I pulled myself together and felt along the dark wall to find the door. When I found it, I went upstairs, falling on each step. My head felt unclear, as if someone had hit me. My burned hand was causing me terrible pain, and I felt angry at the animals.

 

When I reached the room where I work, I lit several candles. Their light fell on the guns hanging on the wall. I suddenly remembered that I had weapons that could hurt these things. I decided it was time to fight back. First, I needed to take care of my hand. I found some cloth and wrapped it around the burn. The pain became a little less.

 

Then I walked to the wall and took down a heavy gun that I knew how to use well. I collected some bullets and climbed the steps to the small room at the top of our house. From this high window, I looked out but could not see anything in the garden. It was too dark to see well. I would have to wait for the moon to rise before I could see the animals clearly enough to fire at them.

 

I sat quietly by the window and listened carefully. The garden was mostly silent, with only a few strange noises from the animals. This made me worried. I thought the animals might be planning something. Twice, I walked around to check different windows of the house, but everything seemed calm.

 

At one point, I heard a sound coming from the direction of the hole, like more earth falling. After that, I heard movement in the garden for about fifteen minutes. Then everything became quiet again. About an hour later, the moon finally appeared above the trees. As it rose higher, its light spread across the garden.

 

At first, I could not see any animals. Then, as I moved forward, I noticed several of them lying close to the house wall. I could not tell what they were doing, but this was a good chance to fire at one. I pointed my gun at an animal directly below my window and fired. It made a loud cry and then stopped moving. The others ran away quickly.

 

Right after my shot, I heard a loud noise coming from the hole. Strange sounds answered from all over the garden. I realized there were many more animals than I had thought. This was a very serious situation. I remained at the top of the house, watching silently. I remembered the strange land I had seen before and the green house that looked exactly like my own. Until now, I had not connected all these strange things.