(A note to whoever adds to this thread every morning: I won't be able to post tomorrow night, Friday. So looks like you'll get two chapters in a row. I can post on Saturday, so we'll continue switching off then. Thanks for writing on this thread, it's really fun to add onto. On with "you" and Leona!)
"Well, I personally think we should -" Leona starts to say, but suddenly she is cut off by a low, deep growling noise. Gulping, you two turn and look in the doorway. A huge black dog, way too big to be natural, stands in the doorway, growling, baring it's huge fangs. There's the remains of a shirt collar hanging around it's thick, muscular neck. It has hellishly red eyes that glow in the dimly-lit kitchen.
At this point, you've seen everything from a werewolf transformation to a griffin showing human-level intelligence, so you're more pissed off than scared. "Oh, come ON-" is all you have time to say before the dog opens it's muzzle and barks, a thick, primal sound. Scooping up Leona in your other free arm (the bag of food around your shoulder and the transformative sword around your belt) and run towards the secret passage. The dog, seeing it's prey getting away, howls in frustration and begins it's chase. By the time you reach the passage, the dog is leaning back on it's haunches, ready to pounce.
"CLOSE IT! CLOSE IT!" Leona cries, and you slam the door to the secret passage, sealing you and Leona in darkness, just as the dog hits it. You hear it growl in frustration and pounce at the door again. Much to your horror, the door bends. It won't hold for long. "C'mon, we need to go!" Leona says, pouncing out of your arms and running up the stairs in the dark. Panting already from the huge food sack and outrunning the dog, you follower her up the stairs. They creak under your weight, and you pass though several spiderwebs. This stairwell hasn't been used in years.
"Hey - I reached a door!" Leona calls from somewhere above you. Given her small size, she's run up the stairs much faster than you. You push yourself to run faster, and reach the top of the stairs just as you hear the secret door splintering and the dog howling in delight, reverberating off the walls of the long-forgotten stairwell. You run across a short expanse of floor, put your hand out, and hit the door. It bangs open, and you're puzzled to see another set of doors, made of light-colored wood without handles. Hoping it's a push-door, you kick these open as well and yell out in shock as you and Leona tumble out of a wardrobe.
You find yourselves in a carpeted bedroom, with a queen-sized bed a nightstand, a window on the left hand wall, and another wardrobe on the right wall. It appears the secret passage led from the kitchen to this bedroom's wardrobe. "Leave some bait for it!" Leona yells. You rummage around in the bag and pull out the first thing you touch, which turns out to be the loaf of bread. "Uh... dogs like bread, right?" You ask sheepishly. "No time! Just leave it!" Leona cries. Nodding, you drop the bread to the center of the floor and pull open the other wardrobe. Leona jumps in to the side of you and you shut the door, folding up your wings, just as you hear the dog reach the top of the stairs.
Looking through the crack in between the doors, you watch as the dog, not seeing it's prey, slinks into the room, growling. Realizing that it's probably a transformed human, you hope it's intelligence is blinded for the moment in it's hunt. You watch as the dog walks over to the bed and bends down to look under it. There's no doubting it now, it's a transformed human. No dog would do that. Suddenly, it sees the bread. It pads over to it, bends it's head down, and snaps half of it up in it's huge jaws. Holding your breath, you wait for the transformation to come.
Much to your horror, the dog grows from it's already huge size to astronomically big, as tall as you. It went from as big as a great Dane to as big as a horse. The remains of the shirt collar shreds under it's growth. It looks itself over and smiles as much as a dog can manage. "We're doomed..." Leona moans, and wraps her arms around your pant leg, sobbing. Suddenly, an idea hits your head. "What are you doing?" Leona asks through the tears. You begin rummaging around in the food bag, looking for something. "No... no... that doesn't make sense... no..." you say, throwing things left and right. You're looking for something that will weaken the dog, or at least incapacitate it.
You hear it's breathing, as loud as a leaf blower, as it nears the wardrobe. "Hurry... hurry...." Leona mumbles. After rejecting everything, you reach for the thing that makes the most sense: the hard-boiled eggs. Grabbing one, you wait. You hear it just outside the door. Yelling, you kick open the wardrobe. The dog opens it's muzzle in shock. Putting your skills as your high-school baseball team's pitcher to the test, you fling the egg at the dog. The egg flies into it's mouth, and it clamps down on it instinctively. You watch as it chews and swallows it.
The dog whines. A deep rumbling emits from it's stomach. It begins to shrink rapidly, much to you and Leona's joy. But that's not the only thing. As it shrinks, it's muzzle gets rounder and more puppyish. It's tail, paws, and everything else shrink to relative size as it's body shrinks, body bulking up with puppy fat. It's wicked-looking fangs get rounder and not as sharp. It shrinks more and more until there's a black puppy sitting on the floor in front of you, whining and sniffling.
Leona leaps out of the wardrobe and eats a quarter of the remanding bread on the floor. You sigh in relief as she grows to normal size again. The dog seems to have undergone a mental change as well as an age regression, as it yips when it sees you and scampers up to you, putting it's small front paws on your pant leg, it's tail flicking back and forth.
"Oh, he's so CUTE!" Leona cries, padding over and looking down at it. She picks it up and begins to pet it as you walk over the wardrobe you and Leona hid in. Kicking the back of it, it swings out to reveal another dark stairwell, leading upwards as well. Looking in it warily, you hear Leona say, "There's a door in here - it leads to the 2nd floor hallway." "Yeah-" you say, slinging the food bag over your shoulder and stepping out of the wardrobe, "But which way should be go? And should we take this little guy with us?"