Frostbite

A Day in the Life

"Hey, Dr. Strange!" Peter greeted him from behind a mask that was mostly blue than red. "Hope you've been having a paw-sitively great morning."

Stephen blinked. "Shouldn't you be getting ready for school?"

"It's Sunday."

Ah. "Then shouldn't you be in bed instead of having an ungodly amount of energy at—" he leaned back to check the grandfather clock on the other side of the door— "four thirty-eight in the morning?"

He looked back forward and finally took note of the wriggling void black mass in spandexed arms. A complete absence of light the size of a shoebox nestled in his hold with eight eye-like structures on what he assumed to be its face, constantly shifting depth and color as the pinpoint pitch blackness in each of them rolled and roved to absorb all the available information in its three-dimensional space.

Ah.

"Fine. Come in," he sighed, stepping to the side, "and tell me how it is you managed to cross paths with an interdimensional being that you're treating like a stray."

"I mean, it's pretty much dog-shaped, isn't it? A certified good creature. Isn't that right you funky little oddball?" Peter cooed at it. The thing undulated, its mass not quite contained in a rigid solid as he patted its head? Back? His hand glided on its surface, the black warping around it as the rest of form vibrated. Like it was. Purring? "But I was on my way home from my shift when I saw this dog—or at least what I thought was a dog—just wandering around and it's still pretty cold in the mornings and if it wasn't aggressive I was going to let it hang out until I could find its owner or take it to a shelter so I went towards it all 'Hey, dude! Do you want me to throw you a bone?' Because I was taking some leftover wings back home with me. And dogs like bones."

Stephen looked at the clock again. Four forty-three.

"... Right."

"Right! So I went up to it, no sudden moves, footsteps loud enough that it could hear me. And then it like, completely one-eightied its head like The Exorcist and elongated its jaw like a surrealist 3D PC game and at the whole take out box while my hand was still holding it. But it didn't eat my hand! Which you can probably see, I guess, but it was kind of tingly for a few minutes after munching all that garlic parmesan. It was probably just hungry after being lost for who knows how long and I figured yeah, this was probably an alien or something adjacent and Mom doesn't like animals at her place unless they're snakes or sometimes my boss, so you were the next best thing!"

Wong made his way down the grand staircase. "Is your boss a snake?"

"Nah, he's a weasel."

He nodded like that was supposed to mean anything at all. "Cool new suit, by the way. Nice shade of blue—really makes that red spider pop."

"Aw, thanks man!" Peter beamed, or at least Stephen was sure he was beaming beneath that mask. At four forty-seven. "Your robe looks super comfy! One of my friend's favorite color's puce."

Wong puffed out his chest and cast an uppity, victorious look at there being someone else in the world who didn't look at that specific color and immediately call it a dull pink. It was four fifty-two in the morning and Stephen rubbed his temple with both hands, steadily gaining in losing his grip on his sanity.

"Thank you," he cut in loudly, "for bringing it to the Sanctum. We'll make sure that it returns to its proper dimension."

Peter held the dog-thing in front of him, gently gripping it under a set of its reality-glitching appendages. "You hear that, Eldritch? You're going to be safe and sound at home in The Backrooms!"