The Wolf & His Shabby Mailbox ( Prologue )

Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap!

Someone is tapping a keyboard so rapidly that one might thing person is playing Super Mario game on easiest difficulty!

The sound was coming from a house, which, dispite being a wooden house, looked classy due to its well designed exterior. A single shabby looking mailbox in its front lawn was the only thing house had, apart from trees surrounding it as far as eye could see.

The source of this loud tapping sound was a boy sitting inside this house.

The boy is burning some midnight oil for a very important writing project, which he had to submit before tomorrow's deadline.

The boy's name is lycan. An 18 years old, white haired, black-eyed boy, who is home-school for various reasons, which will become apparent as the story goes on.

Maybe because he strained his eyes too much, or he was just bored out of his mind, but he noticed that words on screen started to blur, and kept multiplying by itself as the time passed by. Seeing this his heart lept in joy!

Not because he gained some mysterious powers, but it was time for a short coffee break! It could had been any break: game, TV, internet, fast food. But he decided to go with a coffee. Anything is fine as long a it can keep him away from this dreadful writing project!

As he was happily enjoying a sweet and warm cup of coffee, filled with guilt and bitterness of not completing project for the past whole month, he heard a loud breaking sound, which came from outside of the house.

The wind was particularly strong that night, making the white curtains of his window flutter voilently. He peeked through the window and immediately lamented ignoring his mother's reminder of changing a new light bulb after seeing the pitch black darkness outside.

Although, it was a night of the full moon, even moon himself was hidden behind the dark cloud, like he was hiding from something.

He got up from chair, grabbed a jacket and a torch, as he headed outside. Standing outside, when he lit up the torch and pointed to location of the sound, corner of his mouth twitched a little.

That shabby looking mailbox was knocked over on ground, and all the letters from within were scattered around everywhere. Then his gaze fell upon the culprit, and his mouth started twitching uncontrollably!

Culprit was wearing a rosewood coloured one piece that wrapped thightly against her slim and tall figure. A white pearl necklace around her neck looked pale compared to her jade like skin. Looking at her diamond bracelet in one hand and grace with which she carried herself, she looked perfect definition of an high class lady!

Lycan controlled his twitching mouth and asked, "Is it because you didn't liked the way my mailbox looked and knocked it over in fit of anger, or you're in habit of going around and breaking people's property in middle of the night?"

Lady bowed her head, "I apologise for the intruding at such an hour but you see, my car's engine suddently died without any warning and I walked for a mile until I finally saw your house and as for your mailbox..." She showed somewhat embarrassed face, "After seeing that your house's lights were on, I was so thrilled and relieved that I started running blindly and accidentally knocked your mailbox down. Oh! sorry for the mailbox by the way! I'll compensated you for that and I was also wondering if you'd help me out a little. I'll pay for your troubles, of course."

Lycan glanced at her shining golden high heels. Even though they have been allegedly used for a mile long walk, they hadn't had a single speck of dust on them.

Lycan looked at her with irritated face and asked, "So, what do you expect me to do? Go and fix your car for you?"

"I was hoping that mister would be kind enough to give me shelter for a night." Said the lady as she clasped her both hand behind her back and swayed her body side to side in playful manner

"You see, I'm not an heartless fellow who won't help person in their times of need, but I'm also helpless here. My house is small one, and we only have two beds. One bed is of my mother so its out of the question, and other one, which is mine, is also small one. Its too small for you."

Said Lycan as he placed the torch on the ground in such way that its light shone on the lady. Then he picked cigarette tucked behind his ear, placed it at corner of his mouth and started patting his pockets in search for the lighter.

The lady found Lycan's action of placing the torch on the ground little strange, but she didn't thought of it much.

"Hehe! mister sure is very cunning. What can I do? I'll manage somehow." Said the lady as she smiled seductively, "Even if we had to sleep on the same bed!"

"Aha! Found ya sucker!" Lycan pulled a lighter out of his pocket, and yelled at it like he had found a lost treasure. He wasn't even looking at the lady as she keeps twisting her body seductively.

He lit up the cigarette, shot up couple of smoke in air and only then looked at the lady and said, "As much as your offer sounds tempting, I have to politely declined you offer, because I don't have such a weird fetish. And I'm also sorry for not making this clear before. When I said our bed's are small, what I actually meant was that our entire house is tiny compared to true body of yours. Your true form should be as same size as of my house, isn't it?"

The lady's seductive expressions crumbled like it was an illusion, and revealed a spine chilling expressionless face.

Lycan wasn't much surprised by the lady's sudden change. He leisurely shot up smoke, which merged with silver-white cloud hanging in the air. After couple of puffs he asked, "Did you killed her? The one who's body you are using? Or is it a transformation magic? It do look like a transformation magic though!"

The lady lowered her head and said nothing. Lycan also said nothing and kept smoking his cigarettes.

Suddently a voice, which can be only discribed as the voice of terror itself, came form lady. Her mouth was closed, which made this voice even more terrifying.

"The wheels of fate have began to spun. The third great war is approaching. Chaos and destruction will follow. Gods will die and mortals will mourne. The ancient prophecy written with elder's blood will be fulfilled. No one can elude their fate, for the fate is imminent!"

"No, you're wrong." Said Lycan nonchalantly, "We seal our own fate with the choices we make. We spin our own fate when we choose good or evil, and we ourself are responsible for the end result. Our fate's not decided by the ancient prophecies, but by our very own hands. But then again, I'm a moron! What do I know?"

"I don't know, I'm only here to deliver the message." At this point, the lady was looking at the Lycan with dumbfounded expression, but her voice was still terrifying as ever. It sounded like someone's chewing on raw flesh with bare teeths.

"And you've heard my answer!" Said lycan with somewhat irritated tone, "Now pay for my broken mailbox and bug out of my property!"

"I'm also here for [The Five-Headed Snake] artifact you carry within your soul."

Lycan showed somewhat embarrassed face, "If I told you that I've left the artifact in other world, and my soul is not a carry bag to casually put something in it, would you just say 'Oh! Is that so? Sorry, my bad, Teehee!' and left me in peace?"

"If you don't hand over the artifact, then I'm afraid I'll have to show you why our pudge race is called the butchers." Threatened the lady by making her already terrifying voice more heavy.

"Sigh.... Alright! Alright! You win! You want artifact? Fine! Just wait a sec!" Lycan started patting his pockets with serious expression, like he was focused on finding something, "Aha! Found it!" He said, with estatic expression, but just kept his hand inside the pocket without pulling it out.

The lady was watching his every move intensively. She has received instructions to deliver a message and retrieve an artifact from this person. She don't know how strong this person is, but as orders came from her majesty herself, she expected a big battle with this person.

"Now hand over the artifact!" Said the lady.

Lady kept watching intensively as Lycan pulled his right hand out of his pant's pocket and she almost spurted blood after seeing his hand!

What she saw wasn't an ancient artifact of [The Five Headed Snake] but what greeted her was a single finger. It was middle finger, standing tall and proud, risen above the rest of the four finger, heartlessly mocking her. She asked for the ancient artifact and Lycan is showing her middle finger!

You!" This caused her to flair up in rage and her left eye popped right out of the socket!

But this was just the beginning!

A suffocating menacing aura swept the surroundings. Her right eye also popped up form the socket as her body kept visibility expanding slowly. Body kept expanding until it torn apart her rosewood colored one piece and broke apart the white pearl necklace, causing pearls to scatter on the ground. Sound of flesh tearing and bones being twisted kept coming from lady's continusly expanding body. Then, suddently, a menacing aura, five times stronger than before, sweapt the surroundings like a gust of strong wind, which flung the torch to god know where and shattered the house's windows into hundreds of pieces.

Finally, the moon peeked from the dark clouds and moonlight revealed true form of the creature.

The creature was fifteen foot in height and was about the same width as the house. It had a pale white skin, which looked like a rotting flesh upon a closer look. Its body was stitched at random places; some part were stitched skillfully like a craftsman's work, while other parts looked like stitched by a blind man, because those part were barely hanging from the body, as blood dripped from wound and showed flesh from within.

Its left eye, which was as big as a football, and seemed will pop out from the socket at any moment, and it's crooked saliva dripping mouth with disfigured teeths, wasn't as disgusting as its stomach with a huge gaping hole in it, showing various types of creepy looking intestines hanging not only inside but some came dangling outside too! And as if it wasn't disguting enough, some flies came fluttering from inside of the creature's stomach, and started chowing down its intestines!

This creature is from race called Pudge.

"You're a beatuty indeed!" Lycan exclaimed in surprise, "I wasn't aware that this planet had female pudge living on it. Did you perhaps also run a butcher shop as side business here. I'm sure people would admire your craft." He looked at 2 foot Butcher's blade in Pudge's hand.

I'm afraid, I have to show my skills on your body." Said The Pudge, as she started rotating a terrifying looking hook in her left hand. Hook's chain was coiled around its forearms and continued all the way inside of gaping stomach. It seems to attached to one of the intestine!

"Hey! wait! wait! Don't throw that damned thing or my house will..." Before Lycan could finish his sentence, Pudge launched the hook at frightening speed. This innate ability of Pudge is called The Bloody Hook.

[Bloody Hook: Launches a magical hook toward an enemy, dragging enemy back to Pudge as well as dealing massive amount of damage to an enemy.]

The bloody hook impaled right between Lycan's chest and produced a shockwave, which blown the entire house to smitten, as its rubbles went flying in the air.

"I said WAIT dammit! How the hell am I suppose to explain this to my mom?" Surprising, not only Lycan was still alive even after spraying around bucket of blood, but he also had energy to shout at The Pudge!

Pudge didn't stop and pulled the hook back to herself, dragging Lycan along with it. Just as Lycan came within Pudge's close range, five terrifying tentacles rushed out of its mouth and impaled Laycan's both arms, legs and stomach. Then tentacles suddently grew teeths and started chowing him down. Resulting in excruciating pain. This is Pudge's ultimate ability, The Dismeber!

[DISMEBER: Pudge chows down on an enemy, disabling him and dealing damage over time. Pudge gets healed by sucking life force of enemy as she deals damage. Pudge's can't move for 5 second when this ability is cast.]

But pudge didn't stop there. Suddenly, her body started emmiting green toxic gas which started corroding everything around her. It sucked lifeforce from grass, trees, flowers, around The Pudge, turning them into ashen dust and slowly creeped on Laycan's body!

This was no ordinary toxic gas, but all the diseases and filth which precide in Pudge's body. This ability is called Rot!

[ROT: A foul odor precedes a toxic, choking gas, emanating from Pudge's body. A toxic cloud deals intense damage and slows enemies movement.]

This was the ultimate combo of the Pudge race. After casting a Meat Hook and dragging their opponents towards them, they cast the Dismember, a bloody bite of death, followed by releasing Rot, toxic green gas to slow down to cut off each and every retreat path of the enemies.

Such cruel and surefire way of killing an opponent nicknamed Pudge race, Pudge The Butchers!

Pudge watched slowly rotting flesh of Lycan and couldn't help but show look of disbelief. She came here prepared to have life and death battle, but wasn't expecting such an easy win. Her majesty cautioned her about this boy and instructed to go all out from the start. She wasn't expecting he'll be killed just from that. Just as her mind was in turmoil, a nonchalant voice came from behind her back, which made her involuntary shudder in fear!

"What are you surprising for? Were you expecting a huge fight or something when you attacked me?"

As she had just cast the Dismember, she couldn't move from the spot for atleast 5 more second. But more than thinking about drawback of the spell, she was horrified by this silent pressure coming from her back. Even her majesty didn't frightened her this much!

"After seeing how quickly you cast spells in succession, I have to admit you do have some skills, but let me show you how a god class Pudge cast a True Bloody Hook!"

Suddenly, the ground beneath her feet rumbled and a massive Bloody Hook, at least 5 times more larger than hers, came torning the ground apart.

Front of her eye was the same innate ability of her race, the Bloody Hook, but instead of one hook, it had 3 claw like hook, looking like head of a snake. But not only hook, but the chain attached to the hook also had both corroding green smoke of Rot and her ultimate spell Dismember's tentacles! All of her innate abilities combined into one spell!

Even The chain was slithering like a real snake's body!

She couldn't imagine the amount of concentration and control over magic is required to perform such feat. Even just thinking about it made her head spin!

The hook kept glaring at Pudge, like a venomous snake glaring at a small rabbit before devouring it in one gulp. But surprisingly, even after facing such a terrifying pressure, Pudge didn't showed any fear! instead, her eyes were somewhat.... Dull?

See her expression, everything around her vanished like it was an illusion. The hook, the terrifying pressure, even the Lycan, who was caught inside of her trap, gave her gentle smile and turned into smoke with poof!

"A Shadow Clone!" Pudge involuntary muttered.

"Ohh! So you know about this spell?" Asked Lycan but no reply came. He walked front of the pudge and got taken aback for a moment.

Pudge, with its scary big eyes wide opened, seems to have passed out while standing!

"Hey, wake up!" He slap Pudge's cheek couple of time upon which, pudge recovered and yelled "Ah! Monster!"

Now, when such a creepy, wierd, disguting looking monster call you a Monster! Then even stone's feelings will get hurt.

Lycan bitterly smiled "Yeah! Yeah! I'm a monster and you're a saint! Happy? Now turn back to human form and answer my some questions."

Pudge slowly recovered from shock and started reverting back to her human form. If before in that tight rosewood one piece she looked like a high class lady, now when gentle moonlight illuminated her naked curvy figure with two tall mountains sticking out, she looked like a high class hooker! Capable of driving anyone mad with lust from just one look of her body!

Lycan already had jacket in hand, which he throwed at her, indicating to cover her body,

"I get it that you came here to deliver the message about some bullshit prophecy, wheels of fate, third great war and whatnot but..." He stared at her, "Why the hell did you attacked me?"

When she first attacked him with the Bloody Hook, there was no killing intent in her eyes. And when he saw her surprised face when hook actually pierced his shadow clone, he know something was not right. He had a hunch! But only that hunch was enough to make his blood boil in rage!

"Her majesty instructed me to do so." She said, blushing sweetly.

After hearing her reason for attacking him and turning his lovely house into ruins of forgotten, Lycan mind went blank! He just stood rooted on spot like a dumb wooden chicken without saying anything.

Just as lady was wondering what happened to him, Lycan, who's eyes went hollow and was staring at the empty sky, suddently cursed loudly, "That Fucking Witch!" Which made her jumped in fright!

Then Lycan fished out cellphone from his pocket and throwed at her. Lady hurriedly catched the cellphone, and looked at him in confusion.

Now its Laycan's turn to almost spurt blood from anger. But he controlled himself. These creatures of other world have different views from people of the earth. Its common for them to destroy someones house and walk away like its no big deal!

He also remembered why he should stay away from that other world. Further the better! He will never go back to that world. EVER!

He clamed down his emotions and said, "I know I might sound like a cliche villan from a rundown television drama, but let me say this nonetheless!" Then he made a leechrus smile, "Call your so called her majesty and tell her if she want you back alive, then build me a new house before the sunrise."

The girl was still looking at him with confused expression, but he didn't cared about it and kept walking toward his house, or atleast what's left of his before somewhat classy looking due to having well designed exterior, now turned into heap of rubble with having interior mixed within its exterior, wooden house.

He hadn't thought his short coffee break will turn into one hell of a mess. He haven't even completed his writing project!

When he was lost in thought, The Lady asked "Why are you not killing me?"

Lycan staggered in his tracks and almost fell flat on his face after being suddenly asked such question. He turned and asked "You.... Just what did you heard about me?"

The lady thought for a while and said with serious expression "Her majesty said that you are a monster! A demon that enjoy human flesh! A ghost who killed thousands of gods! A wicked slaughterer who..."

Just as she was about to continue her gaze fell upon Lycan's face.

Since coming here, he only had nonchalant expression even after she destroyed his house and tried to kill him. But suddently, his expression showed a melancholy, which even made her heart felt like being pricked by thousands of needles.

Before she could say anything, Lycan resumed his usual carefree expression and laughed, "Haha! who know? I really might be a monster!" And continued heading towards his ruined house.

The lady watched his wide back, which dispite being upright, looked somewhat weak and lonely at same time. She continued watching him, as he found a half torn futon in pile of rubble, lazily stretched his body from side to side and got ready to fell asleep without any care of mess around him.

As if remembering something, he looked at her at said "Oh, and don't forget to add mailbox in list of compensation! You don't want a monster like me hunting you down to end of the earth over a broken mailbox, do you?" He laughed, and fell asleep on futon.

The lady just stood there for some time, lost in her own though.

After some time, when she looked at his defenceless sleeping face, her eyes softened, "But her majesty also said that if people call the white wolf a monster," A sweet smile appeared on her face, "Then there are no angels in this world."

The lady sighed as she looked at the cell phone in her hand. She don't know how to use this damned thing!

But her majesty have given her an communication artifact, which is more easy to use than this cell phone. If she remembers correctly its called walky talky!

She cast a sign and a black, milatery style, walky talky appeared in her hand. She slowly pulled its antenna up, and carefully pressed green button, which signal the communication.

She had to inform her majesty about white wolf's answer, along with the house that have to be rebuilt before sunrise and more importantly about the mailbox!

How could she possibly forget about the importance of mailbox? When her very own life is depends on whether wolf gets a new mailbox or not!