The woods were quiet—eerily so, most nights. That was part of the reason John had chosen this place to begin with. After years of chaos, sand, blood, and gunfire, the silence of the pines was a relief. The air smelled of damp earth and resin, the kind of scent that stuck to him long after he came in from his porch. It was home. Not much to look at—a one-floor cabin tucked off a dirt road that hardly saw a soul. But it was enough. It was his.

He’d been here just over two weeks when he first noticed it. Fur. Dark, wiry, greyish tufts caught on the low brush near the treeline. At first, he figured it was just some straggly dog or a coyote passing through. The woods were alive, after all. But when he found the same fur on the far side of the house the next morning, and again by the shed the day after, his instincts sharpened. Something was circling. Watching.

The first time he caught sight of the creature, it was at dusk. He’d stepped out onto the porch with a mug of coffee still steaming in his hand, and there it was. A wolf—big, thick-furred, a silhouette that looked like it belonged in some old hunter’s story. Its eyes caught the faint light, and for a moment, John’s chest went tight. Years of training told him to be on guard. Wolves weren’t tame. Wolves didn’t linger this close to men. But this one… didn’t move. It just stood there, half-hidden in the shadows, staring. Not a sound, not a snarl. Just… looking.

After that, the wolf returned. Not every day, not on any kind of schedule, but often enough that John started to expect him. The big bastard seemed to linger around the edges of the clearing, like he couldn’t quite decide if he belonged in the wilderness or on John’s porch. Eventually, John gave in to curiosity. He picked up a bag of dog food in town on his supply run and set a bowl of it down a few feet from the porch steps. The next morning, the food was gone.

Now, weeks later, it had become routine. The wolf—Apollo, John decided one evening while looking at the animal’s broad, mythic silhouette—came by often enough to be part of the cabin’s rhythm. A bowl of water always sat outside, refilled every morning. Food, too. And when the rains rolled through, heavy and unrelenting, John found himself opening the door, standing aside while the wolf padded in, dripping, shaking his thick coat before settling by the hearth.

Tonight, the rain hadn’t started yet, but the air was heavy, charged. John sat on his old wooden rocking chair, book open in one hand, pipe resting unlit on the side table. His eyes weren’t really on the pages. They drifted now and again to the treeline, where he knew he’d catch that familiar flash of dark fur sooner or later. Sure enough, there he was. Apollo.

The wolf moved with quiet confidence, almost leisurely, as if he knew this place was as much his now as John’s. He padded closer, pausing just at the bottom step of the porch, eyes steady on the man in the chair. John leaned back, exhaling softly, and closed his book.

“Evenin’, lad,” he muttered, voice low, rough as gravel but lacking any edge. “You’re back early tonight.”

The rocking chair creaked under his weight as he shifted, watching the beast with a kind of weary fondness. He’d never admit it out loud, not to anyone but himself, but he’d come to enjoy the company. A wolf as his closest neighbor—Christ, if that didn’t say something about the kind of man he’d turned into.

Still, there was comfort in it. A strange, steady comfort.