattled wetly, the way his grandfather’s had in hospice when the pneumonia set in.

He knew that sound.

It was the sound of a body failing.

“You need a vet. Or a doctor,” Ethan muttered. “Christ, I can’t exactly take you to an ER.”

The creature’s lips twitched.

“No… time,” it said. “Listen.”

Ethan stared.

“You’re dying,” he said bluntly. “I can try—”

“Listen,” it repeated, with a sudden force that made Scout flinch.

The creature’s eyes bored into his.

“I don’t…” Ethan began, then stopped. “Fine. I’m listening.”

The thing sagged back against the logs, as if that small exertion had drained it.

“You’re… Ethan,” it rasped.

A cold line traced down his spine.

“How do you know my name?”

It gave a ragged, wheezing sound that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t hurt so much.

“We’ve… met,” it said. “Not like this.”

“I’d remember,” Ethan said, because how does one forget meeting a talking… whatever this was?

“You wouldn’t,” the creature said. “You were… six.”

He opened his mouth to deny it, but memory flickered at the edge of his mind: a childhood summer at his grandparents’ cabin; being told not to wander too far into the woods; getting lost anyway. The feel of roots under his small sneakers, the taste of panic rising.

And something else.

Standing at the treeline near the cabin, a shadow larger than any dog he had ever seen, watching. Golden eyes, unblinking.

He had told his parents later that he’d seen a “big wolf man.” They’d laughed. Called it imagination. His mother had ruffled his hair and said, “Maybe it was the Big Bad Wolf keeping an eye on you.”

Ethan had believed them.

Until now.

“Impossible,” he whispered.

The creature’s nostrils flared.

“You smell… the same,” it said. “Fear. Soap. Pine.”

“What are you?” Ethan asked.

The thing coughed, blood bubbling at the corner of its jaws.

“Some call us Dogmen,” it said. “Others… worse. We were hunters once. Guardians.” It grimaced. “Now… monsters. Stories parents tell their children to keep them close to the fire.”

Ethan shook his head, as if he could dislodge the insanity.

“This is insane,” he muttered. “I’m talking to a cryptid.”

“You’re… talking to a dying one,” the creature corrected, with a flash of dark humor. “Which means I have… nothing to lose by telling you… the truth.”

2. The Truth Beneath the Trees

The forest seemed to lean in, as if the very branches were listening.

Ethan knelt, despite every instinct screaming at him to keep his distance. Scout mirrored him, lowering herself but staying alert, her gaze flicking from Ethan to the creature and back.

“What truth?” Ethan asked warily.

The creature shifted, muscles trembling. The effort clearly cost it.

“First,” it said, “you need to know… we are not what you think.”

“I don’t know what to think,” Ethan shot back. “You’re a walking horror movie.”

“Hollywood’s… version,” the Dogman rasped. “Ugly. Senseless. A beast who kills because… script demands it.”

“You don’t?” Ethan asked. “Kill, I mean?”

The creature’s eyes flickered.

“I have killed,” it said plainly. “Just as you have killed fish, or rabbits, or… men in uniform have killed in war. I am not innocent. But I am not… mindless.”

“Then what are you?” Ethan pressed.

The creature’s gaze drifted upward, following the line of a crow’s silhouette against the dimming sky.

“Old,” it said softly. “Older than your cities. Not as old as the trees, but we remember when there were more shadows and fewer lights. When humans still listened… when their skin felt the wind as language.”

“Poetic for a Dogman,” Ethan muttered.

“A dying brain gets… dramatic,” the creature wheezed, humor ghosting through its voice. “We were… chosen, once. To stand between things. Between your world and… others.”

“Others,” Ethan echoed.

“Things that aren’t supposed to cross,” it said. “Sometimes, they try. Sometimes, they succeed. We hunt those. That was… our purpose.”

“Like supernatural border patrol?” Ethan said, unable to keep the skepticism from his tone.

“If you like,” the creature replied. “Your words… are clumsy for what is real. But it will do.”

Ethan thought of the scars on its body, old ones beneath the fresh wounds. Long, jagged lines that spoke of claws and teeth and weapons not made in any factory.

“If that’s true,” he said slowly, “then what happened to you? Who did this?”

“Humans,” the Dogman said. No bitterness colored the word; it was more like resignation. “Your kind. Hunters who… thought they’d found a monster. Men who carved silver into bullets because someone online told them… that’s what works.”

“You’re allergic to silver?” Ethan asked, absurdly.

“Aren’t you… allergic to knives?” the creature countered. “To fire? To holes where your organs should be?”

“Fair point,” Ethan admitted.

“The first shot… was an accident,” the Dogman continued. “They saw me at the edge of their camp. Scared. Trigger pulled. The rest…” It trailed off.

“They tracked you,” Ethan guessed. “Like you were a trophy.”

The creature’s jaw clenched.

“They didn’t understand,” it said. “We keep worse things… from their doors. They shot the lock and called it… victory.”

“Worse things than you?” Ethan asked.

The creature’s eyes met his again.

“Yes,” it said simply. “And that is why I called you.”

Ethan blinked.

“You didn’t call me,” he said. “I just happened to be hiking out here.”

The Dogman’s lips pulled back in a faint, pained smile.

“Nothing about this… is ‘just’,” it said. “Paths cross… for reasons. Even if you… don’t see them yet.”

Ethan opened his mouth to argue, but the creature grimaced, muscles seizing.

Its breath hitched.

“Time… is short,” it said. “I will not see another moon.”

“I could—” Ethan began. “Maybe I can call someone. A vet, or—I don’t know. There’s a wildlife rescue a couple towns over—”

“No,” the Dogman cut in, with a force that made Scout whine. “They would… cage me. Shoot me. Cut me open to see how I… work. It’s too late.”

Ethan swallowed hard.

His rational mind screamed that he should leave. That none of this was his problem. That he was sitting next to something that could carve him open like a deer if it had the strength.

But the rational part of his mind was being slowly drowned by something older and quieter: the part that couldn’t walk away from a suffering animal. The part that remembered being six years old and lost, and the feeling of being watched over, unseen.

“What do you want from me?” he asked. “If I can’t help you… what can I do?”

The Dogman’s eyes softened.

“Remember,” it said.

“That’s it?” Ethan asked, incredulous. “Remember?”

“And carry,” the creature added. “Carry a warning. And a… request.”

“A warning about what?” Ethan asked.

The Dogman inhaled, a wet, painful sound.

“About what happens,” it said, “when the last of us… are gone.”

3. The Warning

The forest seemed to darken, the shadows between the trees deepening.

“Humans have been… busy,” the Dogman said, each word slower than the last. “Asking questions. Hunting what they don’t… understand. You have cameras… everywhere. Night vision. Drones. You think if you can see a thing, you own it.”

Ethan thought of trail cams, YouTube channels dedicated to “proving cryptids,” message boards filled with grainy photos and speculation.

“You’ve noticed us… more, these last years,” the Dogman continued. “Caught flashes of fur. Eyeshine. You call us Dogman, Werewolf, Skinwalker… names are not important. What matters is… you are getting better at finding us.”

“Technology,” Ethan said. “We’re better at looking.”

“Yes,” the creature agreed. “Better at looking. Not better at seeing.”

It coughed again, body shuddering.

“We are dying,” it said simply. “Not just from bullets. From… lack of place. Forests shrink. Roads cut through paths we’ve walked for centuries. You flood the night with light. Our pups… don’t know where to go.”

Ethan thought of the endless sprawl of suburbs, the way the city had crept closer to the forest year by year.

“And when we die,” the Dogman rasped, “there is nothing between you… and what we held back.”

“What did you hold back?” Ethan whispered.

The creature’s gaze flicked toward the treeline, as if expecting something to move there.

“Have you ever… felt watched,” it asked, “in your own home? In your bed? No broken window. No unlocked door. But something… leaning close? Breathing on the inside of your skull?”

A memory surfaced unbidden: sleepless nights in his old apartment, the inexplicable feeling that something lurked just beyond the bedroom door, though he knew it was locked. The way his dreams sometimes felt… infested.

“Yeah,” he admitted quietly. “Sometimes.”

“The places you build,” the Dogman said, “are not all… clean. You stack… your lives on old land. Old promises. Old… wounds. Things grow in the cracks. Hungry things. We… hunt those in the wild places. But in your… cities… we cannot walk freely. You chase us… with cameras and guns. Call us demons. And while you chase us…”

He trailed off, chest heaving.

“Something else… slips through,” he finished.

Ethan’s mouth went dry.

“Like what?” he asked. “Ghosts?”

The creature’s lips twitched.

“Some,” it said. “Are like the ghosts you imagine. Echoes of… people. Sad. Harmless. But others are not. There are feeders. They eat… fear. Memory. Faith. They like your screens,” it added, almost conversationally. “So many open doors.”

“Demons,” Ethan said, the word tasting melodramatic.

“If that word… helps you,” the Dogman said. “We have other names. None of them matter. They only need your belief… to enter. And lately, you believe in… anything. Everything. All doors… wide open.”

Ethan swallowed.

“If that’s true,” he said slowly, “why are you telling me? I’m nobody. I teach high school. I don’t have a podcast. No one’s going to believe me.”

The creature’s gaze sharpened.

“You believed enough to… stay,” it said. “When you could have run. That matters.”

“I stayed because I thought maybe I could help,” Ethan snapped. “You’re wounded, not… mystical.”

“Both,” the Dogman murmured. “And you did help. More than you know.”

Ethan frowned.

“How?” he asked.

“You listened,” the creature said simply. “We speak to your kind… rarely. When we do, they usually… shoot or flee. Or film.” It grimaced. “You did none. You… knelt.”

Ethan hadn’t realized until it said the word that he was indeed kneeling, jeans soaking through with cold dampness, head almost level with the creature’s muzzle.

“You still haven’t told me what you want me to do,” he said.

“I told you,” the Dogman replied. “Remember. And carry.”

“Carry what?” Ethan pressed.

The creature’s claws sank deeper into the soil, as if bracing itself.

“Carry the message… that you are not alone,” it said. “You never were. Your kind… survived the dark because others… watched. Fought in… places you didn’t see. We are not… asking for thanks. It is too late for that.”

Its voice grew quieter.

“But when the last… of us falls,” it said, “when the last guardian in these woods… dies under a human gun… remember that… you did it. And when… things begin to slip through… don’t say… no one warned you.”

The weight of those words settled on Ethan like a second sky.

“You’re not the only kind of guardian, are you?” he asked, a realization dawning. “There are others. Different… species? Creatures?”

“Yes,” the Dogman said. “Some in water. Some in… stone. Some you’d call angels. Others…” A faint smile touched its torn lips. “Others you’d call… nightmares. Not all who look monstrous… are evil. Not all… who look human… are good.”

Ethan thought of the men with silver bullets.

“How many of you are left?” he asked.

The Dogman’s eyes closed briefly, as if counting faces only it could see.

“Few,” it said. “Fewer… every season.”

“Then why did you reveal yourself?” Ethan demanded. “If you know humans will shoot you?”

Something like pride flickered in the creature’s gaze.

“We couldn’t… stay hidden forever,” it said. “The world is changing. Threads between things… fray. Your kind… tinkers with forces… you don’t comprehend. You open doors… we never knew were there. We needed allies.”

“Humans?” Ethan asked skeptically.

“Some,” the Dogman said. “Not all. Enough.”

Ethan shook his head.

“People barely recycle,” he said. “You expect them to believe in… interdimensional borders and shadow feeders?”

“I expect nothing,” the Dogman replied. “But I can… plant a seed. Seeds are stubborn.”

It looked at him steadily.

“Will you… carry it?” it asked.

Ethan hesitated.

“I don’t know how,” he said honestly. “I can tell people. They’ll think I’m crazy.”

“Some will,” the creature agreed. “Some always do. But some… will listen. And a few of those… will be the ones who matter.”

“The ones who matter?” Ethan echoed.

“The ones who can… see,” the Dogman said. “The ones… like you.”

Ethan opened his mouth to protest that he was absolutely not special in any way, but the creature’s breathing hitched, worse than before. Its body convulsed, a tremor running from its shoulders to its twisted hind legs.

“Hey,” Ethan said quickly, leaning in. “Stay with me. You haven’t given me that request you mentioned. The one after the warning.”

The Dogman’s head lolled, then steadied with effort.

“Bury me,” it whispered.

Ethan blinked.

“What?”

“Not… in your graveyard,” the creature said. “Here. Under these trees. Deep. So they don’t… find me.”

“‘They’ who?” Ethan asked, though he suspected he knew.

The Dogman’s eyes flicked toward a distant ridge, where the faint echo of engines could be heard if one listened closely enough.

“The hunters,” it said. “They’ll come back… for the body. To take pictures. To boast. To cut.” Its lips peeled back in a grimace. “Don’t let them.”

Ethan looked at his hands, his soft office-worker palms, his calluses earned from weekend hikes, not from digging graves.

“I don’t… have a shovel,” he said weakly.

“You have… two hands,” the creature replied. “And a dog.”

Scout’s ears perked at the word, as if she understood.

“Can’t you… I don’t know… vanish?” Ethan asked, flailing for some supernatural bypass. “Turn into mist? Disappear into the trees?”

“Stories… exaggerate,” the Dogman rasped. “We bleed. We rot. We leave… evidence.”

Its gaze pinned Ethan again.

“Will you do it?” it asked. “Will you give me that… dignity?”

Ethan swallowed.

“Yes,” he said before he could overthink it. “I’ll try. I promise.”

Something eased in the creature’s face.

“Good,” it whispered. “Then I can… say the rest.”

“There’s more?” Ethan asked, baffled. “What else could there be?”

The Dogman’s mouth curved, just barely.

“The part that will… shock you,” it said. “The part you’ll… try very hard… not to believe.”

Ethan felt his skin prickle.

“Try me,” he said, though part of him didn’t want to know.

The creature inhaled.

“When you were six,” it said, “you wandered. Your family… panicked. Your father… shouted. Your mother… cried. You walked in circles… for hours.”

Ethan’s stomach dropped.

“I remember getting lost,” he said. “I don’t remember… hours.”

“You remember… only the fear,” the Dogman said. “You were tired. Hungry. You fell. Hit your head.” Its voice grew softer. “You stopped… moving.”

A flash: the taste of dirt in his mouth, the feel of something warm trickling down his forehead. A distant, muffled voice calling his name. Then… nothing.

“I passed out,” Ethan said. “Or… fell asleep.”

“You died,” the Dogman said quietly.

The world lurched.

“No,” Ethan said automatically. “No, I didn’t. I’m here. You’re confusing… metaphor with—”

“Your heart stopped,” the creature insisted, each word heavier than the last. “Your lungs… stilled. For… moments. Then… something pushed.” Its chest rose, as if reenacting the motion. “Breathed into you. Restarted… the rhythm.”

Ethan stared.

“You’re saying… you did CPR?” he said, almost hysterical with disbelief. “You’re a Dogman, not a paramedic.”

The creature’s eyes closed briefly, then reopened.

“I do not know… your terms,” it said. “I know I did… what I could. Pressed. Breathed. Called… in my way.”

“In your way?” Ethan echoed, voice thin.

“I howled,” the Dogman said. “Not the howls your kind fears. A calling. Old. Older than… these trees. Something… answered.”

“What?” Ethan whispered, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Light,” the creature said simply. “Not like your sun. Or your bulbs. Something… that sees both sides. It came. It… asked.”

“Asked what?” Ethan asked.

“If you wanted to stay,” the Dogman said.

The forest seemed to hold its breath.

“You were very small,” the creature continued. “Confused. You said… ‘My mom will be sad if I leave.’ The light… laughed. Not unkindly. It said… ‘Then stay. But it will cost you.’”

“Cost me what?” Ethan asked, voice barely audible.

“Blindness,” the Dogman said. “Not of eyes. Of… memory. Of the thread that connected you to… our side.”

Ethan’s pulse thundered in his ears.

“I don’t remember any of this,” he said.

“Of course not,” the creature replied. “That was… the cost. You forgot us. Forgot… what watches from the trees. Forgot… the feeling of being held by something… you cannot name. But the mark…” It reached, claws trembling, and touched the center of his chest, just over his sternum. “The mark remained.”

Ethan flinched. The touch burned, not with heat, but with a strange cold that sank deep.

“What mark?” he demanded.

The Dogman’s gaze dropped to his shirt.

“You have a scar,” it said. “Small. Circle. Right there.”

“I don’t—” Ethan began, then thought of the pale, thumbprint-sized scar over his sternum. He’d always assumed it was from childhood chickenpox, or some stupid accident he couldn’t remember.

An icy tremor ran through him.

“That’s…” he began, then faltered. “You expect me to believe some… light resurrected me? That you… called it?”

“Believe or not,” the creature said, “it happened. Your heart… remembers. That’s why you… stayed today. Why you didn’t… run. A part of you… knows me.”

Ethan’s throat felt tight.

“If this is true,” he said, “why tell me now? Why not… years ago? Why wait until you’re dying?”

“Because I needed… a witness,” the Dogman said. “Someone who has… walked both edges. Someone whose life was… already touched. You don’t belong… entirely to their world. Or mine.”

“I’m human,” Ethan snapped. “I belong entirely to my world.”

The creature’s eyes shone with something like pity.

“You think your world… is all there is,” it said. “It isn’t. It never was. Deep down… you know that. You read stories. Watch movies. Call them fiction. But your bones… recognize… pieces.”

Ethan fell silent.

The Dogman’s chest rose and fell, slower now.

“I did not… save you alone,” it said. “I was only… a voice. A bridge. Tonight… I ask you to be the same.”

“A bridge,” Ethan repeated dully. “Between what and what?”

“Between… the forgetting and the remembering,” the creature said. “Between your people… and what they have… hunted to the edge of extinction.”

“It’s too much,” Ethan whispered. “You’re asking me to… restart some ancient alliance? I grade essays. I take my dog on walks. I’m not a chosen one.”

“No one is,” the Dogman murmured. “Not… at first.”

It coughed, a deep, rattling sound. Blood trickled from its nostrils.

“Please,” it whispered. “Bury me. Tell them. Remember.”

Its head sank toward the earth.

“Wait,” Ethan said, panic flaring. “I still have questions. Who are the others? How do I find them? What do I—”

“Listen,” the Dogman breathed, barely audible now. “When you dream… of trees… follow.”

Its eyes met his one last time.

In them, for a flicker, Ethan saw not a monster, not a cryptid, but a weary soldier who had stood too long on a border no one else knew existed.

“Thank you,” the creature whispered.

“For what?” Ethan asked, throat tight.

“For not… running,” it said.

Then its chest rose.

And did not fall again.

4. The Burial

Silence rushed into the clearing like a tide.

Ethan knelt there, hand still hovering uselessly where it had rested on the creature’s fur, his breath coming in sharp, shallow gasps. Scout pushed her nose against his arm, whining softly.

“It’s dead,” he said stupidly.

Of course it was. He’d watched the life leave its eyes.

“Yeah,” he whispered to himself. “Dead. And apparently I have to bury a… Dogman. Great.”

He stood slowly, legs tingling from kneeling too long.

The rational part of his brain tried, once again, to assert itself.

You’re in shock, it said. This is a hallucination. You’ll wake up at home, your dog snoring at the foot of the bed. There’s no fur on your hands. No blood on the leaves.

But his hands were sticky with drying blood, dark against his skin. The smell of iron hung heavy in the air. Scout paced near the body, not frightened, but solemn, as if she knew something important had happened.

“Okay,” Ethan said aloud. “Bury you. Deep. Before they find you.”

He listened.

The distant engine sounds had faded for now, but they’d be back. Hunters always circled back to their trails.

He didn’t have much time.

He looked around.

The ground here was soft, damp from recent rains. The fallen logs crisscrossed like bones, half-rotten. He could dig.

With his hands.

“Wonderful,” he muttered.

He unclipped Scout’s leash, looped it over a branch so she wouldn’t wander, then knelt and began to claw at the earth.

It was slow work.

The forest floor was a carpet of leaves and roots. His fingers scraped rocks. Dirt wedged under his nails, tore the skin at the edges. After ten minutes, his breath came ragged. A shallow depression yawned in the ground, nowhere near deep enough.

“Help, huh,” he grunted. “You said I have two hands and a dog. You want to lend a paw, Scout?”

To his surprise, Scout stepped into the hole and began to dig.

She clawed at the earth with determined strokes, sending clumps flying. Her tongue hung from her mouth, but there was an oddly serious set to her posture.

“Good girl,” Ethan panted. “We’ll… we’ll make a grave-digging team yet.”

Together, man and dog carved a wound into the forest floor.

By the time the hole was wide and deep enough, Ethan’s shoulders burned. His nails were cracked, knuckles raw, jeans stained with mud and blood.

He sat back on his heels, chest heaving.

He looked at the Dogman.

Up close, its face had changed subtly in death. The tension was gone; the lips relaxed, covering the teeth more fully. The fur around its eyes, matted with tears and blood, caught the last light of the sun like a halo.

“I don’t know what you are,” Ethan said quietly. “Or what you were. But… you deserve better than being tagged in some hunter’s trophy photo.”

He hesitated.

Touching it in life had been one thing. Touching it in death felt somehow more intimate, more invasive. But leaving it above ground for scavengers felt wrong.

“Sorry,” he murmured.

He slid his arms under the creature as best he could, grunting with effort. It was heavy—solid muscle and bone. The twisted hind leg made it awkward, and he had to adjust, apologizing under his breath as if it could still feel.

He managed to drag it to the edge of the hole.

Scout watched, panting quietly.

“All right,” he said. “One, two…”

He pushed.

The body rolled into the grave with a dull, soft thud.

It lay there, not neatly arranged like a human burial, but curled slightly, as if sleeping. The shadows gathered around it, softening its outline.

Ethan stood at the edge for a moment, listening to his own ragged breathing.

He thought of saying something.

A prayer, maybe, from his long-abandoned childhood faith. A eulogy. But every word that came to mind felt small and foolish.

So he settled for the truth.

“Thank you,” he said. “For… whatever you did. Back then. And tonight.”

The forest answered with a rustle of leaves.

He picked up handfuls of dirt and began to cover the body.

It took longer than he expected. Each scoop seemed to weigh more. His muscles protested, but he kept going, driven by the memory of golden eyes and a gravel-rough voice asking, Will you do it?

When the last of the fur disappeared under the soil, he smoothed the earth with his palms. He placed a few flat stones over the mound, not as a marker—no one else needed to find this place—but as a subtle shield.

Scout sniffed the disturbed earth, then sat beside it, ears pricked, as if standing watch.

The sky above the treetops had turned from gold to bruised purple.

Ethan realized, with a jolt, how late it was.

“We need to go,” he told Scout quietly. “Before it gets dark.”

He picked up the leash.

For a moment, he hesitated.

He glanced back at the mound.

He thought he saw the faintest rise, as if the earth itself took a breath.

But when he blinked, it was still.

“Goodbye,” he whispered.

Then he turned and picked his way back toward the trail, Scout trotting close at his side.

5. The Echo That Followed

The forest felt different on the walk back.

Every shadow seemed deeper, every rustle more significant. Twice, Ethan stopped, heart pounding, sure he heard footsteps that were not his own.

But when he turned, there was nothing. Just trees. Just the fading light.

“Jumpy, huh,” he muttered to Scout. “Can’t imagine why.”

They broke out of the thicker undergrowth onto the main trail just as the first stars appeared overhead.

At the trailhead, Ethan paused.

His car sat where he’d left it. The parking lot was empty.

He opened the door and paused again, hand on the frame.

His reflection stared back at him in the window: tousled hair, dirt-smudged face, eyes a little too wide. He looked like a man who had seen something that his mind had not yet fully agreed to file under “real.”

“Get in,” he told Scout.

She hopped into the backseat obediently.

He slid behind the wheel, started the engine, and pulled onto the road.

The drive home was a blur.

Trees gave way to houses, then to gas stations and strip malls, their neon signs buzzing in the dusk. The mundane world reasserted itself with every mile: a battered billboard advertising a lawyer, a minivan with soccer decals, a teenager at a crosswalk scrolling on her phone.

Ethan felt like he was watching it all through glass.

His phone buzzed in the cup holder.

He glanced down.

A text from his sister.

You alive out there, forest hermit? Mom says come over for dinner this weekend. She misses you.

He stared at the screen.

Then, to his own slight surprise, he laughed. A short, sharp bark of sound, but laughter all the same.

Yeah, he typed back. I’m alive.

He hesitated.

Then added: I’ll be there.

At a red light, he caught his reflection again in the rearview mirror.

His hand drifted to the center of his chest, fingers pressing over the small, round scar above his sternum.

It tingled.

He jerked his hand away.

“Coincidence,” he said aloud.

Scout huffed softly.

That night, sleep did not come easily.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the Dogman’s face, heard its labored breathing. He smelled blood and damp earth.

When he did finally drift off, the dreams were thick and vivid.

He stood in a forest, but not the one he knew. This one was older, wilder. The trees rose impossibly tall, their branches weaving overhead like a cathedral ceiling. The air shimmered with faint, unseen movements.

He heard voices.

Not human voices—no words he recognized—but layered sounds like the echo of howls, the low rumble of stones shifting, the whisper of water over hidden rocks.

He walked.

Roots shifted under his feet like sleeping animals.

Shadows moved at the edge of his vision, never fully stepping into the light.

He came to a clearing.

In its center stood a massive, black stone, carved with symbols that hurt his eyes when he tried to focus on them. A figure sat on the stone—a man-shaped shadow with eyes like distant stars.

“You took your time,” the figure said.

The voice wasn’t the Dogman’s. It was older, smoother, like someone who had watched continents move and had all the patience in the world.

“Who are you?” Ethan asked.

“That depends,” the figure replied. “On who you ask. To some, I’m a myth. To others, a nightmare. To your… friend in the woods, I was ‘light.’”

Ethan’s skin prickled.

“The one who… restarted my heart,” he said slowly.

“Among other things,” the figure agreed. “You asked a question tonight.”

“I asked a lot of questions,” Ethan retorted. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“In the car,” the figure said. “You wondered why you.”

Ethan swallowed.

“Are you going to tell me?” he asked.

The figure’s eyes glinted.

“Because you listen,” it said simply. “Because when faced with something that doesn’t fit your world, you don’t pull the trigger or pull out your phone. You stay. You kneel. You bury.”

Ethan felt heat rise to his face, though it made no sense in a dream.

“I almost ran,” he admitted.

“But you didn’t,” the figure said. “The world is full of people who almost. I need those who actually.”

“Need?” Ethan repeated warily. “For what?”

The figure tilted its head.

“The guardians are failing,” it said. “You heard that part. The old lines are fraying. Things that used to stay in their lanes…” It made a small, dismissive gesture. “They’ve forgotten how. Or chosen not to.”

“And you… oversee this?” Ethan asked. “What are you, some kind of… cosmic hall monitor?”

The figure laughed, a low, resonant sound.

“You cling to hierarchies,” it said. “Principal. Hall monitor. Officer. God. Devil. As if everything can be filed. Let’s say I am… interested in balance. When one side tips too far, things break. I don’t like broken.”

Ethan’s mind flashed to images from the news: wildfires, floods, people screaming at each other in the streets, faces lit by the cold glow of screens.

“We’re already broken,” he said quietly.

“You’re cracked,” the figure corrected. “Cracks can be mended. Or widened.”

“And you want me to… do what?” Ethan asked. “Spackle reality?”

The figure smiled faintly.

“I want you to remember,” it said. “To tell. To gather others who… feel the cracks. Who dream of trees when they live in concrete. Who wake at 3 a.m. feeling watched and don’t just reach for their phones.”

“And then what?” Ethan insisted. “We form a club? The Society for People Who Met Cryptids and Lived?”

“Call it what you like,” the figure said. “Names aren’t my department. But yes. A society. A network. Humans who know they are not the only ones on the board.”

Ethan’s heart pounded.

“This is insane,” he said.

“Insanity,” the figure replied mildly, “is relative. To a fish, breathing air is insane. To you, talking to a dying Dogman is insane. And yet… here we are.”

“Why didn’t you… do this sooner?” Ethan asked. “If things are so bad.”

The figure’s gaze drifted upward, toward a sky filled with unfamiliar constellations.

“I tried,” it said. “Over and over. Burning bushes. Prophets in deserts. Voices in dreams. You wrote books about them. Then argued for centuries over the commas.” It shrugged. “Time for another method.”

“High school teachers and hikers,” Ethan said dryly. “We’re your new prophets?”

“Relax,” the figure said, amused. “I am not asking you to wander the wilderness eating locusts. I am asking you to stop pretending the wilderness isn’t there. And to pay attention when… something howls in the wrong key.”

Ethan was silent.

“Will you?” the figure asked. “Or will you wake up tomorrow and file tonight under… nightmare?”

Ethan thought of the Dogman’s eyes, the way they had flickered with gratitude at the last.

He thought of his fingers, raw from digging, the small mound under the trees.

“I’ll remember,” he said. “I don’t know what I’ll do with it yet. But… I won’t forget.”

The figure nodded, as if that was enough for now.

“Then we’ll talk again,” it said.

The forest dimmed.

The clearing blurred.

Ethan woke with his heart hammering.

His bedroom was dimly lit by the gray light of early morning. Scout lay curled at his feet, one ear flicking.

He sat up, hand flying to his chest.

The scar burned.

Not with pain, exactly, but with a distant, throbbing awareness, like a drumbeat heard through walls.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood.

His clothes, crumpled on the chair, were still stained with dirt and faint smears of dried blood.

Not a dream, then.

Not all of it.

He went to the bathroom, turned on the light, and stared at himself in the mirror.

“You discovered a dying Dogman in the woods,” he told his reflection quietly. “It talked. You buried it. And now some… thing in a dream wants you to start a club.”

His reflection did not contradict him.

“Great,” he muttered. “I can barely organize my grading.”

Scout trotted into the bathroom, nudged his hand.

He looked down at her.

“You saw it too,” he said. “You’re my sanity check, okay? If you start talking, I’m out.”

She licked his fingers.

He looked back at the mirror.

A small, incredulous smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

“Fine,” he said aloud. “Let’s see where this goes.”

6. The First Step

That afternoon, Ethan sat at his kitchen table with a notebook open in front of him.

The page was blank.

“What am I supposed to write?” he asked the empty room.

Scout snored in the corner.

He picked up a pen.

At the top of the page, he wrote:

DOGMAN – WHAT IT SAID BEFORE DYING

He stared at the words.

They looked like the title of a clickbait article. He almost crossed them out.

Instead, under it, he began to write everything he could remember.

The smell of blood. The way the creature had said, We were guardians. The warning about hunters and fading borders. The admission: You died. The request: Bury me. Remember. Carry this.

He wrote until his hand cramped.

When he finished, pages later, he sat back.

The story looked insane laid out in ink.

But it was real.

He turned to a fresh page.

At the top, he wrote:

PEOPLE WHO MIGHT BELIEVE ME (OR AT LEAST NOT CALL A PSYCH WARD)

He listed names.

An old college friend who had been obsessed with folklore. A librarian who slipped him weird books. A student who had once written an essay about “thin places” in the city where she felt reality shift. A park ranger he knew who had gone quiet once when Ethan joked about Bigfoot, then changed the subject too quickly.

He circled a few.

Start small, he thought.

He snapped a photo of the first page with his phone, hesitated, then deleted it.

No digital trail. Not yet.

Instead, he reached for his keys.

“Come on, Scout,” he said. “We’re going to the library.”

The dog thumped her tail.

As he locked the door behind him, a breeze stirred the trees lining his street.

For a moment, the rustle sounded like a low voice, amused and approving.

He paused, listening.

Nothing.

He shook his head.

“Imagining things,” he muttered.

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that somewhere, under a mound of earth in a quiet clearing, something shifted in the soil—not a resurrection, but a settling. A satisfied stillness.

He had buried the Dogman.

He had carried its message.

And whether the world believed him or not, his own had changed.

Once, he had discovered a dying monster in the woods.

Now, he knew that the most shocking thing about it wasn’t that it existed.

It was what it had died trying to protect—and the responsibility it had laid, with its last breaths, on an ordinary man who had simply chosen not to run.