A Dog's Heart

The ferry ride home smelled like salt, old coffee, and low-grade mana residue. Josh stood near the railings, tail gently swaying as the Brisbane skyline passed by. The river shimmered beneath them, calm despite everything. Behind him, commuters avoided eye contact, pretending not to glance.

A shimmer hung in the air above South Bank—a leftover gate remnant, crackling faintly like a mirage. Floating beside it, tethered to the boardwalk, was a coffee bar suspended by mana anchors. A levitating server drifted between customers, smiling politely despite the faint hum of instability. Just another Tuesday.

A young girl pointed at him, tugging her father’s sleeve. "Look, Daddy! That man's a dog!"

The dad glanced over. His jaw tightened. "Eyes front, sweetie. Don’t stare."

Josh's ears twitched. He didn’t take it personally.

Someone nearby muttered, "At least this one doesn’t smell like sulfur."

Another replied, "Yeah. Not like the drake-faced guy last week."

Josh gave them a polite tail wag, then turned back to the river.

***

Later, up on a quiet rooftop bar tucked behind a university faculty building, Josh sat across from Benji Lin, one of Atlassian’s senior handlers. Benji was a compact man in his late forties, hair buzzed close, eyes tired but kind. He nursed a ginger beer while Josh had a bowl of water and a pint beside it.

"You know you don't have to drink like that," Benji said, gesturing to the bowl.

Josh grinned, tongue lolling slightly. "But it's funny. And honestly? More comfortable than a glass."

Benji chuckled, then leaned back. "All jokes aside, how are you? Not mission-wise. You."

Josh tilted his head, ears flicking. He didn’t answer right away.

Benji waited.

"I think I'm happy," Josh said finally. "Or... maybe more at peace than I’ve ever been."

"You mean with what happened to you?"

Josh shrugged. "Yeah. Becoming Good Boy. I mean, I didn’t ask for this. One minute I touched a gate, the next I woke up with paws and a snout. But... it fits."

Benji blinked. "You don’t miss your old life?"

"I miss parts of it," Josh said. "But not all. People used to flinch when they saw me. Not because I was a monster, but because I looked like I might be. Tall guy, serious face, quiet voice? That combination freaks some people out."

Benji nodded slowly. "I don't think you were ever that guy."

"Didn’t matter. Some folks didn’t need a reason. I get it—they have reason to be cautious. But I was always one misstep away from being lumped in with the creeps."

Josh looked down at his claws. "Now they just think I’m weird. That’s fine. Weirds easier."

"Is it lonely?"

Josh hesitated. "It used to be. I had friends, but... most didn’t stick. I think I overwhelmed people. Or maybe I didn’t open up enough. Or maybe I just didn’t belong."

Benji raised an eyebrow. "But now?"

Josh smiled faintly. "Now I have a pack. Amara, Red, Reiko. Even you, old man."

Benji laughed. "I’ll take that as a compliment."

"You should. The people I’ve met since the change? They see me. Maybe not just as a dog. Maybe not just as a guy. Just... me."

They sipped in silence for a moment. The breeze picked up. Mana lights blinked across the skyline.

"What about dating?" Benji asked.

Josh snorted. "Still working that out. Not all dog, y'know? Might still find the right girl. Or guy. Who knows?"

Benji looked amused. "Guy, huh?"

Josh grinned. "I'm open-minded. Kissed a demon on the cheek last week. Didn't burst into flames."

They both laughed.

Benji clinked his bottle against Josh’s pint. "To figuring it out."

"To living long enough to do it." Josh replied.

***

The next morning, Atlassian HQ was humming. Josh padded into the operations wing, fur still damp from a shower, wearing his uniform vest and utility belt. Staff gave him nods. A few gave him space. A new intern snapped a picture before being gently reprimanded.

The old gate scent still lingered in the hallway. Faint ozone and... something else. Dogwood? No. Too old for that. He sniffed again. It made his hackles rise.

In the empty briefing room, the chairs were exactly where they had been yesterday. The scent of anxiety, sweat, metal, and mana hung in the air. Josh stepped to the table, sniffed the edge.

The map. The pulse. That strange sensation in his chest. Whatever Vale was building... it wasn’t done yet. But something was listening now.

He glanced around. Empty.

He growled low and left.

***

That night, back on the ferry, the city glowed. Brisbane had changed. There was no going back.

Across the deck, a man in a pressed business suit with a jackal’s head chatted with a woman whose tattoos glowed softly under her blazer. A kid floated a few inches off the ground nearby, giggling as their guardian tapped a stabilizer app on a holo-watch.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Josh sat at the rear deck, tail curled beside him, watching the water cut behind them.

A child ran up, eyes wide. "Hi! Are you Good Boy?"

Josh smiled. "I am."

The kid held out a crayon drawing. It was him—big ears, toothy grin, tail wagging beside a tiny figure labeled "me."

"I drew this for you!"

Josh took it delicately. "Thank you. It's perfect."

The child beamed and ran off.

As the ferry pulled into dock, Josh stayed seated a moment longer. The drawing fluttered gently in his hand.

Some people still stared. Some whispered. But others smiled. Some even nodded.

And for the first time in a long time, he felt like he belonged to the world, rather than apart from it.

***

It began with a thrum.

Josh awoke in the early hours, panting. The sheets were twisted around him, fur damp with sweat. His ears rang with a deep, resonant pulse that didn’t come from outside. It came from within.

He sat up slowly in the dark, hand against his chest.

Thrum.

Not pain. Not fear. Not even mana exactly. Something older, like a voice muffled by centuries.

He blinked, got up, and padded to the window. The skyline of Brisbane shimmered gently, the lights twinkling along the river like a digital constellation. But above the southern ridge, something flickered—a faint column of light, pale blue and impossibly high.

Josh reached for his comm unit.

***

By the time Team 7 assembled in the command briefing room, Atlassian’s HQ was in full alert mode. Analysts shouted across rooms, screens displayed spike charts from mana monitors across the world.

Amara pointed at the projection. "Simultaneous activity at three gate sites: the Daintree in North Queensland, Aokigahara in Japan, and the Carpathians in Romania. The spikes lasted six minutes."

"And they all pulsed in sync," added Reiko. Her brow was furrowed. "Harmonic resonance. The same frequency Vale used to destabilize the Brisbane gate."

"So this was him?" Red said. He leaned forward, knuckles white against the table.

"Yes," said the voice from the doorway.

The woman from Protocol Labyrinth entered, crisp and cold as ever. She nodded once. "Dr. Vale triggered a partial awakening in the gate network. We believe he attempted a forced synchronization."

"Why only three sites?" Josh asked.

The woman gave him a long look. "Because those are the only ones aligned to this stage of the architecture. The others are dormant. For now."

Josh's tail flicked. "So what’s next?"

"Team 7 is being deployed to the Daintree. It’s the most accessible site, and local reports are... troubling."

Amara tapped her pad. "There are anomalies in the rainforest. Mana fog. Spatial distortions. Fauna behaving erratically."

Josh sniffed the air. That thrum in his chest hadn’t stopped. It had just... quieted.

"We leave in thirty minutes," Amara said.

***

The air in the Daintree was thick, humid, and saturated with mana.

Josh crouched beside a patch of warped ferns. The leaves had grown in spirals, turning unnaturally toward a nearby clearing. Even the insects were quiet.

Red scanned the area with a drone. "Movement ahead. It’s not human. Might be wildlife. Might be gateborn."

Josh’s ears twitched. "I hear it too. Something big."

They moved in formation. Reiko on rear guard, Amara scanning. Josh padded forward on all fours, nose twitching. The scent was... wrong. Like wet stone and static and blood that hadn’t spilled yet.

They broke into the clearing.

At the center, jutting from the forest floor like the spine of a dead god, was a jagged monolith. It pulsed faintly with the same blue-white light Josh had seen from his window. The runes along its surface shifted in and out of alignment, like a broken puzzle trying to solve itself.

Reiko murmured, "That’s a gate fragment. Or a node. I don’t know which."

Amara whispered, "I think it’s both."

A low growl echoed across the trees. Not from Josh.

Something moved in the shadows.

***

They fought off two creatures that didn’t fully exist. They flickered like broken frames in a video, their claws out of sync with their growls. One tried to phase through Red’s armor and half-succeeded, leaving scorch marks and a deep shudder in his breathing.

Josh tore into one with claw and fang, his teeth catching on flesh that didn’t quite behave like matter. The creature screamed in static and shattered into mist.

Afterward, panting and bloodied, they circled the monolith.

Reiko was pale. "Those things weren’t native to this gate. They weren’t native to any gate."

Josh put a paw to the monolith. It was warm. And beneath the warmth...

Thrum.

The pulse echoed through him. A heartbeat. A memory. A place not yet real.

He staggered back.

"Josh?" Amara grabbed him. "What did you see?"

He blinked. "Not see. Remembered. Or dreamed. I don’t know. It felt like... I was somewhere else. Like I belonged to a place inside the gate. Like I was part of it."

Benji's voice crackled over comms. "You need to hear this. The psychic disturbance just hit peak saturation. Everyone with a high enough mana threshold is receiving... something."

Josh’s head snapped up.

The dream.

***

He stood in a plain of glass. Above him, seven gates hovered like moons, each bleeding silver light into the ground.

Dr. Lysander Vale appeared in the dreamscape, not as a man, but as a shifting silhouette of lab coat, teeth, and stars.

His voice rang out, layered in echoes:

"You see the prison now. The maze we were born into. These gates are not entries. They are locks."

Josh tried to move, but the glass clung to his paws.

"I will open them," Vale said. "I will awaken the heart. And when I do, we will no longer be gate-touched, or hybrids, or broken. We will be whole."

The world collapsed inward.

Josh woke up gasping in the dirt, Amara holding his shoulders.

"You were out for thirty seconds. You were convulsing."

"Vale," he croaked. "He’s not just building something. He knows what’s on the other side."

Red knelt beside him. "What did he mean by awakening the heart?"

Josh looked toward the monolith.

"He wants to tear open the gates. Not to travel. To change us. To remake us."

***

Back at HQ, the team decontaminated and uploaded sensor data. The monolith had been inert since Vale’s pulse ended. But Josh still felt the thrum in his bones.

Reiko was pale. "This architecture... it’s not just physical. It’s psychic. Like the gates are alive."

"Or dreaming," Amara added. "And Vale wants to wake them up."

Benji joined them, eyes hollow. "We’ve had forty-two reports of spontaneous dreams matching Vale’s message. Not just in Brisbane. All over the world."

"He sent a broadcast," Reiko said. "A psychic payload riding on the resonance."

Josh sat down heavily. His tail curled around his feet.

"He didn’t just wake the gates. He woke something inside us."

The room fell silent.

Outside the window, the city shimmered with light and mana.

And far away, in the Daintree clearing, the monolith began to hum again.