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PROLOGUE — ONE BLUE EYE
They say dogs only see in black and white. But I know different. One brown eye, one blue—that’s how the world marked me. The brown sees what everyone else sees. The blue sees what everyone else pretends isn’t there.
They called me Benjiman at the pound. Cold floors. Metal bowls. Cages stacked like a prison inside a prison. Every dog carried their own story, their own scars, their own fear. But none of that bothered me as much as the thing perched above the exit sign.
It wasn’t a dog. Wasn’t a person. Wasn’t anything that should’ve been inside a place built for the living. Its skin cracked like baked earth in a drought. Its eyes burned like two coals pulled from a fire that never dies. It watched every human that walked in—measuring them, judging them, waiting for the right one.
The door opened. He walked in.
Curtis.
Tall. Quiet. Eyes like he’d already seen too much of the world and didn’t ask for any of it. Broad shoulders, steady posture—Marine. But it wasn’t the uniform or the training I sensed. It was his spirit. Heavy. Wounded. Carrying the echoes of desert heat, gunmetal, and battles that stayed inside him long after the shooting stopped.
The demon leaned forward when Curtis appeared. It recognized something in him. Something old.
Curtis stopped in front of my cage. Studied me like a man studying a map he didn’t expect to understand.
“Is he blind in that one eye?” he asked.
The lady said no.
But Curtis didn’t move. Didn’t blink. The way he stared at me made my fur stand up. Not from fear—from recognition. He didn’t know what he was looking at… but he felt me. Men born with his blood always do.
Curtis had Caribbean roots—deep ones. Roots tied to prayers whispered in the dark, to chants carried through generations, to ancestors who walked with spirits both holy and dangerous. His line came from warriors who didn’t just fight enemies made of flesh—they fought the ones made of shadow, bone, and hunger.
He didn’t know that yet. But I did.
My blue eye flickered as he opened the cage. The demon hissed. And something else descended behind Curtis—wings folding in a glow that burned without burning. An angel. Watching. Guarding. Waiting.
And that’s when I knew: I wasn’t being adopted. I was being assigned.
He carried me out of the pound, and the city swallowed us whole. Cracked sidewalks. Sirens in the distance. Street corners filled with danger both human and not. This place breathed hard—like a beast trying to stay alive.
At night, the walls whispered. Not from wind. From spirits testing the edges of Curtis’s home. From creatures crawling where light refused to stay. Curtis couldn’t see them yet. But he felt them. The same way he felt sandstorms that weren’t there, artillery that wasn’t firing, and memories that still had teeth.
My brown eye watched the world he lived in. My blue eye watched the world stalking him. Shadows shaped like memory. Creatures that fed on grief, rage, silence—anything broken. Anything hurting. Anything human.
Some nights they pressed close to the door. Whispered his name through the cracks. Waited for the moment his spirit dipped low enough to pull apart.
But they never crossed. Not while I breathed. Not while I watched.
Because every soul deserves a guardian—a protector who sees both worlds.
And mine just happens to have one brown eye for the world I walk… and one blue eye for the world that never sleeps.
THE STREETS DON’T SLEEP
The first thing I noticed when Curtis carried me out of the pound was the change in the air. It didn’t feel free. It felt heavy, like the city was holding its breath. Even the wind tasted different—metallic, tired, and crowded with too many stories that ended too soon.
Curtis walked with purpose, but something in his steps told me he was scanning everything. Soldiers never stop checking exits, watching corners, or measuring the tension in the air. His spirit moved like someone who’d learned to live between danger and duty.
The streets didn’t welcome us. They judged us.
A group of men on the corner watched Curtis with that look humans get when they’re deciding if someone’s prey or a problem. A car crept down the block with music pounding through the doors, bass shaking the sidewalk. A woman pushed a stroller fast, head down, like she didn’t want to be seen. Nothing peaceful lived here—not on the surface.
But I wasn’t watching the surface.
My blue eye caught the other shapes—those that clung to rooftops and hid behind streetlights. Thin figures made of smoke and bone. Shadows that weren’t connected to anything living. They followed movement, not people. They fed on noise, grief, and unspoken fear.
One of them crouched on a broken lamp post, long arms wrapped around rusted metal. Its head tilted when Curtis walked under it. I bared my teeth. It vanished, slipping into the cracks of the building like water escaping light.
Curtis didn’t see it.
But his shoulders tightened.
He felt something. He always did.
We reached the apartment building—old brick, chipped paint, windows too dirty to reflect anything but cloudy versions of truth. Curtis paused at the entrance like his mind drifted somewhere far away. Desert sand. Distant gunfire. That part of him stayed close, even here.
Inside, the hallway smelled like old cooking oil, bleach, and secrets. A couple argued behind a closed door. A baby cried somewhere above. Pipes clanged like they were fighting each other.
Curtis set me down gently.
“Welcome home, Benji,” he said quietly.
I didn’t understand every word, but I felt the meaning. Home. Belonging. Promise.
But there was something else here too.
Something waiting.
As Curtis unlocked the door to his apartment, my fur rose. A faint whisper slid under the door—soft, scratchy, like someone dragging claws across paper. I stepped forward, pushing my nose to the crack.
Nothing moved.
But the air felt wrong. Heavy. Thick. Observing.
Curtis opened the door, flicked on the lights, and stepped inside. The place wasn’t messy—just lived in. A couch with worn edges. A table with old Marine papers stacked tight. A wall where medals hung beside pictures of people he missed more than he spoke about.
I walked in first.
Dogs know when something isn’t right.
Dogs know when something is watching.
My blue eye caught movement near the far corner—something crawling too high on the wall to be human. It pulled back into shadow the moment the light hit.
Curtis locked the door behind us.
“Safe now,” he muttered.
He wasn’t lying.
But he wasn’t right either.
We were home.
But something else was here too.
Something that had been waiting for us.
And I knew then what the angel meant when it stood behind him at the pound:
This wasn’t just a new start.
This was the beginning of the hunt.
THE WOMAN WITH THE WRONG SHADOW
Curtis didn’t talk much, but when he did, his voice carried a weight that made the room listen. That first night, after I sniffed every corner and circled the living room twice, he sat on the couch and rubbed the top of my head. His hand was steady, but something in him wasn’t.
“Good boy,” he said quietly.
Most people say those words like they’re just sounds. Curtis meant them.
The apartment finally settled into silence. Not peace—just quiet enough for me to hear the other noises. The soft scrape in the far corner that didn’t come from pipes. The gentle thump of something walking on the ceiling that wasn’t human. The whisper sliding under the door like smoke looking for a way in.
I stayed awake the whole night. Golden fur pressed against the rug, ears up, my blue eye watching both worlds at once.
When the sun came up, the apartment finally loosened its breath.
That’s when the knock came.
Curtis didn’t expect visitors. I could tell by the way he froze halfway through pouring water into a cup. He set the bottle down slow, like he didn’t want the sound to break whatever came next.
He opened the door.
A woman stood there. Pretty. Mid-twenties. Skin the color of warm honey. Eyes too soft, too fast, like she practiced looking harmless. She smiled when she saw Curtis—too big, too friendly, too sharp at the edges.
“Curtis,” she said, tilting her head. “Long time.”
Her voice was sugar with something bitter behind it.
I padded up beside him and looked at her legs. Her shadow stretched across the hallway floor. But it didn’t move right. Shadows should follow light.
This one pulsed—slow, like a heartbeat.
Wrong. Very wrong.
Curtis forced a polite smile.
“Tasha. Didn’t expect you.”
So this was Tasha.
Her perfume hit my nose—sweet at first, then sour underneath, like something had spoiled inside it. She tried to step forward, but I blocked her with my chest. A golden cocker spaniel might look soft, but I made sure she saw the strength underneath.
“Aw, he’s cute,” she said, crouching a little. “What’s his name?”
I didn’t move.
Didn’t blink.
I watched her shadow.
It twitched like it wanted to crawl up her leg.
Curtis cleared his throat. “Benji.”
“Benji,” she repeated, but her voice wavered. My blue eye always made people hesitate. They never knew why.
She kept her smile, but something behind her eyes flickered. Fear… or guilt. Humans think dogs can’t tell the difference.
We can.
“I just wanted to check on you,” she said. “Haven’t seen you around. I heard…” She stopped, looked down, then glanced past Curtis into the apartment. “Heard you’ve been going through it.”
Curtis didn’t answer.
Tasha shifted, adjusting her purse. Her shadow stretched again—longer this time, reaching for the threshold like it wanted inside.
No.
I stepped closer and growled low.
She froze.
Curtis glanced down at me.
“He’s protective,” Tasha said with a nervous laugh. “That’s good. You need that. Especially around here.”
Her voice softened. Too soft. Practiced.
“I’m here if you need anything,” she added, brushing invisible dust off her arm.
As she turned to leave, her shadow lagged behind her for a second—like it was staring at me.
Then it snapped back into place.
Curtis closed the door slowly, jaw tightening.
He didn’t speak.
But I smelled it.
Not fear.
Not anger.
Suspicion.
He didn’t trust Tasha.
Not anymore.
And he didn’t know why.
But I did.
Shadows don’t lie.
People do.
And whatever was attached to her…
wasn’t finished with us.
WHEN THE WALLS START BREATHING
Tasha’s footsteps faded down the hallway, but whatever clung to her didn’t leave with her. The air in the apartment shifted, tightening like a fist. Curtis paced a little, rubbing the back of his neck the way he did when memories came up uninvited.
“You didn’t like her,” he muttered, glancing at me.
I didn’t move.
Didn’t need to.
He was right.
Curtis sighed and sat on the couch, elbows on his knees. His mind drifted far—places he didn’t talk about, places the desert sun scorched into him. Even without words, I felt the pull. Remembering battle is like reliving it; humans do it with their eyes open.
I lay at his feet, golden fur brushing against his boots, listening to the shift happening in the walls. Something was settling in—not physically, but spiritually. A presence searching for a weak spot.
Curtis stood and walked toward the back room. I followed close. The old wood floors creaked under his weight, but I heard another sound underneath: a slow, dragging scrape inside the drywall. Something moving where nothing should move.
Curtis stopped.
He heard nothing.
But he felt it.
He turned the doorknob and pushed the bedroom door open. Sunlight cut across the bed and spilled onto the floor, but the corner behind the dresser stayed unnaturally dark.
Not shadow.
Darkness.
My blue eye saw it right away—something folded in the corner like a person hiding, too large, too thin, limbs pulled against itself like a spider waiting to strike.
I growled.
Curtis frowned. “What is it, boy?”
He stepped further in.
Bad idea.
Very bad.
The thing unfurled from the corner—silent, stretching up the wall, limbs bending in ways bones should never bend. Its head snapped toward Curtis, and its jaw cracked open wide enough to swallow a scream whole.
I barked loud—sharp, fast, warning.
Curtis stumbled back, bumping into the dresser.
The thing didn’t touch the floor. It crawled across the wall like it was made of glue and shadows. Every step left a smear of psychic residue—dark streaks only my blue eye could see.
“Benji, what’s wrong?” Curtis whispered.
Everything.
Everything was wrong.
The creature crawled onto the ceiling—right above him. I lunged forward, barking hard enough to shake my chest. Curtis ducked instinctively.
Then the ceiling bulged.
Not from weight.
From pressure.
Like the room inhaled.
A wave of energy rolled across the walls, making the posters flutter and the closet door shudder. Curtis grabbed the back of the chair to steady himself.
“What the hell—”
Before he finished the sentence, the thing dropped.
Not onto him—onto me.
It hit with a cold so deep it felt like winter pressing into my bones. Its face hovered inches from mine, empty eye sockets dripping black static. It hissed—a sound like electricity buzzing through dead leaves.
Curtis didn’t see it.
But he felt the cold.
He shivered violently, sprinting backward until he hit the wall. His breath fogged even in warm air.
“Benji… what’s happening?”
I snapped at the creature, teeth clamping through air and energy. It shrieked—high, wrong, ripping through the room like a twisted radio signal.
Then suddenly, the bedroom light flickered.
Once.
Twice.
The thing froze.
A beam of sunlight cut across its body, dissolving part of its form. It screeched and recoiled up the wall, folding back into the darkness behind the dresser like it had never existed.
The room went still.
Too still.
Curtis exhaled hard.
“What the hell was that, boy…?”
He didn’t know yet.
But I did.
Whatever followed Tasha wasn’t after her.
It followed her to get to him.
And this was only the first one brave enough to step through the cracks.
