Boneless

Ray layed wakefully in her bed, on top of the blankets, her arms folded neatly under her neck to where her head was propped up slightly; a useless attempt to ease her restlessness by draining a bit of blood from the brain. Ray was victim to insomnia, and was quite used to the endless hours she spent staring up at the ceiling. She'd learned the top of her room to where it was now the most familiar thing in mind. After some jaded thoughts, Ray slipped off her bed, her bare feet slapping the hardwood floor with a quiet 'click'. Stretching her arms over her head, Ray padded her way to her cracked bedroom door, allowing her hand to slip between the gap, traveling along the wall to flick on the hallway light before she herself passed through the narrowly open gap. Before the old, dangling light bulb illuminated the hall, however, Ray could have swore she heard a faint scrabbled ticking noise, like something was suddenly startled by the light, and went scurrying away. When she peeked around the corned, she also could have swore she saw a blurred figure disappearing around the corner, but shrugged it off as another drowsy hallucination. They happened quite often. Ray entered the kitchen, finding no strange things of consequence, and retrieved a glass of water, gulping it down as she headed back to her bedroom. She clicked off the light with a lazy motion of her hand as she passed, and plopped down onto her bed. Ray sat her glass down on her nightstand, and went back to having a staring contest with the ceiling. At some point of time, Ray must have fallen asleep, because she found herself blinking her back to consciousness a few hours later. Her unadjusted eyes met complete darkness and she assumed it was still night. The thing that'd awoken her was not long a mystery when again the feeling of scorching breath engulfed her face, a putrid aroma tinting its thick air. Ray choked on it, gagging, and lurched forward, clenching her stomach as she gagged on the foul exhale. Ray staggered to her bedroom wall, and flickered on the light, expecting to see she'd left some food out again or something of the ordinary. Instead, her eyes came across that of a tall, furless canine with bright pink skin. Its purple and green vanes could be seen visibly pulsing through the thin surface. It was lean, with a Doberman-like structure and slim head. This canine had no eyes, Ray noticed, not even eye sockets. Just two very vague craters on the frontal side of its skull. It was mouth-less as well, only a faint, thin line creased the very pink skin, the lips looking slightly strained; as if they'd been sewn together. The thing lifted one of its paws, and looked as if to walk toward her, but its entire form suddenly pooled downward, a slit opening from its chest to its pelvis. Its intestines and innards spilled gracefully from it, gathering onto the ground, then pushed up like tentacles, pushing the thing's seemingly boneless structure up with ease. As it rose onto its paws again, the slit closed, and it was suddenly several feet closer. Ray had heard the ticking noise again, and looked down at its paws to see it had merely nubs, but lining the stumps were yellow, human teeth.

The next morning Ray's neighbor was awoken by the sound of a siren, and stepped outside to watch an ambulance pull into his neighbor, Ray's driveway. Ray was sitting on the tailgate to a different ambulance, a towel wrapped around her body while some type of medical assistant wrapped her face in gauze. He past her house to listen to the conversation between Ray and the officer sitting next to her, and as he did so, he picked up on Ray's voice saying "No, no... It was definitely some sort of dog..." A man's voice--presumably the officer's--said "Ma'am, no such animal of your description was found within your household, or the area-" "No!" Ray cut the officer off, sounding frustrated "It's not here anymore, it disappeared into the wall-" The officer sighed "So you're telling me... A hairless dog with teeth on its paws-" "It didn't have paws." "Excuse me, a dog, without paws, came into your house and somehow forced you to-" The officer's voice faded out of the neighbor's hearing. However, three days later, a local newspaper article was published labeled "BONELESS", telling the story of a girl named Ray who'd slammed her own head through a window, claiming a mysterious canine manipulated her into it. Further research was put in to reveal that reports up to fifteen years ago were filed of people who'd committed self harm: Having said to have seen the same dog-like creature. Whether or not these are symptoms of a mental illness are still unclear.