chapter two

POV: Kehan (Alex)

They called me Alex.

That isn’t my name, that much I know.

But I don’t remember the real one.

Sometimes, when the air hums with certain sounds like the lazy buzz at midnight or the slow turning of moonlight on water, I almost feel it. Like it’s buried just beneath my ribs, waiting to be pulled out. But it slips away again. Always.

All I know is that the name Alex came from the man who took me home.

Adams.

Adams Martin, with his quiet voice and haunted eyes. He smelled like salt and sleeplessness. Reeks of anxiety and something more. Like the edge of something raw and unraveling. He didn’t look at me the way others did in that strange cage-house.

 

I don’t blame him. I saw my reflection as we got in, too. He called me a dirty shiba inu to that flat rectangle he always seemed to hold to his ear.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t call me “buddy” or “good boy.” He just stared, like he was waiting for me to crack open.

I almost did.

Not that I remember how.

When he signed the papers, I heard one of the humans say, “He’s a quiet one. Weird eyes though. Maybe part husky?”Adams didn’t respond.

He just looked at me like he knew something.

 

That first night in his apartment was like being trapped in a dream made of glass. Too smooth. Too clean. Everything echoing.

I stayed curled by the window. The city blinked outside like a giant machine. Lights. Horns. Distant sirens. None of it made sense.

In the corner, Adams sat cross-legged with his laptop balanced on his thighs, speaking softly to a glowing screen. I understood nothing, but some words broke through the fog.

“...still seeing those glittering eyes in the dream, yeah.”

Pause.

“No, not human. Not exactly. They... they look at me. Like they see me. I wake up right after.”

Another pause. Then a sigh.

“No, I haven’t gone to the park yet. I’ve barely left the apartment. The idea of strangers breathing near me exhausts me. The people, noise, and constant entitlement to replies and explanations, tires me out, Doc.”

He rubbed his face, tired. There was something in him that mirrored something in me. A fracture. A deep one.

“I did get the dog, though,” he added.

My ears perked.

His eyes flicked to me. For a second, he almost smiled.

“His name’s Alex, I guess. The shelter had nothing on him. He just showed up one day. Alex seemed like a befitting name, they take up space just like the one you know.” He did smile then and I wondered how I could do that, too – make him smile.

He leaned back and glanced at the ceiling. “Maybe he’s as broken as I am.”

I don’t remember arriving at the shelter.

My earliest memory is burning.

Fire under my skin. Bones reshaping. The heat of magic compressed too tightly into the wrong form. My mind stretched between worlds and then -

Nothing.

Silence.

Darkness.

The next thing I knew, I had paws.

I didn’t remember how to walk at first. My legs kept folding beneath me like I was drunk in reality. I made sounds I didn’t recognize, soft growls and huffs. The humans didn’t notice. They thought I was just “nervous.”

I was more than nervous... I was new.

Then morning came and I was... new all over again. I don’t recall how it happened but suddenly, I had two legs, two hands, and a full body just like Adams.

Before I could panic, it all went away and I was Alex the dirty shiba inu – or husky if we follow that cage-house person.

I turned to see if Adams saw, but... No

Alas!

**

The flashes started on my second night with Adams.

A shimmer of blue light beneath stone pillars. A voice—low, furious—saying, “You failed the bond, Kehan. You let the soul escape.”

Then a hand – human, yet, not - gripping me by the throat, pulling me down into darkness.

Then silence again.

I woke up panting – it sounded like whimpering if you asked someone else, - curled in the corner beside Adams’ bed. He didn’t stir. His breaths were short, clenched. He was dreaming too

We were both haunted.

**

Adams called me “Alex” with this hesitant gentleness like he was afraid I might shatter.

“Come on, Alex. Let’s try outside today.”

I didn’t want to go. The leash he was holding looked like a chain. Only my mistress can chain me,  a voice echoed in my head. But I followed because something in me wanted to follow him. Wanted to understand him. Maybe protect him.

And maybe, I remembered being something else. A protector. A watcher. A guardian.

But the memories only came in shards.

Moonlight hitting stone. A golden seal cracking. Blood floating in the water. A scream - mine or someone else’s, I couldn’t tell.

Adams’ hand brushed my head.

Jolted.

“You’re real quiet, huh?” he murmured.

I closed my eyes at the touch. It didn’t feel wrong. It felt... good, grounding. Like an anchor in the storm of forgetting.

 

At night, Adams made tea he never finished, typed things he never shared, and stared out the window like he was waiting for something. A sign. A person. An answer.

He never turned the TV on. Music rarely played. His world was silence and breath and stillness.

I fit into it too easily.

But something in me itched. My limbs ached at the full moon. My bones felt too tight. My mind buzzed with the sense that I wasn’t meant to stay like this.

Something was missing.

**

On the third night, I dreamed.

Or remembered.

I stood beneath a dark sky, split by a glowing red scar. Around me, pillars twisted with runes pulsed. In my hand - not a paw - a blade made of bone and flame.

And in front of me, a child of light, wrapped in veils, said, “The soul must be found. Before the veil collapses.”

I opened my mouth to speak but blood spilled out instead.

Then I woke.

I looked at my paws and whimpered.

Adams stirred on the couch, murmuring something in his sleep.

 

I watched him for hours after that. Studied him.

He smelled like herbs and rain. His hands shook when he was stressed. He read every label twice before opening anything. He turned his phone upside down whenever it lit up.

But when he looked at me - really looked - it felt like he was searching for someone inside me.

And maybe he was.

But I’m only a dog, Adams.

**

The next day, he crouched beside me in the hallway.

“I had that dream again,” he whispered.

I tilted my head.

“The eyes. Glittering. Gold, I think. They were watching me. Not in a scary way, just... like I was important.”

He hesitated. “Sometimes I wonder if they’re yours, Alex. That’s stupid, right?”

I wanted to speak. I almost remembered how. Almost.

Instead, I rested my head against his knee.

He let out a breath and smiled.

“Yeah. Stupid.”

But he didn’t move away.