KNOCK KNOCK!
KNOCK KNOCK!
"WHO!?"
His voice comes loud and hurried. Tap-Tap-Tap-Tap. He opens the door while still standing with a towel wrapped around his waist after the bath. His eyes search immediately for the person, but he finds no one on his first check.
EIK!!! He jumps back suddenly when something wet and... slick presses against his shin. His eyes finally drift down, and fall on a... mutt. Mutt?, he thinks to himself. But then something else comes to his mind. His eyes narrow slightly as he slowly points a finger at the dog with a sharp jerk of his hand, and mutters quietly.
"How... did you knock when you are a... dog?"
The question is logical, and he can't help but move past the dog to turn his head left and right to inspect the porch. No one here. Thinking that maybe it was simply some child prank or perhaps the dog really knocked somehow... he decides to ignore the incident. Yeah, not worth it to spend more than one minute on this... and one minute is already up.
With a couple of shoo-shoo! at the dog, he finally closes the door after the dog is gone. But then, suddenly, he jerks the door open again immediately afterwards. His hand reaches out, his hand closes on the back collar, and his eyes glare at the figure with pained intensity.
"You..! It was you!"
The figure standing on the porch just gives a sheepish smile, and steps inside the house later...
After a few minutes, both sit across from each other in the living room. The figure turns out to be Paul, the delivery man from five days ago, who had basically eaten half of the pizza before even delivering it properly.
Pluto sits on his usual couch, his hands flipping the fresh currency notes with increasing speed. Flick-flick-flick-flick-flick-flick...
Paul looks at the scene in front of him with unhidden awkwardness, his toes curling against the marble as if the sound of the notes flipping was troubling him somehow.
"H...Hey, why are you doing that so aggressively? Be a little gentle?"
"Gentle?"
Pluto looks up finally. His hand stops flipping the notes before he flicks them ahead onto the table between them, though one note remains in his hand, which he takes a long sniff from before flicking it down too.
"Let me get this straight, you aren't my friend, and you won't ask straight questions from me! Understood? Like, get a life!"
"..."
"Whose dog was it... by the way?"
Paul, seeing the lifeline of a different topic, perks up quickly. Straightening his spine, he nods his head quickly before saying with a wide smile,
"Mine, obviously!"
"...I thought you were pet... petless?"
"Well, I was! But I just got this dog yesterday!"
"How? No kidnapping... right?"
"Uh? No... Wait! How can you even think of that!?"
"Well... You look like one... Ahem... Forget it, actually."
Both slump back again in their seats. Pluto starts scrolling through his phone, and Paul starts eating another pizza slice from some random custom yet again.
"Hoh... waist..."
"What!? Show me too!"
Paul almost drapes himself over the table between them to look at Pluto's phone screen. Pluto stares silently at him, even while tilting the screen slightly toward him to show the video.
"You have a wife..."
"I have a heart too."
Paul replies almost instantly without a minute change in his expression. A wide and childish smile is on his face as he looks at the waist of some random model on the phone screen.
"What's the model name?"
"iPhone..."
"No! I mean what's the model name!? Woman's name, I mean!"
"Lila..? No... Maybe, Lyla? Leela?"
"Why are you guessing? Just check the description."
"There's nothing in the description, idiot. That's why I am guessing from the audio."
"Oh..."
"Hm."
Both sit back again in their respective places, trying to busy themselves with their work again, which was mainly eating stolen pizza for Paul.
After around half an hour, Paul finally decides to go out, leaving the empty box of pizza behind.
Pluto closes the door slowly, feeling drained just from hosting that man for a mere thirty minutes. Turning around, he starts walking down the hallway again... A brief thought crosses his mind just for a moment... Did I ask him whether he was the one who knocked earlier..? Well... he was there, so he must have been...
scuff-scuff-scuff
The sound of his footsteps sliding slightly through the floor echoes in the empty house. When he finally reaches the living room, his eyes fall on the table first. Empty pizza box. And... and? His palms clench briefly and instinctively, his eyes staring at the... mutt. The dog licks its paw slowly while sitting there unbothered. Finally, its head turns toward Pluto, then...
Bark! Bark!
He takes one step back, then another. Multiple questions replay in his mind without stopping, but at the core of every question, his mind drifts to just one: how?
Whoosh! Thud! Thud! Thud!
His feet hit the floor hard as he whips his body around and runs.
After several minutes, he sits in his bedroom, the door completely locked. A blanket is draped over his body, and the lights are completely on. Just in front of him rests his phone, its ringing tone echoing in the quiet bedroom before the call finally picks up.
"Hello? Hehe... Missing me already? Want me to come and sleep at your house?"
Pluto's body lunges forward in irritation and dread at the voice, his body draping over the phone fully as he replies back.
"Shut up, Paul. Y... Your dog, why did you leave it here?"
For a moment, there is no response from the other side, just silence. A bead of sweat trickles down Pluto's cheek. The voice finally comes.
"Uh..? Dude, my dog is just sleeping in front of me... Like right in front of me. And my wife is literally nuzzling at it... God, she's cute..."
After the first sentence, Pluto doesn't hear anything else. A chill runs down his spine, his hands trembling as he slowly hangs up the call. His forehead presses against the mattress, his hands pulling the blanket tight around him...
What..?
BARK! BARK!
Another chill, even colder than before, comes upon him, freezing his whole body for the moment. His head lifts up slightly, staring at the door... kitchen... the sound came from the kitchen.
Slowly, he drags himself out of his room. The house is his; he cannot stay in the bedroom forever like this. He opens the door slowly, and takes a step outside... one step after another... silent.
Shh... shee... shee...
I need to get out of the house quickly! He thinks to himself. His path avoids the kitchen carefully, moving side-by-side with the wall, his eyes staring toward the direction of the kitchen with terror.
When the kitchen passes completely from his view, he almost feels relieved. Finally, he stops in front of the main door, his hand trembling slightly as he reaches out.
KNOCK! KNOCK!
AHH! His eyes widen in horror, his body almost falling back before he holds the knob tightly, tightly to keep himself steady. Then... slowly, a smile appears on his face. His head turns back slowly... slowly... his eyes fall on the hallways, then slowly at the... dog.
A tear slowly appears again, and trails down his cheek. His smile widens and more tears appear. Thump! His knees hit the floor, his eyes not blinking away from the dog.
KNOCK!
"I... I am dead... ain't I?"
The dog lunges forward immediately, its jaw opening wide. Pluto's upper body flattens back in his kneeling position as the heavy weight settles over him. Its jaw snaps shut on his neck, its teeth digging in.
His body shakes and convulses, tears raining down freely, his eyes not even staring at the dog but just at the door which his eyes are being forced to look at.
"Ah... N...No... stop..."
Finally, he finds his voice. But it is too late. Its teeth snap shut on his windpipe, blood pools under him slowly... and then finally, his body goes completely limp.
