03: God Wants an Animal Sacrifice?!

A familiar foe roused Richard from a dreamless sleep.

His hands groped for the warmth of his blanket, but he found only empty air. He shivered miserably in the morning chill. Lances of sunlight broke through the curtains, but they offered no warmth.

Richard rose stiffly from bed...

...but he found himself lying instead on the hard floor. His entire body was one enormous ache. He briefly forgot the bite of cold as he stretched his poor muscles.

"Why am I on the floor...?" Richard muttered groggily to himself. He rubbed his sleep-crusted eyes, and an icy dread filled his chest.

Yesterday had been his birthday. He had gone out into the woods without any intention of returning. He had made up his mind, had stomped towards that final cliff, but then...

Richard looked around his bedroom in a panic. His heart hammered against his chest like a battering ram as he searched for some clue to yesterday's mystery.

But there was no massive wolf.

He was alone on his bedroom floor.

"A dream." Richard loosed a heavy sigh. His breath misted in the air. "Or a hallucination. It must be all this cold. I'm getting sick."

He sat for a long while. What a pathetic dream. What a childish delusion.

"Oh well." Richard slowly stood up. He continued to stretch as he wondered idly what he would do today.

He did not think there was any food in the kitchen, but he still shuffled out of his bedroom after a little morning aerobics. He rubbed his numb hands together. It was particularly cold that morning.

...and he assumed it had something to do with his front door. It lay in several shattered pieces on the floor. Because the wolf.

"The wolf?" Richard's eyes widened in disbelief as he looked outside. Cars whizzed by in the distance, oblivious to his confusion.

His stare fell on a white dot racing across the open field in front of his apartment. The white dot was growing larger and more familiar with each breath.

"It wasn't a dream?" Richard wondered aloud, and he pinched himself as the monstrous creature bounded into view. Its white fur was covered in red, and a familiar shape dangled from its dripping mouth.

Before Richard could even think to flee deeper into his apartment, the white shape luuunged through the missing door. The wolf's deflated body collided with his chest like a cannonball, and the breath went out of him.

"Thou art awake, my servant!" the beast howled with delight.

The creature assaulted Richard's face with its sandpaper tongue.

"Praise me! Worship me!" The creature's fluffy white tail wagged back and forth excitedly. "Morning prayer is most important for a devotee!"

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"Wha... wha... what is going on...?" Richard sputtered. He could scarcely breathe with the wolf's weight atop his chest.

The wolf relented, and Richard finally noticed the broken shape in the corner of the room. The wolf had tossed it aside mid-lunge.

"Consider this a boon from your new master, human," the wolf said happily as Richard gawked at a very dead deer. Half of its throat had been ripped out in a tangle of red wet. "Thou art much too pale!"

Richard was able to collect his breath, but his thoughts remained a tangled mess.

"Wh-why is there a dead deer in my apartment...?" he asked numbly.

"Kyeeh heh heh! He finally speaks!" The wolf loosed a familiar screech. The noise sounded particularly ominous as great globs of blood dribbled from its mouth. "The deer is for thy duties as my high priest!"

A bubble of laughter tickled Richard's thoughts. That was not the answer he had been expecting. He was not even sure if he had expected the wolf to answer.

"I allowed my previous high priest a tenth of all my offerings, but for you... I will offer twenty!"

Richard nodded his head mechanically. He pinched himself a second time. He was awake, but this certainly felt like a dream. The wolf had an almost human smile ringing across its bestial mien.

"The deer... is your offering?" His throat felt very dry as he slowly rose from the floor. He kept a safe distance from both the dead deer and the bloodied wolf. "I don't... I'm a little confused."

The beast's smile faded. It stared at him with those piercing gold eyes.

"Mmm, mmm. I understand everything now," the wolf said after several moments of silence. "I suppose I will have to teach you a few things, servant."

Richard flinched as the wolf placed a heavy claw on the deer's chest and then tore off a chunk of meat in a mist of blood. Another manic bubble popped in his chest as he watched the beast's white fur slowly turn a darker and darker shade of red. It was a good thing he had not eaten breakfast.

"This is your tithe," the wolf said. It flung a severed haunch of meat towards Richard. Strings of innards and globs of red intestines painted his apartment floor.

"And all of this," the wolf gestured to the rest of the deer's bloodied mutilation, "thou shalt offer to me as a burnt offering."

It was the smell that finally pushed him over the edge. Richard looked sharply away from the gore, but he could feel a sickness rising up his chest.

"Human?" The wolf's impossible voice was full of concern as he stumbled through his apartment's shattered doorway and into the crisp outdoor air.

Cars purred in the distance, and he wondered dimly why nobody seemed to care. The farmhouse was rather far from the road, but not far enough that passersby could not see the broken doorway and the blood-splattered wolf.

"Are you unwell?" The wolf's voice appeared behind him as he struggled to keep yesterday's Chips Ahoy! cookies in his stomach. "Thou art too pale. Here. Sup upon some blood. It will fortify thy spirit!"

"No, no!" Richard shouted in alarm. He glanced over his shoulder and cringed away from the beast. It had dragged a haunch of dripping red carcass outside. "I'm fine! I'm fine! I'm not fine at all, but I'm fine."

"But thou art so pale..." The wolf nudged Richard with the bloody haunch in its mouth. Dimly, Richard realized the beast had somehow spoken even with a full mouth. "Drink, my servant."

"R-really, I'm fine." Richard fought back laughter.

He had completely lost his mind, and he was not sure how to feel about it. He wondered what kind of breakfast they served at psychiatric hospitals.

A horrible silence settled over the unusual morning. After it became unbearable, Richard shot a glance over his shoulder. He would not have been surprised if his hallucination had disappeared.

The wolf had dropped the deer carcass. The creature did not have eyebrows, but somehow Richard knew it was frowning.

"Thou... Thou art not one of those humans who... don't eat meat, are you...?"

"What? No." Richard shook his head hurriedly and looked away. "I'm just not used to all... all that blood and... I feel sick. What is going on today...?"

"Ahhh." The wolf loosed a happy sound. "Mmm, mmm. I understand everything now."

Richard did not particularly like the sound of that. He turned around and found the wolf sitting majestically over the dripping red carcass. It was hard to tell from its snout, but the wolf may have been smiling.

"A high priest must be able to handle at least this much, but you may use The Telleh-Fawn to summon another human. They shall assist you with the morning's burnt offering!"