Page 28 of Letters to the Lost

My footsteps echo against the wooden stairs, Atlas’s mirroring my own as he follows me down.

“What’s going on?” he questions.

“Shh.”

Descending from the last stair, a bare basement greets me. It’s just concrete, a small, cracked window is all that lights up the area. Roaming my gaze over the empty room, I look for the source of the tiny whimpers.

A large bundle is curled up in a darkened corner of the room, slowly making my way toward the dog. I halt my movements when a low growl sounds from it. Pitch black fur, golden eyes with little brown dots of fur above its eyes, teeth bared and the fur on its back hunched up.

The petrified dog warns us to stay back, so I drop into a crouch, sitting back on my heels, the crinkle of the cookie wrapper in my hand piques the dog's curiosity enough to cease the growing. As it moves slowly forward, a slight limp in its back leg shows itself, its rib bones slightly protruding indicating it’s malnourished.

Breaking off a part of the biscuit, I throw it forward into the dog’s space, wasting no time in grabbing it from the floor.

Looking around, my eyes pause on a chewed round piece of plastic that must have been its food bowl, a metal one sits beside it, teeth indents around the rim.

This poor baby.

“Hey there,” I soothe, “Do you want more?”

I hold out another piece of biscuit, hoping to coax it out more. The dog moves towards me, stopping when it sees Atlas’s towering frame looming behind me, its teeth pulling back in a snarl.

“Can you go see if it has a leash somewhere?” I ask him, needing him to get away for a few minutes while I try to coax the dog forward. Atlas retreats, the dog relaxing further enough for me to feed it a few more biscuits.

Atlas returning with a blue leash doesn’t seem to startle the dog as much this time and the more it eats, the calmer he seems to get. Once the biscuits are finished, I hold the blue fabric leash in one hand and hold out the other palm up. My legs burn from sitting in this position for so long.

“Come on,” I coax hoping the dog comes over. I refuse to leave without him, a few more soothing coaxes and the dog moves forward hesitantly sniffing at my hand before licking the biscuit crumbs from my fingers.

“Hey,” I coo stroking the dog's face as he presses himself into my palm “Who would leave a little thing like you huh?”

The foul smell of the basement burns my nose, this poor dog has been living in his own filth for a week at the least. Deciding we won’t spend a moment longer here; I carefully clip the leash onto his collar that hangs around his neck and slowly stand up, so I don’t startle him.

“Let’s get him to the vet,” Atlas suggests, holding a ratty red blanket in his hand. At my quizzical expression, he just shrugs and states it’s for the dog in the back of the car in case he has any accidents.

“You just found him like this?” The vet questions me skeptically, her eyebrow raised as she checks the movement of his back leg.

“We were checking a house for my father-in-law; he owns it and was told it was abandoned. We found the dog locked in the basement and brought him straight here.” Atlas explains.

“Oh well, I’ll get this little guy all fixed up and we can get him placed with a foster family until he finds his forever home, based on his temperament,” she says, scratching the pup under his chin.

“That won’t be necessary…” I blurt, “I’ll be keeping him.”

Not wanting him to go to a random family, I feel a bond with this dog, that I was meant to find him when he needed someone the most. I’ll be his forever family no matter how long that is.

“Are you sure? We don’t know what his temperament will be.”

“Don’t care…” I grumble “I’m willing to put in any work that he needs.”

“Well, aren’t you sweet…” she coos, “He’s a very lucky boy to have a dog dad like you.”

“Thanks,” I clip, “Will he be okay?”

“He just needs some TLC, and his leg has a sprain, but he’ll be just fine. Do you have a name for him?”

“Parzival.”

The name comes to me easily from one of my favorite films, ReadyPlayer One. Hopefully, when Autumn comes home she loves him just as much as I do, and fingers crossed that he and Nanook will get along.

Sitting in the waiting room while they do a full blood work examination on Parzival has my leg bouncing. Atlas grows more restless the longer we are here.

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