I work at a chemical plant that sits right on the edge of the forest 🌲🏭. From the factory gate to the river, it’s barely a ten-minute walk. Often, after my shift, I take the same path along the water, enjoying the quiet and the mist that drifts over the river in the evenings.
That night, the sky was cloudy and a light fog hovered over the water. I was about to turn onto the bridge when something caught my eye near the riverbank — a tangled lump of dirt, grass, and fur. At first, I thought it was just trash, but then it moved slightly. My heart skipped a beat. It was alive.
I stepped closer and saw it breathing. 😨 A tiny creature, drenched and shivering, its fur matted with mud. Its little ears hung limply, and its eyes were barely open.
— “Poor thing…” I whispered. 
It looked like someone had abandoned it, maybe even tried to get rid of it in the river. My chest ached at the thought. Gently, I scooped it up. Its little body was warm, but it trembled in my hands, pressing itself against me as if seeking protection. I wrapped it in my jacket and hurried home. 
All the way, it shook — maybe from fear, maybe from the cold. As soon as I got home, I ran a warm bath, hoping to clean it up. The mud started sliding off its fur, and that’s when the horror hit me. 
This wasn’t a normal puppy. I froze, staring at the tiny figure in my hands. The fur revealed itself to be thick and coarse, completely different from a dog’s. Its ears were pointed, a little too long, and its paws were huge with sharp claws glinting even in the dim bathroom light.
The little creature looked up at me with amber eyes that shone in the shadows, and let out a soft growl. My heart plummeted. This wasn’t a dog. 
I wrapped it carefully in a towel and called a veterinarian I knew, explaining that I had found “an injured dog near the forest.” He agreed to see us immediately.
At the clinic, the vet examined the little one, then paused. His face changed.
— “It’s not a dog… It’s a wolf pup,” he said quietly. 
I was stunned. A real wolf cub, shivering and exhausted. The vet reassured me it would survive, and he guessed its pack couldn’t be far away.
That night, I stayed awake thinking about the tiny wolf in my apartment. I watched it twitch in sleep, imagining its family somewhere out there in the forest. The bond I felt in those few hours was strange but powerful. 
The next morning, I returned to the riverbank where I had found it. I set down the carrier and opened the door. The wolf cub stepped out hesitantly, looked at me one last time with those glowing amber eyes, then sprinted toward the forest. 
My chest felt heavy and light at the same time — heavy because it was leaving, light because it was going home.
As I watched it disappear among the trees, I couldn’t help smiling. I had saved it, but more importantly, I had given it back to where it belonged. That little creature had reminded me of the wildness that exists just beyond our everyday lives, and of the fragile beauty of survival. 
Even now, I sometimes walk by that river at night, hoping to catch a glimpse of amber eyes in the mist, a fleeting reminder of the night I discovered something extraordinary — not a puppy, but a wild wolf cub, reminding me that even in the most ordinary places, magic can happen. 
