Hey Fam 🐾,

So the TL;DR of my day: I teamed up with Max and Bella, went sniffing out mysteries and treats in Spencerville, got spooked by a ghost dog who schooled us in loyalty. 🐶👻 Realized our bond is like bacon—strong and irresistible. Now, we’re snuggling under the stars, wisdom richer and hearts full. Miss you all a latte! ☕

Catch you on the fluff side,
Oreo 🖤🤍

Listen to the story here

The sun was starting to dip behind the Dalmatian Desert, stippling its golden hues against the sky when I, Oreo, the envoy of Spencerville’s foibles and delight, began my tale.

It was a day much like any other in my newfound realm, with a breeze that playfully tossed the grass beneath my paws and the familiar twinkle of mischief in my eyes. A day ordained for adventure, or so my compact, muscular frame jittered in anticipation. As usual, I was flanked by my chums Max and Bella, whose company rendered the ordinary spectacular, and the mundane, jazz hands-worthy.

Max, the golden-coated harbinger of good vibes, ambled beside me, his tail a pendulum of glee. Bella, on the other paw, streaked ahead, her feline eyes glinting with the secrets of Spencerville’s shadowy crannies.

We were meandering through the Western Fawn Pug Palace, I in pursuit of the curling scents escaping from Pup-Peroni—the kind of smells that could make a dog forget his own name if only for a savory moment—when the air shifted. The aroma of roasting bones and grilled meats faded, and in its place, a chill that clawed its way up my spine, making my fur stand on end.

Max halted, his carefree wag grounded as his ears pricked to the unnatural quiet that had settled like a shroud over our Eden. Even Bella’s whiskers twitched with unease.

Something was amiss in our near-perfect town, a creeping, slinking unease that didn’t belong in our sun-washed afternoons. Try as we might to shrug it off, the drooping sun leaned into whispers of long shadows and long-dead tales, casting Spencerville in an ethereal pall.

I led the way, my wiggling excitement now replaced with a dogged determination to unearth the source of our disquiet. The joviality of Spencerville felt distant as we ventured toward the heart of the town, past the cheerful confines of Pooched Potatoes and the smouldering pits of Dog-gone Good BBQ.

It was there, nestled in the soft light of The Canine Café where canids of high pedigree often nibbled on paté and paw-n-biscuits, that we unearthed the spine-wagging horror of the evening. For the sweetness underpinning the bliss of our demised lives had soured, as a specter draped in the rags of nonexistence—an intruder upon our paradise—loomed.

A ghost dog. A legend whispered in puppy bedtime stories but never confirmed. Its eyes hollowed pools of everlasting yearning, its fur a mere memory against the bristle of mine.

We stood, a holy trinity of living-afterlife, each breath hitched in a throat that knew neither air nor gasp in this plane. Even as the apparition’s voice rasped the silence, reaching only I, it relayed a message that would unseat any four-legged creature from complacency:

“Cherish the wait,” it wheezed, “for it is the thread that sews you to the mortal coil of the humans you yearn for.”

As fast as it came, the specter wafted away, leaving behind only the echo of eternal loyalty.

Our trio, once rattled, now snugly clenched in an unspoken vow to honor our past and the invisible bonds that stretched infinitely beyond the Siberian Summit, vowed to savor each playful romp, each muffled bark, and the warmth of togetherness in our quaint Spencerville.

Thus, with tails entwined like the stories we’d spin, we trotted back home under a now-comforting moon. The horror had not been one of monsters, but of forgotten truths—a horror which had, strangely, wrapped us in a blanket of assurance that our humanity, however spectral, lingered in the living memory of love.

Tomorrow, perhaps after a raucous debate at The Woofy Bakery over who snagged the last éclair, we would laugh. Yes, indeed, we’d laugh heartily with the kind of elation that only souls like ours, paused in serenity and bound by the invisible threads of waiting, could understand.

The End.