CANINE by Saleah Yusuf

Monday

Thea Yahaya’s first thought when she walked into the Hound & Co. office was that there were too many smiles on the walls.

Not real ones— no human teeth. These were photographs: dozens, maybe hundreds, in identical black frames, marching along the white walls like a regiment. Dogs. All kinds. Labradors with wet fur glistening in a lake. Corgis with foam crowns of shampoo. Poodles in Halloween costumes. A shepherd mix sprawled across a white couch like a catalogue model. Some sat with tongues lolling out, eyes bright; others grinned in that open-mouthed way that dogs do when they’re happy or about to bite. She couldn’t tell which was which.

Her pace slowed without meaning to. Something about so many eyes looking at her from so many angles made her skin prickle.

“Morning! You must be Thea.”

The voice belonged to a brisk, blonde woman in a seafoam blouse and black ballet flats; a clipboard hugged to her chest. Her nametag read Margo – HR.

“This way, let’s get you settled,” Margo said, already walking, her smile locked in place like it had been glued to her face.

Thea fell into step. They passed more walls, more photographs. Even the conference rooms had dog names: Retriever, Beagle, Mastiff.

“You’ll like it here,” Margo said, the kind of assurance that sounded less like comfort and more like instruction. “It’s a creative place. High energy. Oh—” she gestured to a corkboard covered with Polaroids, “—and we have Dog Fridays. Best tradition ever. Everyone brings their pups and lets them roam. It’s the ultimate morale booster. You have a dog?”

Thea hesitated too long.

“No,” she said finally. “Not right now.”

Margo’s eyebrows lifted, like Thea had confessed to never having eaten bread. “Oh, you’ll change your mind. Being here, you kind of have to. The energy is infectious.”

Thea managed a smile. Margo didn’t notice the way her hands tightened on the strap of her bag.

They reached her desk— open-plan, in a row of other workstations. Someone had left a welcome card on the keyboard with a paw print stamped in the corner. She stared at it longer than necessary before sitting down.

The day passed in fragments: onboarding videos, passwords, forms. The office air was cool but stale, smelling faintly of carpet cleaner and something warmer underneath— like fur. Coworkers stopped by to introduce themselves, and more than half showed her their dogs on their phone screens. There was a labradoodle in a raincoat, a Great Dane asleep under a blanket, a Pomeranian mid-yawn. She said all the right things, her voice bright, her hands shaking underneath her desk.

At lunch, she stayed at her desk. The buzz of conversation in the kitchen felt like a current she wasn’t ready to wade into.

By five, the light had shifted. Afternoon shadows pooled under the desks, and the hum of the air conditioning grew more noticeable. People started packing up. One by one, screens went dark.

She stayed. She didn’t have much to do, but she stayed anyway. First days were for proving you were willing. Proving you were dependable. Proving you wouldn’t disappoint.

By six, the office was nearly silent. A few monitor screens still glowed like watchful eyes.

In the kitchen, the fluorescent lights buzzed faintly. She rinsed out a company mug with the logo on it— a cheerful golden retriever silhouette. The hum of the fridge was steady behind her. She had just set the mug on the rack when she heard it.

Low. Guttural. A growl.

It came from directly behind her.

She froze. The sound had a weight to it, a vibration that seemed to reach into her bones. Slowly, she turned.

No one was there.

Thea exhaled through her nose, forcing a small laugh. Probably the fridge motor cycling on. Or the old pipes knocking. That was all.

She walked back toward her desk, the soles of her tennis shoes loud in the emptiness. As she packed up, the silence thickened until it felt like pressure on her eardrums. Then—

Panting.

Slow, heavy panting, close enough that she could almost feel the damp heat of it on her neck. The breaths were even, dog-like, the sound of something that had just exerted itself and was deciding whether to lunge again.

She whipped around. Empty rows of desks.

Thea’s hands fumbled with her bag zipper. She slung it over her shoulder and walked quickly to the elevator, resisting the urge to look behind her again.

The air outside was thick and wet with late-summer heat. The city had that faint metallic tang it got after the buses had been running all day. She kept replaying the sounds in her head, testing them for logic. The growl could have been the fridge. The panting… maybe the AC vents? Maybe the sound from another floor traveling through ductwork?

By the time she reached the bus stop, she’d almost convinced herself. Almost.

Her father called that night from Jos. The connection was fuzzy, his voice sometimes dipping under static. But the familiar cadence was there— warmth threaded through with a kind of permanent disapproval, as if he were born certain that people weren’t quite living up to their potential.

“So, Kyauta, first day?” he asked. “How was it?”

Thea smiled fondly at his pet name for her and she told him the safe parts: nice people, lots of paperwork, good coffee. She left out the creepy dog pictures and whatever the hell happened just before she went home.

“You’ll do well there,” he said. “Remember to keep your head up. Don’t let anyone see fear.”

The word fear seemed to snag in her mind like a burr.

After they hung up, she brushed her teeth, turned off the light, and slid into bed. The room was warm, the fan ticking as it turned. She closed her eyes, letting her breathing slow.

The growl came first.

Low. Deep. So close she could feel it in the mattress springs.

Then the panting — not one dog, but two. The first slow and heavy. The second faster, sharper, almost a snarl between breaths.

Louder now. Closer.

Her eyes opened to darkness. She could almost see their shapes beside the bed — hulking, waiting.

Tuesday

Thea woke at 6:45 without an alarm, her body jolting up from a shallow, restless sleep. The phantom barking from the night before lingered like smoke in her chest. For a few minutes she lay perfectly still, staring at the thin slant of gray Baltimore light cutting through the blinds. Her phone screen lay dark beside her on the nightstand. She wanted badly to check it, too busy herself with something neutral and bright, but the stillness of her apartment felt fragile, like something might break if she moved too suddenly.

The barking—had it been real? She strained her ears now, half-expecting to hear it again, to have it seep through the walls, muffled but insistent. All she heard was the tick of the clock in her kitchen.

She told herself she was fine. She always told herself she was fine.

By 8:00 she was at the office, a coffee burning the skin of her palm through its thin paper cup. The lobby smelled faintly of wet dog this morning. She blinked hard and told herself it was only the janitorial staff’s mop solution, some chemical mix. The front desk receptionist had her own dog framed beside the monitor, a white terrier in a Santa hat. Yesterday, she had registered it vaguely. Today, the picture seemed newly sharp, the dog’s glassy eyes fixed on her as she signed the visitor’s sheet.

Her desk was on the fourth floor, in the open plan where each workstation was bordered by high partitions. When she slipped into her chair, she found someone had left a flyer on the desk. It was glossy, with corporate blues and oranges, and the slogan in large block print:

“Bring Your Best Friend to Friday!”

The graphic beneath showed a Labrador in a necktie.

She swallowed hard and pushed it aside, but the Labrador’s teeth—white, perfectly even—stayed etched in her mind, a kind of residue behind her eyes.

Work began. Campaign briefs, client emails, a stream of Slack messages chiming in her headphones. She tried to concentrate, but the noises of the office snagged at her nerves. A coworker coughed wetly two cubicles away. Someone’s ringtone burst into a cascade of cheerful barking— a novelty tone, she realized with a spike of irritation. Everyone laughed.

She laughed too, because that’s what was expected, but her throat was tight.

Around 10:00, the HR coordinator, a towering woman named Sheryl, made a circuit of the floor, handing out survey forms for “Pet Friday Planning.”

“You bringing one?” Sheryl asked brightly when she reached her desk.

She shook her head quickly. “No, no dog.”

Sheryl clicked her pen, checking a box. “Allergies? Phobias?”

The word snagged. “What?”

“Phobias. We like to know in advance if anyone’s afraid of dogs, just so we can be sensitive.”

Her throat dried. She forced a casual tone. “No, not really.”

Sheryl smiled, satisfied, and moved on.

The lie sat in her chest like a swallowed coin.

By lunch she had lost her appetite, but she followed two coworkers to the café anyway. They were talking about dog breeds the entire walk—goldens versus doodles, shedding patterns, obedience school. She smiled and nodded where necessary, though the words blurred into a dull static, punctuated by the imagined panting of unseen animals.

At the café counter, a man stood ahead of them with a German Shepherd on a leash. It was wearing a service vest. Its ears flicked sharply as though tuned to some private signal. Its dark eyes locked on her as the man placed his order.

Her breath shortened. She stepped back, almost into traffic from the doorway.

The dog didn’t move. Its stillness was worse than barking. It simply looked at her, eyes black and bottomless, until the man tugged the leash and left.

The rest of the meal she barely spoke. Her coworkers noticed, teased her gently—you’re so quiet today—but she only shrugged and smiled thinly.

Back at her desk, the smell of dog returned, stronger. She checked the soles of her shoes, convinced she’d stepped in something outside. Nothing. Her shoes were clean.

The smell lingered anyway.

By 5:00 pm, she was drained, though she had done very little. She packed her bag slowly, feeling each motion lag as though through water. On the walk home, the city’s dogs were everywhere. A pug straining against its leash on Pratt Street. A husky whining from the window of a parked car. A mutt nosing through trash near the subway entrance. She had walked these blocks before without registering half as many. Now it felt like a parade, a gauntlet.

When she reached her apartment, she locked the door twice. She peeled off her work clothes and sat cross-legged on the couch in silence. For dinner she could only manage saltine crackers and tea.

The tea scalded her tongue, but she barely noticed.

At 8:00 pm, her father called.

His voice carried the familiar mix of affection and brusqueness. “Kyauta, how was your second day?”

She told him it was fine. She always told him things were fine.

But as he spoke, her mind slid back toward their compound in Jos—the wide gate, the high walls, the cracked cement of the courtyard. She could smell the harmattan dust, hear the generator hum.

And she could hear something else too: claws scratching concrete.

Her father’s voice blurred into the background.

Memory flickered—Bruno, the Rottweiler, massive even then. His broad head, the chain jangling loose from his collar. The sudden, terrible speed.

Her chest seized.

“Are you listening?” her father asked sharply.

“Yes, Daddy,” she managed, voice thin.

“You must not let them walk over you. Americans, they like people who are bold. Strong. Speak up in meetings.”

“I will,” she said, though her throat was raw.

After the call ended, she sat in the silence, pulse hammering in her ears. She could still hear claws against cement, rhythmic, patient, waiting.

That night she tried to sleep early. She brushed her teeth, turned off the lights, slid under the covers.

At first, silence. Then, faintly, through the wall: barking.

Short, clipped barks.

She pressed her pillow over her ears. The sound remained. It wasn’t loud, not enough to wake the neighbors, but enough to scrape at her nerves, enough to gnaw.

When she finally slept, she dreamed of the compound wall crumbling, dogs spilling through in a tide of fur and teeth.

She woke before dawn with the taste of blood in her mouth, though when she touched her lips, they were unbroken.

Wednesday

By Wednesday morning, the sounds no longer waited for her to be alone.

They followed her.

The elevator doors slid shut behind Thea with a soft metallic sigh. She stood facing the mirrored wall, her reflection pale and tight-lipped, hands folded carefully around her bag strap. The ride was short, only four floors, but halfway up she heard it. A snarl. Low, vibrating, thick with saliva. It came from behind her, close enough that the fine hairs along her arms lifted.

She did not turn around.

She stared at her own reflection as the sound deepened, teeth clicking once, twice. Her reflection stared back, eyes too wide, mouth held unnaturally still. When the doors opened, the sound stopped abruptly, as if cut clean through with a blade.

The hallway beyond was empty.

She stepped out on unsteady legs, heart hammering, and forced herself to walk normally to her desk. Every step felt watched.

The open office was already half-full. Keyboards clacked. Someone laughed too loudly near the windows. The normality of it all felt staged, like a set piece arranged to mock her. She sat down and logged in, her fingers hovering over the keys, waiting for something else to happen.

It did.

As she leaned forward to read her screen, she felt breath against the back of her calves. Hot. Wet. Rhythmic. She froze, muscles locking as the sound of panting rose from beneath her desk. Slow and patient, like whatever was there had all the time in the world.

She kicked her chair back hard and stood, pulse roaring in her ears.

Nothing.

Just the tangle of cords, the shadowed underside of the desk, her own scuffed shoes. A coworker glanced up, frowning slightly.

“You okay?” he asked.

She nodded too fast. “Yeah. Sorry. Cramp.”

She sat back down carefully, heart still racing. The panting did not return, but the feeling lingered. That sense of something crouched just out of sight. Waiting.

The morning dragged. Sounds brushed against her consciousness constantly now. Snarls from the air vents. A wet huff behind her shoulder that vanished when she turned. Once, she felt a sharp pressure against her ankle, like teeth just barely grazing skin. She yelped, drawing a startled look from the woman beside her. When she checked, there was no mark. No redness.

Nothing.

Her body, however, remembered.

By lunchtime she was shaking. She ate nothing, only pushed her pasta salad around the container with trembling fingers. Across the room, someone played a video on their phone. A dog barked cheerfully from the tinny speaker. The sound hit her like a slap.

She excused herself and locked herself in a bathroom stall.

The tile floor gleamed under the fluorescent lights. She sat with her feet pulled up onto the toilet seat, arms wrapped tightly around her knees. She focused on breathing. In. Out. In. Out.

Click.

Her breath caught.

Click. Click.

The sound came from outside the stall, slow and deliberate. Nails on tile. She stared at the thin gap beneath the door, waiting to see paws. Waiting to see fur.

Nothing appeared.

The clicking stopped.

When she emerged minutes later, the bathroom was empty.

She washed her hands until her skin burned.

The call from her father came that afternoon, just as the light outside began to tilt toward evening. Her phone buzzed on her desk. She stared at the screen for a long moment before answering.

“Hello?” Her voice sounded thin to her own ears.

“Are you alright?” he asked. No greeting. Just that.

“Yes,” she said automatically.

There was a pause on the line. She could hear the faint hum of a generator in the background. “You don’t sound alright.”

“I’m fine,” she repeated, a little more sharply.

Another pause. Then, casually, as if mentioning the weather, he said, “You used to be so scared, you know.”

Her chest tightened.

“Scared of everything,” he continued. “Always jumping. Crying. I thought you’d grow out of it.”

She said nothing.

“Do you still think about it?” he asked. “That thing with Bruno.”

The name cracked something open.

The office around her faded. The hum of computers dissolved into heat and dust.

She was six again.

The compound was bright with late afternoon sun, the concrete warm beneath her bare feet. She was holding a Fanta bottle, sweating orange droplets slick against her palm. She remembered thinking the color was beautiful. Like liquid fire.

She heard the chain before she saw him.

A sharp metallic jangle, too sudden, followed by the thunder of paws on cement. Bruno was enormous. Bigger than she remembered him ever being. His body a blur of black and tan, muscles rippling beneath his fur as he launched himself at her.

She had time to scream once.

The impact knocked the bottle from her hand. It burst against the ground, orange fizz splashing up like blood. Bruno’s weight slammed her flat, breath driven from her chest in a sharp, helpless wheeze. His mouth closed around her shoulder. Teeth met bone with a sound she would never forget. A dull, sickening crack.

Pain exploded through her, white and blinding.

She tasted blood. Warm and metallic, pooling in her mouth as she screamed again, the sound tearing out of her throat. His breath was hot, rancid, filled with the stench of meat and rot. His growl vibrated through her small body, rattling her ribs.

She saw sky above him. Pale. Too calm.

Her father’s voice came then, shouting her name. Shouting Bruno’s. The chain yanked hard. Bruno was dragged away, still snarling, teeth snapping at the air. She lay on the concrete, sobbing, soaked in blood and soda, staring at the spreading stain beneath her.

The quiet afterward was worse.

Just Bruno’s panting. Slow. Satisfied.

“Kyauta?” her father’s voice cut through the memory sharply.

She gasped, air flooding back into her lungs. She was gripping the edge of her desk so hard her fingers ached. When she looked down, she saw the marks she’d left behind. Crescent-shaped gouges in the wood. Nail marks.

“I have to go,” she said hoarsely and ended the call without waiting for his response.

Her hands were shaking. Her entire body was trembling now, as if something inside her had finally broken free.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. She didn’t remember packing her bag. She didn’t remember leaving the building. Only the feeling of being watched, stalked, followed all the way home.

That night, she woke standing in her living room.

Her knees burned. Her palms stung. She looked down and saw carpet fibers clinging to her hands, saliva slick across her fingers.

Her pillow lay shredded on the couch, stuffing torn free, damp with bite marks.

She did not scream.

She only stood there, breathing hard, listening to the sound of her own panting fill the room.

Thursday

The next day, Thea realized, with dread in her heart, that the sounds had learned how to wear faces.

She noticed it first on the bus.

She stood near the back; one hand wrapped tightly around the pole as the bus lurched forward. The windows were fogged slightly from the press of bodies and damp air. She stared straight ahead, jaw clenched, counting stops in her head the way she used to count breaths when she was a child and afraid.

Four stops to Pratt. Three after that. Two—

Someone lifted their head.

She didn’t look directly at him at first. It was a movement at the edge of her vision that caught her attention, a wrongness in the proportions. When she glanced over, his face seemed to stretch forward as if tugged by an invisible hand. His jaw elongated, mouth opening too wide. His nose flattened and darkened, wet-looking, and his eyes reflected the bus’s fluorescent lights in sharp pinpricks.

Teeth flashed.

Not snapping. Just… there. Exposed.

She gasped and jerked back, nearly losing her grip on the pole. Her heart slammed violently against her ribs. When she looked again, the man was just a man— gray hoodie, stubble, eyes glued to his phone. He scratched his cheek absently and shifted his weight.

Her stomach twisted.

She skipped breakfast again. At lunch, she opened her container and immediately gagged. The smell that rose from it was wrong— thick and metallic, unmistakable. Raw meat. Blood.

Her hands shook as she snapped the lid closed. She pushed the container away and tried to breathe through her mouth. Even then, the scent lingered, coating her tongue.

A coworker leaned over her cubicle wall. “You okay? You’ve barely eaten all week.”

“I’m just not hungry,” she said quickly.

The lie tasted sour.

She tried to drink water, but the rim of the bottle smelled the same. She imagined teeth marks there, imagined her mouth pressing against plastic, imagined—

She shoved the bottle away.

Mid-afternoon, she passed a glass-walled conference room and caught her reflection.

She stopped.

Her face stared back at her, ashy and drawn— but that wasn’t what made her breath hitch. A dark streak ran from the corner of her mouth down her chin. Thick. Glossy.

Saliva.

Her stomach dropped.

She raised her hand and wiped her face hard with the sleeve of her blouse. Her skin was dry. Her sleeve came away with red lipstick stains, but dry nonetheless.

When she looked again, the streak was gone.

Her reflection smiled back at her. Or maybe that was just her own face, muscles arranged incorrectly.

She backed away slowly, heart racing, and nearly collided with someone behind her. A sharp laugh burst out of her, too loud, too sudden. The woman she’d bumped into apologized, smiling politely, and walked on.

Thea pressed her palm against her mouth, breathing through her nose.

Everything smelled wrong now.

By the time she left the office, the city felt hostile. Dogs were everywhere. Tied outside cafés. Being walked in pairs. Barking from open windows. A man passed her with a massive mastiff, its jowls slick with drool. The dog turned its head and stared at her as they passed, eyes dark and unblinking.

She felt something in her chest respond. Not fear. Not exactly.

Recognition.

She walked faster.

At home, she locked the door behind her and leaned against it, sliding down until she was sitting on the floor. Her heart thudded painfully. The apartment smelled faintly of meat. She stood and sniffed the air, panic rising.

The kitchen. The couch. Her bedroom.

The smell was everywhere.

She showered, scrubbing her skin until it burned, nails raking red lines down her arms. The water turned lukewarm before she realized she’d been standing there too long. Even then, when she stepped out and wrapped herself in a towel, the smell lingered beneath the steam, clinging to her hair, her skin.

That night, sleep came in fragments.

She dreamed she was chewing.

Something soft and resistant between her teeth. Fibers tearing. The pleasure of pressure, of sinking in.

She woke with a sharp pain in her jaw.

She was on the kitchen floor.

On all fours.

Her palms were flat against the cold tile, fingers splayed awkwardly. Her knees ached deeply, the pain blooming as sensation returned. Her neck was stiff, muscles screaming as though she’d held her head in an unnatural position for hours.

She breathed hard, chest heaving.

The apartment was dark. Silent.

She pushed herself upright slowly, dizziness washing over her, and followed a trail of white across the floor. Foam. Stuffing.

Her pillow lay on the floor beside the couch, shredded. The corner was torn open, teeth marks sunk deep into the fabric. Not small ones. The spacing was wrong.

Her jaw throbbed again, a deep, aching pulse from somewhere inside her skull.

She pressed her fingers to her mouth, breathing hard.

In the silence, she became aware of a sound she hadn’t noticed before.

Her own breathing.

Heavy. Wet.

Panting.

Friday

Thea woke up before the alarm, heart already racing, body tight with dread as though it had been bracing for impact all night.

For a long time, she lay still, staring at the ceiling, listening. No panting. No growling. The silence felt deliberate, like something holding its breath. Her jaw ached dully, the soreness deep and internal, as if it reached into her skull. When she swallowed, her throat clicked.

She reached for her phone and typed the message again.

I’m not feeling well today.

She stared at it. Read it. Deleted it.

Dog Friday.

The phrase moved through her mind with the certainty of a sentence already passed. She thought of the office filled with bodies that were not quite bodies anymore. Of fur and sound and eyes tracking her. She imagined herself staying home, locking the door, pulling the curtains shut.

Then she imagined Monday. The looks. The questions. The gentle concern that would curdle into something else.

She got up.

The office smelled different the moment she stepped inside.

It was no longer just carpet cleaner and coffee and electronics. It was animal. Wet fur. Old saliva. The coppery tang of water left too long in metal bowls. The sound hit her next, a layered cacophony that crashed over her senses before she could brace for it.

Barking. High-pitched yips. Deep, chest-rattling woofs that vibrated through her sternum. Whining, constant and thin, like a needle being drawn across her nerves.

Leashes snaked across the floor, tied to chair legs, desk supports, filing cabinets. Water bowls gleamed in corners like ritual placements. Someone had spread out blankets near the windows. Dogs wrestled there, teeth flashing as they played, mouths opening wider than felt right.

Her chest tightened painfully.

She stepped forward, every muscle screaming at her to turn around.

The dogs noticed her immediately.

It wasn’t dramatic at first. Just a shift. A golden retriever lifted its head. A beagle stopped mid-sniff. One by one, dogs paused, ears angling toward her, eyes fixing.

The barking stuttered.

Then stopped.

The silence was thick enough to feel.

She took another step. Nails clicked softly on tile behind her. One dog followed. Then another. Then another. Not running. Padding. Measured. Deliberate.

A man laughed awkwardly somewhere to her left. “Guess you’re popular.”

She didn’t look back.

The line of dogs grew longer as she moved, a slow procession trailing her through the office. A golden retriever, tongue lolling but eyes unblinking. A pit mix with scars tracing its muzzle. A sleek black shepherd whose tail barely moved.

They followed her to the bathroom.

Someone else noticed now. A woman frowned. Another laughed uncertainly. “That’s… weird.”

She locked herself inside the bathroom and slid down against the door, chest heaving. Through the wood, she heard them settle. The soft shuffle of paws. The sound of breathing. Not frantic. Patient.

Waiting.

She stared at herself in the mirror. Her lips were drawn back slightly, teeth exposed without her meaning to bare them. Her pupils were too wide.

She wiped her mouth. Dry.

When she opened the door again, the dogs had dispersed, but the feeling hadn’t. The air felt charged, electric, as though something had shifted permanently.

She made it back to her desk and sat very still.

That was when the husky approached.

It moved silently, pale eyes fixed on her, head lowered. It padded up to her chair and rested its chin on her knee. The weight was gentle. Intimate.

Her breath stuttered.

She reached out without thinking, fingers brushing fur— and then she felt it.

Not fur.

Skin.

Long, unmistakably human fingers beneath the coat, nails dragging lightly over her knee in a slow, deliberate scratch. Exploratory. Familiar.

She jerked back with a choked sound.

The husky was yanked away by its owner, who laughed. “Sorry! He’s such a people dog.”

Thea stared at the spot on her knee. The skin prickled violently, as though something was still touching her.

The dogs went silent again.

Every single one.

All heads turned toward her in perfect unison.

She stood.

“I need air,” she said, but her voice came out wrong— too sharp, clipped, almost a bark.

She walked quickly toward the elevator, aware of eyes following her, aware of bodies subtly repositioning, clearing a path. The dogs did not follow this time. They watched.

Outside, the city felt unreal.

She boarded the bus, heart still racing, fingers numb. The doors hissed shut. The bus pulled away.

She looked up.

Every passenger had a dog’s head.

Not the same dog. Never the same dog.

A man in a gray hoodie gripped a pole across from her. His head was that of a pit bull— broad skull, scarred muzzle, eyes dark and assessing. His human body shifted with the familiar impatience of a commuter, but the pit bull head tilted slightly as it watched her.

Behind him, a woman in a pink coat sat primly, legs crossed. Where her face should have been was a small white poodle’s head, perfectly groomed, eyes too bright, tongue flicking nervously against tiny teeth.

Two little girls sat together near the back, their legs swinging in unison. Their heads were golden retrievers— soft fur, open mouths, pink tongues lolling as they grinned at nothing. One of them turned and looked directly at Thea.

The smile widened.

Near the front, a man slumped in his seat with the head of a German shepherd, long muzzle angled downward, ears pricked, gaze sharp and watchful. Beside him, another passenger wore the same breed’s head, identical in shape and expression, as if they had been cut from the same mold.

Pairs. Patterns.

She realized with a cold rush that the breeds felt intentional. That they fit the bodies beneath them too well. The pit bull’s shoulders tensed protectively. The poodle’s body was rigid, proper. The retrievers’ bodies bounced with barely contained energy.

No one spoke.

The bus lurched forward.

The heads began to turn.

Slowly.

Deliberately.

One by one, every dog face angled toward her.

Muzzles lifted. Noses flared.

She smelled it then—herself. Sweat. Fear. Something sharper underneath. The scent bloomed in the air, and she understood with horrifying clarity that they could smell it too.

Her breath came in harsh, wet pants. The sound echoed too loudly in the enclosed space.

The pit bull’s lips curled back, revealing thick, blunt teeth.

The poodle whined softly.

The retrievers’ tails wagged in perfect sync.

She sobbed, a broken, animal sound tearing out of her chest. She clamped her hand over her mouth, but the sound forced its way through her fingers. No one reacted. No one reached for her. No one spoke.

The bus stopped.

She stumbled off, legs nearly buckling beneath her, and the doors closed behind her with a final, satisfied hiss.

She didn’t remember walking home.

Only the sound of her own breathing, loud and wet and animal, filling her ears as the world narrowed around her.

Saturday

The apartment was silent when she woke.

No panting.

No growling.

No claws scratching at the edges of sound.

The absence felt wrong.

For a long time, Thea lay in bed, staring at the ceiling fan as it turned slowly, rhythmically, slicing the air into soft, useless pieces. Her body was heavy, exhausted in a way sleep hadn’t earned. Every joint ached faintly, as if she’d been holding herself in an unnatural position for hours. Her jaw throbbed with a deep, persistent pain that felt older than last night.

She swallowed.

Her gums ached.

When she finally sat up, the room looked normal. Almost offensively so. Sunlight spilled across the floor in clean rectangles. The couch cushions were neat. The door was still locked. No signs of intrusion. No signs of animals.

She stood carefully, half-expecting dizziness, half-expecting the floor to drop away beneath her. It didn’t. She padded into the kitchen, barefoot, flinching at the sound of her own footsteps. The linoleum felt cool to her feet. The air smelled faintly of soap and nothing else.

The silence pressed in.

She made coffee she didn’t drink. The mug trembled slightly in her hand. When she set it down, she noticed faint bruises blooming along her knees, yellowed at the edges. Her palms were raw. Her manicured cherry red fingernails were badly chipped.

She didn’t try to explain any of it.

All morning, her jaw ached. Not sharply. Not enough to scream. Just enough to remind her it was there. A pressure from inside, like something pushing outward. She pressed her fingers along her gums and winced. They felt swollen, sensitive. Wrong.

She avoided mirrors until she couldn’t anymore.

The bathroom was small, claustrophobic. She flicked on the light and gripped the sink with both hands, leaning forward. Her reflection stared back at her: pale, hollow-eyed, mouth set tight. For a moment, she almost laughed. This was what a breakdown looked like, she thought. This was stress. This was trauma surfacing.

She lifted her lip.

Just a little.

Her breath caught.

Her canines looked longer.

Not dramatically. Not monstrously. Just… longer than she remembered. Sharper. More prominent. As if they’d edged forward in her mouth while she wasn’t paying attention.

She bared her teeth fully now, heart racing.

They gleamed back at her under the harsh bathroom light. Four pointed reminders. She touched one with her fingertip. It felt solid. Real. Hers.

She jerked her hand away.

A laugh bubbled up unexpectedly, thin and hysterical, and died in her throat.

It had to be in her head.

That was the only explanation that made sense. Sixteen years of carrying it. Sixteen years of swallowing fear, of learning how to smile through it, of letting everyone else tell her it wasn’t that bad. Bruno was put down. She healed. She grew up. She left.

Except maybe she didn’t leave it behind.

Maybe she brought him with her.

The thought settled over her like a weight.

What if this was what happened when you ran too long with something inside you? What if fear didn’t disappear, didn’t weaken, but adapted? Learned how to live in the dark places of your body? What if it grew teeth?

She gripped the sink harder, knuckles whitening.

The apartment remained silent.

No barking.

No panting.

No outside confirmation that any of this was real.

That was what terrified her most.

She leaned closer to the mirror. Her reflection did the same. For a moment, her lips pulled back on their own. She didn’t remember telling them to. The shape her mouth made felt unfamiliar, stretched, instinctive.

Her chest rose and fell.

The sound that escaped her throat was sudden. Sharp. Unmistakable.

A bark.

She froze.

Then she laughed.

The sound spilled out of her in short bursts, breathless and uneven, until she had to brace herself against the sink to stay upright. Tears stung her eyes. Her reflection laughed too, shoulders shaking, teeth bared.

She stared at herself, heart pounding, and couldn’t tell if she was smiling—

—or baring her teeth.

Saleah Yusuf is a Nigerian writer whose work explores psychological horror, domestic tension, and the quiet fractures within ordinary spaces. Her fiction often centers on the familiar turning strange, drawing from contemporary Nigerian settings and emotional landscapes