Hey Mom & Dad 🌜,

Just wanted to let you know your fur-covered night owl, Leia, has been venturing into the mythical Pawsburgh after everyone’s asleep! I’ve tamed Doberman Dunes, made friends with a ghostly pooch, and added a dash of spectral to our usual tug-of-war games. Don’t worry, I’m still home before sunrise, guardian of dreams 🐾✨.

Catch you in the morning sunbeams,
Baby Cakes 🐕💕

Listen to the story here

In the obsidian hours, when the moon coyly shied behind wisps of night clouds, I, Leia, would heed the inaudible call of Pawsburgh. Every dog in the known and the whispered world would prattle about the charmed haven, and tonight – with the stars as my hushed accomplices and my humans deep in slumber, I decided my adventures needed seasoning.

The familiar sheen of Blue Basenji Bay was my first foray, the water lapping as if to whisper secrets only four-legged folk could discern. I wasn’t merely out for a jaunt; no, not this night. I craved the forbidden, the shiver down the spine, the unknown darkness that lurks beside the innocent in this doggy dreamscape.

As I sauntered past Poodle’s Pasta, the air grew colder, licked by a breeze with jaws that nibbled mercilessly at the fringes of my slick black fur. The Puppy Patisserie looked eerie, the patisseries’ usual sweet allure usurped by a scent of foreboding. And yet, curiosity, as it is wont to do, wagged my hindquarters forward.

I caught whiffs of sinister undertones intermingling with the salted sea tang as I approached Jade Jack Russell Junction—a hallowed place I had once fancied to prance through in broad daylight, not in the witching hour. The wind toyed with me, tugging at the ends of my ears in mischievous caresses.

The symphony of Pawsburgh’s nightlife was silenced as I drifted into the heart of the town. Not a collar jingle nor paw pad’s patter was to be heard. It was in this unsettling quiet that Doberman Dunes crested before me, looming and inscrutable. Both drawn and daunted by its desolate allure, I couldn’t avert my path; it seemed predetermined.

The dunes echoed of tales, of dogs spirited away, enveloped by the sands and the ghosts of their own bark echoes. A shudder rippled through my sinewy frame; raw instinct screamed for retreat, yet I was a canine enshrouded with the spirit of inquiry akin to those of Hound-dini himself.

It was then my ears perked to it—a whisper not carried by the wind but by shadows. I was not alone.

An apparition, ghastly and canine in a manner grotesque and ungodly, wavered before me. I stood transfixed, my protective nature wrestling with my desire to sprint towards The Doggie Daycare and never look back. This specter, it wore terror as audaciously as I wore my glossy coat—a thing both within and apart from Pawsburgh.

I could sense its history—a pup misunderstood, seeking companionship in the spaces between barks and howls, a soul tormenting those who trespassed into its night-soaked realm for sheer want of a playmate.

Yet, here was I, Leia, the spitfire guardian of my oh-so-human pack, confronted with a kindred spirit of sorts. My heart pounded a staccato rhythm against my ribs, each beat a wordless pact between Earth and the ethereal, until suppressed whimpering escaped me.

“Come out to play?” the specter hissed, its voice a broken squeak of a long-lost squeaky toy.

And then, within me, a resolve bubbled; enough to show this poor shade a tenderness it hadn’t known. With fear a companion shuffling at my side, I inched forward. “Alright,” I murmured, “but no funny business, and you should know, I’m very good at tug-of-war.”

The spectral tail gave a ghostly wag, an eerie mimic of the joy brimming within me. And so it was, I, Leia, the embodiment of loyalty and courage, found myself an unexpected friend in the crevices of Pawsburgh’s darkness, breathing life into horror with a wag of my tail and a game of eternal tug-of-war.

The End.

Share This Story: