A Paw Behind You

Dinner

*Tick Tock* *Tick Tock* *Tick Tock*

Echoing ticks similar to a grandfather clock sounded as I walked around a pitch-black room with limitless width and length in it. The ground felt slushy and liquid-like, my feet sinking each time I took another step walking around. 

After a long moments and walking aimlessly, an unusual sound of a whining, crying pup from a distance voiced closer and louder each time I trudged straight through.

Suddenly, a bright spotlight-like ray of brightness shone down onto a particular spot on the dark, thick liquid, the sole light being the only source of luminance in the entire area. And pushing through more liquid...

It was a dark-clothed pup wrapped around on the muddy water, squealing eerily through the darkness. I trudge, trudge, trudge... Until I bent down to pick up the baby pup from the slimy water. 

I raised it to a seeable position, only to observe it to have barely any white fur, the pink skin still wet and glossy...

"Is... is this me...?" I unknowingly asked into the darkness, as if expecting a response from it.

Immediately, the ground shook like a strong earthquake, the liquid sloshing and swishing around my legs, slowly rising to my hips. The once screeching whines from the pup slowly distorted into a scratchy, horrible record. And almost instantaneously as it did, the entire pink body of the being, dissolved into a thick substance of oily-black that flowed endless down onto my paw and into the liquid ground.

The waves were getting violent, my mind radiated with a bad headache that was starting to get unbearable... The waves now risen onto my hips, my abdomen, my chest, my shoulders... until I was barely floating over it...

Goodness, I'm drowning... or is it flowing around the waves? Is the freedom from death better, or the feeling of slushing around a cold body?

~~~~~~~~~~

I practically skyrocketed my back up that resulted it aching from the sudden jolt of muscles. With a painful, but forced-silenced shout, I massaged around the sore back of mine. What in the world was that dream...? I thought to myself, now barely remembering it anymore like a vague memory. 

I took my cellphone on the desk charging and switched it on. Observing the visible numbers of time stamped onto the lock screen, it was clearly displayed with the numbers eighteen and thirty.

What.

It felt like a minute passed by as I was stunned from the numbers of night. Yikes, how long had I been sleeping!? 

I sighed upsettingly. And as I did, my stomach grumbled from the lack of food since... yesterday? How long I hadn't ate, I still can't pinpoint. All matters, is that my body needs food intake. Immediately.

I got up, and left the empty, light-dimming dorm with the push of a door. The hallways were... crowded in a way, some people gossiping and whispering while some of what seemed to be the jocks and athletes boomed their voice with loud laughters, earning themselves some complaints from annoyed residents nearby.

Walking down, and turning into more hallways, I reached a large, wooden frame without doors that lead into what seemed to be a kitchen, considering the stove, fridge and countless other kitchenware in it. And from the room, a horrendous scent and dark smoke flooded the room like a deathly tsunami. When I smelt it, I swore my hunger emptied out, and stayed exactly like that all the way.

I entered with careful steps, and noticed two people through the eye-irritating smoke, one shouting hellfire, while the other desperately cleaning the mess in the counter sink near the window. Silently walking, I sat on a nearby chair that produced an audible scraping sound from pulling it out, which the two others were ignorant to hear from the screaming.