Sarah had hiked the same forest trail for years without incident. It was her escape—quiet, peaceful, untouched by the chaos of the world. But on this particular overcast morning, something felt… off. The air was thick. Still. As she rounded a bend near the stream, a faint whining reached her ears. She followed it, heart pounding, until she found a golden retriever—filthy, trembling, and tied to a tree with a thick, knotted rope. Relief washed over her—until she saw the number. Spray-painted in red across its side: 113
The dog recoiled at her touch at first, eyes wide and frantic. Sarah whispered to calm it down and carefully untied the rope. As she led it back toward the trail, she noticed the forest had gone unnaturally quiet. No birds. No wind. The deeper they walked, the more the woods seemed to watch. When she reached the trailhead, she glanced back one last time—and saw a white cloth tied high in a tree where the dog had been. It hadn’t been there before. A symbol was scrawled on it, almost like a brand. She took a photo, then drove home, the dog shaking in the back seat.
Back in town, she called the local shelter, but no one had reported a missing dog. She posted a photo online. Moments later, her post was flagged and removed. Then a message arrived from an anonymous account: “You shouldn’t have taken it. Return it now.” Her phone buzzed again—coordinates sent through a blocked number, leading to another point in the woods. She thought it was a prank… until she looked at the dog’s side again. The paint was fresh. Still sticky. Not days old—minutes.
That night, strange things started happening. Her motion lights kept going off, but no one was there. She heard scratching at the back door—then the front. The dog growled endlessly at the corners of the room, always watching something that Sarah couldn’t see. Then she heard it: a whisper, faint but close, saying her name. She grabbed the dog and ran upstairs. On her bedroom mirror, fogged from the inside, the same number was written: 113. And underneath it: “You are next.”
By morning, the dog was gone—no broken windows, no open doors. Just vanished. But where it had been sleeping, something had been carved into the wood floor: a new number—114. Her phone buzzed. A new message: “One more to complete the circle.” She stared into the woods outside her window, realizing too late—she hadn’t saved the dog. She had taken its place.
