CHAPTER 1 – The Guardian in the Dark
No one knew how the old man ended up alone in the middle of Blackwood Forest.
The storm had swallowed every trail. His backpack was gone. His phone had long since died. With a badly injured leg and freezing rain soaking through his clothes, seventy-year-old Thomas Carter knew one terrifying truth...
He wasn't going to survive the night.
As darkness closed in, he leaned against a fallen tree, whispering goodbye to the family who would probably never know what happened to him.
Then...
A pair of glowing amber eyes appeared between the trees.
A massive gray wolf stepped silently into the moonlight.
Thomas's heart stopped.
Every story he'd ever heard told him this was how it ended.
The wolf walked closer.
Closer.
Its enormous paws made almost no sound against the wet leaves.
Thomas squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the attack.
But it never came.
Instead, the wolf gently lowered itself beside him.
Its thick fur blocked the icy wind.
Its warm body pressed against the freezing old man.
Thomas slowly opened his eyes.
The wolf wasn't growling.
It was watching the darkness... as if guarding him.
Minutes later, distant howls echoed through the forest.
Not one wolf.
Several.
The lone wolf immediately stood, ears raised.
Its muscles tightened.
It stared into the darkness with fierce determination.
Thomas could barely breathe.
The animal wasn't hunting him.
It was protecting him.
Throughout the endless night, every strange noise was met with the wolf stepping between Thomas and the forest.
When hungry coyotes approached, the wolf chased them away.
When the temperature dropped, it curled around the old man once more.
Thomas whispered with trembling lips,
"Why are you saving me?"
The wolf simply looked into his eyes.
And somehow...
It felt like it understood every word.
Just before dawn, Thomas noticed something that made his blood run cold.
Around the wolf's neck hung an old leather collar.
Half-buried beneath its fur...
Was a tiny rusted military tag.
One engraved with a name he hadn't seen...
In over forty years.
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The name belonged to someone who had died during a classified rescue mission.
Or so everyone believed...
