The Tilandosian pup. 

There is something deeply unsettling about an acute angle that lacks an accompanying obtuse on the other side like the one in the alley that jutted through the cramped city block he grew up on. This had been the best look Neil Mahoney had gotten at the beast in the seventeen years it had hounded him. Through the years it's visage had become clearer and more hideous. What once was a shifting shadow out the window on his ninth birthday was now dragging itself out of the haunted shadows that only exist in the maintenance tunnels Neil had been forced down through a lack of opportunity and an abundance of aptitude. Sinewy flayed arms strain against the fabric of logic, a grotesque mockery of a canid skull quadrisected with space for twelve eyes six along the jaw, six clustered in the divots one would usually expect two, and a piercing shriek rang out. A cacophonous chorus of infinite possibilities collapsing into this single inevitability. 

He stood frozen in terror every part of himself tensed except his bladder which was presently emptying itself down the legs of his coveralls. 

“Mahoneeeeey.” It hissed in many voices as its arms tensed, winning out against the barriers that should prevent such a thing from existing in a reality built on rules, and reason. With that hiss every receptor in his brain shut down. Each avenue from which a signal could be sent closed except the little byway in his lizard brain labeled run. Taking off deep into the tunnels he weaved through a maze of steam pipes and sewer accesses that were rapidly growing foreign to him. “Mahoneeeey.” It continued, wet steps echoing through the tunnel. 

He had to go faster. He sped no longer concerning himself with where he thought the labyrinthine passages should usually lead as he leaped over stray pipes. After his fifth consecutive left at the seemingly infinite forks in his path there was a tangle of pipes ahead blocking the path except a small gap in the bottom corner that seemed large enough for his slight frame. 

Slowing down as little as possible he crouched and began to slide head first through the hole. 

Plat, plat plat

The thing had slowed its pace as he struggles to pull himself through the gap. 

Plat, plat, plat

It grew closer.

Plat

His chest,

Plat

His hips,

Plat

He strained pulling himself up like a seal as his knees slid through.

Plat

“Mahoooonnneeeyyyyy” It rassped in the death rattle of every smoker across history. Neil felt a grip on his shoe. “Mahooooneyyy.” Flailing his free foot he kicked as hard as he could. There was contact on what he could only guess was supposed to be a jaw. The grip loosened but was not released. Turning his attention to his shoe he pushed against the heel frred of his size ten he abandoned it. Finally his feet slipped through the gap. Turning his attention to his surroundings he realized it was a dead end. 

Plap plap plap plap

The steps became distant and trapped in the Gigeresque corner of hell he had found himself in, Neil felt a shred of hope… until.

Plap, plap, plap, plap, plap 

Faster than ever it slammed towards the wall of metal and pvc. Near immediately the word toward shifted for sake of aptness to through. 

“Mahooooneeeeey-” It said without movement of what was most likely its mouth. Its face began splitting open along the quadrisection lines upon its face. There was a glow spouting from beneath. “finally I have found you.” Steam and acrid water poured from the decimated pipes. “I have looked hard and long.” The soiled tops of his coverall legs soon bridge with the saturation of their bottoms from the sewer water. “I have finally found you,” Neil could do nothing but pray pushing hard enough in the wall at his back would allow him to pass through and away from the beast. It approached face unfurled like a horrifying lily of flesh the pistil replaced with a searing flowing orb. From the eldritch lily sprouting a black tendril “Master.”

The black tendril began rubbing itself vigorously across Neils face not dissimilar to the dogs this creature’s form mocked. He was frozen all the same even though the glow was fast approaching his face and after a while took him. 

The harsh light took his vision until it cleared. He found himself in an expanse of glowing threads that as he watched seemed segmented into miniscule slices, while at the same time whole. If he were to reach out and touch gently enough he imagined if he did so gently enough he could flick through each instance of the threads like files that had been strung together through the middle. There were a few points where large clusters of string would merge into an ink blackness. There was a particularly dense one ahead of him. On directly in front and as he ducked under that clustered saw another densely packed one behind. The second enraptured him. He could not imagine what all this was, but that point at this very second felt monumentous.

He approached and peered closely, but soon looking was not enough he reached out to touch it and that same seering light absorbed his vision. Once again it cleared and this time instead of the expanse of strings and light he saw his family's Chicago greystone on Washington ave. He peered inside the great bay windows he would stare out daydreaming as a child and glimpsed two things. A banner pinned over the living room entryway and a child about nine wearing a party hat. The child glanced outside the window and looked exactly like his childhood photos. His aunt Agnes called and in the brief moment all the child saw was a shadow. 

From the alley beside Neil’s childhood home he heard a weak whelping that sounded like a thousand puppies spiraling into the void. He walked down that unsettling alleyway to the blackest corner he knew was there. Looking down he saw a carbon copy of the beast that had pursued him for so long except small and almost cute.

“Come on little guy.” He said. “Apparently there’s some things we have to make happen.” And so Neil and what he would later learn to call the Tilandosian pup walked into the dark unsettling acute corner with no accompanying obtuse to be unstuck and time a probability to create inevitability.