The howl of the wind makes my hair on my arms rise after taking a step outside. The gray smoke that arises from my mouth after shivering in the pitch black. The trees all lined up to look like a barricade, keeping my sister and I inside our yard. The rustling bushes, the noise seemed to be coming right at us, and I’m wondering what it could be. The eager thought keeps me up all night long: what could it be? 

“A Coyote, a fox, maybe even a bear,” my sister said. 

The thought that was left in my head all day of school, until I finally arrived home from school. The cold wind blew onto my face, making it feel fragile like a thin layer of ice, and I think with enough pressure it would crack. The trees in front of me seemed to be spread apart, and it’s not how it looked last night. Looking near the bushes where the sound was heard, not a sight of pawprints in the light snow. 

My hot supper that stung my mouth gave me the realization that I had to look for the mysterious animal. This time I took my sister. 

The cool breeze was not as bad as earlier; the trees seemed to have slowed the wind down. My sister, who didn’t have a care in the world, wanted to go further into the forest. Each step that was taken left an echo of the leaves that crunched beneath our feet. All trees looked the exact same, having us to remember where we came from. The bare trees made it seem like there was nothing living, nothing walking. 

“What animal would want to live here, it looks dead,” my sister said. 

I knew she was right, but I say, “we have to continue, we could find what we heard in the bushes the other night.”

She went silent, continuing the same path we have been quietly walking on. 

The cool breeze, feeling a smack across the face, made us start our journey home. We take each step in the same footprints that we walked through earlier. The repetitive thoughts circled through my brain, making it feel like it was all a dream…maybe I didn’t hear anything. 

Looking back at the trees, they were pitch black, looking just like a barricade. But the bushes below were rustling, no wind or anything. The rustling bushes made it feel as if I wasn’t dreaming. 

I take the slowest and quietest steps so I wouldn’t scare anything away. A white and brown shaded head popped up, staring at my sister and me. A baby deer turned the corner of the bush, eating the berries off the bush. I thought it could’ve been something so big, but it turned out to be a deer eating the berries from the bush.