When Darius and his family come across an old house during a forest walk in the snowfall, his youngest son Marcus notices that there is a little dog in the garden.
When Darius wants to jump the fence to get to it, a voice coming from inside the house yells at him to get lost. But Darius was not planning on listening to it.
But when he gets to the dog and sees what is below it, he wishes that he had listened to the warning…
He started yelling back.
So he decided to yell at him back that whoever was threatening him should come to get the poor dog out of the freezing cold or else he would call animal protection.
But when he told all that, he had no response. Now he was in a big dilemma about what was the right thing for him to do. Maybe the man from inside the house was crazy or something.
Was he going to take the risk of being shot right here just because he wanted to save a dog? That just seemed crazy to him. But just leaving this puppy behind to die was something he could not live with.
There had to be something that he could do in order to protect both of them, right?
He quickly came up with a plan right then and there and gestured for his family to follow his lead. He yelled at the house that they were going to leave and they continued walking into the forest.
They knew what they had to do in order to save the poor dog without putting his family at risk.
But when they got out of direct sight of the house, Darius turned around. He told his family to wait right there while he was going to try and find a way around the house so maybe he could get into the back.
He had to do something. There was no way he could forget about that poor dog.
He was sneaking around on his knees, taking cover behind the snow-covered bushes. He got closer and closer to the house till he ended up sitting against the back of it.
And beside him was a door. This was the only option and the only way he was going to get in. But was it a good idea to enter?
As silently as possible, Darius put his hand on the door handle and tried to pull it down. To his great surprise, the door actually opened up! But was he actually going to go in?
He wasn’t entirely sure at this point and didn’t want to make the wrong decision and put himself in serious danger.
He managed to open the door without making any sound so he was pretty confident whoever was inside did not hear a thing, as he also did not hear anybody yelling at him.
There was no telling how far he would be able to get without making a sound though. And he had no excuse for being inside.
Darius knew this was a dumb idea but he had gotten so far now that he did not just want to give up. He was determined to do something, no matter how foolish it might seem.
He took a deep breath and snuck through the open door, which he quickly closed behind him again.
The house was very dark and quiet. Darius stupidly had left his phone in his wife’s bag so he also had no flashlight to look around. But maybe that was for the best as it also meant nobody could spot him sneaking around.
There had to be something around him, and someone. But he wasn’t sure who or where. He would have to explore.
He slowly and mostly by feel started searching for the stairs to the second floor. It was obvious that nobody was on this floor. You could not even see through the closed windows so he could have never been spotted from here.
That meant whoever was inside had to be on the second floor instead.
But when he finally found the stairs and started making his way up, he noticed that there was still not the faintest sliver of light anywhere. He came to a surprising conclusion on the second floor.
But just what was it that he was starting to realize as he crept slowly along? Well, the second floor felt a whole lot like the first.
Here also all the windows were closed and he was almost sure by this point that nobody was home. If they were they would have to be sitting in the dark, and that didn’t make any sense at all when it was so bright outside.
So who could have yelled at him a moment ago? Could it be that that was prerecorded or something?
But whatever it was did not really matter right now. Now that Darius knew that he was in no danger of being shot, he could safely make his way to the dog in the garden!
Checking inside the house had been just a way to ensure that he was safe and he could take care of the poor dog. No more worry about himself or his family.
Darius quickly made his way out of the backdoor of the house again and ran around the building. He wasn’t going to try going in through the back if he didn’t have to.
He could go through the front, closer to the dog. He tried to jump over the fence into the front garden again, only to be greeted by a familiar voice.
“Get off the property now or you will be shot”. It was again immediately after he touched the fence and in the exact same tone of voice. Now Darius was even more sure.
This had to be a recording. He felt pretty comfortable with his decision now, because there couldn’t possibly be anyone inside the house with a gun.
With full confidence, Darius jumped over the fence and approached the still fairly moving dog. It was still in the exact same place and position as before. As it had been for so long.
Now he was finally able to take care of the poor dog and get it inside and out of the cold. He would take it home with him.
Darius figured that there was not a moment to lose. Even if the message in the house was just a recording he didn’t want to be here in case someone did show up.
So he got down on his knees, put his arms around the dog, and tried to pull it off the ground.
He wanted to the poor animal to his family so that they could together bring it to the vet and have it checked out. Maybe they were not too late.
Maybe the poor little dog could be saved and their family could take care of it instead of whoever lived here and left the dog outside all the time. But then Darius noticed something.
It seemed like the dog, which stopped moving completely when Darius had picked it up, was stuck by something. After a few gentle attempts at lifting it higher, Darius decided to give it one more shot and lifted with all he could.
He couldn’t see a chain or anything around the dog, so it had to be something else.
The dog suddenly came loose and Darius flew backward. When he got up and looked at what had been holding the dog in place, he could barely believe what he was seeing.
He was stunned by the sight of it, and the dog that had flown out of his arms as well. Was this really what all of it had been about?
There were electricity cables that had apparently just come loose. And when he looked at the bottom of the dog, he saw that they had actually come from his “belly”.
This is not a dog; this is a robot! Darius was surprised and had no idea what this could possibly mean. A robot dog in the front yard?
Not knowing what to do now, Darius ended up calling the police. He was hoping that they would be able to give him some more information as to what the hell was happening here.
And maybe then he would understand why there was a robot dog sitting in the front of this abandoned house.
What ended up being the situation was that there used to live an old and very secluded man here. He always loved animals but got to a point where he was no longer able to take care of them.
Even still, he wanted to have animals, and especially dogs, around him for the rest of his life.
His whole house was full-on robotic animals and the dog outside was one of them. But when he passed away, these animals just stayed behind to move by themselves until the power would be cut off to the house.
The old man didn’t have any relatives that had come forward to take the animals so they ended up staying.
The police ended up closing the house down and having the power cut off. The family was also informed that they could claim ownership of the place, but nobody ever came forward.
They didn’t seem to care as much as the old man did. And instead continued on with their lives as before, ignoring it all.
Now the house is mostly a place of legend and most of the electronic animals have been stolen by the youth of the nearby city, leaving behind a shell of a house as the last memory of an old man that really loved animals.
And a few interesting stories for families like Darius’ who tried to save the ‘poor animals’ there.
This story is a work of fiction created for entertainment. Characters and events are the products of the author’s imagination. The images shown are used for illustration only.