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, it just kept on lying in the same lazy posture as it had been since the first time I saw it, the dog was just like an unmovable mountain.

 

Beneath the blue sky without even a trace of clouds, I was resting under the shed of an old house, enjoying myself in my own fantasies and 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.

In the past few days, I had become fast friends with the dog, there seemed to be some kind of a telepathic connection between the two of us. The two of us were like brothers from different mothers and different species as well.

 

I turned my head away and 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 children playing together, a group of three girls walking down the road chatting happily, a mother and her child holding hands whilst walking, and a man, probably 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 unnatural and unknown to me.

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 so I paid it, and was just about to leave,

“Hey wait!”

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

 

I turned around and saw the guard who had collected the staying fees from me standing behind me, looking at me with somewhat furious and worried eyes,

“What’s up?”

I asked the guard

 

“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 just 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 city 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.

If it were me from the past then I would have probably rushed ahead to save the girl, but from my seventeen 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 cruelty and 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.

‘I don’t have a good feeling about this’ I thought

Coming back to the scenario,

The boy stood in front of the girl as if to protect her from any harm that might come her way and glared at his opponent with an angry look on his face, his heroic features shining even in the dead of the night

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 greatly frightened and shaken, he probably didn’t want to accept the reality as he initially closed his eyes and then slowly turned his head backwards hoping that this had only been a bad dream, but things like that never happen in reality.

When he looked back he saw the girl that had been crying earlier was now holding the short sword protruding out of his chest with a derisive sneer on her face. He was conned and stabbed by the one he had saved, he was truly miserable, truly pathetic

“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 and left 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 criminals and fiends, I have more important things to do, after all, ‘they’ will be coming 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, no, I actually wanted to fall asleep.

It was then, that I saw a strange vision, or maybe it was a memory. I was running on a road all alone, completely bare, completely exposed, both physically and mentally. In the vision I would keep on running and then for some reason I would look back at regular intervals as if I was looking out for someone or something following me. I had been running and turning back over and over again, it was then that I finally saw it, I saw the silhouettes of various people standing behind me, 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 and I started feeling nauseous and dizzy, for a moment it seemed to me as if I was going to die, but then… I didn’t die, instead of that… I just woke up.

 

I opened my eyes.

"Looks like I fell asleep"

The forest still seemed as silent and unmoved as ever

I looked at the moon, it was a full moon today, meaning ‘they’ will be coming out today

I looked at the moon again, it was illuminating the forest, being the only source of light- the moon was nothing short of a god for the people who travel through the forest during night, it was then that I heard ‘that’,

“*Awooo!!!*”

This sound came from the right side of the forest just over the patch of hills that spread through a distance of 5 kilometers and then as if to confirm it,

“*Awooo!!!*”

Another voice came from my left side where there lay a deep cavern, also known as the Death Cavern

As soon as I heard the voices I realized,

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 was running through the forest when I suddenly heard a scream,

“Kyaaaaaa!!!”

It was the same scream that I heard back then when I first entered the forest

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. Sigh… no matter where you go you will always encounter scumbags like them

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

It was then, that the third figure which stood almost 2.5 meters tall turned its head 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 all about me even before I arrived here.

The third figure 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 deep yellow eyes.

Yes, this thing before me was a ‘Wolfana’