Cerberus

<continues>

Just right after Lenny dropped the question, he hears a bark behind him. He turns around, to the front door, and see Old Fart standing there, with something in his mouth. The dog's fur looks like a mess, half of his body is covered in blood and mud. But it does not seem to be his blood, because he is still standing there, healthily, somewhat happily with his tail waving energetically behind. Grandma Mely immediately stands up and walk toward her dog, and pat his head. 

"You let him escaped again? oh my poor boy."

Old Fart

Old Fart seems to be excited when his owner pats his head and he expressed his excitement by shaking wildly. Mud and blood splash all over the house and on the granny's face. She laughs loudly and hugs him, despite of the mess he is making. 

"Oh boy, looks like someone should have a shower here. hahaha". To be honest, Lenny feels a little bit uneasy about seeing an elder hugs her pet in such a situation.

Right then, she starts to notice something is in his mouth, "What do you have here, Old Fart? let me see it. No, no, let it goes, you are clamping too tightly, boy."

She then process to pulls the thing out of her dog's mouth with quite an effort. The dog looks like it does not want to let that interesting thing goes easily. Finally, after struggling a bit, she finally pull that thing out. Lenny walks over them to see what is in her hand, only to find out that it is a reptile scale, a bloody scale. It looks like it was just ripped of from some animal, and the smell is really unbearable. He can not understand why the granny can hug her dog with all of that smell on his fur and mouth.  

"Hmmm, so did not just let that snake go easily, didn't you good boy? This will teach him a lesion for going too near our house. Haha" She laughs again.

"Um, do you think it is necessary to check if your dog is wounded or something?" Lenny asks hesitantly. 

"No worry young man, Old Fart is used to be one of the gate keepers of Hell, such weak hell spawn like AAPEP can't harm him. " She says, proudly of her dog. 

"So you are telling me this 4 foot tall dog can handle such a huge monster? I remember the Apet thing to be twenty times bigger than your dog." Lenny does not bother to hide his skeptical thought.

"He is AAPEP, and yes, you will find out soon. Also, Old Fart is covered in mud now, why don't you help this poor old woman to wash him clean while I go back to my room to change my clothes and then prepare for both of you boys a good dinner?" She smile gently.

Lenny knows there are many things he still does not know yet, and keeping asking questions now is pointless. He agrees and the old granny tells him to take her dog to a spring in the back of the house, down the hill. She does not forget to tell him that he does not have to worry about the hell spawns in the fog, because since Old Fart is going with him, no hell spawn dares to lurk near them, then she walks back into her room, closes the door.

Lenny looks at the messy dog, who, in turn, is looking at him, happily waving his tail. 

"Well, look like we are going to go out now, Old Fart." He says to the dog.

Old Fart seems like to understand the earlier conversation between his owner and this man. He runs around Lenny, sniffs his boots. He then barks proudly, and proceed to clamp Lenny's trouser's end and pulls, signal him to follow.

"What's a weird doggy, okay then." 

He walks behind the dog and then walk around to the back of the house. There is a small trail lead to the downhill, into the fog. The dog runs along the trail, but stops and barks at Lenny every few seconds to make sure that he is still following. They walks into the fog. 

Lenny can barely see the trail under his feet. He still hear Old Fart's barks but can not see him. It seems like they are walking into a forest, but he can not sure about it. It could be just some trees along the way. After about fifteen minutes walking, Lenny hears the water gurgling  sound. At first, the sound is faint, but as he walking follow the trail, it becomes clearer. Not only the sound, his vision also become clearer because the fog is fading somehow. 

Now, a spring is appeared in front of him, more than that, he now can confirm his theory of being deep inside the wood. The water is coming out of a huge rock, and its stream makes a line of water that seems to runs forever. The strange thing is, along the path of the stream, there is no fog. He can see the wood in both side of it, and the fog rest a bit further from the spring, making two giant white walls along the banks. From here, he can see the blue, peaceful sky up there. The water is strangely clean, with some weird looking mossy rocks at the middle of the stream that makes the gurgling sound louder.  This place gives him a feeling that there is no human ever set their step here yet. 

Suddenly, he remember something. Where is Old Fart? He stopped barking for a while now. Lenny starts to worry about him. 

"OLD FART!! Where are you??" He shout to the wood.

Nothing happened. There is no respond. He then call the dog again, "OLD FART!Where ar.." 

The sudden sound of wood crunching behind him disrupt his call. Lenny can feel the earth-shaking steps of a creature coming closer behind him. He turns around slowly, since these steps could belong to a giant hell spawn and he would not want to startle it with a sudden move.

When he finishes turning around, what is in front of him is unbelievable, and scary at the same time: A giant three headed muscular red monster, with scars every where on its body. It is about twice the size of Grandma Mely's house. All of its heads are staring at him with its cold and sharp eyes. Hot smoke come out of its nose's holes every time it exhale. It is moving closer to him with its ruby red claws puncturing the rocks under them, melt them into lava. It walks toward him from the other side of the spring, but somehow the water surrounding the claws is not evaporated, despite of the temperature that could melt rock. 

Lenny retrogrades slowly without leaving his eyes from the creature, until he find himself trapped with a tree blocking his back. The creature comes closer and stops just a foot in front of him. Its three heads start to sniff him. He can feel the smoke coming out of its noses as they blow into his face. However, he cannot feel any heat despite of that. "It is supposed to be very hot", Lenny thinks.

The creature started to open its mouths, all of them, reveal its huge, sharp fangs. If it bites some one with those fangs, that person would be split into several parts instantly. For Lenny, this is the end. He did not die in the battle field, but here he will. He closes his eyes, waiting for the moment of those fangs ripping his flesh from bones, or they could even crush his bones while doing that too.

<To be continued>