Peter and the Fox

It was believed by the citizens of the city that this forest was the best of them all. There were a handful of trails, and each one was long and safe. It was the perfect hiking trail for a family that had no experience in hiking -- a tourist attraction for the ones that were new. The odd part about one of the trails was that there was a path that led up a mountain. It was a mountain that was tall and dangerous. It was an unspoken rule of the people of the town to not go on this trail. There were sections without railing, and the risk was far greater than the reward. There were only two types of people who went up the mountain: the ones that didn't know anything about the trail, and the bravest hikers with years of experience. This family was the first kind.

It was a sunny day. The sun was high, but under the trees it was cool. The family of four were walking on the trail. The family had a common last name: Stewart. The parents, Peter and Jessie, and their two children, David and John, were talking happily about random topics. They occasionally played some card games with a blanket on the dirt, but they kept a steady pace forward. The trail had led them to the mountain. “Well, I didn’t know there was a mountain here.” Peter said under his breath. He was a skinny man with lots of spirit in his eyes. “It seems like the trail leads up the mountain. Let’s go, I bet there’s some amazing scenery up there,” said John.

So the family hiked up the mountain. It wasn’t that bad at first. The railing was in place. The scenery however, was covered up by the thousands of towering trees that loomed over them. This tempted the family to go even higher to uncover the faraway mountains. At this point, they had been on the mountain for a couple of hours. The sun was going to set soon, and the family thought about going back down, but decided they were simply going to camp up there. After all, they had the gear and the resources. There were also parts of the mountain where they had a pretty good amount of space and railing. By nighttime, they had gone above the trees, and could see the faint mountains from miles and miles away. They planned to set off on their journey down the mountain the next day. They set up their tents and all went to sleep.

The next morning, Jessie was the first person to wake up. “Finally, some fresh air,” she said under her breath. It had been a while since she had woken up to nature all around her. She peeked over to the side, and made a wicked discovery. There were two people sleeping: John, and David. Where on Earth was Peter? As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she stumbled up, and ran out of the tent in search of her husband. Minutes later, she was shaking with fear. Dark thoughts crossed her mind on what exactly happened to her husband. She woke up the two boys, informing them of the news. The three looked up and down the mountain for Peter, but he was nowhere to be found. With this in mind, they had two options: stay here and hope to find trails of Peter, or go down the mountain and inform the authorities. They chose the latter. Hours later, they were back in the city that was full of life. The police station was made aware, and a search had begun. A crew of nine policemen went on a huge hunt for Peter. They searched the entire forest inside and out, with not a single clue of where he was.

Somewhere in the forest, Peter laid lifelessly on the ground. A fox was waiting next to him. They were in a damp cave. Suddenly, the man's eyes snapped open. “Where am I?” he questioned. The fox made a noise, which frightened him. If you looked closely at him, you could make out the rough shape of Peter, but his face had injuries all over, making it nearly impossible to tell it was really a human you were looking at. Peter jumped up and screamed with a mix of pain and fear. However, the fox seemed to not have any intentions to harm him. He moved closer to the fox, and looked at him dead in the eye. The fox looked back, but didn’t make any noise. Him and the fox started to get along with the passage of time. Peter marked the days with a stick on the wall of the cave. On day 60, his injuries were mostly gone, but he was not powerful enough to walk yet. He had tried everything: crawling, trying to get the fox to carry him, limping his way forward, using sticks, but all of his methods failed in some way or the other. He even tried to write a huge “SOS” on the dirt, but there seemed to be no response. The rain kept wiping his letters out, making them unreadable. On some days, he would lay down and think about his family, and how worried they must have been of him. To be truthful, he had woken up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, but it was nearly pitch dark. He fell off the part of the mountain he was on, and ended up in the cave. His bond with the fox at this point was also strong. They could almost telepathically communicate with the fact that they knew each other so well.

It had been a whole year since the incident. Back in the city, Peter's three family members had already bought a house there. They were determined to find Peter, and were ready to sacrifice anything. However, it only got more hopeless with months and months passing by. They sometimes thought about giving up, but ultimately they decided to stay a bit longer. On a sunny day, the three had woken up, ready to spend their entire day convincing the police to send another search crew. Their savings were running out, and they needed Peter back, or else they were for the streets. At noon that day, the sun was hanging high, and a knocking sound could be heard from the door. A tired and depressed Jessie could be heard stomping down the stairs towards the door. After opening the door, she saw something unbelievable. There were four people outside of her door. A couple seconds of silence followed. Suddenly, she burst into tears, running forward and hugging Peter, who was one of the men. The other three were smiling policemen, who were relieved to have finally found the man who was missing for an entire year.

That night, Peter told tons of stories to the family, about the time he had in the cave. At first, they were simply too tired to listen, but as he kept going, they realized how unbelievable it was that he had naturally recovered from his injuries, and how lucky he was to have been saved by a mere animal. In the end, the entire family was asleep, including the exhausted Peter who had spent his entire day struggling to exit the forest he was trapped him for what felt like forever.