What Blind People See

         When Dorothy awoke that night, she realized she had forgotten to feed her dog. He was hungry; Dorothy could tell by the way the dog was clawing at her parchment skin. She lived always in darkness and always alone, except for the dog; he was Dorothy’s eyes, and her protection against danger. Like many of Dorothy’s old friends, her eyesight perished before she had, and she missed it dearly.
         Her daughter had given her the dog. When Dorothy went blind, her nervous demeanor became like a cat’s; even the smallest sound could horrify her, and she would often call her daughter in the middle of the night after becoming so anxious she couldn’t sleep. Soon, Dorothy started to have nervous tremors, not just in her hands or even just her arms; that's common at her age. Her entire body would shake, and her daughter became worried about her safety. The only thing that calmed her was her daughter’s pet. She would visit for dinner and hear the dog’s tail thumping against the leg of the table as he sat waiting for food, and it would make Dorothy laugh. So Dorothy’s daughter gave her the dog, and bought a braille dog tag so that she would always know he was there, and always know she was safe. The dog’s name was ‘Hod’.
         Dorothy pushed her hand through the fur of the hungry dog by her bedside; it almost felt like human hair. The dog licked her finger, and she smiled. And then, Dorothy heard a sound. She jumped away from the animal in horror and screamed, and as she did so, she felt something wet and cold lying on the king sized bed behind her. She slowly brushed her hand along it and felt fur and… blood? Cold, lifeless, blood. It smelled like blood; it felt thick and nauseating like blood. She reached its neck; it was breathless and solid, and there was a collar, and on the collar was a braille dog tag that said ‘Hod’. She choked on her tears, and the tremors started again.
         The thing at her bedside was not Hod. It licked her again, and this time, Dorothy could smell the blood on its breath. The wretched sound she heard, the one that had been giving her tremors, came from that non-human terror. This was not a dog