It was always the same one: wiry, dust-colored, with paws caked in dirt. Other strays roamed the alleys, but this one fixated on a single spot near the slope, digging with tireless urgency. From dawn till nightfall, it clawed at the earth as though nothing else mattered.
At first Ethan dismissed it as a quirk of stray dogs. But the persistence nagged at him. Eleven hours in a single day he’d seen it work—fur damp with sweat, ribs trembling, eyes locked on the ground like a miner guarding treasure. Something about it unsettled him.