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Emily walked happily to school, intertwined with her boyfriend, Tom. They were going to midterms again, but were looking forward to the weekend, as usual. Today was a normal day, however. They were en route to school, wearing their normal clothing, the sky above them the colorful blue that was their usual sky. Traffic was heavy, as usual, but they were walking, as usual. They were doing nothing out of the ordinary.
Except Emily could look at Tom and feel nothing except a cold, hollow feeling in her chest.
But she couldn't tell him that. Tom would never understand. His was the only love she could even begin to comprehend, never mind understand. She was not about to make things worse.
To make things worse would be to make Tom realize she was in the wrong, perhaps even worse than normal. And she would not make things worse. She wouldn't make Tom worse.
So she walked. As long as she walked, she could pretend, pretend that anything wrong with her was not wrong at all. She could pretend that Tom just needed to come to terms with, that she just needed to come to terms with the fact he would never be able to see anything that could not be found in plain sight. He'd come around, in a few months or years. It would be a little while longer before her secret was in the open.
About a hundred meters from the school, Emily looked away from her boyfriend, not able to bear the pain of looking into his eyes any longer. She looked at the ground in front of her. She looked at the gate in front of the school, the forest in the distance, the cars in the street, the sky…
There was a crack in the sky, a space of emptiness between the sky and the earth. Through the crack, Emily could see a bright light shining through, a bright light forcing a different shade of blue onto the sky. As she raised her head to look at it she heard a scattering of whispers, a few people say something similar to, "Did you see that?"
They all looked up, so Emily looked with them. Her eyes were pulled from the bright light above, out of the crack in the sky, back to the ground. In the corner of her eye, she saw a dog. She turned her head to get a better look. It was a black dog, a very black dog that stood out unsurprisingly in contrast with the pristine snow gathering on the ground.
As Emily watched the dog, it rose and sat on its haunches, forepaws behind it and hind paws in front. It was as if it were meditating.
Emily blinked her eyes and looked back into the light. The light would not let her go. Slowly but surely she was drawn to it, drawn to the light and its memory of a different world, a place where three people and a dog were.
Emily's heart was beating rapidly and she could not figure out why. She'd never felt like this before, never desired this before. She took a few steps forward, almost completely unaware of her surroundings.
She remembered the voice of her sister, Amelia. I've had my eye on that same dog, she said. You can go down and see it if you like.
Emily had just turned thirteen. "Who are you?" she said.
What happened? Emily's boyfriend Tom said, his voice dampened with sleep.
I don't know. It just seemed to know that I was allowed here. Her voice trailed off into silence.
Emily looked around the clearing in the woods, which she presumed was the entrance to the other world. All she needed to do was cross this clearing and she'd be in.
Suddenly the dog, the black dog, let out a loud bark, so loud it echoed loudly through the clearing. It was beautiful, though not beautiful in regular human terms. Beauty in that world was different, it embodied more than normal beauty. Its bark was beautiful, beautiful in the sense that it wanted Emily to know that it knew she was there, that it could bring her into that world, that it was inviting her in.
Emily continued to walk forward. Her boyfriend was still asleep beside her. She took a step forward and the dog barked again. She looked at her boyfriend, but he was still asleep. She looked down at him and saw the reflection of the dog in his dilating eyes.
She decided that if he could still sleep with that dog in the room, then she would walk into the other world. She took one last look at him and began to cross the clearing.
It was at this point that Tom woke up, and Emily's boyfriend realized he was still dreaming. "Emily!" he said, "Where are you?" He got up and set off in search of her, but Emily was gone. It was only days later that he realized he'd never seen her leave.
When Tom next went to school he discovered he had missed almost half of the tests the day before.
Tom did not understand, but he did remember the dog, its bark.
He continued to go to school every day after that, but his friends did not see him, for he would go at different times to school, always at different times. He'd walk through a different part of the school, a different place, a different time.
Then, one day he heard a bark.
He'd been taken to a part of the school that he'd never normally walk through. Not that he often walked through that part of the school, but it would usually take him longer.
That day he walked through the part of the school that was strictly for elementary students. It was not one he walked to often, but he was walking through it at that time.
He heard the bark and came to the realization that the dog was talking to him, both willing and unsure, inviting him in.
Tom took a step forward and didn't hear the bark again. He turned around, but the black dog was nowhere to be seen. Tom looked down at the ground, thinking about how it could have disappeared so quickly.
"You can leave now," he said, for he had realized the dog was not there.
After hearing this, Tom turned around and walked forward. "There's no chance you'll find anything interesting here," he said. His voice was firm, he was upset.
Something cold nuzzled against his leg and he jumped. When he looked down, the black dog was sitting beside him, its nose centimeters from his leg, wagging its tail rapidly. Next to the dog, its reflection was visible in Tom's eyes.
Tom was bewildered. He stood still, not speaking, while the dog sat in front of him. Within the next few minutes the reflection of the dog had disappeared from his eyes.
Then he saw it, though he did not know what he was seeing. He had the sudden realization that the light was calling him. He turned quickly around, looking for the dog that called him, but there was no dog there.
Still, something was pulling him towards the light. He walked towards it.
Emily. He did not mean to think her name, but she was the only one on his mind. The light was calling him and he knew she needed him.
By the time he had descended the stairs and walked through the far door, his thoughts had left him and he was thinking of her name. As he walked, he continued to think of her name and the light's light and Emily and the dog and trying and understanding and doing and thinking and needed.
He was too busy to notice his surroundings. He passed through that part of the school, then walked past the secretary, who appeared baffled by his attire.
He walked through another door and down another stairway. Finally he came to the end of the stairway and stepped outside. He needed to move around the school, to go to the other side.
As he walked outside he saw the dog run down the stairs, exactly where they came out, and out the door.
Tom realized he was finally in the other world. He decided he would walk around the school, to see if he could find the way back. But first he'd return to Emily.
The closer he got to the entrance to the other world, the less he could concentrate. It was as if the dog that called him was growing more powerful, or more persuasive, or maybe both.
He was closer now, only a few yards away, but he didn't know whether he was closer physically or closer mentally.