It had already been late afternoon since Rada walked into the forest.
The light filtering through the foliage was slightly darkening, giving the forest a much more scaring appearance than before.
In the tranquility of the environment, one could hear someone's stomach growl, "I'm starving! At times like these I regret not having joined the scouts."
There was still some water left in the canteen, but he didn't know how much longer it would last.
Of food, there didn't seem to be a shadow.
That was exactly why he regretted not joining the scouts. His brother had a lot of experience in this kind of situation. He was able to find his way home from wherever he was, whether it was the woods or the mountains. He had learned notions that allowed him to survive in a wide variety of situations.
But of course, scouts weren't just about that.
Overall, it was a world Rada preferred to stay away from. He was a guy who was interested only in what attracted him, everything else he discarded.
You could still hear the birds chirping, but you couldn't see them in any way.
The trees were too tall and had very thick vegetation, they managed to give almost total coverage.
"It must be great in rainy weather here," Rada thought aloud.
He had been walking for a couple of hours now, but there were no signs of fatigue, on the contrary, he felt great, like never before. Except for the hunger of course.
Since he had been walking for a while, he decided to make a stop to drink some water.
He sat down at the foot of a large tree, opened his bag and took the canteen. In the process he glanced at his little traveling companion.
"Look how blissfully he sleeps, not even the cannonade wakes him up this one!"
Rada purposely raised his voice to tease the puppy. But it was all wasted breath, the little guy seemed to be in hibernation.
"Come to think of it, I should give you a name," he said after sipping some water.
"Um... let's see what can I call you?"
A couple of names began to swirl around in his head, but he deemed them either unsuitable or too silly.
After a few seconds, his eyes widened at the memory of a name.
"Kiba!"
It was the name of the main character in his favorite story, and it happened to be a white wolf. Although she didn't know if he was a wolf, that was the color.
They actually looked quite similar.
"It's decided I'm going to call you Kiba! Do you like it?"
Excited to call him that, Rada stroked little Kiba's thick pointed ears.
He was still intent on sleeping.
"Kiba aren't you hungry? Needs? Nothing?"
He kept wondering if the puppy was sick. After all, he was still very small and it was strange to see him around.
"Don't you have a mom to go to?"
Suddenly Kiba's eyes opened.
"Um? Did you wake up?"
There was no way to wake him up or get his attention, but he seemed to have reacted to the words Rada said.
Very unusual behavior there was no doubt about it.
After he received little Kiba's attention, Rada saw something he hadn't expected to witness at all:
"But what? Are you crying...?"
With tears marking his small face, Kiba's gaze was lost in emptiness, as if he was remembering something painful.
"Hey hey... Come here..."
Rada picked up the puppy and began to cuddle it. He had never seen anything like this before, there seemed to be no reason for it.
But then, he remembered his reaction to the earlier statement.
"Do you maybe miss mommy?"
After asking this question, Rada witnessed another moment of utter amazement.
In his arms clearly saw that the puppy stopped crying and nodded, as if answering his question.
"What the??? Impossible, right?" he wondered.
It was impossible for a dog to be that smart, not to the point of nodding at a question, not that he knew.
"By any chance can you understand me?" he asked jokingly, still paying attention to the puppy's reaction.
It was at that moment that Rada really felt he was crazy.
At the fateful question, the little Kiba raised his head, turning his eyes towards the boy, still incredulous at what he was seeing.
After a few seconds he nodded his head. Slowly and calmly, he gave the person in front of him plenty of time to see his answer, he was nodding.
BOOM!
Rada felt his brain explode. Shivers ran down his spine.
"Oh fu...!" he snapped up and dropped the puppy from his arms.
He walked a few feet away "Heheh! I'm crazy! Ahah! Yes I'm crazy no doubt about it!"
He began pacing back and forth, tapping his head.
"It's impossible, impossible, impossible...".
He kept repeating it over and over again.
Little Kiba watched this scene for several minutes. His little golden eyes were fixed on the boy and his head went back and forth as he did so.
Shortly after, he got tired of hearing this human keep repeating "That's impossible!" and went back inside the bag.
"Alright, alright I'm calm, I'm calm!" Rada stopped short.
He slapped himself with both hands and took a long breath.
"Let's reason ok? It's not entirely impossible. After all, humans don't have total knowledge of the animal world, cases like this might happen. But this one is just a puppy!".
He gave himself an explanation for courage, albeit poorly. Took another long breath, lifted his head and saw that the light was fading almost completely.
He felt like a real idiot for walking back and forth all this time.
Once the earlier crisis passed, he returned to the puppy who was now sleeping inside the bag.
"I hope I've really gone crazy."
After taking a look at little Kiba, he put the canteen back inside the bag and hurried on.
"Shit, I need to get out of here, but how big are these woods? God I don't want to stay overnight in the open!" he said distorting his face.
Being a chronic addict to the comforts of the city, he hated sleeping outside and left the house very little. So much so that the few friends he had called him "The Hermit".
Rada quickened his pace, he really didn't want to stay in the woods one more minute.
He didn't notice that with the passing of time.
The forest was slowly changing. The chirping of the birds had disappeared and the darkness was falling inexorably.
Suddenly: "AWOOO" a big howl broke the silence.