The dog never barked.

Even when someone threw a stone at it, even when someone gave it some food, and even when the other dogs trespassed its ‘territory’, the dog never barked.

Beneath the blue sky without even a trace of clouds, I was resting under the shed of a house, saving my delicate self from the glare of the damn sun. I was looking towards my right side at the dog that never barked. It didn’t seem to me that the dog was very old. If someone is wondering how I can discern the age of a dog just by looking at it, then trust me, you are unaware of the world and you need to step out of your damn house.

We humans, whether we are willing or not tend to learn things as we go on with our daily lives. Some of us pick up skills, some of us pick habits, and well, some of us pick up diseases from our surroundings. So that’s how I learnt how to discern the age of an animal just by looking at it. It’s not a big feat or anything even close to that, it’s just something I picked up whilst growing up, not that I am proud of it or anything. I'm pretty sure that most of the people can do the same thing as me.

Coming back to the topic, the dog never barked. It would always…sit at the corner of a building and look at the sky, as if it was glaring at the heavens or maybe it was actually bored, well whatever it is, the dog was unusual. The dog would sometimes look my way and give me a slight nod as if it was greeting me and strangely so, I, a human would do the same thing and return the greeting the dog had offered me earlier.

I looked at the sun again, its intensity had decreased a lot, so I got up, patted the dust off my clothes, and fixed the pair of swords at my waist. I looked at the dog again and gave it a small nod, the dog did the same and then I left the place.

***

I was walking down the busy street, making my way through crowds of different people. Even though it was a bit before evening the street was busy as usual, I saw different people along my way. A group of three girls walking down the road chatting happily, a mother and her child holding hands whilst walking, a man in his forties covered with sweat carrying a bag full of spears and weapons on his back with his eyes full of a kind of determination that was unknown to me, a group of children playing together.

It was a pretty normal sight. The city wasn’t anything special either so I decided to leave this place and go on an adventure somewhere else. I travelled to the city gates, the guards looked in my way and asked for the staying fees, something that I was required to pay to the officials, and left the place.

But a sudden call from behind stopped me in my tracks,

“Hey wait!”

I turned around to see that it was the same guard who had collected the fees from me.

“What’s up?”

I asked the guard in a casual manner

“What do you mean by ‘what’s up?’Hah? You know what day it is today, right? ‘They’ will be out tonight, you sure you want to go out, kid?”

Although his tone was a bit rough, the guard was probably worried about my safety.

In response to his question, I just nodded and left the place. The guard, although reluctant, didn’t say anything else and let me go.

***

The world has become corrupted, people don’t fear death anymore, killing, invading, vandalizing and shaming have all become a part of their daily lives, an entire race walking mindlessly on the path of its own destruction. The entire world has become diseased, and there seems to be no end to it. The humans have become demons, there is no place left for kindness in this world.

I left the place and started walking towards the dense forest. The sun had already set and there was no light to guide me towards my destination but I was still able to make out my surroundings, probably because I had grown accustomed to walking in darkness or maybe it was because of the full moon in the sky that had been illuminating my way for quite a while now.

I didn’t have any lantern with me as it might attract unnecessary attraction. My sense of hearing was unusually heightened today, probably because of the darkness that had been blocking my vision to a very high degree.

“Kyaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”

I suddenly heard a girl’s scream, a bit of a distance away from me.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

If it were me from the past then I would have probably rushed ahead to save the girl, but from my sixteen years of life, I have learnt a very important fact, humans are scum and they shouldn’t be trusted easily. But, I still decided to go and check out the situation.

I was about to move to the place from where the voice came when I suddenly heard the sound of someone’s footsteps.

I gazed to my right and saw a silhouette rapidly approaching the source of the voice. The silhouette belonged to a boy, probably the same age as me, so I decided to follow him without making any noise and finally reached the place from where the voice came.

There I saw a girl in her late teens, standing in front of her was a man with a big sword in his hand. The man had a dirty grin on his face and he was looking at the girl with eyes full of savagery. The girl on the other hand was crying. Her eyes were full of tears and it seemed to me as if she might break down any moment.

“*Tap, Tap, Tap*”

The sound of the boy’s footsteps reverberated in the surroundings.

The girl, after noticing the boy rushing towards her brightened up and started waving her hand at him.

“Hero!!! Please save me!!!”

The girl said with her eyes full of tears and her voice full of happiness as if she had achieved her sole purpose in life.

The boy stood in front of the girl as if to protect her from any harm and glared at his opponent with an angry look on his face.

He opened his mouth and was about to say something when,

The boy noticed a small sword probably a kodachi (small Japanese sword) protruding out of his chest. He looked backwards only to see the girl that had been crying earlier holding the sword with a derisive sneer on her face.

“You…!”

He tried to speak again but before he could say anything, his neck was chopped down by the other guy who was previously standing in front of him.

The boy’s body was still twitching but ignoring it, the girl and the man started distributing the exploits of their loot with happy expressions on their faces.

Humans are scum, I will repeat this again, they are nothing but evil. I turned around to leave the place, this had nothing to do with me and I am not some kind of a carrier of justice who would go on and slaughter the criminals, I have more important things to do, after all, ‘they’ will come out in some time.

I kept on walking until I found a place inside the forest, there was a big boulder there. I decided to rest by the boulder and wait for ‘them’.

***

I found myself in an unfamiliar place where there was nothing but darkness around me. The place was eerie, dark, and void but for some reason, I found an inexplicable sense of calm and peace in that place. I felt as if I would fall asleep anytime now.

It was then, that I saw a strange vision, or maybe it was a memory. I was running on a road all alone, I wasn’t wearing anything, but I still kept on running. Then, I turned back to look at something and I saw the silhouettes of some people, the moment I saw them all color drained from my face and I started running again.

I was about to stop the ‘me’ who was running from ‘those’ people but as soon as I got on my feet, the space around me started to distort. I started feeling nauseous and dizzy and then…I woke up.

I opened my eyes.

"Looks like I fell asleep"

I looked at the moon again, just like the day, there was not even a single cloud in the sky. The moon was illuminating the forest, it was then that I heard ‘that’,

“*Awooo!!!*”

This sound came from the right side and then as if to confirm it,

“*Awooo!!!*”

Another voice came from my left side.

It was ‘them’, the ones I had been waiting for!

***

The mana in the atmosphere started reacting with ‘their’ presence, an ominous aura covered the entire forest, no matter where I went the feeling of oppression never left me.

I kept on running through the forest when I heard a scream

“Kyaaaaaa!!!”

It was the same scream that I heard back then.

I decided to trace it back to the source, when I reached there I saw three figures. Two of them belonged to the pair of the man and the girl that I saw when I entered the forest. The man was lying on the ground, well, precisely it was his corpse. The man was missing his arm and there was a big hole in his stomach.

As for the girl, she was standing there shivering, there was not even a single tear in her eye, I guess she got so scared that she even forgot to cry. When I arrived there, the girl somehow sensed me and then looked at me, with relief apparent in her eyes. “H-hero! Hero!! Please, please help me kill this beast!!”

The girl started waving and shouting in my direction.

What a cunning woman, she is trying so hard to dump her troubles on me.

I didn’t reply and focused my attention on the third figure

It was then, that the third figure which stood almost 2.5 ft tall turned towards me as if it had just now noticed my arrival. But I knew all too well, it was just an act, this thing knew about me even before I arrived here. The third figure turned its head my way, it had the body of an overgrown man with extremely long limbs, it was covered with fur all over its body and it had the head of a wolf, with bloodlust dripping from its yellow eyes.

Yes, this thing in front of me was a ‘Wolfana’.