Recently an event has been on my mind that happened when I was younger, and I'm looking for some insight as to what might have happened. It's almost exactly ten years to the day, so perhaps that's why I can't get it out of my head. Maybe someone can help me figure out what it was I saw, and what happened, or almost happened to me. If you would, let me take you back to my 17th year, when I was young, naïve, and curious. A potentially disastrous combination.
Myself and a good friend—let's call him Dan—were exploring a stream in the woods behind where I grew up. Our property was pretty far back from the edge of town to begin with, so the only thing back there was the mountain, and woods for the next five miles. We'd gone exploring in these woods before, usually during the day, but as I got older, I grew bolder, and stayed out later, past when the sun went down.
We followed the stream for quite a while, mostly because it was more interesting than oak, birch, and pine stretching as far as you could see between their trunks, with the odd moss covered rock or berry bush. But just as I was crouching down to find the source of a loud croaking (we hunted frogs a lot) Dan called out about something cool he'd found.
I followed his voice, and it turned out he'd gone pretty far from the stream—beyond eyesight. I finally caught up to him and there was just this... gate. a large, black, wrought iron gate, about my height and a half, covered in rust and green moss. There was no adjoining fence, just the gate, with the arch over the top connecting the two halves, which stood open. Today, I would have turned around and left it alone, especially after dark. But at 17, I was curious, and naïve.
We examined it closer. The craftmanship was very fine. more than simple twists and curls, it almost looked carved, the way you would expect a master carpenter to decorate their works. But beyond that, it seemed like just a very old iron gate, out in the middle of the woods, beyond our property line. We stepped through the gate, and continued on. I heard a small yip, like a puppy, and I turned behind me.
Ordinarily seeing a small russet puppy out in the middle of the woods might either alarm or enamour most humans. I was actually familiar with this pup. It's a bit of a story, but he was a wolf cub, and his family would sometimes follow me into the woods, and sometimes guided me home. I think they were protecting me, since I was the o
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