u/Inevitable_Pop_7128

THIS STORY WAS PUBLISHED ON A CHINESE INTERNET FORUM THREE OR FOUR YEARS AGO, BUT THE SITE WAS FORCED TO SHUT DOWN; THEREFORE, IT IS QUITE NORMAL TO COME ACROSS SIMILAR STORY FRAMEWORKS ELSEWHERE.

THE PROTAGONIST OF THE STORY IS ALL PRESENTED FROM A THIRD-PERSON PERSPECTIVE, SO THE PUBLISHER IS NOT THE PROTAGONIST HIMSELF/HERSELF.

It happened 25 years ago.

That year, I was a patrol security guard.

Although I say that, for people like us who often patrolled the community for public security, it was less about being patrol security guards and more about being lazy "parasites" who only lingered in the security office, enjoying the brief air-conditioned coolness inside. After all, compared to the boring, monotonous and meaningless work of patrolling for public security, staying in the air-conditioned security office was the only "base salary and welfare subsidy" we could legally and legitimately strive for in our sad, hateful, decadent, corrupt and despicable bottom-tier lives; even though the security office could only accommodate one person inside at a time.

Unfortunately, it was summer that year, so my colleagues were very reluctant to go out on patrol outside the security office. To compete for the single spot inside the security office, I engaged in a simple gamble with my colleagues. After the game ended, I barely managed to defeat my colleagues and secured the spot.

My colleagues were very unwilling and resentful, but they had no choice, so they all left the vicinity of the security office one after another to patrol outside.

Before my colleagues left, one of them suddenly and abruptly reminded me that recently, residents in the community had reported to our property management company that wild dogs were often barking near the garbage dumps in the community, which was disturbing their normal rest and work, and asked us to drive them away. With that, the colleague left.

So, I was responsible for sitting inside the security office, staring at the computer video screen connected to the surveillance cameras. If wild dogs gathered and barked by the garbage dump, I was to notify my colleagues outside via walkie-talkie to go and drive them away.

During the day, not a single wild dog lingered or barked by the garbage dump and this continued until night.

Initially, everything was normal. The black and white video quality of the surveillance cameras, with their extremely noisy resolution, already made the dilapidated, decaying, extremely jagged and low-lying black residential buildings, the pitted elevated bridges and ground walkways, the chaotic clusters of cars and the green belts resembling the Amazon rainforest, appear extremely eerie and bizarre. Coupled with the lifeless and deserted streetscape, and the sporadic, flickering indoor lights within, it further highlighted and exposed the dead silence, cruelty, coldness, emptiness, decay, monotony and corrosive atmosphere that constantly permeated the community.

Just as I though nothing would happen, leisurely sipping a cheap streer-side drink while casually scanning the unchanging and glaring surveillance monitor, I suddenly shifted my gaze to the lower right corner of the computer video screen. I noticed that by the garbage dump under a streetlamp in a certain area, several wild dogs had suddenly appeared and were gathered there. Since the surveillance cameras were extremely old, they had no audio recording function, so naturally, I couldn't hear any sounds from the scene. However, I could still vaguely see from the blurry and distorted video that the wild dogs were barking. To further confirm my assumptions, I watched the video content multiple times with caution and care; the wild dogs were indeed barking.

They were jumping and crawling around the garbage dump under the streetlamp, barking at their surrondings or at each other. I reported this scene via walkie-talkie to my colleagues outside, telling them to hurry to that area and drive away the wild dogs.

Since my colleagues outside were a considerable distance from the designated area, the actual task of driving away the wild dogs wouuld take some time to resolve, I returned to my leisurely state, continuing to drink my beverage while scanning the video screen.

For some specific reason I don't know, the leisurely me felt a faint and inexplicable sense of incongruity. I quickly snapped out of my drowsy state, leaned closer to the computer and looked intently at the screen.

Something was wrong. Generally speaking, at least for me, shouldn't there always be wild dogs gathered around the garbage dumps, whether it was night or morning? It had been all day. The garbage dumps, where I had often seen wild dogs roaming before, has no wild dogs lingering or gathering at all. This was an extremely strange and absurd phenomenon.

Even a fool should have seen it, so I reconfirmed the content on other computer videos; indeed, apart from the area I had just specified, there were no signs of wild dog activity in any other areas.

This was an extremely abnormal and bizarre situation, but I didn't know the specific reason for it, nor did I know what to do next. So, I continued to stare at the video, feeling very unnatural and uncomfortable.

For a full several tens of minutes, I watched the wild dogs there. Some were fighting and barking at each other, some were silently slipping away to other places, some were quietly looking around, and some were searching for food scarps in or around the garbage dump, tearing at plastic garbage bags. It was as if all of this was natural and normal.

After a few more minutes, thinking I might be overthinking things and preparing to let my guard down and return to my relaxed state, suddenly, the wild dogs there quickly scattered from the garbage dump, including those inside it.

I didn't react at the time. By the time I did, all the wild dogs under the streetlamp had dispersed. I initially thought they might have scattered because they encountered pedestrians, but as I stared intently at the screen again, I saw a scene that has haunted me ever since.

About three to four minutes later, I saw a large dog appear on the screen, walking from the lower left corner of the video towards the garbage dump in the area captured by the surveillance camera.

That dog, I estimated, was probably some kind of large mastiff, but it was much thinner than a normal large mastiff; it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say it was extremely emaciated. Its fur was very thick, with two large, fluffy ears drooping down and a fluffy tail that occasionally swung left and right. It quickly walked to the garbage dump under the streetlamp and began to frantically tear at the plastic garbage bags that the wild dogs had previously gnawed on, wildly flinging the plasctic bags left and right with its head.

The dog's strange behavior caught my attention, so I leaned closer to the computer again to observe it and discovered some peculiar points. Although its fur was thick, it was uneven; some areas of its body were bald, as if someone had artifically shaved them off with tools like a depilator or scissors, partially or completly exposing the skin. Most of its fur drooped listessly, as if it had been doused with water. Its limbs moved extremely uncoordinatedly and stiffly, as if it had suffered a severe injury. Whether it was due to the video quality, the horizontal level of its front half, near its head, was lower than horizontal level of its near half, or perhaps because its front legs were shorter than its hind legs, causing its torso to slant downwards towards its head.

This was a completely unreasonable situation, because anyone should know that a dog's body structure should generally have its head at a higher horizontal level than its torso and due to the general horizontality of its limbs or its front legs being slightly longer than its hind legs, the torso itself should be horizontal or slant downwards the hind legs. However, this was completely the opposite; its head was the lowest horizontal level relative to its torso and limbs, its front legs was second lowest, and its rear half was the highest. In other words, its front legs might have been shorter than its hind legs, casuing its entire torso to slant upwards towards its hind legs.

The unreasonable aspects became more and more apparent. By normal standards, wouldn't a healthy dog's tail be a bit more active in daily life? But its tail barely moved. Occasionally, it might twitch stiffly and unnaturally due to the movement of its hips or buttocks. And between its tail and its buttocks, for some reason, there seemed to be some strange black line connecting the two forcefully.

Even more incredible, as I oberved it further, its hands and feet seemed to be longer and larger than those of ordinary canines. its hind heels were completely off the ground, and its finger-like digits were far clearer and more distinct than those of ordinary canids.

I began to feel a bit flustered. Although I wanted to quicly reassure myself, thinking it was just an ordinary stray dog and I was overthinking things, to quickly rationalize and calm myself down and get a grip on the situation, my deeper subconscious kept issuing warnings or reminders, as if to suggest that it wasn't a dog, nor any other rare or unusual caning; it wasn't a dog at all, but a human, or more precisely, something else entirely.

It continued to frantically tear and shake the plastic garbage bags on the screen, not eating any food scarps, while I stared blankly at the screen, watching it all unfold in silence. This situation lasted for several minutes.

After this, the "dog" suddenly stopped all its movements, as if a wire had snapped. It became calm, then, without haste, it began to twitch its neck and search with its mouth among the garbage inside the torn plastic bags, as if trying to find something there. After searching for nearly several minutes, it stopped its movements again, then slowly turned its head and looked towards the surveillance camera on the ceiling.

I began to zoom in on the video, and only then could I vaguely see the face of the "dog" under the streetlamp. A long jaw, a black and round nose, and...those eyes.

No, although I say that, its facial features and shape were indeed very strange. Its jaw, or something similar to it, was like a jaw mold, attached to its face very stiffly and unnaturally with some adhesive. Including it ears, there was some unclear gap between them and the sides of its face. Those eyes, althogh I couldn't see them very clearly and couldn't quite distinguish between human and dog eyes, did the whites of its eyes seem a bit too much?

As I zoomed in further on the video, trying to see more clearly, it, smiled. Rather than a smile, it was accurately a smirk, the kind that doesn't show any teeth and gums. It directly faced the surveillance camera on the ceiling behind it and gradually revealed its smile, which was like a human smile. As time passed, the corners of its mouth began to approach its earlobes and its crescent-shaped smile became increasingly apparent.

It smiled at the surveillance camera for a full several minutes, motionless, and I, too, stared at the dog's smiling face for several minutes.

Its eyes, just like that, silently and calmly stared at the surveillance camera on the ceiling, as if had already perceived and knew that I was watching it through the surveillance camera.

Impossible, this is absolutely impossible. How could a dog quickly and stare at the position of the surveillance camera on the ceiling, maintain it for such a long time and extent its mouth corners so close to its earlobes without showing any teeth or gums?

It...it is definitely not a dog, nor is it any benevolent creature.

I started to get goosebumps, my hands and geet turned cold. I stared intently at the video screen, lest it escape, and my hands quietly searched the desk below the computer for the walkie-talkie, preparing to notify my colleagues outside.

After a few minutes of this standoff, the "dog" suddenly turned its body and ran towards the lower right corner of the video, disappearing from view.

I felt extreme unease and fear, as if it would really do something like that. I quickly rummaged through the items on the desk, grabbed the walkie-talkie and notified my colleagues outside.

At the same time, I quickly closed all the windows of the security office, shut the door and locked it.

When they learned of the situation and responded to me, I seemed to have lost consciousness. When my consciousness returned somewhat, I was already outside the security office door, lying on the ground, sweating profusely, with my colleagues surrounding me, patting my back, holding mineral water and speaking in indistinct words.

As for what happened afterward, I truly, completely cannot remember. According to my colleagues, I had urgently told them via walkie-talkie to hurry to the garbage dump in the area I designated and to quickly drive away and capture the dogs there. After hearing my words, they reached quickly and rushed over. However, my tone and intonation at the time were very strange, bacause I had been with my colleagues for a long time and they knew I was relatively emotionally stable and tacitum introvert, unlikely to lose control over such a minor work matter. But at that time, I was as if possessed, adamantly insisting that they must drive away the wild dogs as soon as possible and repeatedly transmitted similar messages to them via walkie-talkie. They found this very strange, so they tried to comfort me va walkie-talkie, but I seemed not to hear them, continuing to chatter incessantly with them through the walkie-talkie, even saying that they must immediately kill those wild dogs. This was truly a very peculiar thing. Of course, in reality, when they actually arrived at the garbage dump I had designated, there was nothing there except scattered garbage bags that the wild dogs had made a mess of. In the end, they had no choice but to return empty-handed. But when they returned to the security office where I was, preparing to question my negligence, my emotions were very unstable and I kept frantically asking them if they had seen the wild dogs, and if they would quickly drive away and kill them. Seeing that my emotions seemed a bit off, they were forced to abandon their pursuit of accountability and instead began to comfort me, trying to calm me down.

Thus, this matter came to an end.

Later, I took leavem wanting to rest for a while and return to my post after recovering. Coupled with my colleagues' pleas and testimionies, my department boss finally agreed to grant me paid leave.

After about several days of rest, I returned to my original post and resumed my duties.

From that night onwards, I never patrolled outside again. Basically, I stayed strictly inside the security office and didn't come out, or I only dared to wander around the immediate vicinity of the security office, ensuring I didn't stray too far.

Of course, I never mentioned the matter of that "dog" to my colleagues around me, after all, who would really believe such a story?

Later, I resigned and went to work in another province, and never returned to the community where I had worked before.

It wasn't until one New Year's when I needed to return to my hometown that I passed through the community where I had worked.

I also took the opportunity to visit some of my old colleagues who were still working in that community. They didn't have any complaints, as working in this line of business, one would more or less face work pressure or handle things improperly, so as long as the situation hadn't escalated to a certain extent, they tried to de-escalate. That day, I specifically asked them about the situation with the wild dogs. They said that the situation with wild dogs was much better compared to more than ten years ago; they were almost never seen. However, many stray cats had died in the past and they died in places that were difficult to reach, which didn't seem like the work of their own kind.

After that visit, I never returned to that community.

What...exactly...was that "thing"?