I heard a thin whimpering while in the bathroom. Went looking, checked the stalls – nothing. The sound kept calling, so I stepped outside and found Pyra in the bushes, staring back at me like she’d been caught in the act.

Five puppies, hidden and alive. Nixx, Ember, Myst, Wysp, and Fenn.

I keep thinking – what if I hadn’t heard them? Would she have stayed with them, or walked away? The sound of survival is small, but it travels.

Late Arrival

I thought it was over. Five puppies, all accounted for. Pyra resting. Hours had passed – that lull where you start accepting you now have five more mouths to feed.

Then I heard her munching. That wet, deliberate sound that freezes your gut. For a moment I thought she was eating one of them. Mid-class, I turned, ready to intervene, and instead had the displeasure of seeing her tear open an embryonic sack – a sixth puppy, impossibly late.

Three hours after the others. We named her Lumen, because she finally saw the light. It fits – the counterbalance to Nixx, the shadow-born. Birth and afterbirth, dark and light, mystery and revelation, all in one litter.

There’s something almost theatrical about the timing.