the dog on the road

Sunset paints the sky in pastels - pink, peach, and lilac. An asphalt road under your feet stretches as far as the eye can see. It has lines painted on it. Guides in white and yellow. Pine trees stand tall all around you, their tops green, and trunks two-colored. The dull tawny fades into a color resembling brown soot as it travels downwards, and disappears into the mossy grass.

You hear a dog bark somewhere in the distance. Two dogs. Ten dogs. A hundred. You can make out countless different, haunting yaps of a horde you can't see.

The choir of canines intensifies in volume as it pushes towards your position. A female moose stumbles from the treeline to the road behind you. It looks sick. It moves unnaturally and stiffly. You can make up dried blood on its fur.

It falls, and dies before your eyes.

The dogs still draw closer - until it sounds like their numbers wane. Fifty dogs. Twenty. Five. One.

Silence.

A small creature approaches you. It steps into your view from behind a slope in the asphalt road. A chihuahua with an apple-shaped head, and its short coat pale, golden brown. It halts before you, and its large eyes meet your widened gaze. Dark orbs stare directly back at you, their color nearly shifting between black and burnt umber. The dog opens its jaw.

It's the one that has been barking.

The yips unify into a single sound. It repeats, over and over, sharp and short, in a relentless rhythm.

Long legs. Ears slanted backwards. Long muzzle, crinkled into a deranged snarl. A grin. A dark, oversized rhinarium. Two pale orange eyes gaping wide. Haunting, piercing. Terrifying. Unnatural. Irises less than a third of the sclera. Pupils only tiny dots.

And nothing but teeth.

i don't usually write down or draw my nightmares or dreams, but this one intrigued me enough to do so.