“Ugh… Argh….”

A young man wearing only a worn-down pair of pants was laying down on the soft grass. He was gripping his right arm with the use of his left hand. His eyes were closed shut and his face covered in sweat.

*POC*

An old man sitting on a stone nearby used his wooden cane to strike the young man on his head and said: “You useless brat. First, you said that you were not feeling well so I, being the kind elder I am, felt sorry for you and let you sleep. Now you keep grunting like a lunatic. If you’re going to die, can’t you at least do it in silence?”

The young man opened his eyes and looked at the old man with a confused look. It took a moment for him to come back to his senses and, feeling the pain coming from his forehead, he said: “Who the fuck are you? Did you just hit me, old fart?”

The old man raised an eyebrow and hit the young man in the head once again. Seeing the wronged look on the young man’s face and the fact that he opened his mouth to say something else, he hit him once more for good measure.

“Try me brat. If your mother didn’t beg me on her knees, I would have never agreed to take you with me on the fields and teach you how to look after sheep.”

“Huh?” said the young man, rubbing his swollen head. “Who the fuck are you, old man, and what’s all this bullshit about sheep?”

*POC*

“Did you get possessed or something brat? One more foul word from your mouth and I’ll feed you to the dogs.”

The young man finally started understanding that something was wrong. Raising himself to a sitting position, he looked around and was stunned to find himself on an open plain with only grass, stones, sheep, and three dogs in sight as far as his eyes could see.

‘Where the fuck am I?’ he asked himself as he frowned while trying to remember the last thing he did before falling asleep.

‘That’s right. That big fucking dog attacked me.’ As he remembered up to this point, he looked down at his right arm, the arm which he used to repel the dog, and ended up bitten by it. Seeing that his arm looked fine, more questions than answers appeared in his head.

‘Was that a dream? Is this a dream?’ he then turned towards the old man who kept caning him and asked: “Old man, who are you and where am I?”

“Did I hit him too hard on the head?” mumbled the old man as he looked down at the confused expression on the young man’s face. He then looked at his cane once more and hit him again.

*POC*

“What the fuck was that for? I even asked you nicely this time.” Said the young man as he covered his head with his hands and crawled further away from the crazy man with the cane.

“Do you remember who am I now?” asked the old man.

“What is wrong with you? How will hitting me on the head help remind me who you are?” yelled the young man with his eyes already bloodshot from anger and pain.

The old man ignored his yells and mumbled to himself while stroking his beard: “Strange. I heard that if you hit someone on the head and he loses his memories, hitting them again will bring them back. Maybe I should hit him harder?”

Hearing the old man’s tone, the young man crawled a few more steps back and waved his hands frantically: “No no no. That was hard enough. It’s fine, I don’t need to know. Forget I said anything.”

The old man looked like he wanted to hit him one more time, but was too lazy to get up from the rock he was standing upon. Shrugging, he pointed with his cane into the distance and said: “A sheep seems to pull away from the rest of the flock, go turn it around.”

“Huh?” asked the young man before looking in the direction the old man pointed to. Seeing that it was indeed a sheep that was leaving the flock, an idea came to him and he said: “Old man, how about this? I’ll turn that sheep around and you answer my questions. Deal?”

“How about you turn that sheep around and I won’t beat you to death with my cane?”

“Oh, come on, what do you have to lose? A few words? It’s a good deal.”

The old man fell in deep thought, like he was solving one of the world’s greatest puzzles before eventually replying: “Well, your mother will for sure throw a tantrum if she finds out I beat her kid stupid. If you turn that sheep and promise not to say anything about this to your parents, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

“Deal.” replied the young man in an instant before sitting up and bolting in the sheep’s direction.

“That old bastard. After you tell me what I want to know, I’ll take that cane from you and show you what it means to beat someone stupid.” Mumbled the young man as he kept running toward the runaway sheep.

The sheep, apparently scared of seeing the young man running in its direction, started running from him as well.

“That bastard sheep, bastard old fart, all of them bastards!!!”

The young man kept swearing as he did his best to catch up to the sheep. It took him over ten minutes of running at full speed until he turned the sheep around and guided it back towards the flock. Once the sheep was back with its flock, the young man fell to his knees, panting for breath.

Once he caught his breath, he returned to the old man and said: “I’ve done it, old man. Now answer my questions as you promised.”

The old man nodded and adopted a proud look as he said: “I’m pastor Neil. The best pastor in the entire county. They call me Neil the Seer in our village. I can feel that one sheep is about to leave the flock and stop it before it even starts leaving.”

The young man put on a disgusted expression as he said: “Are you messing with me? You promised to tell me the truth if I turned that sheep around, not spew this senseless bullshit.”

The old man looked enraged and lifted his cane to strike the young man once more, but already expecting it, the young man quickly retreated backward and said: “All right. I get it. You are the Great Neil. Greatest pastor the world has ever seen. Now, can you tell me my name as well?”

The old man lifted his chin and puffed out his chest while stroking his beard as he said: “Greatest Pastor the world has ever seen, I like the sound of that. You have good eyes, brat. Let me tell you, I once had a flock of over ten thousand sheep. Those days….”

The young man looked like he was doing his best to stop himself from cringing as he waited for Neil to finish his stupid story.

After ten more minutes, Neil finally reached the end of his story. “And that’s how I saved an entire village from famine. I’m a hero to hundreds of people. What would a brat like you, still bald around his crotch, know of my deeds?”

The young man looked like he was about to blow a fuse, but suppressed his exasperation as he said: “Great of you, old man. Now, will you finally tell me my name?”

The old man snorted and said: “I don’t remember. Ted, Ned, maybe, or was it Zed? Hell if I know. You’ll have to ask your mother.”

The young man finally lost his cool and rushed at the old man, trying to grab him by his long beard.

*POC**BANG**THUD*

Old man Neil hit him twice on the head, faster than the young man could react, and he fell unconscious on the ground. After knocking the young man unconscious, Neil sighed and looked back towards the flock. “I’ll now have to look after the sheep myself once more. Maybe those hits will finally put his mind back into place this time.”

The old man stood up from the boulder he was sitting on and started walking in the sheep’s direction while whistling, apparently not caring about the young man even a little.

After being knocked unconscious by old man Neil, the young man felt something wet touching his face, prompting him to open his eyes.

“Eep…!!!”

A small yelp, akin to that of a little girl, escaped his mouth as he started crawling backward while staring in horror at the thing in front of him.

A huge black wolf, taller than a full-grown human while sitting on his fours, was looking at him with its head tilted to the side. Saliva kept falling through the wolf’s teeth in the place the young man stood before as it fixed its red eyes on him with the pupils contracted to a point.

As the young man felt another wet sensation between his legs, a soft and euphonious voice sounded from the direction of the wolf and reached his ears. “So you are my new host. Finally getting the chance to meet you.”

The young man’s eyes became as round as saucers as he noticed the wolf’s mouth opening and closing in tandem with the voice.

With his legs still shaking, he forced himself to a sitting position and, ignoring the water droplets that kept falling from his crotch area, he said: “A.. aare you speaking?”

The wolf nodded, and its voice sounded once more: “Yes, I can speak.”

The young man used his palm to hit his cheeks as hard as he could and said: “Okay Edward, you’re just dreaming, it can’t hurt you. It’s just…”

“You’re not dreaming. This…” interrupted the wolf, but the young man didn’t give it the chance to speak as he said: “Shut up. You’re not allowed to speak until I finish.”

Seeing that the wolf fell silent, he hit his cheeks once more and murmured to himself: “Okay, where were we? Yes. It’s just your imagination. Any moment you’ll wake up in your comfortable bed at home…”

Edward convinced himself that it was just a very insistent dream and turned back toward the wolf. “Okay, it appears I can’t wake up no matter what. What were you saying?”

A burst of crisp laughter came from the wolf’s mouth and its voice sounded right after: “Having a human host is indeed a lot more interesting. I said that this is not a dream. I’m sorry, but you’re now the host of my cursed soul.”

The young man didn’t seem nervous anymore as he laid down and, placing his head on the palm of his hand, he said: “Interesting. Cursed soul. Please continue.”

The wolf nodded its enormous head and said: “Once you fall unconscious or asleep, the curse will take your body over and you’ll transform into the form of an ever-hungry wolf.”

The young man made a pondering expression before saying: “Are you saying that now, as I’m speaking with you, my body out there is gorging itself on random stuff?”

“Exactly.”

“Damn, this is some interesting shit my brain cooked.” Mumbled the young man to himself before turning to the wolf once more and asking: “And will I ever wake up? Or I’m stuck as a werewolf forever?”

“Yes, and not a werewolf, just an almost normal wolf. After a certain amount of time passes, your body will naturally turn human once more and you’ll wake up. Since it’s your first time turning, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes, a maximum of half an hour, but as the wolf inside you devours more and grows stronger, the time it can stay in control of your body might also increase. Or that’s how it was before, with wolf hosts. I’m still not sure about how it would work with a human one.”

“Damn, this is not bad. I should write a book or something about it. But wait, what’s with that crazy pastor? A crazy pastor and now a werewolf? Did someone drug me or something?” the young man mumbled to himself once more before asking the wolf: “Hey, wolf girl, do you know anything about that crazy pastor?”

The wolf opened its mouth to speak but stopped abruptly and took a slight break before saying: “It looks like our time is over. I can’t wait for you to come back so we can speak some more.”

“Wait…” before the young man could finish his words, his consciousness returned to his body and his eyelashes trembled slightly like he was just about to wake up. Rubbing his eyes with the back of his index fingers surprised him to find out his fingers felt wet. Opening his eyes and looking at his hands, it horrified him to find them covered in blood.

As the words of the wolf sounded in his mind, his heartbeat started increasing and a feeling of horror overtook his mind. He slowly and mechanically turned his head to the side, hoping as hard as he could that all of this was just his imagination.

When his eyes landed on the guts, blood, and pieces of sheep fur all around him, his back went cold and he finally understood that whatever that wolf said was probably the truth, no matter how impossible it seemed.

Sudden nausea and a feeling of disgust overcame him, and he stood up before throwing up straight away. This horrified him even more. He only saw pieces of meat, blood, and fur in his vomit.

“No. This is not happening. This is all a nightmare.” He kept mumbling to himself as his body started shaking violently and he passed out again. Not even having the chance to relinquish in the pleasure of falling unconscious, he appeared in the dark space under the giant wolf once more.

“Oh? That was faster than I expected.”