Chapter 20 - The Red Wolf

Zenos stared at Damien strangely.

"I thought telling bedtime stories was supposed to be a joke. We are seriously doing it now?"

Damien shrugged his shoulders in response.

"It's one of the new ones and never got that popular, so at least you probably haven't heard of it."

Adonis shrugged.

"Well, I'll be eating while you talk."

Killian cracked his neck and got up to go to the bathroom.

"I'll get a drink too."

Damien waved his hand dismissively.

"It doesn't matter all that much anyway. You don't even have to listen if you don't want to. I'm just trying to help the time pass a little bit faster."

Zenos gave a small nod before bringing out one of his own bars to eat.

Among the sounds of wrappers being torn, Damien folded his own and was about to begin the story.

"Please put your waste into the corner of the room where it will automatically be disposed of!"

Damien raised an eyebrow, but did as told, before a small opening formed, getting rid of it, before coming back up once more. He couldn't help but think that they could lose something useful if it ended up falling down there.

"...Anyways. The story of the red wolf starts off with a red wolf, a big shocker I'm sure."

He cleared his throat.

"The wolf suddenly woke up, finding itself in the middle of an alleyway. It was very confused, and had no idea of what was happening, especially because all of its memories had disappeared."

The other three had little interest in the story, save for maybe Killian. Nonetheless, Damien continued without much care.

"As the red wolf gradually made sense of its surroundings, it tried to leave the alleyway. However, before it could, it came across two sheep arguing with each other about something."

The corner of his lip turned up.

"The sheeps ended up dragging the red wolf in the argument, both sides asking the wolf to support them. And the wolf did think about it, but it had no idea what the argument was about in the first place, thus found himself able to truly take a side"

Damien blinked a few times.

"The red wolf thought hard about its options, and as it did so, it couldn't help but think one of the sheep was particularly tasty looking. Then, it came up with a solution. If it just ate the sheep, then they would no longer have something to argue about. And so, it mauled one of them and devoured it."

Zenos' head couldn't help but snap to him.

"You said that it was a bedtime story?"

Damien shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, it was really unpopular, and you can probably tell the reason by now."

He coughed.

"Anyway, the red wolf couldn't help but relish how tasty that sheep was. It happily exclaimed after eating it to the other sheep, telling it that it fixed its problem. The wolf itself couldn't help but think of how many upsides there were to that decision, but the living sheep didn't seem to think so. For whatever reason, it looked at the wolf in terror."

Damien gently rubbed his chin.

"The wolf couldn't understand. Why did the sheep feel so different than how it felt? That just made no sense, it was so angry with its problem earlier, and now it was fixed. After thinking hard to itself, the wolf realized that it could just show the sheep again, then it would definitely agree. With that in mind, the wolf mauled the other sheep and ate it as well."

Killian blinked a few times.

"...That's a rather strange children's story."

Damien chuckled.

"It gets better. As it began eating the corpse of the sheep, the wolf began smiling to itself, confirming that this was just the best option. The one that just made the most sense. It tried to get confirmation from the sheep, but then realized it wasn't able to speak with him."

He sucked in a cold breath.

"However, the wolf nodded to itself in confidence that if the sheep could, it would definitely agree."

Adonis' face twitched as he ate his bar.

"...It's hard to focus on the effects of this when you start talking about a story like that."

Damien shrugged his shoulders as a response and continued the story.

"The red wolf found something on one of the sheep, something entailing where its family was. Seeing this, the wolf couldn't help but think it had to spread this happiness to the family as well to be fair. And so, it rushed out of the alleyway, going past all the sheep that stared at him in terror."

He raised a finger.

"Though the wolf didn't have many memories, it still understood how to find houses, and ended up finding the proper house. Just so that the sheep in this house knew, the wolf brought along the sheep's bloody wool along to show that he was indeed involved. Yet, upon seeing the bloody pelt, all of the sheep began freaking out and got angry at the wolf. The wolf felt confused once more. But it knew the solution. They would all understand, he just had to show them all.

Damien took a deep breath.

"And so, that's what the wolf did. It killed every single sheep. There was one that escaped and tried to get away, begging the wolf to spare it. However, he just knew that the sheep didn't understand, so it chased after and killed it as well. After finishing that entire family, the wolf felt incredibly amazing, and it didn't even eat the corpses because it was no longer hungry."

His eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

"And after that, the wolf wondered why it should stop there. It should bring joy to everyone! After realizing that, the red wolf found its new mission. To show every single sheep possible the great happiness that it had."

Zenos let out a sigh.

"So is that it?"

Damien tilted his head to the side.

"Well, it's the end of one of the books, but there's a sequel."

Killian stared at him and gave a small nod.

"Well, it seems like a pretty good one so far."

Adonis blinked a few times.

"...They actually made a sequel?"

Damien cleared his throat.

"Well anyways, the second story starts off with the wolf killing a sheep. By now, the red wolf had killed countless sheep, showing them all the same happiness that it felt. But while it was about to kill one sheep, another wolf suddenly called out to it, telling it to stop."

He blinked a few times.

"The red wolf was confused. Was the wolf questioning it like the sheep were? However, when it brought up the concerns, the wolf responded by saying that it didn't disagree. But the wolf had something special. In particular, it was a better method to kill the sheep and get even more happiness."

Zenos chuckled.

"Happiness, huh?"

Damien smirked.

"The wolf showed it a better method. With great care, it tore out one of the sheep's eyes, causing it to scream out in pain. At first, the red wolf was confused. What was the wolf doing? But when the wolf realized how excited the sheep sounded, it finally understood everything."

He blinked a few times

"The rest of this part is kinda unnecessary fluff. Basically, it just talks extensively about various torture methods on the sheep. By the end, the red wolf found that the happiness could be improved upon even further, and resolved itself to continue working hard at it."

Damien let out a soft breath.

"And so the wolf studied how to make the sheep scream both louder and longer, and finding its true calling for happiness for all."