Chapter Text
It had happened before.
The nightmares.
Pongo had been having them on and off. Which he expected. Given what his family had gone through…
But now… Even after almost two years had passed… They were still just as frequent, if not more so…
He was back at that awful house. The one that belonged to that devil woman… Only, instead of being a regular, decrepit manor house, it was twisted and strange. Looking more like surrealist painting. He was alone… At least, he thought so… But every time he had this nightmare, he was standing in a hallway… And at the end of the hallway was a door…
Never in any of his nightmares did the door open… Pongo had this feeling that… Something was waiting for him on the other side. And despite being a grown dog who had faced evil things before, he knew whatever was behind that door was worse… Far, far worse…
He could only stare at it. Despite being aware he was in a nightmare, he couldn’t move… It was if whatever was behind that door had control of his dreams… He could wait, breathing heavily. He felt his legs feel weak under him, his heart pounding in his chest. And then, always, right before he woke up…
He saw the door knob turn…
And that’s when he woke up.
His heart still beating as if it was going to rip out of his chest.
And that’s where he found himself…
Laying in bed, in his own house…
He let out a sigh of relief… Then groaned when he realized he’d never be able to fall back asleep.
“That’s the third time this week.” He said to himself. “It’s always the same thing… What does it mean!?” When they first started, he dismissed them as the trauma of what his family had gone through finally catching up with him. Now that he had a chance to calm down, the what if’s became a bit louder in his mind… But the same nightmare? Beat-for-beat? There was something more here… He just didn’t know what…
He got up and looked out the window.
His family had been through a lot of scary ordeals… Each one seemed to be worse than the last… But he thought it was all behind him…
And yet here was, with this nagging feeling in his gut...
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When morning came, Pongo managed to get himself up, despite his headache from not sleeping. He saw that his wife had already gotten up, and he stood up, tried to shake the sleep out of him, and headed downstairs.
When he got out to the barn, the pups were already up, playing and running around. Lucky saw him and ran up to him.
“Morning, Dad!” He said.
“Good morning, son.” Pongo said, sleepily.
“Hey, me and Patch are gonna go dig by the apple tree, wanna help us?” Lucky asked.
Pongo winced. “I’m afraid not, son. My head is killing me.”
“Oh…” Lucky hung his head. “Okay…” He walked off to play with his siblings.
Pongo sighed. “Last thing I want is to not be able to spend time with them.” He said to himself. “But another night like last night, and I’ll probably have to stay in bed all day tomorrow.”
“Well, good to see you up and about.” He heard his wife call to him. She walked over, and licked his cheek.
“Thought you were going to stay in bed all day.” Perdy said. “In fact… You’ve been up late a lot recently, are you alright?”
“Oh, yes.” Pongo said. “I’ve just had trouble sleeping lately…”
“Trouble sleeping?” Perdy asked. “How so?”
“Uh… Don’t worry about it.” Pongo said. He hated to lie to his wife. But he didn’t know how to tell her that he was having nightmares… Nightmares he didn’t even really know why they scared him as bad as they did.
“Well, maybe you’ll feel better after you’ve had some breakfast.” She suggested.
“Yeah… Yeah, maybe.” He said.
He went back to the farm house…
As he sat on the porch, eating breakfast. He watched his family play… Seeing them all safe was a huge weight off his shoulders. Nightmare’s weren’t pleasant, but at least they only happened in his head…
He could see Perdy was looking over them, occasionally barking at one to stop doing something they shouldn’t, or playing around with the others… He couldn’t help but smile…
He looked out at the field of the family’s farm, the leaves on the trees were starting to change colors, the grass was losing its green, and ever so often, birds would fly overhead…
It was a peaceful morning, so peaceful he thought he might fall asleep right there…
Until he casually glanced out at the field again… And saw a large shadow inching over the hills…
At first, he thought nothing of it… Until he noticed that it was moving a bit fast… And that it was going towards the sun…
AND THAT THERE WAS NOTHING AROUND TO CAST IT….
His heart started pounding, just like it did when he had his nightmare… He watched it inch up the property, moving like a snake, slowly, slowly creeping up… It stopped just a few feet away from Perdy and the pups… And then he saw something reach out… And he swore that it morphed itself into some hideous, boney hand… One that was reaching for them!
He slammed his eyes shut, and shook his head…
When he opened his eyes, there was no shadow… No hand… Everything was… Normal…
He looked around… Nothing.
He waited for his heart to calm down…
“...... Maybe this will be a bit worse than a headache…”
He’d gone back inside, maybe listening to Roger play would help calm his mind…
“Ah, hey ol’ boy.” Roger said when he walked into his piano room.
Pongo came over and licked his hand.
“Good to see you up, you’ve been kind of sleeping in the past day or two.”
“Well nightmare’s about an indescribable horror will do that to you.” Pongo answered, even though he knew his human couldn’t understand him.
“Well, since you’re here. Tell me what you think of this new song.” Roger said. He got ready to start playing, and Pongo waited… Then the phone rang…
“Ugh. Of course.” Pongo said to himself. “I get that they’re useful to humans, but why must they announce themselves with that ear-piercing sound!?”
Roger got up, and walked out of the room to answer it.
“Hello? … Hello?” Roger said, talking into the receiver. “Who’s there?”
Pongo lifted an ear, trying to hear.
Roger grumbled and hung up. “Fifth time this week.” He walked into the kitchen. “Anita, darling. Would you call someone about the prank calls we’ve been getting? They seem to be-” He walked into the kitchen to talk with her…
Pongo was about to follow, but then he heard the phone fall off the receiver…
...And he could swear he heard someone still talking.
He walked over, and slowly put his ear to the receiver….
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And what answered him was a horrible, painful, buzzing noise! As if the phone was full of hornets! He jumped away, but he still heard the sound, buzzing in his head!
And amongst the buzzing…
He thought he heard someone call his name…
It died down, mercifully. Leaving Pongo laying on the ground….
“What the devil is going on?!” He finally said, breathing heavily.
That night, Perdy noticed that Pongo was extra skittish about something…
Which was troubling, since her husband was NEVER skittish. In fact, she was usually the worrier… Anything that worried him was a big deal…
“Darling, are you alright?” She asked.
Pongo looked at her, he had a mix of fear and shame in them…
“It’s… It’s nothing.” He tried to say.
“We both know that’s not true.” Perdy said. “I’ve never seen you like this before, now tell me what’s wrong…”
Pongo finally gave a relenting sigh…
“Darling… Lately I’ve been having… Well… I’ve been having nightmares…”
“Nightmares? What about?”
“Well, that’s just it, I don’t know… I’m back at that… That devil woman’s house…”
“Hell Hall?” Perdy said. “Well, why are you scared of that place? I dare say the last and only time we were there, WE were the scariest things in it.”
Pongo gave a weak smile. “Yes, but… I’m there… And there’s this… Door… At the end of a hall… And even though I never see anything come out of it, I have this horrible feeling that there’s something evil on the other side of it…”
He waited on her to tell him that it wasn’t real. And that he shouldn’t let dreams bother him… Instead, he felt her lay against him.
“Does anything happen after that?” She asked.
“Uh… No… Well.... There is one thing... I see the handle of the door turn… And then I wake up…”
“How long have you had them?” She asked.
“For a while, now… I know I sound silly, but-”
“No… No, you don’t.” She said, “That house has nothing but bad memories for us… I just want to know why you haven’t told me before now…”
“I… I just thought it was a delayed reaction to… Well, y’know… But it’s the same one, every night… And now, I…” He stopped…
“What?” She asked. “Darling, you can tell me anything…”
“......I’m starting to wonder if it’s more than just a dream… I’ve been seeing things, things I know aren’t there…I’m starting to wonder if I’m going mad…”
“The fact that we’ve been through what we have and neither of us have gone mad is a wonder.” Perdy said. “But you don’t have to be afraid, love… If this dream does have a meaning, maybe you should try and find it? After all, a dream can’t really hurt you…” Then she nuzzled him. “Besides. You know you’ll have me here, when you wake up…”
Pongo allowed himself a little relief…
“Thank you, darling…” He said…
That took a little bit of the weight off his mind… Enough that, even though it took a while… He did drift off to sleep…
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He wasn’t too surprised to find himself in the same hallway… The same, twisted, distorted hallway that had plagued his dreams…
He felt his heart beating… Faster, and faster…
“Steady boy…” He told himself… “It’s only a dream… It can’t hurt you…”
He looked up and saw the door… It was as ominous as ever.
He took a deep breath… His heart was beating faster, but he kept repeating to himself…
“It’s only a dream… It’s only a dream…” He took a step forward… The hallway creaked, and groaned… Something he never heard before… But, he was doing things differently, so he took another step...
And then he heard it…
The sound of the doorknob turning…
He heard that same voice in his head, telling him to run as fast as he could… But he shook it away.
“It’s only… A dream…” He said…
The door opened…
And inside… Was…
...Nothing?
Just… A dark staircase down into the cellar…
“Huh… Well that was anticlimactic…” Pongo said. “Maybe this dream was just a lot of nonsense after-”
All of a sudden, the floor underneath him gave way, almost dropping him into the cellar… He managed to hold on, and scramble back up…
“Goodness!” He said, breathing heavily… “That felt real… If I didn’t know this was a dream, I would’ve believed I almost…” He looked back at the whole… And he saw something start crawling out of it…
It was some, inky, black thing that didn’t have any kind of shape… It rose up, towering above him… It didn’t make a sound, or do anything other than sort of, squirm…
But Pongo backed away…
“It’s only a dream… it’s only a dream…”
And then two, bright, yellow eyes flashed open from the midst of the darkness that made up its body!
...And then it spoke...
“Dal….mat.…ian....” It said in an awful, raspy voice…
“Dal….mat....ian.…”
Then something extended from its body… an arm, a claw… He didn’t know… All he knew was… He didn’t want it to touch him…
He backed away… Only for it to shoot out, just grazing his paw.
He yelped in pain… And then realized that he felt it… He actually felt pain!
He looked up at the thing that was now growing…
“Dal….mat...ian…”
Pongo shook his head. “It’s only a dream, it’s only a dream… It’s only a…” And the appendage shot out again!
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Just as he woke up…
He looked around quickly… he was still in his room, in his bed… The sun was shining through the window…
He let out a sigh…
“What the devil was that?!” He said. “What was that thing?!” He shook his head. “This is too much…” He got up… And then he winced…
He looked down…
….And saw the cut on his paw….. In the exact, same place….