The cave was pitch dark in the back, no one ever went back there, and no one knew how far back in went into the ground or if it was even a cave, maybe instead a really long tunnel. But no one know what was back there, and no one really wanted to know. Yes they did talk about it a little but only the quiet whisper as to wondering if monsters lived in the deaths of darkness. I remember how I used to sit just outside the whispering animals but now I am getting just a little ahead of myself.

My dad was born in this cave and he was not the first in the family to live here towards the caves front, the only area were their is even a speck of light. His parents also had been born and raised in the cave as far back as any of us can remember. We have always lived with a lot of other animals who were thought to be the strongest in the forest world, we were almost like a police force, our job was too protect the other living beings.

Most of us are dogs, but my father is a fox so my sister, Cherry, and I are about half fox and half dog, but we look more like dogs then anything else, even if I have my dad's fur color, almost the color of rust. Cherry was black, almost as black as the cave we lived in and she had a very big limp. My dad told me that when we were born her back foot had gotton stuck in our mother's stomach which had caused it to break. This wound never healed and all her life she walked with the limp making her almost useless at keeping the other animals safe, but our family could care less, she would always have a place with us.

I can't remember much about my first weeks living here, only the warm fur of my mother and of Cherry. Then there was the warm milk that became my life. Eat and sleep, that was all I did my first couple of weeks. As Cherry and I grow older however we started getting into trouble, not real trouble but we started exploring. It was then that my mom told us never to go to far into the cave, you can never tell what is in the back of caves. My dad then had stepped in to tell Cherry and I about all the animals that went back there and never came back. Those days I believed him, and hung on his every word.

I also remember the day Cherry's soul winked out like the stars winking out every morning. That was the day we realized that we were never safe not even in our own backyard but yet again I am getting ahead of myself. That's the problem I have I skip right to the facts leaving out some of the more important details like everything I learned about life before everything changed and before Cherry's death. Looking back on everything part of my wants to travel back in time and relive my childhood but I can't go back even if I want to. But everything is alive in my mind, fresh like I was born only yesterday, like it was only yesterday that the forest was whole again before everything changed, but once again that's really far into the story. Everything started before I was born when my father and mother first met in this very cave during their childhood and became as close as anyone ever can be. So here's the story of the forest from the common animals to the animal police force who keeps once patroled the forest. Here goes...