Young Writers Society

Smoke erupted from the fire dog’s mouth. Its jaw split open vertically when it reared its head back, chugging and puffing like a congested chimney. ‘Yeees,’ it wheezed. ‘Here to collect. Do you have a reply?’ Mr Bhool placed both his paws on Rén’s desk; he heard an audible ‘crunch’ and winced. Bits and pieces of wire and spring had embedded themselves in the pads of Mr Bhool’s feet.

Rén eyed him nervously, but Mr Bhool seemed unperturbed, simply dragging the base of his foot against the windowpane. ‘Clumsy,’ he grunted. In between tugging fragments of alarm clock from his feet, he said, ‘Do you have, or not have, a reply to give?’

‘Er.’ Rén stood up and dusted himself off, looking around for the envelope. ‘Just a second…’ He scanned the room for it, quickly spotting it being blown around with the rest of his loose sheets on the floor. ‘Could you—close the window behind you please?’ he asked Mr Bhool. The fire dog grunted in acquiescence, spitting a hunk of steel into a corner. A smoke-laced hand extended from the back of his head and the window snapped shut, an uneasy silence weighing in to take place instead of the wind and chill.

Rén handed placed the letter at Mr Bhool’s feet. ‘Do you need help with that? Or, uh, anything else?’ he asked, trying to ignore the mad thumping of his heart. It was as though fear had momentarily vacated him, as though the sheer impossibility of what was before him was a trick of the senses, and he could convince himself easily that the fire dog—that Mr Bhool was, in fact, just a dream.

But Rén knew, of course, that he was not.

Mr Bhool had curled himself up quite comfortably next to the window. Flames erupted out of the side of what Rén figured was probably his head. Blood—a strange, viscous sort that reminded Rén of hot gelatin—trickled from the fire dog’s paw. An odd sound resonated from within his throat, a cross between a ‘grr’ and the distant hum of a speeding motorbike.

‘Bandages, if you have them,’ he said. ‘And a cup of tea.’

‘Tea?’ Rén said.

‘Any kind will do.’ Mr Bhool turned over on—his back? His smoke-ensconced body seemed to hum as it changed form, turning more and more humanlike. The sight evoked fascination and disgust simultaneously. Rén watched, entranced.

‘It’s rude to stare.’ Mr Bhool’s eyeballs sloshed in his sockets, limbs contorting impossibly amid the smoke. Odd, squelching noises issued from his mouth as he yawned. Rén hurried to stuff his fist in his mouth as bile rose up his throat.

‘Sorry,’ he said, walking backwards to the door. ‘I’ll be back,’ he called anxiously, through the crack. ‘In a minute.’

‘Do.’ Mr Bhool unravelled his limbs. ‘It’s been a long day.’


Rén clattered up the stairs five minutes later. Huā and Abalone had been drinking chicken broth in the kitchen when he had rushed inside to make the fastest cup of tea he had ever made. Abalone had been so startled when Rén banged the door open that he spilled ink and broth all over Yesim’s torched wood table. He was still swabbing at the gold and black puddle by the time Rén was done, muttering darkly all the while.

‘What’re you in a hurry for?’ he asked.

‘Nothing!’ Rén half-yelled as he left the kitchen, balancing a ream of bandages precariously on top of a close-lidded bowl of broth and hot herbal tea. Abalone must not know, he thought, clenching his teeth as tried to twist the door handle with his elbow. I’ll be damned if he finds out.

A cold burst of air struck Rén in the face the moment the door swung open. Mr Bhool sat on the windowledge, twirling his hat between his hands. Rén was relieved to see that he was now fully human, nothing of the creature he had been present in his visage. In fact, if Rén hadn’t seen him for what he was, he would have assumed the man perched on his windowledge was a young traveler, probably in his thirties at most.

‘Here.’ Rén placed the tray on the ledge. He blinked his hair out of his eyes; they must have come loose as he ran up the stairs. Mr Bhool nodded at Rén and lifted the lid off the broth. ‘This was unnecessary,’ he said. ‘Just tea will do.’ He looked up sharply. His pupils were still larger than normal, his gaze unsettling. ‘Thank you for the bandages.’ His right hand, Rén saw, was probably the paw that had gotten injured. Blood trickled down his pale, almost-translucent wrists, a cobwebby network of veins and arteries visible under his skin.

How can it look so human, Rén wondered, when it’s not? Or at least, less human than me, anyway… He shook his head, turning away to attend to the paraphernalia that littered the floor—stacking magazines and books in a small slide-open cupboard, dumping the rest in a small pile near it, gingerly picking up the saliva-slathered bits of broken alarm clock and tossing them into a bag to throw out. If Rén’s disgust offended Mr Bhool in any way, he did not show it, but hummed softly as Rén worked.

Once Mr Bhool had finished bandaging his cut, he leaned back against the windowframe with his cup of tea. Rén sat with his back against the door, exhausted, but still ventured to ask:

‘Are you formless?’

Mr Bhool paused, teacup still partially raised to his lips. ‘Essentially, yes. And no. Conceptually, I am several forms, but what I am differs slightly from what I choose to become, in certain situations.’ He took a sip of tea, his mouth—the same mouth that Rén had seen split open like a chrysalis, with its larvae-like tongue—forming into a smile. ‘I have a form suitable for travel, but also come in such shapes and sizes as to befit birthday parties and local events, such as riots, uprisings, and wars. I have also gone drinking, occasionally, for work reasons. Always a fun experience. I am also, as you may have noticed’—Mr Bhool rolled his hat over his shoulder and onto his head in a single fluid motion—‘more of a conversationalist in certain forms, provided I am not too travel-weary.’

‘That makes … sense.’ Rén paused. ‘Was it you, earlier today?’ he asked.

‘Earlier today?’ Mr Bhool raised an eyebrow. ‘Are you speaking in reference to the deliverer of your letter?’

‘Yeah—yes.’ Rén pulled the now rumpled feathery red leather from his pocket. ‘It came in a marble which … turned into a fire bird … thing.’ Vocalising it made Rén feel stupid. He rubbed his cheek. ‘I didn’t understand then, it happened so fast that I couldn’t make sense of it but…’ He heaved in a deep breath and jerked his gaze upwards, his hands shaking—from nervousness or anger, he couldn’t tell. ‘People get executed for things like this,’ he said. ‘And it’s going to go crazy now—when the news spreads, because people got hurt and I’m going to be blamed for this. So whoever it was—and if you know them, tell them that I—I—’ He stopped.

I what? That I’ll report them to the king? That I’ll hurt them? Rén bit his lip.

Mr Bhool did not reply. He put his teacup down and slipped a white glove on his uninjured hand. He cast a glance at his other hand and tutted. ‘How unusually clumsy of me,’ he said.

He stood up and walked towards Rén, his footsteps remarkably heavy for his stature. He leaned forward until he and Rén were face to face, until the smallest details of his face were in high definition: every pore, every hair, even the dust clinging to his eyelashes. Rén froze at the proximity, a cold, shuddering feeling travelling down his spine, like a bucket of ice water had been emptied inside his body

‘I do not know who was sent today,’ Mr Bhool said, his voice low and rumbling in his throat. ‘Nor the strange method that was exercised to get this letter to you. And even if I did know.’ He smiled, and his teeth gleamed in the lamplight. ‘I do not think I have the power to tell.’

‘What does that mean?’ Rén whispered. He felt behind him, against the door, fingers inching upwards towards the doorknob. Before he could register, Mr Bhool had his wrist pinned against the door, the other hand gripping tightly onto his hair.

Run, Rén thought. Tears streamed down his face, but he couldn’t move. He clenched his teeth. Run.

‘It is more complicated than you think, dragon boy.’ A puff of smoke escaped Mr Bhool’s lips. ‘I work for the system. What happens outside my relations with the system is none of my concern. And I suggest that you make it of little concern to yourself as well, if you want to survive.’ He smiled again. ‘Good luck, and thanks for the tea.’

With this final pronouncement, Mr Bhool’s pupils rolled back into his skull. A jet of black smoke streamed from his nostrils onto Rén’s face, mouth splitting open wide—wider—until even that was completely obscured in smoke. Rén coughed and hacked, screwing his eyes shut instinctively even as he fought to keep them open. The vicelike grip Mr Bhool had held him in disappeared. He covered his mouth, struggling to breathe, and blindly crawling towards the centre of the room.

Gradually, the smoke dissipated. Drained, Rén lay on his side, staring at the rain lashing in from the open window. The curtains swayed in the breeze. The lights flickered. He sucked in a deep breath, splaying his fingers against his face. And Mr Bhool was gone.

He lay like that for a long time. He lay like that until the aching of his limbs and the constant buzzing tension in his head lulled him into a deep sleep.

In his dreams, he saw fire birds and snakes writhing from between his feet. Yesim was fishing for terrabike parts, talking about how Rén was supposed to go on auction soon, and they sat on the edge of some distant roof in some distant dreamworld, watching the moon as it turned into a swallow and flew far, far away.

When he woke up, the sun was glaring in from his window. It was eleven o’clock. And in the kitchen, an unwanted guest was waiting for him.






In Rén’s mind, the plan had initially been to take Huā to the address Chang Mul had given them that morning. The posthouse wasn’t far from East Gulpahar, and it was a Sunday so there wouldn’t be much traffic until late that evening, when the city’s busiest district would start swelling with nightlife. He straightened out the quickest—and cheapest—routes they could take in his head as he got dressed. Not too much walking, he thought. And also so we can stop by an actual doctor’s…

He finished lacing his boots and stood up, still lost in thought. His eyes wandered around his room. He had cleaned up earlier, so that his things were in a neat pile in a corner of the room. The blue letter was back on its lintel, and the broken alarm clock had been well and truly disposed of.

Aside from the faint smell of smoke, there was little vestige of what had happened last night. Rén sighed. His eyes strayed to his magazine pile. Maybe I should get one on terrabikes.

The plan thus far: take Huā to the doctor, pick up a magazine on terrabikes, and find Luhan Son.

Clattering downstairs, Rén was surprised to hear voices coming from the kitchen. Abalone usually did not stay overnight, often disappearing in the dead of the night after his most random of visits. But, Rén thought, cracking the door open with his foot. His eyes narrowed. This did not sound like Abalone.

‘…much obliged to you, certainly, this early in the morning. I just can’t seem to find my way around these parts…’

‘Not at all.’ Rén recognized Yesim’s low voice clearly. He heard the distinct clinking of steel chopsticks against china, the sound of water running as someone turned the tap. ‘I think my errand boy is still asleep. Rough day yesterday.’ A pregnant pause. ‘Would you like me to show you the way to the station or…?