The Dark Walk Home
I was walking home from my friend’s house one evening. The path took me downhill through a forest. It was quite late so it was really dark, but there was just enough moonlight shining through the trees that it was possible to walk on the path without a flashlight.
Just as I was in the middle of my path, I started hearing twigs snapping and dried leaves cracking under footsteps to my immediate right. I froze and looked to see if I could spot anyone. Nobody was there. Then the grumbling became audible…it sounded like some big creature, and it was right next to me.
I let out a frightened “Hello?” but the grumbling and cracking and snapping continued. I was scared out of my mind. I’d never heard anything like that before in my life.
And to make things worse, there were warnings of brown bears in the nearby woods. I was trembling. I somehow pulled my phone out, turned on the flashlight, and shined it out in front of me. What I saw was…Nothing. But the grumbling continued. So I shone the flashlight down to the ground.
That’s when I saw it. A HEDGEHOG!!! He was about a meter away from me, burrowing for worms or God knows what. But the sounds it was making made it sound like it was a creature 100x bigger.
I wanted to punt that little rascal down into the valley. So yeah, that’s the one time I almost wet my pants due to a hedgehog.
Story credit: Reddit / baki995