Misplaced Soul

If you are reading this, I have to give you my thanks for opening this novel to try and read. No, this is not an author's note, as me talking to you, the reader, is completely part of this novel's reading experience.
 The story I will tell you involves a certain poor soul inside a body he doesn't belong in. It's just another novel within the sea of novels hosted on this website, but there's a catch.

You have power to influence the direction of the story, albeit in vague, strange ways. At the end of each chapter I will give you, the readers, a choice to make. You will state your choice in the comments section of this chapter. The will of the majority will influence the events of the story, but not the character's choices.

If no reader votes for the choices and remains an uninvolved party, then the story shall proceed as normal. His story doesn't need you, but you can make it very well… interesting.

The story begins when a poor man's soul wakes up from rain drops falling onto his body. Gray clouds cover the sky, swirling, as if to threaten the earth with its terrifying water droplets. Not all droplets hit the poor man, but the ones that do help the man escape his stupor.

With the body he is occupying lying down, belly on the ground, he instinctively covers his face with his hands. Except he discovers his hands are no longer hands, nor is his face no longer a face he is familiar with.

His hands seems to feel stubbier and smaller, only barely able to cover the eyes on his face. His face seems misshapen, with his nose is way farther from his eyes than it should be, with his mouth stretching with it.

The droplets that come down from the sky bring with them a disgusting feeling of moist, slimy, restrictions on his body. It feels heavier, as if the water is staying with him.

He wipes his eyes and tries to stand up. He fails to stand up on two legs, so he stands on four. His bare feet tells him that he is on a stone surface, probably some sort of stone bricks.

The world around him seems to come alive as he tries to open his eyes in the midst of the pouring rain. There are people around him, towering him. Most of them bringing umbrellas of different shades of grey, with the ones who don't have umbrellas using their bags as one. Men, women, even horses that draw a two-wheeled carriage, busy the street despite the pouring rain.

The sounds of the world visit his ears as he looked around. The soles of the men's leather shoes splatter against the puddles in the sidewalk. Horses' galloping, with their clips and clops, accompany the seldom, but powerful sound of an engine roaring in the distance.

The smell of rain and smoke fills his lungs. As the smell scratches at his larynx, he feels the urge to cough, so he did. The cough eases the itch, but it comes back immediately after the few seconds of relief.

The itch in his throat worsens, until he realizes that he has been feeling dehydrated. His tongue is almost dry even though he is soaked from head to toe. Instinctively, he crawls on all fours to the nearest puddle, with no regard for his own image.

He tries to take a sip from his puddle, but the water won't enter his mouth. After a few attempts at sipping, he decides to lick at the puddle. He feels awkward licking the puddle, but soon found comfort in the feeling of his tongue being moistened by the continuous licking of the puddle.

As his pace of licking slows down, so does the rain. The downpour eases into a drizzle allowing clearer reflections to appear on puddles. The man notices this, and starts to see his own reflection as he licks.

He sees a snout coming out of his face, with big ears drooping the side of his head. His whole body is covered in pure white fur, albeit dirtied by the splashes from the galloping horses and the smoke-stained rain droplets. He sees he is much smaller than a human being. He sees nothing but a dirty, white dog.

He looks at his hands–or should I say paws–and confirms that his extremities are indeed that of a dog's. He looks around to see the people, continuously reminded of their towering height above him.

He tries to speak, but only whimpers and semi-howls escape his mouth. Not a single person stops to look at this poor man–this poor dog. This dog tries to follow one person to ask for help, only to be shooed. At least he wasn't shoed, as a foot to the stomach wouldn't help the hunger he is starting to feel.

Nothing else can happen to him, no? He is but a stray dog. What can he do except stay as a stray dog?

"No," the dog thinks, "I'm not a dog. The fact that I'm aware of my own consciousness is evident of me having human intelligence. Only humans are capable of self-awareness. And I even remember the feeling of a human body, the feeling of drinking a warm cup of coffee in a misty, rainy morning. What am I doing drinking from a puddle, shivering and unprotected? No memories are left to explain this…"

His thoughts were interrupted by a horse-drawn carriage that passed through. I influenced that carriage to make a big splash near the dog so as to wake him up from his little ramblings. His thought dialogue text was becoming too long, I needed to cut it up…

After being splashed by a because of a horse-drawn carriage, he stops his rambling thoughts and remembers his growling stomach in need of attention.

"I need to find food first," he says to himself, "and then shelter."

The dog's memories is rather disorganized as he tried to sort through them in order to figure out what was happening to him. Any personal memories, such as his name, Jericho, is scarce, and almost nonexistent. Most of the memories that remain are memories of the city he's in.

Doña Amihan is a city state situated far from the coast, deep into the eastern continent. It's an unremarkable ex-colony of Imperya, receiving its independence a few years ago. The fine architecture that makes up the city takes heavily influence from Imperya, with stone brick roads and two-storey stylized buildings.

Usually in between the buildings would be an alleyway narrow enough for two slim people to walk together, shoulder to shoulder. In these alleyways, would be garbage containers where the buildings' residents throw out their trash. Regardless if it were a restaurant or a residential building, they would leave their trash in their alleyways for the garbagemen to take it away.

Jericho was hoping that he could secure some food from the containers in the alleyways. He knows it is a disgusting to look for food in the trash, but his hunger is already controlling his brain.

He immediately goes to the nearest alleyway to scavenge for food. Jericho carefully enters and looks for the container. It wasn't difficult to look for it, as it was already overflowing with bags of trash.

Usually, the people in this city are very concerned with food wastage, so they always eat until their plate is spotless. But there was always a chance that one ungrateful kid decided not to finish his meal. Although Jericho would be very grateful if that happened.

Amidst the stench of piss and feces of other strays, he tries to smell for a trail of scent that leads to food. Jericho tips over the container to spill its contents. He vaguely remembers the feeling of being annoyed whenever he sees his own container lying on its side, but he shakes his head and looks for food.

He first carefully digs some of the trash out. But as his stomach growls at him, he starts to impatiently hasten his digging. Soon, he finds something. He found a couple of bones. He licks one bone and finds it vaguely salty, but also nauseating.

Jericho takes a deep breath and bites on the small bones. The bones seem to belong–or used to belong–to a chicken. He chews them thoroughly and swallows. The feeling of something entering his stomach overcomes his feeling of disgust.

He excitedly bites another chicken bone but accidentally swallows it too quickly. He starts coughing and hacking until he spits out the bone. With it, a little bit of new blood accompanied the bone.

He solemnly picks up the bone with his mouth again, and bites it into smaller pieces, carefully this time. A few bones later, Jericho fails to find more food scraps in that container. He looks out to the main street and decides to look for another alleyway container to scavenge.

Jericho goes through four other alleyway containers only to find rubbish like paper. On his fifth alleyway, he smells an aroma of some kind. Although it still accompanies the strong smell of urine and feces, he can smell a savory meaty scent.

He increases his pace to a four-legged run and arrives at the alleyway in no time. He sees in full glory: meat. The amount was staggering, so Jericho suspected that there was a restaurant nearby which just dumped the wastes in a hurry.

Jericho excitedly tips the garbage can over, spilling its contents all over the alleyway floor. He almost jumps on the meat, as he smells it to confirm its existence. He gave it a lick and tasted the most savory piece of meat he can remember. The fatty oil seeping out and the seemingly juicy and red exterior was begging to be eaten. But alas, the cake is a lie.

A gruff voice pounded on Jericho's ears, "Oy, get away from there!"

Jericho becomes wide-eyed and startled as he looks up to see the source of the voice. A large, beefy man with a long stick blocks the way out to the main road. He is wearing some rough clothes as if he's been the same overalls and shirt for a decade. Behind him, at the sidewalk of the main road, was a trolley filled with trash.

"Trash," Jericho said to himself, quickly recognizing the beefy man in front of him, "a garbage man?"

Jericho's mind went overdrive as he realizes that the man is trying to take the trash away. He quickly thinks of grabbing a bite of meat and run away with it. Before he was able to bite, the man slammed the stick in front of Jericho, separating him and the meat.

"Go away! Stop making a mess here, dog."

The man waves the stick around, causing Jericho to fall further into the alleyway, and farther from the meat. He could no longer get the meat for himself.

He decides to make a run for it. He curses the garbageman for suddenly appearing. A seed frustration wells up in Jericho's heart. If only he was a little bit luckier.

As this chapter of Jericho's story closes, I have a question for you, dear readers. Do you think Jericho deserves to be a bit luckier in the next chapter? Or do you think he can handle an even "better" situation? I look forward to unveiling what happens next, oh dear readers.