The Poodle’s Curse

I used to think dogs were harmless. Ordinary creatures with wagging tails and soft eyes. But the day I stepped back in time—back into that crowded pet market reeking of sawdust, fur, and disinfectant—I understood that even the smallest dog could twist a life into horror.

I had lived this day once before. I had pitied a sickly white poodle, bought it from a trembling vendor who begged me to save it, and taken it home. I hadn’t realized that moment would rewrite my fate: sudden promotions, impossible contracts falling into my lap, the icy CEO of our company suddenly looking at me as though I were the only woman in the world. Samuel Thompson—rich, brilliant, terrifying Samuel—had dropped to one knee and asked me to be his wife.

And on my wedding day, my best friend drove a knife into my chest.

I can still hear her words: “Why you? Why do you get everything while I break my back like a slave?”

Her name was Vanessa Lee. And when I opened my eyes in the past, in that pet market again, she was right beside me—no longer trembling at the sight of dogs, but lunging forward, shoving money at the vendor, scooping up the same poodle I once carried home.

“This one!” she declared breathlessly, her eyes shining with something too sharp to be called joy. “I’ll take him. No questions asked.”

She hugged the dog like a prize, then looked back at me, smirking. “Sorry, Kim. I know you probably wanted him, but I was faster. Guess I’ll be the lucky one this time. Who knows? Maybe I’ll even meet my prince charming.”

Her words cut deeper than she knew. Because I understood then: she remembered, too. She had been reborn just as I had.

But I only smiled faintly. “I never wanted him, Vanessa. Last time I only bought him because the seller said he was sick and about to be thrown away. That’s all.”

For the first time, Vanessa faltered. Her smirk slipped. Her eyes darted away, then back. She clutched the dog tighter, as if afraid I might snatch it from her arms.

I didn’t move. I didn’t need to. Because she had already stepped into the curse she thought was a blessing.

The next morning, she paraded into the office with the poodle in her arms, all glowing pride and feigned affection. She cooed over it like a newborn, showing it off to colleagues who rolled their eyes behind her back.

But then our manager paused, stared, and said slowly, “Vanessa? You hated dogs.”

She laughed lightly. “Me? No, never. I love little ones like this.”

Within an hour she was called into his office. Fifteen minutes later she emerged, breathless, flushed, triumphant. She marched to my desk, tossed her hair, and announced loud enough for the whole department to hear:

“Kim, guess what? I’ve just been promoted. Starting today, I’m your supervisor.”

The office buzzed with whispers. Vanessa’s smile widened. “And this is just the beginning. Big projects, senior management… maybe even a CEO’s wife. Some of us were born ordinary, Kim. Some of us—” She hugged the dog closer. “Some of us were born to win.”

Her eyes gleamed with cruelty. But I felt only a strange calm. She was climbing the same glittering staircase I once had. And at the top waited not heaven, but a precipice.

The transformation was swift. Colleagues fawned over her. Clients requested her by name. In meetings, executives praised her brilliance. She strutted the halls in designer heels, her laughter sharp as broken glass.

“Kim,” she taunted one afternoon, “you must be jealous. But don’t worry—I might let you work as my maid when I marry Samuel Thompson.”

I kept my face impassive. Inside, I whispered: Let her believe. Let her fall.

Because I remembered the banquet. I remembered the moment Samuel’s icy eyes had softened, the way he’d knelt before me, the way Vanessa’s face had twisted with envy. That was the night she had decided to kill me.

This time, she thought it would be hers.

The night of the banquet, she arrived glowing, wrapped in a gown almost identical to the one I had worn before. The same makeup, the same hair, even the same shade of lipstick. Every detail stolen.

But she had left the poodle at a clinic.

When Samuel entered, tall and cold as a blade, his gaze cut through the crowd and locked onto Vanessa. She flushed, lowered her lashes, ready for destiny.

He strode to her, seized her wrist, and hissed, “Where’s the dog?”

Her smile collapsed. “He… wasn’t feeling well, so I—”

“You left him in a cage?” His voice thundered. Gasps rippled through the ballroom. He dragged her out, ignoring her sputtered excuses.

I followed quietly, unseen, as he drove her to the pet hospital.

The poodle whimpered in its cage, eyes wet, body trembling. The moment Samuel appeared, it flung itself against the bars, desperate for him. His face softened into something dangerous, something like worship.

And then he whispered, so low only I could hear: “Half a month, Olivia. Just half a month more.”

My blood ran cold.

The weeks that followed were a fever dream. Vanessa bloomed under Samuel’s sudden attention. He courted her publicly, declared their relationship in front of the company, showered her with gifts. She preened, sneered at me, told everyone she was about to marry into the Thompson empire.

But I remembered. I remembered my wedding day, the black cross at the center of the hall instead of flowers, the strange whispers, the suffocating dread. I remembered Olivia Summers.

Three years earlier, Samuel’s childhood sweetheart had died in a brutal car crash. Her body was destroyed beyond recognition. But her dog—this very white poodle—had returned home unharmed.

And now, when Samuel cradled the animal, when he whispered Olivia’s name, when the dog’s eyes glittered with something too human, I understood the truth: Olivia’s soul was trapped inside that creature.

The wedding was never about love. It was about a vessel.

Vanessa called me the morning of her wedding, her voice dripping with mockery. “Kim, have you ever seen a diamond this big? A dress this perfect? No, of course not. Poor little you. I almost pity you.”

She spun her camera around to flaunt the decorations. My heart clenched. It was all the same as before: the black cross, the eerie silence.

Then a woman’s voice murmured faintly from off-screen: “Samuel, is this the gift for our poodle?”

I nearly dropped the phone. That voice. I had heard it before—on the day I died.

Vanessa whipped her head around, panic flickering. “Who said that? Who’s there?” But there was no one. Just her. And the dog.

The truth pressed against my chest like a blade: the poodle could speak.

I tried to warn myself not to look, not to listen, but curiosity clawed at me. That evening, I hacked through public news archives, digging into Samuel’s past. There it was: the obituary. Olivia Summers, fiancée of Samuel Thompson, killed in a tragic accident. Her body beyond recovery. Only her beloved poodle survived.

The pieces fit together with horrifying clarity. Olivia’s soul hadn’t vanished—it had slipped into the dog. And Samuel, desperate, obsessed, had spent years preparing to pull her back into a human body.

My body.

Vanessa’s body.

Any woman foolish enough to stand beside him at the altar.

By the time I realized this, it was too late. Vanessa stormed to my apartment the next day, her face pale, her hands shaking. She pounded on my door until I opened it.

“This is your fault!” she shrieked. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew he was using me. You let me walk into it!”

I stared at her, pity burning through my anger. “Vanessa, you wanted everything I had. You grabbed it with both hands. Don’t blame me now.”

But her eyes had gone wild. She pulled a bundle of white fabric from her bag and shoved it against my chest—a bloodstained gown, the same I had once worn. “If it isn’t me, then it’ll be you. Samuel!” she screamed toward the hallway. “I have her! She’s here!”

Black-suited men flooded in. A rag pressed against my face. Darkness swallowed me.

I woke bound to a black cross in the Thompson mansion. Candles flickered. The poodle sat at Samuel’s feet, its eyes gleaming with hatred.

“This one,” the dog’s mouth formed words. Its voice was a woman’s, cold and vicious. “This body. Pure. Untouched. Perfect for me.”

A robed priest began to chant, sprinkling foul-smelling water across my skin.

Samuel’s eyes shone with fever. “Just a little longer, Olivia. Soon you’ll be mine again.”

I clenched my teeth, forcing my voice steady. “Samuel, you’re insane. Stealing bodies, killing women—don’t you fear judgment?”

He sneered. “Only the weak fear judgment. I create my own fate.”

Vanessa knelt nearby, sobbing, begging. “Use her, not me. Please, I don’t want to die!”

The poodle’s lips curled. “You’re filthy. Stained. You’re unworthy. This one is mine.”

Terror clawed at my lungs. But around my neck, hidden beneath my blouse, a charm pulsed warm against my skin—a talisman I had begged from a priest long ago, before I ever knew why I would need it.

The moment the chanting touched me, the talisman flared, burning bright. The dog shrieked, convulsing. Smoke curled from its fur.

“What is this?” Samuel roared, rushing forward.

The priest staggered back, pale. “She… she’s protected. This ritual will fail.”

Samuel’s fury twisted his features. “Then use Vanessa! Do it now!”

The dog howled. “No! I don’t want that body! I want hers!”

Chaos erupted. Vanessa, in blind panic, snatched a knife from the altar and plunged it into the poodle’s chest. Blood sprayed across the marble floor.

Samuel screamed. The dog’s voice rasped, “You’ll never escape me. I’ll curse you all.” Then it collapsed, still.

Sirens wailed. Police stormed the mansion, tipped off by someone—Vanessa, perhaps, or maybe Samuel’s own enemies.

The story that hit the news was sanitized: a tragic accident, a dead dog, whispers of cult practices. Samuel denied everything, but the cracks had already formed. Investors fled. His empire crumbled.

Vanessa didn’t live to see it. Hours after being released from questioning, she stepped into the street outside the precinct and a truck ended her life in an instant.

As for Samuel, madness consumed him. Rumors spread of him screaming at night, raving about dogs with human eyes, falling down the stairs in a frenzy, breaking his spine. They said he lay paralyzed now, trapped in his own body, whispering Olivia’s name until his voice bled.

And me?

I left.

I packed my bags, resigned from the company, and disappeared from the city that had once promised me everything but had only given me blood and nightmares.

I live quietly now, in a small town where no one knows my name. Sometimes I wake in the dark, hearing phantom paws scratching at the door, a woman’s voice whispering through the walls.

But when dawn breaks, the world is silent.

I survived. And survival, in the end, is the greatest victory.