The Wolfelk - Chapter 1

Taking place in a world simply known as 'The City', The Wolfelk follows the day-to-day life of its titular beast and his group of friends as they navigate the intertwined lives they've come to find themselves in. Taking cues from sitcoms of old, video games, and anime, The Wolfelk isn't aiming to be a grand epic fantasy but instead a simple series of loosely connected small chapters following this lively group around. My goal isn't to write a huge ongoing story, though there will be instances where a plotline will carry through several chapters, but largely this is just going to serve as a vehicle in which I will develop each of my characters in a more drawn out fashion.

This will delve into mature themes as time progresses and each chapter will be marked accordingly based on the content within.

It was a sunny mid-spring morning in the city. The birds were chirping, the pollen was flying, and the construction workers throwing together the latest Dollar General down the street were already making a ton of unwelcomed noise."The perks of living in a lower neighborhood," Advrik thought as he rolled over in bed. His bedsheets were absent, and his mattress was in dire need of replacement. He stretched and yawned but refused to open his eyes, burying his head further under the pillow. Unwilling to give up the last few minutes of grogginess the night had bestowed upon him.
The trash truck making its way down the street was the final nail in that coffin; living in an abandoned taxi depot converted to a "studio apartment," he heard the brunt of the noises made by such loud vehicles and their equally loud crew.
The moment the forks gripped the dumpster, creating a grating metallic screech that flowed into the slamming of the container against the side of the truck's compacter, acted as the final nail in the coffin as far as getting any additional sleep went.
Finally having succumbed to the metal, diesel-chugging monstrosity that hauled ass down the street to its next stop, Advrik slunk out of bed and ventured to the railing of the balcony that overlooked his territory: The ground floor of a poorly heated, lightly furnished garage that still slightly smelled of oil and sweat. It wasn't what he had imagined for himself after getting out of that orphanage so long ago, but it was certainly better than the alternative of living on the streets of The City.

The garage was essentially a studio apartment in the most basic sense. There were two floors: The ground floor was where taxis had, at one time, pulled in when the driver was off duty or the garage mechanic had to work on said vehicle. Before the carpeting had been laid down, the oil-stained concrete flooring had been blasted clean with a pressure washer multiple times, but even so, the smell of old oil still lingered, and no number of scented wax cubes was going to mask that.
The interior walls showed where the shudder doors once stood, now long since removed, sealed off, and had cheap insulation thrown between the two new walls that filled them in.
The only remnant of the building's original face was the single entranceway between the more significant entries, which had been replaced with a more townhouse-esque door.
Advrik silently pawed across the second-floor balcony, rubbing the sleep crust from the corners of his eye. He stalked almost silently across the floor, his paw pads cushioning each step. Living alone had its perks, including being able to strip down on the way to the bathroom when it was time for a shower. Tossing his tee, shorts, and underwear aside, he disappeared into the bathroom for several minutes before reemerging, clean, and ready to start the day. He'd pick up his dirty laundry later; no one would see the second floor of the apartment/garage anyhow.

Advrik lept from the balcony to the ground floor below, his powerful legs tanking the force of impact like it was nothing. The depot was surprisingly clean for a single, young male living alone(as long as you discount the discarded clothing upstairs). The beast was a clean freak, and since his office-slash business was run out of his home, he had to maintain a sense of cleanliness even if his job sometimes had him doing less than respectable tasks out in The City.
As he silently padded across the depot floor, The City's sounds steadily became louder as the morning trudged on. He didn't live in the city's heart or even the city's busiest outskirts, which had been developed with a "Small town USA" design mentality. Still, the town he set up shop in was adjacent to the warehouse and factory borough and thus could sometimes become quite busy.

Dawning a pair of black cargo and a simple tee shirt, Advrik sat at the kitchen island while his morning coffee slowly dripped into the carafe behind him. His interest, however, was in his work email, the one his companion had set up as a joint account under the agreement that, should his partner in crime choose to accept any of the jobs himself, he would need to confirm the deal with Advrik first.
He was still waiting for that to happen.
Still, Advrik pawed his way down the list. A lot of it was junk or scams. Beasts seeing the public email address and using it to subscribe to weird porn or fetish websites as a joke was pretty standard, and no amount of filtering or spam reports was enough to keep the junk at bay.
"You up?" read a new text notification. The beast's eyes gravitated towards it, and the small profile image of the creature that had sent it sat beside it within the notification bubble. He breathed in deeply, taking the scent of the coffee as the liquid mana slowly filled the air with its intoxicating, caffeinated aroma. He ran his paw through the mop of brown hair on his head, stopping at the small pair of antlers between his ears, standing like two ancient, long-dead pine trees in a forest of smaller trees long since gone dormant for the winter.
The touch and the feel of the antlers were a constant reminder of his uniqueness; He wasn't an elk or a deer genetically. There's no possible way he could have been. He glanced to his right at the small mirror that hung beside the kitchen window and took in the sight before him: The image of a powerful brown wolf with piercing ruby-red eyes looked back at him, only with the sharp, angular features typically associated with such a species was dulled and rounded by the presence of the elk-like qualities. An image that once had given him much anxiety but now felt as normal as the coarse pads on the bottom of his paws. He'd considered going for more blood work multiple times, hoping that some advancements in the decades since he left the orphanage could give him some new ideas of what he was.
But that would be a waste of money, he thought. No, he was what he was: A wholly unique being, combining the qualities of elk and wolf but lacking the DNA of either one. He was, as he had come to fill in on all his important documents where the field "Species:" was required.

He was simply a "Wolfelk," pronounced. "Wool-Felk," and that was that—a new, unique species.

Tapping on the text message, the app opened up, revealing the message history between him and Desmond, his only friend in The City and constant work partner.
"Yeah, I'm up," he quickly typed, hitting send. The coffee machine had finally ceased its incessant dripping, signaling the beast that it was time for caffeine. He first retrieved a simple low-sugar creamer from the fridge, shaking the bottle and noting it was half full. He filled his favorite mug nearly full with the heavenly-smelling liquid, taking a big long whiff of the pleasant odor that only freshly brewed coffee could produce before filling the void between the coffee and the lip of the mug with creamer.
His phone dinged again, and a new text notification appeared. It read: "You wanna hang out today or something my family is driving me insane lol"
It had been a while since he just chilled in town. Perhaps getting out and meeting some new beasts would be a nice change of pace.
"Sure, why the hell not?" He replied, then replaced his phone.
He first took a sip of his coffee to test the temperature, then, finding it just right, took a big old swig. The light morning roast worked best with creamers, he thought, giving it just the right amount of sweetness while allowing the flavor of the coffee itself to work in tandem with the creamer.
Ding! The new text read: "Good, meet me at the tech shop in the mall at noon 'k"
"Sure thing, see you then," Advrik replied. He chugged the rest of his rapidly cooling coffee, then stood up and declared to nobeast other than himself, "Time to get ready."