Short Story 1

There is a stranger at my gate. He stands there watching me with his glowing golden eyes, unthreatening but ever present. I've gone to my gate to ask questions of the silent unmoving visitor, his bright eyes following me as I move. I ask my questions. "What brings you to my gate, stranger?" "Who are you looking for?" "Are you lost?" I always get the same response - silence. I'm not afraid of him, you see he simply makes me uneasy. If I knew the reason of his arrival and perhaps his need to stay I would understand. It's been 7 days now, and every time I approach I bring small breads or a fresh clip of jerky from the weekly hunts I must go on. I continue with my questions whenever I see him. "Did you find my gate, and this place on purpose?" "Have you seen anything interesting today?" He continues his silence, odd watchful guardian that he has become. I've come to think of him as such because he is always there. Even in the night during my wakeful hours when I fret about food reserves and firewood I see him there through my doorway at my gate watching, the moonlight reflecting from his golden eyes. Many months pass with this creature at my gate, with it's ever watchful eyes. Until one day he dissapeared as if he was never there. I was unnerved after him being here with me for so long, where could he have gone. That night my valley between mountains was alive with sounds, bird calls, the howl of the wolves that lived upon the ridge to the north, and the balking laughter of the coyotes who roamed the bone piles from my hunts. I awoke early the next morning to those same golden eyes that I had seen ever day, peering at me from the corner of my cabin. "What is it stranger, what's happened? Why now this early?" "What's wrong?" His eyes flashed with an unearthly luminescence as he moved to the foot of my bed. "Its time to go, I've observed you for some time" with a quick shaking breath he continued "I apologize for not responding to your considerable inquiries, but your in grave danger" Getting up and dressing quickly, we both headed for the door, out into the pre-dawn mist, down the path to my gate and out into the darkness of the forest.