Shadow's Watchful Vigil

I adopted Shadow about six months ago from a rural shelter out in the middle of nowhere.

He was this big black Labrador mix, super sweet during the day—wagging tail,

playful, the perfect dog. The shelter folks said he'd been found wandering near an

old abandoned house in the woods, half-starved, but no one claimed him.

They warned me he might have some "quirks" from whatever trauma he'd been through,

but he seemed fine. The first weird thing happened the night I brought him home.

Around 2 A,M, I woke up to this low rumbling growl. Shadow was sitting at the foot of my

bed, staring intensely at the closed basement door across the hall.