The Final Guardian

Snow came down in thick, relentless sheets as Igor and Tatyana pulled up to the crooked blue house on the edge of a forgotten village. Moving here wasn’t a dream—it was a last-ditch effort. Tatyana’s cough had worsened. Doctors told them she needed fresh air, away from the noise and pollution of the city. But nothing prepared them for how bad the house would be: sagging wood, cracked ceilings, and the constant stench of damp rot.

In the backseat, their baby, Dima, cried—his sharp wails slicing through the muffled quiet of the storm.

Tatyana, pale and worn down, barely had the strength to carry him inside. Igor shoved the stiff front door open with his shoulder. Darkness swallowed them as they stepped into their new reality.

Lada Arrives

That first night was brutal. Wind tore through unseen cracks, and the cold crept deep into their bones. Just before dawn, there was a sound at the door.

A dog stood there in the snow, her brown fur tangled with ice, eyes deep and steady. She didn’t whine. Didn’t bark. Just stared—as if waiting to be invited in.

Tatyana protested, but Igor opened the door. He named the dog Lada, after his grandmother. Lada padded straight to Dima’s crib and lay down beside it, unmoving.

The First Sign

Days passed. The house slowly warmed. Tatyana’s cough lightened. But Lada never left Dima’s side. She was his shadow, always alert, always listening.

Then, one night, her low growl shattered the silence. She stood frozen, teeth bared, eyes fixed on a shadowy corner of the room. Tatyana clutched Dima. “What is she looking at?” she whispered.

Igor saw nothing. But the air felt… wrong. Heavy. Like something was there—watching.

The Truth Comes Out

After Lada killed a chicken, Tatyana demanded she be sent away. “She’s dangerous,” she said.

But that night, something scratched at the walls—louder, deeper than any mouse or rat. Then came the crash of breaking glass.

Igor ran outside to find Lada standing over a monstrous, cat-sized rat with yellowed teeth and dead eyes.

Tatyana dropped to her knees, shaking. “She wasn’t hunting chickens,” she whispered. “She was protecting us.”

The Unseen Enemy

As winter dragged on, the noises in the walls got worse. Dima started waking up screaming, fists clenched like he was fighting something in his sleep. Tatyana’s cough came back.

Then, one night, a window shattered inward—no rock, no tree branch, just some force trying to get inside.

Lada lunged at it, snarling, driving it back into the dark.

Igor stepped outside and saw footprints in the snow—too big to be human, but too human to be anything else. And Lada’s pawprints, following them into the woods.

The Final Guardian

Time passed. The house became a home. Dima grew strong. A baby sister was born. Lada grew older, slower, but never stopped watching—always near the windows, always listening.

One quiet winter morning, she didn’t wake up.

They buried her beneath the birch tree in the backyard, where wildflowers always bloomed in spring.

And sometimes, when the wind howls through the trees, Tatyana still stops and listens.

She hears soft footsteps on the floor. A quiet warmth near the crib.

Lada, still keeping watch.

The End.