Welcome To Nightshade

 Millicent had no idea how long she’d been out, as she awoke in the middle of that dark forest. A full moon was overhead, giving everything below it an illumination of the palest yellow. Some trees still had their leaves, others were bare.

She pulled herself upright, stretching a bit. At that point, she saw the leash in her hand, which no longer had a dog attached to the other end.

“...Are you kidding me right now?” she muttered to herself, starting to walk around.

“Hey, Nibbles!” she called, before whistling a couple times for good measure.

This was weird. She’d never passed out while taking the pup for a walk before in all her forty-two years and she wasn’t sure when a good time to start was. But she was fairly certain this wasn’t it.

She continued to wander around, looking for the dog in question. As she explored the woods, she couldn’t help but think of a classic horror film. Those types of movies had always brought her (perhaps counterintuitively) a sense of comfort, and now? It felt like she was in one, and the monster hadn’t yet presented itself.

Millicent (or Millie, as she preferred to be called) stopped in her tracks as she heard a loud howl from not far off. So there were wolves in this forest. Because of course there were. What self-respecting dark and creepy woods wouldn’t have wolves? The smart thing might have been to avoid the sounds. But in Millie’s defense, she was curious (and had an affinity for creepy stuff). Plus, if she had found herself in a horror movie, it was clearly part of a dream, and it wasn’t like any real harm could come to her in a dream, right?

The howling grew louder and louder until she could see its source. There was a wolf there, all right. And that wolf was bipedal and howling up at the full moon. There were a couple things about this wolf that seemed a bit odd, though, aside from its bipedal nature. For one thing, its ears had a slight flop to them, and its tail wasn’t long and swishy so much as a short stubby docked tail. It also appeared to be wearing a harness, with a name right there on its side.

Millie’s gray eyes narrowed as she got a look at the name in its reflective text.

“...Nibbles?”

The werewolf whirled around to look at her, brown eyes widening.

“...Food giver?!” it squealed, sounding every bit like a five-year-old child.

Nearly collapsing with relief at finding her dog, Millie couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I see you’ve had a growth spurt.”

And it was true: Nibbles had initially been a medium-sized Australian Shepherd mix. She now stood at about seven feet in height, towering over her human’s five-foot-two frame. Her little tail wiggled as she picked the woman up and hugged her.

“Love you too, Nibbles, but where the hell are we?” Millie asked.

“Dunno,” Nibbles said, putting her down. “I know I saw some deer around here and wanted to go play with ‘em, and the leash came off and I got to run!”

Millie looked at the end of the leash again, seeing that the clasp had outright broken. Well, then, that explained how she’d gotten loose without her harness coming off. But that still answered nothing about where they were.

The pair began to walk those woods together, Millie idly playing a bit with her long blue hair. She tilted her head a bit, as she could have sworn that the dye was fading and needed a replenish. Yet here her hair was, a brilliant shade of cerulean.

Yes, this definitely had to be a dream, she figured. How else would she have her hair back at the right color without blowing the cash on more hair dye? And how else would her favorite dog have become a freaking werewolf were it not for it being a dream? The only other possibility that came to mind were if, say, they had wound up in an isekai, but Millie knew her life. Things like that didn’t happen.

Not to her.

The woods seemed endless, and Millie was convinced that they’d passed by the same gnarled tree five times in rapid succession. Not only that, but was that tree looking at them, complete with eyebrows? Taking a breath, she told herself it was all just a dream.

Nibbles, for her part, had decided that she needed to sniff everything in the general vicinity. She’d managed to scare a bird out of one tree. The bird, for its part, hissed at the werewolf, baring three rows of fangs tucked within its beak, its five sets of red eyes narrowing. Nibbles let out a slight whimper and backed away before growling.

Millie couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight. “Don’t worry. I won’t let the vicious hell-bird get you,” she said, before waving at it.

The “hell-bird”, as Millie had referred to it, flapped away for a different tree, Nibbles barking after the creature. As she grumbled at the creature she wanted to use as a chew toy, her human reached up and gave her some scritches. She’d have gone for the usual spot between the ears, but given their newfound height difference, had to settle for something a bit below that. Either way, her canine (or now, lupine) companion calmed down, tail nub wiggling happily.

The trek through the dark woods continued, with the sound of a song creeping through the air. The voice had a slightly distorted, electric quality to it. Like it didn’t belong to a living being, but was computer generated.

“...Is it just me, or does that sound wrong?” Millie asked.

Nibbles tilted her head, curious. “Are there robots here?” she asked.

“Dunno,” Millie admitted.

Part of her wanted to investigate, but something else told her that might not be such a great idea. But that first part of her, the one insisting that “Well, this is a dream, after all, and if you’re dreaming you’re in a horror movie, you’ve gotta play that part to the hilt…” won out. She moved in the direction of the song, noticing that the color of the area was changing. The woods, up until this point, were dark, rendered in cool blues and purples, but there was an area ahead that had a sickly yellowish undertone to it. The artfully-twisted and gnarled trees had an unpleasant bent to them, just coming across as outright dead.

Millie shivered in response. She may have had no idea where she and her dog were right now, but this area stood out like a sore thumb. The singing had grown louder. Closer.

Its source stood in the middle of the unnerving off-ochre patch. The creature eyed her with soulless eyes, waving a human hand at her. At one moment, the hand had six fingers. At another, there were four. The overall number seemed to fluctuate at random times, as it sang, creeping closer.

There were points where its chicken legs blended into the ground, sometimes transforming into a fish tail. As it crept closer to Millie and Nibbles, the human tapped her werewolf companion’s arm.

“...Run,” she said.

“But...play!” Nibbles replied, wanting to live up to her name and, in fact, nibble upon the creature in question.

“I said ‘RUN’!” Millie shouted, before quickly changing her tactic. “OOH, what’s that over there?!” she asked, pointing in a direction other than where the horrific creature waited.

Nibbles, despite being bipedal and able to speak...was still very much a young pup. And as such, she fell for that oldest trick in the book, running in the direction Millie had indicated and barking. Millie heaved a sigh of relief and ran to catch up to the werewolf, the two managing to escape the creature.

However, Millie wasn’t much of a runner and had eventually tripped over her own feet somewhere in those woods, cursing the fact that of all horror tropes she’d had to enact in this damn dream, that had to be one of them.

Her yelp had gotten Nibbles’ attention, her companion pulling her upright.

“...Think we lost it?” she asked once standing again, looking behind them.

No sign of that unnerving glow. No more of that artificial singing. Just the quiet of the forest around them.

They resumed their wandering, hoping they were finally getting somewhere. More gnarled trees, some with facial features. Millie could have sworn she’d heard one of them whispering at her.

It seemed like hours before they finally got a sign of life. Within those woods was a huge clearing, and in the middle of that clearing was an enormous stone structure. The stones themselves were shiny and black, almost like onyx. So, there was a castle around here… So that, Millie reasoned, had to mean either a sign of life or that this place was abandoned (and possibly haunted?).

Either way, they approached the front entrance.