The sunlight spreaded through the forest making the pine trees shine as the droplets of rainwater from last night slowly slipped from the green leaves onto the ground.

Last night had been a stormy one, with heavy rain and strong winds.

Wolves had howled the whole night making it difficult for Aaron to sleep.

He kept tossing and turning in his bed the whole night.

He lived in woods, since he was twelve. His parents died during the yellow fever outbreak.

He's been on his own since then.

He did all kinds of jobs to keep himslef alive, cleaned chimneys, served in bars, worked in the village bakery but as he grew up he made woodcutting his permanent profession.

His cottage in the woods was a small one made entirely of wood.

He'd been living in the woods for five years now, partly because he loved woods and partly because he hated interacting with people.

Everyday he woke up to chirping of birds on the surrounding tress.

He liked it, being close to nature made him feel at home.

"Woof woof" Ben barked outside his cottage asking him for food.

Aaron groaned and woke up from his restless sleep.

"Shut up Ben" Aaron gruffed as he walked out

He gave him the food he bought from village days ago

He sighed when he looked around and saw the chaos caused by the storm last night.

The old pine tree laid uprooted and the tools he left out last night were sprawled out around the house. He grumbled a bit but later, picked up the broom and started cleaning up.

Two hours later he was done cleaning and decided to go sell wood in the village.

He was walking towards the village, when out of nowhere a gust of cold him caused him to stop, then Ben suddenly howled,  and went sprinting into the woods, Aaron ran after him,

"Ben, buddy where are you going? Stop!" He yelled at him but the dog didn't stop.

Suddenly as they were passing a clearing a cold shiver ran down Aaron's spine and he stop dead in his tracks.

He looked around, he had never been in this part of the forest, he wondered how.

He drew in a deep breath, tired from the running but instead of fresh forest smell, stale, irony, rotten air filled his nose.

He gagged and looked around to find the source of the smell.

As he was nearing to a cave whose entrance was covered with old vines and creepers, Ben came out of nowhere and pounced on him making him fall to the ground.

"Woof woof" Ben barked looking panicked

"Hey buddy, what happened" Aaron stroked his fur to which he wagged his tail.

"Com'on let's go" Aaron said as he stood up and started to walk back to the path from which they came, turning back to get one last look at the place.

***

Author's note: Greetings fellow homosapiens, nice to meet you all I'm Lucy, hope you all are doing great. I'm an emerging writer, 'Silence' is my first book there might be some grammatical errors or spelling mistakes so feel free to point them out. Hope you like my work I'll soon be back with another chapter till then ;)