The dog had finally made it out of the mountains. It had taken months to cross Lam Dong and northern Dong Nai on foot. Its paw pads had callused to the texture of limestone, and its shits had turned to goo from a meager diet of wild berries with the occasional dead bird or squirrel. Now that it was in Binh Duong and moving through more populated areas, the route was easier and there was more to eat. However, the dog now had traffic to fear, as well as poachers and other, larger dogs. It preferred to travel at night, keeping to the trash-filled ruts running alongside the road where it wouldn’t be seen.

In between the factory towns were rubber plantations twenty times the size of the haunted one in Ia Kare. These trees were regimented and snakeless and the scars in their bark were wet, but their air and soil still smelled of the same burning. One night, while the dog was walking past the rows of their mutilated trunks, it paused. It had heard something deep in the rubber. The dog sat down at the edge of the trees and waited for it to appear.

The smoke came darting from trunk to trunk like a flying squirrel. This one was a darker red, an overcast garnet. It was small and it was young and it was clumsy. It had not yet fed. When it sensed the warm body of the dog, its edges fluttered eagerly, like the bell of a jellyfish, and it squirted toward it through the trees. The dog cocked its head curiously but did not move.

The smoke tried to strike quickly, stretching into a thin, wine-colored ribbon and then wrapping one end of itself around the dog’s leg and tightening. But the dog merely lifted its paw and lazily shook the smoke off.

The smoke contracted backward, startled. It looked more carefully at the dog then, and realized that it was already occupied. There was no more room—something else was inside. Disappointed, it drifted away through the trees to find itself a better body.