The Thing in the Rain

It wasn't.Not anymore.A large dog, maybe a mastiff or something like it. The general shape was still there: four legs, a long muzzle, massive shoulders. But something was wrong with every part of its body.

Its back was too high. Its front legs were too long. Its fur had fallen away in patches, exposing gray skin crossed by glowing veins, like blue cracks under the flesh. A broken collar still hung from its neck, half-melted into the swollen skin.

It was wounded.

A deep cut ran across its side, and from that wound came not only blood, but a pale, flickering light, as if something inside it were burning the wrong way.

He had heard about creatures like that. Everyone had.

Dissonant Beasts, people called them.

But they were not supposed to appear in the Common District. Not there. Not in the middle of the street. Not in front of him.

The beast lowered its muzzle toward the girl and bared its teeth. There were too many of them. Some grew crooked, overlapping each other, as if its mouth could no longer contain them.

“Stay away!” the girl screamed, though he could not tell whether she was shouting at him or at the creature. “Please… stay away!”

The beast moved forward, one step and then another. Each time its paws struck the asphalt, the puddles trembled.

He stepped back without realizing it.

A thought crossed his mind, sharp and shameful.

I have to run.

It was the first thought, the most honest one. The most human one.

He had no power, no weapon, no training. He was not one of the Academy students. He was not the kind of person who, in stories, threw himself in front of a monster to save someone. He was only a normal boy standing under the rain, with stiff legs and a heart beating so hard it hurt.

He took one step back. Then another.

He turned.

The road ahead was clear. He could run. He could scream. He could look for help. Later, he could tell himself there had been nothing he could do.

It would be true.

Probably.

And yet, the moment he turned his back on the girl, something twisted inside him. It wasn’t courage. Courage, at least in stories, always had a clean sound to it: a certainty, a flame, something bright enough to burn fear away.

What he felt was different.

It was dirty, heavy, full of shame.

It was the image of that girl dragging herself across the asphalt. It was the broken collar around the beast’s neck. It was the blue light of the train above him, moving toward a place he could never reach. It was the unbearable thought that, if he ran now, he would spend the rest of his life hearing that scream whenever the rain fell.

He clenched his teeth.

The beast roared.

He turned back.

The creature was already above the girl.