Shadow of Hushville

It was a beautiful spring morning, the birds were singing, the warm sun was rising above the trees, and the light breeze swept through the leaves, freshly grown on the trees. I stood up and stretched my front legs out in front of me as I opened my mouth wide to let out a big yawn. I sat down for a moment to groom my messy black fur into something more presentable and began my usual journey through the thick forest I knew as home. I enjoyed exploring parts of the land I had never seen before and discovering new things that had always been there unknown to me. As I walked around the forest, I began hearing new and unusual noises and got curious. I walked towards the sound and soon odd structures and creatures came into view. They spoke in a tongue I did not understand and did odd things that I was not used to seeing. I curiously strolled into the odd place as my large crimson eyes darted around the area, picking up on all of the odd looks I was receiving. The strange creatures seemed to avoid me whenever I would try to get close to them, except for one, he was small and wide-eyed as I approached and once I had gotten close enough, he reached out its very small, furless paw and stroked my head. I did not quite understand what he was doing but I could tell whatever it was, it was not malicious, it was quite nice in fact. The small creature continued to delicately run its paw over my much larger head as other creatures began coming towards me to do the same. All of the attention I was getting made me very happy, so happy in fact that I lifted my lips to reveal my very pointy teeth in the biggest smile I had ever given. Although, my intentions did not seem to be clear to the furless as they all took a cautious step back, except for one, the small one, who smiled back at me. He turned to the rest of the furless and made some noises at them which seemed to calm them down. I listened to the noises carefully so I could mimic them and hopefully make them less weary of me. I did my best to copy what the small one had said and made the same noises as it had. After doing so, the creatures, even the small one, looked at me in awe and amazement. I wasn't quite sure what was going on, but I felt as if I had done something correctly. After a while of fur stroking and odd noises, the crowd seemed to dissolve leaving only the small one and what seemed to be his kin. The taller one spoke something to the small one which caused the small one's face to drop, I could tell something was upsetting him. In an attempt to bring his mood up, I stepped towards him and gently brushed my head against his smaller head causing him to let out strange happy noises. The tall one watched before sighing and making odd noises that caused the small one to leap up and down a few times before turning to me and motioning for me to follow with its furless paw. I happily obliged as I stood back up on the smooth rock ground and followed the odd creatures to a wooden structure with stones on the slanted top as well as a bit on the sides. The tall one opened a hole in the wall and flicked an odd device causing the unnatural cave to light up. I followed the small one in and he patched the hole with a swinging rectangle before heading up a hill with many small, rectangular ledges. I kept following him until he stopped in a soft and comfortable side cave with a similar swinging rectangle patch to the one leading outside. The small one sat down on the strangest colored imitation grass before making an interesting noise while petting me, the oddest part was that he was making the sound repeatedly. After being confused for a bit, I came to the realization that the small one was referring to me as this odd sound. "Shadow." I repeated back as best as I could. The small one looked delighted as the sound came from my muzzle. He then went elsewhere and called out "Shadow" with a few other sounds following. I looked towards the direction the small one had gone and stood up to walk over to him. The small one was very happy and gave me many gentle pats on the head before the joyful moment was broken by a distressed call that sounded like the tall one. The small one rushed down the stairs to see what was wrong with me close behind. The tall one made frantic noises as she ran around the unnatural cave seeming to be trying to catch something. I noticed that there was a fluffy rabbit running around trying to avoid the tall one. I quite liked the taste of rabbit so I naturally crouched down in a hunting position before it ran in front of causing me to pounce on top of it. It put up a slight struggle as I quickly snapped its delicate neck before eating it whole in a couple of bites. The small one and the tall one looked at me in shock and surprise but praised me for ridding the area of the chaos. We stayed at ground level while the creatures sat on bark-less hallow tree cages and ate meat off of a larger wood cage without bars. The tall one took a large chunk of meat from the round thing atop the large wood cage and threw it to me to eat. I happily gobbled down the warm meat and smiled a big toothy grin at the tall one as a sign of appreciation. As the creatures continued eating, they made noises in response to each other before I heard the small one make the "Shadow" noise. I walked over and looked up at him, he gave me a small piece of meat and patted my head. The tall one looked amazed at my reaction before making the noise herself to which I responded the same way as I had before. Once I got over to her, she smiled and, for the first time, delicately patted my head.