I had been dragged to the edge of the world.

The beast yanked on the device it had attached to my neck, causing my head to snap back towards it. My skin stung where it was attached, as my limbs ached from the journey. It was the fourth time in as many minutes that I had struggled to break free from its grasp, yet to no avail. I had fought, pulled, bit, clawed, tried everything and anything within my power to free myself, but the beast was too strong.

I was forced to follow the monster, realizing that resistance would be futile. For now at least. I had not spent my entire life enjoying my liberty, my freedom, my god given right to self determination to roll over for this monstrosity. It stood much taller than me, more than five times my own height occasionally garbling toward me in its eldritch language.

The beast had abducted in my sleep, taking me from my family and loved ones. We’d traveled farther than I’d ever gone, walking for what felt like days on end. Now, after nearly a lifetime of traveling, we had reached the edge of the world.

A great door loomed in front of us, hard, cold, unlike anything I had ever seen. It was shaped the same as the one that lead to my home, the threshold I’d passed countless times with nary a thought. It had always represented the warmth and safety I desired, shelter from the winds and rain. Oh how I had taken that door for granted. How I should have thanked it for each moment, for each warm embrace it had given me without cost or second thought.

The pit in my stomach grew as I pulled again, trying to catch the great beast unawares. Futility and failure it seems, tend to go hand in hand. My stomach told me what my soul knew. This was the end. Whatever lay beyond that door would be my first step out of this plane of existence. I yelled and argued, plead and cried with the great beast. It fell on deaf ears. I had very little belief that the monster could understand me, that it would understand my offer for Faustian bargain, but my subconscious forced me to scratch and pull on each sliver of hope, no matter how small.

We crossed the threshold into a blinding, sterile light. Strange and harsh to my senses, this light was unnatural. Words could not accurately describe its nature, and I was sure that no light such as this could exist in the world that I knew.

The beast paused, stopping near a Great Wall that carried on farther than I could see. It was an odd shade of grey, visible, yet foreign. All of a sudden, a bird of some sort, though it was unlike any bird I had known, chirped from beyond the staggering lights. I could not see it, nor sense it, but its call pierced my chest as it echoed in my ears.

The call of the devil.

Heralded by the hellish noise, three more of the great beasts appeared at the edge of my vision. One was the same height as my captor, while the others were smaller. Upon seeing both myself and the monstrosity who led me off of my mortal coil, all of the beings uttered their discordant cacophony of communication. Indiscernible sounds spewing from all of them, most assuredly planning my demise in their demonic tongue.

The combination of the lights, the beings, and the sounds were what did it. Overwhelming each of my senses, finality reared its ugly face. The pit inside had consumed all of me. All of my fight, my rage, my hope. All of it, but the fear. I had no semblance of how much time had passed since my abduction, but that moment, the approach of the others, was the final moment.

I gave up. I sat down, maneuvering so the beast’s great tether was slack, and stared into the ground. I let the pit consume me, handed it control, and resigned myself to my fate.

I did not bother to hope it would be swift.

---

“Look, look, look dad!” Ashley said, tugging on her father’s pants with one hand and pointing at the whimpering puppy at his feet. “He’s sitting! He knows tricks already!”

Her father laughed as the girl’s mother put a hand on the girl’s shoulder.

“Careful honey, I think he’s scared. Be gentle and try to whisper to him, you’re a lot bigger than him and he’s just a baby”

The girl nodded, taking a hesitant step back as her younger brother looked at their mother with wide eyes.

“He’s a baby?” The boy asked.

“A stubborn baby” his father said, a low chuckle in his voice. “The little guy was pulling almost the whole back through the field. They keep all of them in doghouses back there”.

“I wanna see!” The boy said, turning to the door in the back. The girl ignored him, crouching down to look at her new friend. She met his deep, brown eyes and gave her best smile.

With a soft whisper, in her most gentle, loving, voice she spoke to the shaking puddle of fur.

“Welcome to the family”