It all started when I heard, “Bang…Bang…Bang,” ringing throughout the forest. The sound would go off in intervals of 10 minutes, echoing off of the hills and trees that surrounded the cabin. The sound was coming from my friend, Luke, and his father firing of shotgun rounds. We all soon learned that shooting the shotgun was a mistake.
  Our family was staying at our family friends’, The Badkey’s, cabin. The cabin we were staying at was an old two story wood house that sat on top of a large steep hill that was surrounded by forest isolating it from the rest of civilization.
Every time the shotgun was fired, the noise would ripple through the house eliminating all other sounds. Both of our families brought dogs with us. After every shot, the dogs would scurry past the couch I was sitting on and try to find a hiding place. Eventually the firing stopped, and I realized that I no longer could hear the dogs whimpering. I also realized that I hadn’t seen them for a while. I began to panic and scanned the house for the dogs. I found Fin, the Badkey’s dog, burrowed underneath a fortress of blankets in the closet, but I failed to find our dog Mickey.
“Mom have you seen Mickey around lately?” I asked.
My mom, now starting to get worried, replied, “No, I’ll go see if your dad has seen him anywhere.”
Soon, the word of Mickey’s absence made its way to my brother and two sisters who all replied in the same way saying, “No, I haven’t seen him since before they started firing the shotgun.”
Once we asked the Badkey’s if they’ve seen him and they had the same response, everyone entered a panic mode. Everyone became so rattled that we all rushed out into different directions and began wondering aimlessly around the forest. Everyone vanished so quickly; I couldn’t catch which way everyone went.
Luke Badkey and I began our search by walking down the driveway. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted some animal prints in the snow. At that point I convinced myself that I was an expert animal tracker and that the prints were Mickey’s. They seemed to match his medium sized paw. Luke and I followed these prints looping around trees, crouching under the branches, and hopping over the burbles that trickled through the forest. We would occasionally lose the trail and scout the area for the next portion.
I made an executive decision after trudging through the snowy forest for an hour. My decision to go back to the cabin was due to the fact that we had lost the trail completely, my feet lost all feeling to the point that they felt like cinder blocks, and I was certain that we started to follow a different animal’s tracks about half way through. It took a while, due to his enamor for nature, but I convinced Luke to head back to the cabin.
Back at the cabin Luke and I found the rest of our families who seemed to give up their searches before us. We learned that everyone’s searches all ended with the same result as ours. We were also informed that they had passed out flyers to the close by neighbors that explained Mickey as a white Whippet with large black spots.
We waited a couple of hours and did not receive any calls about Mickey. Everyone began to lose faith and decided that we needed to go home because my dad had to work the next day and we all had school. We slowly packed our things and hit the road.
It was by far the quietest car ride I’ve ever had. Everyone refused to say a word. The only sound I heard was the slow humming of the motor and an occasional sniffle come from someone in the car. Then something broke the silence, “Ring…Ring…Ring.”
“Hello,” my mom said when answering her phone, “No way, are you serious? You really found him? Thank you so much we will be there right away!”
After she hung up, we turned around and made our way back toward the cabin. As we pulled up, the door opened and Mickey darted toward the car. My family jumped out and greeted him half way up the driveway. You could tell by the jubilant look on everyone’s face that we were all overjoyed and relieved as Mickey jumped on us restlessly.
We were so close to driving away without a member of the family. I thought of how I just let Mickey run around and panic while the gun was going off. I realized how much I took him for granted along with many other things. Anything I love in the world could vanish within a split second. It became clear, after that day, that I must cherish everything I love like it could be gone tomorrow, because it possibly could.