01: The Day Richard Died

Richard wanted to die.

He was unemployed and broke. He did not have friends, and it had been several months since he had last spoken with his family. He spent most of his days waiting for the next day to arrive.

It was late October when his apartment lost power. He had lost heat several weeks earlier, but he had managed to keep warm with a dinky little heater he had found dumpster diving. Richard knew there were laws about heat and electricity when it came to apartments, but he had not paid rent in over three months. More than that, however, he was just tired.

Richard knew his thoughts were unhealthy, but he was just so tired.

It was late October when he left his apartment late at night. It may have been the first time in days he had stepped foot outside. The apartment had been a farmhouse once, and it was surrounded by open fields. A quiet place, Richard was one of only two tenants. He had lived in the rundown building for several years but had only ever seen his neighbor once. Richard would not have recognized the man.

Richard had a few items in the plastic grocery bag wrapped around his right hand. He had left a handwritten note inside the apartment on the kitchen counter. He probably could have written more. He probably should have.

The strangest sensation gripped his chest as he started walking. Car headlights cut through the night around him like hot knives. Open fields may have flanked the refurbished farmhouse, but civilization had settled down elsewhere.

It was cold out. His body shook slightly as he walked, but not because of the cold. The purr of cars grew softer as he stomped towards the distant refuge of tree and fallen leaf. Richard's landlord refused to sell the land, though he had received many offers.

"All that!" Marco would say over and over. "All that is my forest! Until the day that I die! All mine!"

Richard's landlord had been a good man... which felt like an odd thing to say when the apartment often lost heat and electricity. But Marco had been kind. He had treated Richard to lunch and dinner every so often. If the old man had been fifty years younger, Marco could have been a...

"Not a friend," Richard mumbled dully as he squinted at the darkness. He was not lonely enough to pine after the friendship of an eighty-year-old man.

And none of that even mattered anymore. Richard would find a nice spot deep inside the forest. He had half a bottle of Coca-Cola and a couple Chips Ahoy! cookies. He would have a little banquet. One final birthday bash. And then... sleep.

He frowned suddenly as quiet pressed against him like a lover. The distant car sounds had completely disappeared. He craned his neck to look towards the busy road and was surprised to find the way clouded with dusk. No headlights broke through the tree line.

"Weird..." Richard said numbly. He did not feel as if he had walked that far. Silent sentinels towered all around him, their fallen leaves reduced to loud crunches underfoot.

He shrugged. A sort of giddy emptiness clutched his chest and made it hard to breathe. It felt as if he was floating as he delved deeper and deeper into the murky woods. He did not stumble over roots or smack his nose into a tree's trunk. Perhaps it was the stars or the moon, but he could see well enough to avoid walking into anything unpleasant.

"Don't see any stars, though," Richard mumbled to himself as he looked up at the sky.

Danger tickled at the back of his thoughts, but he pushed the needless worry aside. Danger did not really matter at this point. He was about to cross the finish line, albeit a little early.

And so Richard was not alarmed when he heard a low noise reverberate through the sleeping woods. He was not sure how long he had been walking, but he did not think the forest should be this deep.

He stomped deeper and deeper, however. The mysterious noise grew louder and louder. It sounded... broken. Like the rattle of an engine that had given all that it could give.

A white shape soon appeared amidst the gloom of the darkened woods. It did not strike Richard as odd that he could see it so clearly. The white shape seemed to glow.

The rattling noise became more distinct as Richard drew closer. Danger flared in the back of his head, but he brushed it aside as one would an insect.

Stolen story; please report.

His heart skipped a beat the next moment, however, and he froze midstep.

A pair of golden eyes stared at Richard. The first thing he noticed was the sheer brilliance of the monster's stare.

"Am I asleep?" Richard wondered dimly.

https://i.imgur.com/qyK20Lf.png [https://i.imgur.com/qyK20Lf.png]

It was too large to be a dog. It felt too massive to even be a wolf. If not for its mangy white fur, Richard would have thought it was an unusually shaped boulder. If its chest did not rise and fall with a halting effort, Richard would not have believed it was a living thing.

"You don't look happy to see me," Richard said with a dim smile. The creature wore a wolf's snarl. Row after row of sharp teeth glistened like ivory knives. Its tongue was a fat slab of jerky that lulled across the forest floor.

The monstrous creature made no effort to devour Richard. It remained collapsed and immobile.

His smile faded as he continued to watch the creature's obvious misery. He forgot his own mission for a moment and clenched the plastic grocery bag in his right hand tightly.

"Oh..." The thought came to him like the pop of a balloon. His face scrunched up in debate, but he quickly shook away the senseless doubt.

He had half a bottle of Coca-Cola. He did not even like Coca-Cola that much, but it had enough sugar to make up for the missing birthday cake.

"Are you... thirsty?" Richard asked the monstrous creature. Its golden eyes continued to follow him unblinking. "Here... Have some Cola."

He took two steps and then the creature growled. The low rumble unlocked some primal fear in Richard's heart. He almost turned around and fled. He almost raced out of the woods and back to... back to...

"I guess it doesn't matter," Richard said, swallowing his fear. It made no difference if this monster killed him. "Come on. Have some Cola."

He could feel the horrible heat of the creature's breath as he drew nearer. It continued to growl, but the noise did not frighten him any more.

"Here..." Richard leaned forward and poured out a small dribble of Coca-Cola onto the haggard monster's tongue. "Drink up."

The creature's body shivered slightly as the first drop of sugar-infused manna tickled its tongue. Weakly, the creature lapped at the small stream.

"That's good..." Richard said with a smile.

The half bottle of Coca-Cola quickly became an empty bottle of Coca-Cola. He tossed it aside and, motivated by the same giddy emptiness from before, took out the Chips Ahoy! cookies.

"Do you want a cookie?" Richard asked. It was probably not the healthiest thing for... whatever this creature was, but neither was Coca-Cola. "Here you go..."

He tossed one cookie into the creature's open mouth as if it were a carnival attraction. He took a bite out of the second cookie himself and watched as the beast's long tongue slowly furled back into its darkened mouth. It seemed to like the cookie?

"We'll split the last one," Richard said. He broke the cookie in half and tossed part of it into the creature's open mouth. Or at least that was what he had aimed for.

"S-sorry..." Richard smiled as the crumbly cookie fell apart as it hit the creature's impossibly large snout. "They're not that good anyways."

He bit into his own half and simply stared at the inexplicable creature. It had to be a wolf. It made no sense for a wolf to be this massive, but here it was.

Richard swallowed the rest of his cookie, and another light bulb went off in his head.

"This... This is perfect...!"

For the first time in memory, Richard's smile stretched from ear to ear. Fate had offered him the perfect birthday present.

He had never been the religious type. It definitely would have made what he was about to do a little harder, but he felt compelled to close his eyes and clench his hands together in prayer.

Because he did not want to be found. He knew his death would be a selfish thing. It would upset his family. It would upset his landlord. It would upset whoever found him out here in the woods.

And so for the first time in memory, Richard prayed.

Once I've died, please let this creature eat me. I don't want to be found. I know it's cruel, but I don't want people to know. Just let this thing gobble me up. Please.

It was such a ridiculous prayer. Even Richard knew how foolish it sounded, but he still desperately begged whoever or whatever could listen with the same devout fervor of a Catholic nun.

His prayer was interrupted by a new sound. His eyes flew open as the beast's labored rasp disappeared. A new sound, one no less ominous, had replaced it.

Richard took several steps back as the creature slowly rose from its exhaustion. It had already been massive. It had already been impossibly large...

...but second after second, breath after breath, the wolf's body seemed to thicken and grow.

"Oh shit..." Richard mumbled as he stared up into the monster's glowing yellow eyes. The two inflated orbs burned like small suns.

The wolf towered over him. Its muzzle parted to reveal the many rows of its glistening teeth. Richard knew that in the next moment it would pounce. He knew that it would tear out his throat in a frenzy of blood and gore.

He did not expect it to speak.

"I accept your pledge, human!" the monstrous beast roared.

Richard fell backwards and onto the leafy forest floor. The wolf padded closer, its steaming breath a ticklish sauna. He could have counted the number of teeth in its mouth if it did not swallow him before he finished.

"Our covenant shall be thy bones and the marrow within!"

Richard winced as the creature's massive muzzle pressed against his face. He knew that it would soon make a red fountain out of his throat. His prayer was about to be answered, but his mind spun with the absurdity of the situation.

He let out a small yelp as the first of the beast's teeth bit down into...

...but there were no teeth. There was no blood. There was no pain. It actually felt... a little nice?

The monster dragged its sandpaper tongue up and down Richard's face as if his cheeks had been smeared with peanut butter. The beast loosed one final roar.

"You shall be my servant, and I thy master, until the hour of your final breath!"