howl

It's 6:30 AM as of writing and I am destroying my sleep schedule, but with good reason. My friend, who I am wasting the night away with - Kasia - the same friend who had recently visited me, has just now told me a story that I simply found interesting enough to share.

It was about 4AM and Kasia was laying in bed with her boyfriend, talking about random things. The silence of the night was thereby interrupted by a distant howl. Kasia interrupted and asked whether the BF heard it, but he dismissed it as a dog's howl. It was, however, followed up by another, much closer howl - which, as Kasia described it, was certainly not that of a dog's. The best approximation would be a wolf's howl combined with a lion's roar, with the bass resonant and turned up somewhat.

After a long silence, there were two more howls, this time coming from further away...
...and eventually, the church bell rang. Once.

It is worth noting that it did not strike four times, nor would there realistically be any mass at that hour. The bell only ever strikes at noon and midnight, 12 times.

This experience was definitely not unique to Kasia and her boyfriend. Eventually, my friend found the courage to peer out of the window, half-expecting to see something return her stare from the pavement, but what she found instead is people standing in their doorways with lights turned on, huddling together and somewhat disturbed.

The experience is not completely new to her, either; a long time ago, when Kasia lived in that same area (in the present, she was only borrowing the place to occupy with her boyfriend), she heard similar bellowing roars in the night. For the record, she did check the nearby area for possible escaped animals from the zoo, but found nothing of the kind.