Chapter 1: Caesar

The black dog was staring.

Asa crouched a few steps away from it and attempted to look back into its eyes, as blue as the frozen lake deep, deep in the forest. Everyone thought it was a beautiful dog because not many people got closer and saw the too-long yellow fangs, the dried blood matting the fur, or the black claws ready to rip your skin apart.

And still, Asa couldn’t bring himself to hate the dog. The fact that they were stuck in here wasn’t its fault, even if the dog’s main role was ensuring nobody could escape.

“Are you certain you don’t want to let me through, Caesar?” Asa dragged his finger through the dirt, the soil cold. The soil – making him feel alive. “You can come with me if you want to.”

The dog bared its teeth, watching Asa’s finger warily. Too close, he was getting too close to the border.

Caesar wasn’t a real dog. No, this is incorrect, Caesar was real but he wasn’t quite alive. Not quite dead, either. All Asa knew about the dog was that it had been there since the forest came into existence hundreds or, perhaps, thousands of years ago. Caesar’s role was to guard the borders and not let any of them out. If Caesar knew your name, you were bound to stay.

There was no escape.

And yet, Asa kept trying. One time, he tried to bribe the dog with a bloody slab of meat, another time he attempted to gain Caesar’s trust by talking to him for hours and looking into the dog’s deadly cold eyes. He had even tried to dart past the dog, not looking back.

And every endeavour ended with the exact same scene – Asa being dragged back, the dog’s fangs sunk deep into his skin, leaving bloody marks.

Asa couldn’t be mad at the dog. They were all cursed in here. In truth, Asa thought that if Caesar could, he would run away, too.

“Okay,” Asa sighed and got up, brushing the dirt off his pants. “Fine.”

There was no point in staying there for longer. Asa had to go back to the shop again and work on his part of the deal with the witch. The shop that kept being visited by completely mundane customers. Usually.

When Asa glanced back, the black dog was gone.