**The Strange Pet**

To begin with, I should mention that I live in a house next to a small forest. There never really seemed to be much wildlife there—just a few jackdaws, maybe hares running by now and then, but nothing ever stayed there for long.

And then one day, while I was taking a walk during the day, I went into that little forest and found a small hedgehog lying in the middle of a clearing. The hedgehog was lying on its side and breathing heavily. It looked to me as though one of its paws was broken.

I took it home and gave it some milk to drink. The paw turned out not to be broken, just twisted. The hedgehog lived under my bed and at night made funny little stomping noises. Everyone liked the hedgehog—except my dog. The dog hated it, growled at it, and tried to bite it. A week or two later I was about to leave on a long business trip and decided to take the hedgehog, to whom I’d already grown attached, back to the forest.

That night I woke up because under my bed something was no longer just stomping, but moving around and making a deep, guttural growling sound. Judging by the size of it, it was definitely not a hedgehog. With cold sweat running down my back, I got out of bed and looked underneath it. I saw my forest guest with its snout smeared in something red. And then, baring its teeth, it lunged at me. It didn’t bite, but its spines were unnaturally sharp—like medical needles.

Bleeding from countless small wounds, I managed to reach the poker standing by the stove. Fending off the monster, I flung the door open and saw my dog in the yard, chained up, pierced all over and dead. Its ears had been gnawed off and its eyes eaten out.

The “hedgehog” bolted into the forest through a hole in the fence, leaving behind claw marks so huge that it’s still terrifying to look at them.

I buried my dog. To this day I’m afraid to go into that forest, and in the evenings I lock all the doors and windows. What if it comes back?

At night, by the way, something regularly scratches at the door—until I started leaving a liter of milk on the doorstep.