Copyright © 2025 by Markovas & Candle

Editing by Joletsart

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C1 – Cindy

Disappointment: even a small mote of it could carry the avalanche of sorrowful surrender, as its qualities-unchecked are harder than cast steel. The more you leave something roaming free, the lesser the chance of stopping it, or of having the ability of apprehending that said object of freelancing chaos.

Of course, disappointment could come and go, but when it just stays and stays and stays, it is unlikely to be fixed just by waiting for time to take its course, because then, time would only cultivate that said thorn instead of calling forth decay: nature’s code of life.

That was what Cindy was going through as she stomped through a cropped field which was being illuminated by the subtle orange lights above, in spacing to the farming rows. Her small paws holding another weak light, while she sniffled with a deep scowl, something that resembled anger and agony at the same time. She looked incredibly hurt, and that she was.

Her day was supposed to be like every day: wake up, go to school, learn something, scuffle with bullies and go home. But exactly that normality was broken by a sudden sharp change. They finally got to her, as even when she knew not to listen to them, she just couldn’t block it all off. It was tiring, it was hard, it was bogly suffocating.

Because she was running on autopilot, while her cranked light flickered, she lost sight of her path and shortly after stumbled her foot into a hole that disbalanced her body to fall hard on her face. It ground against the damp dirt and short grass that served as a coloring pillow, as now the white around her muzzle had its tint andtexture, and the scruffy red shirt had mudded-up.

The crickets around the impact scurried away and continued their songs of love elsewhere, while she just lay there and sobbed through choked breaths. Why did she have to go through all this? Couldn’t they just leave her alone! She wasn’t hurting anybody… How could it be her fault to have been born this way? In this ugly, matted and scruffy black fur that could never be groomed.

It was that stupid fox Jerry, who just had put her in his sights after she stood up to him during that school presentation. He had mocked her for twisting her words, which had thrown her in a verbal frenzy at him. It’d been pretty humiliating for the fat fox.

From then on it was as if he wanted to prove her his point, that she should know her place, a point that she believed to be immature and dumb, until she finally felt the effects of everything that had been slowly draining her from day one. It looked as if he was going to be right, even some of her fellow prey mals would try and persuade her. Why were they so determined to prove to her that society was right? Wasn’t that hypocritical? Wasn’t that… evil?!

The smell of plants; the smell of yellowish-green, was flaring her nostrils with the mingle of dirt. Her paw gripped a small patch of grass and squeezed it so hard that it ripped from the soil.

She pushed herself up and sat, her gray whiskers with tints of discolor, twitching, while her head moved around the blackness of the night in search for the place she felt safe and at peace.

Her stumble had delivered her to the edge of the field, the plants a bit further from her consisted of pointy thorns and barkybushes of piny needles. Breath of exhale misted the air and she shivered to the cold that was. It’d been pretty toasty from all those crop lights, but once out of their baking, the ambient temperatures would greet without mercy.

Not wanting to end up sick again, she adjusted her coarse scarf and tucked her shirt in her similarly coarse trousers. Gray eyes squinted around in seek of her small source of light, something which took a bit of touching around, until its cold metal grip found warmth in her paw again.

She had to move because the more she stood there, with light bouncing around, the greaterthe chance of getting caught, being outside the allowed boundaries of public access, especially at an hour such as this. She was far away from home, and most mals knew each other here and she didn’t want to take the chance, especially at her current hollowness in her chest.

The flashlight was squeezed and she hurried to the nearby hill, passing a big mound of smelly dirt with some sort of bleak tarpaulins which were definitely to protect them from potential rain of doom. She was always told that outside at night and alone was the most dangerous time, that it wasn’t when one would go around if they weren’t searching for trouble, but how could she believe such when she was treated like rabble? How could she have faith in anything that was supposed to be for her own benefit, for her own protection, when all that she was being shown were contradictions on top of more depressing contradictions. Why should she listen?

And all was proven right, as she felt best alone and outside in the dark, because nobody could nag her about anything, or confront her about her dreams and motives. She was free to be herself, in the wild, like in ancient times. A seclusion from society that didn’t want her to be something more than a carrot-chomping hare.

Yes, she liked the seclusion but always sought a balance. She knew that such swings of moods were bound to happen, and that they were mostly dormant, yet this time, this time was like no other. It was the worst she had ever experienced, as her young body just felt weak and her mind was like a mess of mangled ropes, trying to make the link but failing somewhere along the complicated path of supposed righteousness.

She got to the base of the hill and that was where the short and soothing grass became jagged roots, thorns, angry stones of different sizes and pointy bushes-overgrown: a hostile unwelcoming.

Her small eyes couldn’t find the path she’d usually trek because the small moon in her paw was too anemic and it was only capable of showing her where to step right in front of her. The anxiety and impatience to feel at ease got her stomach to twist and whimpers to accompany it all, as she felt dreadfully scared and rather lost.

The end goal was lying patient up there, not that far away. But the way to it was obscured, and since she was greatly pressured from inside, she just dashed into the thick weeds and tall plants, as she just craved to get there, to make it all stop. The stems brushed against her clothes and fur, the leaves beat against her face and neck.

Some were getting through her coarse fur and rustled against her pinkish skin, which instantly got irritated inhospitably. Every step was hard and disorienting as well as fearful, due to her not seeing much, which could earn her a stumble of a broken ankle.

The end of the story of the delusional hare.

Her jaw clamped hard as she moved around a heap of rock that was a possible home for creatures-unwanted. That led her blindly into a thorny bush which instantly grabbed onto her greedily with its claws: large pointy maw of brown teeth and saliva of dryness. It cut into her cheek from the fierce momentum.

The flashlight fell from her paws and she quickly tried removing the solid twigs of the dangerous plant, but her fur was now entangled. Pain was sizzling everywhere. Her heart pulsated relentlessly as she couldn’t see anything.

This time the whimpers weren’t from emotional pain but the real bloody agony that stained her black fur on her muzzle, the scent of metal flickering her whiskers everso more.

She twisted and pulled but that got one of her ears to flop and tangle into a branch. Panic infested her blood and her breaths picked rapidness. Irrationality was the only thought that swam within her head: climbing up the hill no matter what. But she didn’t want to feel pain, she had had enough for the day. It had been enough!

But her ire wasn’t doing her any good, she was helpless and weak, the fear was acting like a steel chain around her decisions. She couldn’t make herself act against it, as she had failed to do so during the day, due to it having had full access to her inner faithlessness.

Hyperventilating, tears crawled out of her eyes, tears of crushing emotional baggage. She tried to sit but the thorns pulled on her fur to a desperate moan. This wasn’t going to work, she couldn’t see anything, and all the senses she had were of being struck with immobile claws.

Inaction was the death of action… fear, weakness, doubt: all cementing the opinions of everyone around her. She needed to, she must. Summit was in reach, just had to get on the right path. All she had to do was muster her remaining courage, even if its supply was cracking from dryness, even if she had become hollow, messy and bitter.

With a loud gasp that she couldn’t hold, she yanked herself and shrieked tormentingly as her ear pulsed with anguish.

She fell on the uneven ground and her paws instantly reached for the inside of her ear that was pumping out red. It streamed down her black fur and unto her brown paws. Her teeth were grit as she rolled around in anguish and sobs and hisses, with skin itching hard from the hostile plants that were all mockingly looking down on her misery.

Shock slowly crept away and her motions ceased to be, her final rest being in a curled ball with shivers of trepidation. She wasn’t capable of getting safely to a place she knew… And she wanted to become a mal who was wanted to protect others from harm, when she couldn’t protect her own self from it, when she was vulnerable to the world around her… yet she wanted to make a difference?

She was being false, a hypocrite, a dumb hare! Maybe she should just lay here and stay until she couldn’t, maybe surrendering to the world was the best thing to do, accepting what everyone was saying and moving on. What was the point of trying to be more than what nature had ordered it to be? She had bitten more than she could chew… look where it had gotten her… look at what she had turned herself into…

What was the point, who was she trying to impress? Herself? She had already done so in the length of dumbness-trailed, so much hurt and time wasted into thinking and learning… At least that way she’d make everyone happy because she had failed, that she had yielded to the majority, proven the point that a hare can be nothing more, nothing less.

But she didn’t want that to be true, it didn’t have to be!

Pulsing pain, burning skin, cacophony of thoughts: all were telling her otherwise. They were mocking her abilities and choices, it was as if they were the oppressors of decisions, the constrictors and walls to the future.

They were not letting her act, they were not letting her think, they were not letting her exist. Maybe she should just go back, go back and accept it all, accept the reality and truth, even if gulping it down would tear everything she had believed in being…

Yea, that sounded nice, it sounded sweet… it appeared reasonable… Why had she been so blind… so stubborn… so… naive?

Her shivers stopped and she slowly rose from the coldening soil riddled with pebbles and tiny insects, disturbed by her body. She dusted herself off and felt part of her shirt go limp, exposing her chest and belly. Her trousersprotruded gashes of tear and grit.

She tried to piece together the ruined red cloth, but it wasn’t working out, which got her to sigh sadly with a quiver and to slowly reach for her still-blinking mote of light that lay underneath the bush that had told her the truth, had given her a greater picture.

But when she got it and turned around, the late-night wind gently blew across her bloodied face and the sight before her took her breath, with sudden re-invigoration of focus that the air carried.

The sky was aching oceanic with thousands of stars blinking at unknown distances. The unreachable by paw void glowed and sparkled endlessly, bathing her world in wonder and awe. It was not a view-unseen but a view enthralling. It got her to gawk childishly and just stay still, occasionally scratching herself where the plants had assaulted her body. Air was so nice to breathe, so craved as it gave a sort of clarity to her mind that the usual air would not.

Always so beautiful, always so peaceful and endless. Unconstrained by anything or anyone. Firm, yet gentle. All of that above, looking down and watching over the fields of green and yellow, over the hills of pines and rocks, over the villages that sometimes glowed like distant bulbs, over the big city filled with mals from all kinds of different walks of life.

It got her muzzle to point down and her mind to rethink her choice, made in the hustle of pain and fear. She had allowed weakness to tell her what to do, but the world around her managed, yet again, to stop her from taking an irreversible turn that would’ve dictated her then-certain future.

With a gulp still heaved of anxiety, she hugged herself in needed reassurance and decided to finish what was started, to at least be true to herself and climb up the hostile hill. The light managed to show her another shrubbery next to the one that had captured her and this one wasn’t hostile and dangerous, thus steadily she pushed through its pine twigs, until she managed to get through and step on dry dirt.

What a glad surprise! There it was: the mark on the rock, a mark she herself had done. It was the path she had been looking for! It had been behind the thorny piece of wall all along and she had thought about quitting, when it was just within reach, within grasp and touch?

How could she have been so short-sighted by wanting to quit so effortlessly? How could she have thought that the easy way was the right way? But then again, maybe it was… maybe it really was… The weight in her belly came back and she remembered what she had to do, thus with a readjustment of her ruined red shirt, she carried on up to her destination where she hoped to find solace and an end to her torment.

Now she was inside the pine forest and the sky was not as visible anymore. The breeze was gone and the air again caught that usual heaviness. It was nothing new, but after having had that nice breeze to enjoy, it felt like quite the downgrade.

It didn’t matter though, as the path from her was known and walked on. If only her cranking light would manage to glow a bit more, it would’ve been of great help for her not to stumble on root and stem. A few stops demanded her to reach under her bare foot(feet) to remove sharp needles that were coating the ground. Long and prickly things they were.

If only she wasn’t a hare and had nocturnal eyes. If only she wasn’t a hare, she wouldn’t have had to climb through so much anguish and… rubbish…

With her stained paws huddled to her quickly-pacing chest, she tried to think of something that would prevent her feet from getting irritated. She’d remember using cloth or leathery bits, but that was always a short-term solution and would just rip away at the material. Not to mention that she had brought only herself and her light… quite dumb to do so.

Having found the way, she could just go back… no-no, she didn’t want to go back, not today. Her eyes were widely opened and she glanced up, where the contrast between the hill and ocean of sky was. She was near and every crawl taken by paw and foot was bringing her closer to the end of the journey.

It kept the hope from extinguishing. Her muscles carried and carried until her feet and paws were dusty and grimy. Her ears were high up and she was panting from the excessive heat. Losing focus frequently occurred. Her body was screaming at her to stop, but her mind had overridden the instinctive code and had placed itself in control.

She had to reach the top.

The jagged rocks and roots became soft earth. She could feel that she was nearly there, as the pines had receded to a surround of thorny bushes and distant lights in the dark away.

Sky of guidance and freedom, renewed breeze of fresh air and disappearing fuzziness. It was meant to be. She dug her claws into the earth and went on all fours at the slope of hardship. The ground would slip and she’d fall on her knees, scraping down in moans and grunts, but it didn’t matter. She pocketed her light and followed the way up in partial blindness, using the silhouette of the hill against the sky as the compass of guidance.

She had to reach, she had to prove to everyone that she wasn’t a failure, she had to do that for herself! Her face smacked against a rock, piercing her skull and clogging her sinuses, but she only yelped and grit more dirt without any stop.

What was the point of all this crying, all this dreading, all this fear and doubt, when she could just do something about it, when she could stop allowing her impulses to carry her to safety, to let those impulses be a driving compass of actually makingthe right choice, to bring her in the eye of the storm so she could face any demons trying to puther down.

This thought, this excitement, this neural clarity that was flooding through her mouth and into her lungs, gave her so much strength. It dampened her pain and gave her energy she never knew of having. Saliva streaked off her mouth as phlegm was coughed to allow for air. She could’ve slowed down but that felt like betrayal and surrender, and both those words sounded vile.

Just a mere another moment, just a mere another step and the silhouette would be…

Conquered.

Lights in the very distance shone down from tall walls of stone and dirt, in a long stretch across the city’s borders. Dark silhouettes ebbed weakly from within in countless shapes of homes.

Hm, the wide-crowned tree caused her path to change as she smiled in satisfaction of having conquered her pain, dashing quicker with her renewed reserves of youth. The ancient lord of the hill was waiting like it’d always done.

But the quickening resulted in her tripping over an exposed root and rolling over, unguided, finally stopping at the base of the leafless, deciduous tree. The colder air howled above her with a chill, but so did it carry freshness that got her mind to swim in focus. She couldn’t even be cross at her mistake, as now she could take a breather to relax and also enjoy the renewed clarity of the fresh air that drifted in her lungs.

Again she stared at the sky, the dome of the entire world, seen through the thick branches of the old tree. She wanted to cherish the moments after this extensive adventure, the moments when her body would finally be rid of the tension and would recuperate slowly, thus resulting in euphoria that no substance could ever give, not that she had ever tried any substances, but she trusted her gut feeling about it.

The melting effect ceasedto be and the drain of warmth from the earth managed to snap her out of the trance of rest. It was time to move to that box of metal with seats. There had to be some edibles inside. If only she hadn’t forgotten to bring something with her she wouldn’t be thinking of scavenging.

Slowly she got on her feet in a wobble daze and trailed to the old tree’s trunk, where she roamed her paw to its sense of coarseness. Just around that bark of mass was the rusted frame of what was sought.

With quickness she found its door and opened it with a click and unoiled rattle, stuffiness and aromas flooding out of the abandoned car.

Whirring the crank faster, she made sure there was nothing on the seat that would make a mess. Nothing but dust and brown pine needles and cones. With a quick brush off, she sat down and closed the door with strain. The whole vehicle was rather oversized to her, so opening or closing anything was expectedly a hurdle. The softness was pretty nice to have under her rump, so she did lean back to enjoy that, including the lack of chill breeze.

Windshield before her was nowhere to be seen, fragments of shattered glass surrounding the edges of the rusted frames. At least those shards were nowhere to be seen on her seat or the dashboard.

The whole engine compartment was overgrown by those pine bushes, having eaten the whole front of the two-door vehicle with their thorny branches. It looked as if the car had once crashed into the tree and was left abandoned and forgotten: rumpled and uneven.

It made Cindy wonder: why were they so rare to see?

C2
Sam

Cindy’s excitement of the sight had slowly dulled to boredom. Sudden shift in priorities pushed her to find a snack, which was the hidden jar of cauliflower under the rugged seat. It was a nice seat, heavenly seat.

Finding the jar took some dusty effort and ouchies from the pine needles that bit her. Several empty jars rolled around in fake excitement, until she pulled the one that salivated her mouth.

Future’s delight plopped on the dashboard at an angle, and she cranked her flashlight a bit longer so she’d have some leftover light to work with. The jar’s top had some sort of wooden clasp that was holding on to both edges. It was a pretty straightforward design. She pulled on one end of the wood and it snapped off easily to a quick swing into her pocket. She wasn’t going to let it go to waste.

Then, because the top was still sealed, she reached with her claw and twisted in the small gap. Normally a flat head of a tool would be needed to do that, but she had learned to make due with the natural gadgets at paw.

It hissed and the glass top opened, revealing thin rubber lining on the edge and swarming a scent of tasty vegetable drenched in vinegar and salt. Darkness shrouded the inside but it didn’t matter, as she tilted the jar and gulped a handful of the sour juices, droplets streaking down her cheeks and on her ruined shirt. Her tongue played with a cauliflower, until she managed to pull it in and chomp in hungry greed.

After all that climbing, falling, cutting, this felt like a well-deserved reward, and she was happy for having brought supplies here for just in case. It never hurt to be ready for anything, it never hurt to prepare for the worst. As she felt a bit nauseated from all the flash drink-eat, she put the jar away and released a nasty burp in combination to a cough.

This was perfect. Letting the weight reach her stomach, she sighed happily, got the jar and cranklight and got outside, slowly whirring light of guidance. The whole vehicle had been covered in layers of dirt and pine needles, smell of pine catching in the fresh breeze.

Slowly she got to the back of the short car where the trunk stood closed with a big rock sat on its soil-less rusted surface. She moved close on the steps of stacked rocks and pushed the weight back, which made the trunk creak and open up.

Inside were revealed two seats and several blankets pushed to the side. There was nothing to wait for, as she jumped right in and got comfy by wrapping the blanket firmly around herself and her tucked ears, leaving the jar and light to the side crevice, where it’d be out of danger to be sat upon.

A slow creep of safety and comfort played inside her stomach and she couldn’t suppress her small smile.

Fresh air would calm her nostrils and the new warmth got her calmly sleepy. With a tongueful drag within her mouth, she reached for the jar to feast further on the cauliflower and pieces of carrot.

Best part about it all was the landscape of a view she now had from the trunk and to the lands in the far away. This time tho she could see pretty much everything, including the small village of Varhn she lived at and the bigger one Old Union where she had to go to school. The distance between the two wasn’t much, and there was the manual railway that’d take them there, the only detail being that every passenger had to pump the lever of the trolley.

Because it wasn’t meant for her size, she’d have a lot of difficulty managing and would get shooed away for someone more capable to do the job. And it wasn’t like it was other hares replacing her, it seemed to always be the predators who were physically better. She couldn’t lie to herself that it didn’t tick her off.

There was the train, puffing dark smoke as it slowly drove towards its main destination, mountains surrounding the horizon on everyside.

Another cauliflower flew in her mouth that smiled in advance. She was looking at the walls behind which the biggest city in her world slept, the city where she wanted to go to one day, the one she had read much about. She’d always try to see it from here, day in or day out, but it was just too far away and dangerous to get close without authorization or protection.

It was 123 kilometers away from her village and would often be invisible due to fog or rain. Today was perfect in visibility and dryness. She couldn’t have asked for better odds. It made her rather annoyed at the feelings she had experienced while trying to find the path and climb the hill. Such weakness could’ve prevented her from being in this spot, with this food, with this air and this view. Weakness was despicable.

Loud noise of train blared from far-far away and she noticed that it was heading towards the city, towards the city of New Unity.

A city of safety, a city of gleam,

A city of power and prosperity,

A city of boundless possibilities,

A city where she could get everything.

A very low chirp throttled out her lips as she melted into the seat of warmth and put the almost-devoured food away from her. Her worries were forgotten, her bubble of delusion was up and the confines of her safety were working wonders on her mind.

She would just close her eyes and enter the world of magic and limitless freedom. One day, she’d go there and be who she wanted to be or even something else. Maybe she was in the wrong place all along… She just had to close her eyes… Just… close… her… eyes…

“What are you doing here?” Her eyes shot open, her heart squeezed itself into a black hole and she panicked around furiously and noisily. But what was she looking for… she couldn’t see!

She snatched her light and cranked it before her, bringing the colors and face of someone familiar, who was holding a paw over his gray-furred face. “Cut it out!” he complained noisily, his voice sounding groggier than usual, while her whiskers flicked harmoniously in joy of seeing him of all mals.

“Sam!” she shouted happily and moved the light away from his nocturnal-red eyes. “Where ya been this week?”

“Ughhh… nowhere exciting… scoot,” his request got her smile down nervously, the shake in her paws proving impossible to dampen.

“Oh, here,” she moved to the side, making enough space for the young fox. Many questions roamed her mind, but many needs also pushed to be shared, like those of her troubles that had peaked this very day.

Maybe she could explain him why, he wouldn’t judge her. She knew that he’d be supportive as he’d always been, and that he’d know or at least help her out somehow, like they had done for each other countless times.

Her grip slipped off and she almost dropped the heavenly food that she was thinking of sharing with Sam, but the Jar lord saw her woe and prevented that calamity at the speed of a snapping turtle.

Sam got into the trunk and sat with a turn, his tail batting Cindy on the nose to a tickle and amused scowl. His scent was not familiar this time, a mix of earth and musk. This surged her curiosity and she cranked the light at him, bringing a gawk at the muddy fox.

“Cut it,” he said as he looked away, but she kept cranking her light in exploration to his filth that was coating his clothes and gray fur. “Please?”

She didn’t like stopping her examination but obliged in a vicious huff. “Why ye like this?”

“Do you have something to chomp?”

“Ah… jarred cauliflowers.”

“Oh… you still have the water?”

“Ye,” she said and passed the jar at the glinting eyes that stared right at her. Every time she’d see those, it’d give her chills at the back of her neck, an instinctive reaction of self-preservation. But at the same time it was also magnificent to see.

“Got some stale bread, hurts my gums otherwise.” She heard sloshes and scrapes, and chomps. “Sour, yuck.”

“Wotcha happened, Sam?” she asked yet again in understanding that he was actively ignoring the question. The blindness annoyed her so she felt for the edges of the trunk for something… useful. With quick flicks of her agile thumbs she lit a match and reached for what looked to be a big candle once-used. Suddenly warmth beamed all around the blanketed frame and at the nasty fox who was looking out with a pair of peepers at paw.

Putting the candle in between them safely, she got on her knees and nudged into the fox hard, taking his peepers and keeping herself against him in annoyance. It didn’t matter if he was bigger, because he didn’t resist even the slightest.

“My binoculars! No! Cinds… wh—” She pulled up the strap up and smiled maliciously at him, to which he murmured angrily and tried to move away, but she just pushed him into the corner and blocked off any potential exit. In between she put the binoculars to her eyes and marvelled at New Unity. Obviously still the thing looked like an ant on the ground, but even just some miniscule extra detail was worth it.

Figuring the punishment for being ignored like that was served, she sat back in her spot, introducing grumbles and shifts of fox, until quietness came back-through. Of course as he did that she noticed his torn clothes with speckles of blood here and there. This wasn’t a ‘I lost the path’ time of moment as he was just nasty.

So she grabbed his paws in hers and just stared at him patiently through frustrated anticipation. That’s when she noticed the swell in his eye and the ideas of what had might’ve happened turn more and more bitter.

“I fell… in the swamp. I was on that log that goes across, but it shifted and I fell. I wanted to go to the traintracks, wanted to see the train.”

“Ya can’t done tha’!” she shouted, scandalized Sam would do something so reckless and dangerous.

“I saw the tracks and the train. The ground was shaking, and it had these huge lights. My fur stood up when it passed. It was incredible!”

“Rules-rules! Tha’ how we don’t get hurt,” she pushed her point despite the inner excitement to want to know more of what he saw. But it seemed he was more interested in his experiences than in trying to argue or relenting to the rules.

“Is that… you got some red on your neck. Wait, what is that, Cinds?” he touched on the rough spot that throbbed and hissed in pain, so she swapped his gentle paw away with a growl.

“Thornbushs. Lotta o’ it.” But he did not back off and only moved closer and closer to look at her wound. She got self-conscious and turned aside to block his scrutiny. But that was all he needed.

“Claw marks. You were clawed.”

“Wotcha know about it?!” she snapped and stared at his non-plussed reaction, his fingers rubbing claws against claws to the annoying realization that her attempt of deflecting had fallen flat. “Was white fox.”

“Jer?! What happened?”

“Destroy my homeworks. Called him fat slob, only keep fill in extra student space.”

“Well that can’t be why he—”

“Just slashed me and pushed me to wall.”

“Cinds, you don’t have to tell—”

“I tried react… but I just didn’t— couldnt. I wanted to flee. He said I should know my place or he’d hurt me much more.”

“He can’t do that! But, Cindy, did you tell—” she couldn’t stop scratching her wrist as her mind roamed the fresh memories of today.

“No, I just wanted to get away from all of it.” Her pained wrist throbbed at the touch of Sam’s paw. She flinched instantly in the rapid acceleration of her heart as again a fox was looking down on her, face half-shrouded in darkness. Suddenly being here no longer gave her that sense of comfort and safety, and all she thought about was running away as fast as her legs allowed.

“Hey, let me see,” Sam said but did not reach again, sitting back and putting his darker paws in his lap to a patient await.

Her chest was heaving and she realized how much she was giving off as a reaction, which snapped her fear response and she realized she was not looking at a horrible white fox, but at Sam, her friend.

Something snapped in her mind and sudden fury spread across her bloodstream. It wasn’t at Sam, or the stupid white fox. It was aimed at herself for being such a weakling, such an emotionally driven weakling.

So instead of locking herself in a thicker bubble, she extended her black paw for Sam to check. He pulled up her shirt’s sleeve and touched on the bruises and cuts of what was…

“Did he bite you?”

“It was an accident.”

“An accident, my tail! You need to report this right now.”

“I will…” she whispered.

“Okay, let’s go then.” But as Sam tried to pull at her paw, she grabbed onto his and yanked him hard. It landed him close to her frustrated muzzle.

“I want to stay here. I don’t want to be anywhere else, or be with anyone else.” Quietness overtook to the slow song of the fresh wind, crickets loudly beaming down the hill, and breaths of predator and prey mingling close in the trunks refuge.

Sam seemed to calm down, sighed and sat back on his rump, muzzles parting closeness and ambiance taking dominion.

Cindy couldn’t exactly find anything on her mind that she wanted to share or ask. Of course there were many burning questions, but this emotional burst she’d experienced again kinda traumatized any kind of social drive that was prior had. So she ended playing with the empty jar: twisting, turning, scraping, anything to occupy her mind from the uncomfortable silence.

She didn’t look at Sam, didn’t really think about him or anyone else. Only thing she wanted was to calm down and stay here. Yea, it was nice having him around, definitely. If only he smelled less of rotten trees and mud, but she was getting used to that.

“Ever wonder what it’s like up there?” Sam asked, lying back and staring up into the sky with his binoculars. She took a glance at the twinkling countless stars.

“Lots of rock?” she said and got a quick giggle from the fox who kept looking up.

“Somewhere out there, on a rock like ours, there could be another me and you.”

“Don’t be silly, how would ‘at be possible?”

“Well it wouldn’t be exactly me and you,” he explained, taking a smiley glance at her. “They probably will look different. Maybe they will be made out of metal? Or pine… or out of rock… I don’t know….” he put down his binoculars and stared at his feet. “It’s just a nice thought that we are not alone in this constant darkness.”

“What are you complaining with those eyes of yours,” Cindy said and just looked into his predatory ‘color’. But in doing so she spotted how one of his eyes was pretty swollen, hidden before by the sidenes-dark. “What happened to your eye?”

“My eye… eye… yes, my eye,” Sam babbled and moved his bushy tail in between them. “I mean don’t you wonder why they don’t tell us about the brighten—”

“Sam, your eye.”

“Oh, yes… well she didn’t mean to, it just happened. She can’t always control herself and yea…”

“Your mother?” Cindy asked and got a nod. “Again? How could she!” Without even hesitating, she scooted closer to the resting fox and grabbed on his surprised head. The bump was there and his eye looked rather bloodshot, all signs of a pretty serious hit. She leaned away through a wheeze at her wrist and sighed sadly.

“So you want me to report things, and yet you still do nothing about… this,” she gestured at his eye.

“I can’t do that, it’s my mum. She’s just in a tough spot. It’ll get better, you’ll see.”

“You said that last time.”

“It’s going to be fine, trust me on this, Cinds.”

She scoffed in disagreement, but then gave a gesture of surrender as she grabbed his binoculars and stared at the stars.

“If there’s someone out there, do you think they’re looking at us right now?”

“Maybe, yea. We can give them a wave!” Sam suggested and flapped his paw at the sky. Cindy thought that was ridiculous, but couldn’t stop herself from joining in. It amused her so much that someone could be watching from above, that she even laughed.

Regressing back into the warmth of the blankets, she concluded, “What a week… I can’t wait for tomorrow to be over.”

“Then skip it.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Why?”

“I can’t skip school because I feel like it.”

“Who’d know that was why you skipped it?”

“I would.”

“Then you’re out of moves. I won’t be coming tomorrow either.” Cindy just stared at him with a certain level of remorse. “I don’t want to. I don’t like it there. All of it is so… boring and just useless.”

“Sam, this is the only way to the city. You can’t just quit.”

“I dunno… do I really want to go there?”

“Of course, we said that we’d go there together, remember?” Cindy shouted, suddenly fearful of the decisions that were playing out in front her very paws. Hesitation like this could lead to huge decisions that she did not like at all. Losing the only mal she could call friend was more excruciating than any fat fox biting off her paw.

“Do you believe things will be different in the city?”

“Yea!” she quickly said without a shadow of a doubt. Or was there doubt which she did not want to reflect on? Sam noticed the moment and gave her a suspicious eyebrow.

“Cinds, you see how you’re treated. You know it’s not much different with me. How they look down on me, push me around and demand, demand, demand!” he swung his claws in the air, to a wince of Cindy, who quickly tried to chase away that flash of fear. She didn’t want to make him think she feared him, because she didn’t. It was her stupid instincts.

“Teachers, students, mals on the road, family… demand-demand-demand!”

“Sam, it’s not ‘at bad,” she said and put her paw on his shoulder, “you’re a fox after all and—”

“What do you know about how bad it is?” She recoiled away from his snarl, the air around them weaving heavy in cautious anger. “You don’t have any family that expects things from you every day! How would you even know?!” he said with a pretty solid stare, and there didn’t seem to be room for regret to what had been said.

It kinda… hurt.

Instead of confronting him, or piping up in anger, she just sighed and hugged her knees, staring steadily into the wobbling flame of the candle that’d lost some of its height. It was pretty.

If only she was a bit luckier and hadn’t ended up all alone, the world would’ve been so much different, so much more pretty…

“I’d do anything to be in your paws,” he muttered, having hugged his own knees in turn. She didn’t look at him, but the words cut in sharply and twisted something in her heart that made her teeth to scrunch. What was the point in reacting? But this untamed rage was bubbling, simmering, boiling. She couldn’t stop her ragged breaths, this disrespectful row of opinions that had no clue about the extend of her suffering.

“Take that back,” she hissed.

“What?”

“Take that back!” this time she yelled, eyes wobbling in rage that was barely contained.

“Whe— no, I won’t take it back—”

“Take ‘at back right now, Sam.” She crawled to him and grabbed the side of his arms. “Take it, take it, take it!” was her babble of repeated shakes, but his muzzle has devolved to one of defiance. “There’s nothing aspiring. There’s no one there to help you, to tell you that you matter.” Her voice cracked but the rage seeped even harder, “I sleep in a closet under the stairs. Nobody cares what I do, if I’m even there, if I’m alive. I can’t see anything without my light. I can’t eat most food there is. The other kids look down on me because I’m a hare, a muncher.”

“So don’t’ you ever say you want to be in my paws,” she tearily added and just stared expectedly for his relent. Finally his eyes blinked and he breathed away.

“No… I don’t think I do,” Sam relented and scuttled away, her hold on him dropping and slapping to her thighs. She was glad that he had agreed but also suddenly she realized all the things she’d said, which instantly opened up her vulnerability like a seething wound.

Insignificance, futility, purposelessness: Sam’s questioning of himself and his goals had now transferred onto her mind, as the negativity that was usually kept hidden and locked had all poured out in droves of heated disappointment.

Why was she trying to go against the wind, why was she trying to prove anyone and anyself that the world could be different? Was it some sort of sadistic expression of her deepest desires of unbound lunacy of some sort of childish idea that she had aquired many years ago?

In that resentment of her thoughts and memories, she accidently stumbled on one which got her heart to skip and eyes to widen into the dark-away.

Oh, that was why.

Suddenly it all made sense, suddenly she could remember the why, the how and the when. It brought a sob of a smile as all that inner rage had been abrutply cut to a glimpse of a happy past.

But as so did it flood her mind did the realisation that it was never coming back, that what had pushed her to do what she was doing, it now seemed impossible, spineless…

Her knees came close and she put her head in them, fighting the urge of a sob that lightly came out through of flood of renewed emotions. She wanted to go back, to go back to those days she’d never change, when alone would be a word only privy to fiction and fears.

Something soft touched her side and wrapped around. It was startling and got her to find the bushy-gray tail of Sam who had fully regressed to remorse from his spot. She foun the gesture heartwarming and wrapped the tail in front of her. It was pretty nice to touch, despite the spots of hardened mud.

Before she could regret it, she scooted next to him and pushed herself in his side, tail wrapped around and fully held in added blanketing. What was the point in gnawing over the past and doubting the present? Maybe letting go would be the best thing, maybe the Cindy she thought of being was just a fancy story that she never believed in. And if that was true, might as well she closed the final page.

Breathing in the muddy musk of her friend, she stared again out of trunk and into the inky expanse, wondering if someone out there was looking back at her and thinking the same thing, being in the same spot, and choosing another fate…

“You’re right, Sam. What’s even the point…” she sighed and rubbed her head into his gritty shirt. “Why would anything be different just because I want it to be?”

Sam did not answer, did not move. Wind blew across the rim to a scent of petrichor, while the distant weather towers blinked rapidly in dangerous red.

It was time to go, but a few more minutes could still be spent in this nice embrace.

C3
Rag

Patters dripped above the frame of metal, splashing and bathing the old frame of the trunk. Wind rustled and creaked the ancient tree, bark scrunching and swaying above in a threatening and slow adverse. Certain chill was pushing through the gaps of the frame, slow flows of moisture creeping in and going down somewhere in the holes of the rusted chassis. But the air was incredible, cold and so refreshing, so nice to take in and hold.

Cindy and Sam had gone as far as possible into the depth of the trunk, covered in the blankets and staring into the golden hum of slow decay. They were meant to leave, but the embrace had been so nice that it had let time slip away to the calamity of the storm which had made the closing of the trunk quite the struggle. Cindy wasn’t sure she’d have managed without Sam’s help.

Now they were stuck in here, all because of a mistake then-deemed small. But the irritation had quickly drifted to amusement, as it seemed that they were sheltered from the icy patters, frosty winds. She’d have hated it if she was on her own, but having her friend by her side was truly perfect. She felt more at ease here than she would’ve back at her home.

“At least you’re already muddy. Maybe you can roll down the hill? Hehe,” she giggled and tugged his tail that was still wrapped around her.

“Laugh about it, but you’ll see,” he just muttered and she guessed that the filth was quite annoying him. She knew it wasn’t going to be easy to get down with the slosh and mulch, but at least they’d get to spend the night together.

What she wanted was to find out things they could talk about that normally would be tricky, due to the people around them or because of general anxieties.

“Soooo…” Cindy drew, wondering what to start with, tho emptiness was the main thing that came to mind, and it was pretty strange. “Where are you going to go?”

Sam fidgeted in the muffled patters. “No idea.” Cindy didn’t like that answer at all as it allowed for too much dangerous avenues. “I have wondered what’s beyond those red lights where the clouds are blackest.”

Cindy scowled at the discovered avenue of utter madness. Sure she found the idea quite intriguing to what was beyond the tall mountain peaks of ice, but it was common knowledge that access was restricted due to that exact danger.

“So what, you’re just going to walk over there? What about these storms, or those forests, or the swamps?”

“I’d like to, but no…” Sam agreed and snuggled closer to his knees and away from Cindy, who found the gesture a bit annoying. “What do you think would work?”

“I’m not encouraging you to do that!” she shoved against him with a threatening finger. “If you want to do that, maybe… maybe finish school and become part of a science team. Yea, that’s right,” she concluded happily, kinda surprised at herself for figuring out the idea so fast.

“Wait 10 years for a maybe? Pft,” Sam growled and moved further away. Why was he bing such a stupid fox?

“You don’t even know what’s out there. You know how it is. One day the air is breathable, another you need to hook to an oxygen tank. What if that happens out there and you run out of air, huh? Where you going to get your food? How will you keep warm?”

Sam’s mouth hung open and his lips looped through different attempts of words, all peaking at the final growl of surrender. “I’m not trying to stop you, Sam. But you need a plan, and for that you need to know things. The city can give you that, give us that. I know it!”

“How do you know? Huh? You say I don’t know anything, and that you know so much? How do you know!”

“Well, I… it makes sense—”

“You don’t know, you’re just guessing. You’ll end up a rag just like right now,” he spat with open claws playing in the light. Her nose was twitching and heart was racing, the fear of the predatory sharpness giving her a jolt. But then it was replaced with determination and anger.

“I am not a rag!” she shouted and got to her knees, the insult having pierced deep between her ribs. She grabbed the tail around her waist and threw him back at him, his scowl not portraying any surprise. “I am not. Just because I haven’t surrendered like you have, it doesn’t make me a rag. Take it back!” she demanded impatiently, finger pointed in accusation and insistence, yet the fox’s grimace only deepened.

Cindy growled under her breath and crawled away to the edge of the trunk where she pulled away some kind of metal plate. A sudden chill and freshness of air draped through the new hole, the muffle of rain becoming more direct and apparent.

With a rest of her head against the metal frame and wanting to be away from the insulting presence of her friend, she stared into the dark clouds and vicious rain that had beheld the horizon.

She couldn’t believe he had called her that, that he had not gone back on fixing his words. Yea, she had pushed quite hard and was trying to persuade him with reason, but how was this any fair, how was her getting called trash something a friend would do? A glance at the fox was warranted, finding him huddled with his muzzle between his legs. There was no certainty if he was sad, regretful or bored.

With a peer outside to the fresh and cold air, she stared at the distant red lights that flickered to the danger of this wild weather, a reminded of civilization and that things were still around, a society yet not fallen.

She was not a rag.

She was not… a rag.

She was anything but a rag.

C4
Afterstorm

Tick, tick, tick, tick…

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick…

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, ti—

“Cut it off,” urged the hare student at the front, staring in anticipation at Cindy who was fully lost in the dots scattered all across her notebook. Cindy just dropped her pen and cupped her face without even giving her classmate a glance. A scoff tore through, but she didn’t give it mind, couldn’t give it any mind, as her recent memories and experiences were the only threads to keep her attention.

The storm had been long and the dark silence crushing, tho at least she’d managed to catch on to some sleep. But whatever happened back there to the words that were exchanged, it had hurt Cindy a lot, despite Sam’s attempts to try to mend the situation.

Now all she wanted was for the last class to end so she can just go to her bed in darkness and cover herself from the noisy world. Somehow in not admitting defeat she actually had been defeated and crushed, for all her efforts now felt meaningless. This demotivation and loss of goals was horrible, and she had no idea how to fix that. Sam had broken her ideals.

“Schlops, did you take the notes?” asked the teacher, breaking Cindy’s pong of thoughts. She looked puzzled and rather annoyed at the foxy teacher who was patiently looking for an answer. A snicker came from the back of the room, one that Cindy knew to be of that fat white. But mostly what ticked her off was her name, her stupid silly name that made no sense.

She wanted to dodge the question, but somehow all that came out her mouth was, “Ye— no, ma’am.” There was visible surprise and a sudden encumbrance of irritation on the teacher’s brow.

“And why not? You don’t think it’s important to know the difference between canine teeth, molars and jaw density in vulpines?”

Cindy straight-out felt like laughing at that in the cacophony of her problems, but bit her lip to a shake of her head, choosing obedience than that of trouble, like those at the back of the room who were always making stupid noises. Yet, were they asked if they were taking notes? She couldn’t even remember the last time that had happened.

“You’ll copy them over from Karla, after class,” the teacher concluded and gracefully came to Cindy’s desk. “What’s this?” she asked and took the notebook, held carefully with her long-black claws. “It’s a drawing?”

Cindy just shook her head negatively. “So quiet today, did something happen?” the teacher asked, her soft gray face finding patience and calmness in the renewed demeanour.

“Donnoh— No,” Cindy corrected, realizing that it wasn’t the place and time to talk about what was on her mind, and the fox teacher seemed to have gotten the gist through a sigh. But then she took Cindy’s pen and started connecting the dots.

“Even with a blank canvas…” there was a face, “even with no ideas and answers…” there came the eyes and nose, “even when all hope seems lost,” there came the ears… wait, was that?

“You can do anything so long as you try more than your best,” she finished and put the pen away, lightly smiling at Cindy’s gawk to what appeared to be her own face drawn through connections of random dots on her notebook.

“Schlops-plops hard,” jeered that nasty voice from the back, tho this time it couldn’t get to Cindy as she just stared in awe of how her teacher had managed to pull this off in less than a minute. Truly a skill… that probably took a lot of effort.

“Jeronimo, come to the front,” the teacher demanded, turning on her soles and not even waiting for a retort. A few snickers rang around the classroom.

“Don’ wanna.”

“If you don’t want to, then don’t advertise everyone you do. Here, now.”

Cindy kept staring at the scribbled portrait of herself and in many ways felt a stir of emotion to that of determination. Her teacher, Marta, would rarely show such personal behavior. This uncommonness made the moment even so-more special. Frankly it was what she needed to put her mind away from the despondent future.

Steps stopped by her and a familiar scent made her nose wiggle, a familiar fear rising under her skin and making her heart pump faster. It was Jer, his white fur glistening in the calm lights of the classroom, his scowl deep and focused onto Cindy. But in his frustration she also saw nervousness, fear, uncertainty. Observation was ended as he shoved his paws in his pockets and slugged with slumped shoulders to the podium of the front.

“Now, tell the class about the characteristics of canine teeth.”

“What’s that?” Jar asked quietly, tho not subtle enough as Cindy’s tall ear caught the whole of his nervousness. A few of the predator students snickered which got him to instantly look at them with an angry blush.

“Teeth, yes, teeth. They are… are… long and sharp. And-and dig into flesh of munchers when we were on our fours,” he stanced, looking directly at the closest prey mals who’d huddled down their chairs from his rather aggressive attitude.

“None of the intelligent species that we know of have been on all fours, Jeronimo. But yes, canines are used to bite into flesh.”

“Grandpa tell me we were. Hunting hares and rabbits and rats and mouse.”

“There is no evidence to suggest that of ever happening. But it does make quite the interesting story, no?”

“You like them and you defend them!”

“Mind your manners, reynard,” Marta warned with a growl that raised all her hackles, a sight which instantly rushed adrenaline up Cindy’s arteries. Jer’s reluctance to back down was quickly extinguished as his ears and tail fell flat.

“Now, tell the class about the difference of jaw bone density between a fox and a wolf.”

“Um… density?”

“Yes, density.”

“Like, how big it is?” Jer gestured widely with his white paws.

“No, Jeronimo, it’s about strength.”

“Strength? Oh! Um, foxes have much more powerful jaw than those wolf-sies. That’s for sure!” he piped up excitedly, as if having discovered something incredible for all to hear. Cindy was puzzled at this enthusiasm, but what she was even more puzzled was the shock and discomfort that Marta was so obviously betraying. But she wasn’t looking at the fox, her eyes were staring at the exit door where there was… nobody…

Marta coughed into a fist and commented, “As much of a funny joke it was, how about a serious answer.”

“I can crunch through a bone faster than them!”

“Well, how about you show the class then,” Marta conceded and opened her desk drawer, rummaging for a little bit until a yellowed piece of big, long bone came about. “This is the femur of a male wolf,” she started, the long bone visibly overtaking her forearm. She got close to the white fox and slapped the femur against his own, protruding from his waist fully down to his ankle. “Now, even a wolf would struggle with this, but with some discomfort the bone would ultimately succumb to a fracture and a snap.”

Jar seemed rather wide-eyed at the length of bone that was still pushed against him. “Now, would you like to show everyone how you snap it in two?” she asked at the young fox, who now seemed rather embarrassed. “Maybe just a fracture, a small one?” she tried again, a sort of jeer twirling around her teeth.

“I don’t want to,” he relented and crossed his paws. Marta stared at him for a while, whispers going around the class about the size of the bone and how Jar looked ridiculously small next to it. Cindy was also quite surprised at what she was seeing, tho her curiosity was mainly focused at the strange behaviour the teacher had exhibited. Her warm nature had drained to one of despondency and jeer, rather abnormal to see and feel, even with someone such as Jar.

Marta ducked and put her muzzle close to Jar’s ear, whispers that even Cindy could not detect with her long ears. For a bit the young fox stood defiant, but then his expression morphed to shock and fear which were something that Cindy had never seen before. Yes, humiliation, anger or frustration, but not fear.

“Take a seat,” Marta said and the young fox quickly skipped to the back of the room, not even giving Cindy a mocking glance like he’d usually do. His ears and tail was down, and none of it made any amount of sense. Were there words so powerful that they could break someone’s resolve in the matter of a blink?

Her curiosity soured real quick as she realized that those words did exist and that they truly did have that tremendous power, which she herself had personally experienced yesterday. There was no interest to be found in what Jar had been told, as she reminisced on her own troubles that Marta had managed to briefly erase with her encouragement.

“The jaw bone density of an adult male wolf is 410 kilograms per square centimetre. An adult male fox is around 132 kilograms. That’s 3.1 times more in strength. No further comparison can be made between these values.”

Cindy turned her page and hastily jotted down the information, suddenly remembering that effort mattered, and that despite what was said and done she shouldn’t just let everything fall apart because of a random inconvenience. Yes, Sam did make a lot of sense, but why did his beliefs and ideas have to suddenly become her own? Couldn’t she have her own vision of what life can be, instead of trying to cater to his own… stupidity?!

Her pen scrunched and she felt a surge of anger block out her hearing, and no matter how much she tried to focus it away, she couldn’t hear what Marta was saying.

This pressure in her head kept going and going, until she growled and grabbed her head with both paws, trying to squeeze out the throbs that deafened her perception.

There was no idea for how long she’d sat there like that, holding onto her throbbing head, but when the classroom’s lights dimmed and a red light blinked above the chalkboard, Cindy realized that most her class had already left, only a few classmates here and there, lazily picking up their stuff in muffled chatter.

Black chalkboard was filled up with words and anatomical drawings of bones, teeth and claws, which meant she’d missed out on a lot of information, she’d missed out on a lot of time. Yet, she hadn’t been reprimanded, hadn’t been asked to focus? What if she was, yet hadn’t heard it? Yet nobody had come close, nobody had tried to get her to focus…

In a despondent sigh, Cindy sadly stood and slowly put her things into her leather backpack, giving short glances around the wooden classroom for who was left. A few predators and prey classmates, grouped next the window and commenting on how soon it’d get dark, windiness blowing the trees around the school in the evening’s last light.

Warmth of the room was much more sought, but it was time to go to her room, a place she found tricky to call home. So she took steps away to the opened exit, wooden planks creaking under her bare feet.

But just as she was making a turn at the frontest row, Marta’s voice stopped her track, “Schlops, go to and wait in front of my office.”

Cindy cringed at her name but cut off the reaction on the spot with the replacement of confusion that Marta did not even validate, as she wiped off the chalk from the blackboard, detailed drawings of teeth, bones and skulls losing fade to each swipe of sponge.

What was there to ask or argue about? Nothing. Maybe she’d even enjoy the further distraction from having to wonder in the exitless loops of nonsense.

With creaky steps at the cold draft, she got into the darker corridor where the chill gave her body a rattled shake. Heating was only reserved for active rooms, and only a few of them had windows to the world outside, the rest buried into the ground. Despite that she didn’t at all like the temperature, not when used to the nice warmth of the classroom.

Tucking her ears under her leather jacket and slipping on her gloves, she headed to the staircase. Coldness spread under her feet with a slow tingle as the bareness of her fur tapped against the beige tiles, which coated the corridors in different states of quality’s cracks and glaze.

Visibility was quite limited in the low hum of the ceiling lights that were spread sporadically, leaving off black patches of darkness every so often. There were only a few students that were waiting in front the vending machine with its limited goodies of stale bread and small quantities of sugar.

There never was enough and Cindy doubted the last in line would have a chance to get anything of taste. But what made her scrunch her teeth was her higher sensitivity of the cold. It was lacerating her fur and reaching her bone and marrow.

On a cold day it’d be acceptable, when the white snow would cover the streets and fields, but today had no such imprints, no such reason.

Exasperated from having to do that right now, she sought the closest bench and sat tiredly, her view of the moment being the three-mal line at the quiet vending machine that looked rather empty. It was two hares and a rabbit, or maybe a younger hare who was shorter, Cindy couldn’t easily tell.

“Hey, leave me the rolley buns.”

“Y’ wish,” said the hare using the machine, pushing aside the wifmal who angrily grumbled. It was Karla, her classmate who sat right in front of her from whom she was supposed to copy notes.

With irritation from the selfishness that was playing out in front of her, Cindy reached into her backpack and got out two rolls of leather straps, pulled her foot up and began wrapping one around her sole and toes, being careful to properly wedge the end at the top so it wouldn’t poke her sole with good grip.

Her fingers were left in the open as it was mostly her sole which was bringing her the frosty discomfort, wraps coiling one on top the other in tangible tightness, until she got to her ankle where she used a thread-like-lace to set it in place.

“That fox wreally be an idiot-one, mouthing all that rubbish,” said the bun-eating hare, having leaned to the side of the vending machine and looking at Karla who was counting her few wooden coins. “Doubt we’ll be seeing him next year.”

“Why?” Karla asked.

Cindy grumbled quietly to a few twitchy ears and got working on her other foot, both curious and annoyed at the conversation she wanted to not be privy to.

“Why! You know why…” the wermal hare said, and Cindy tried a bit harder to remember his name, to no avail. “You just can’t say those things he said. He has to know his place. Just like us.”

Last words of the hare made Cindy to slow her wraps and to stare at the tiles, a sudden urge of nose twitching playing up to the surge of emotions. Yes, it made sense and was what was commonly accepted, but somehow it only fueled some deep hatred within her core, a re-enactment to what had happened yesterday in the trunk with Sam.

“Stupid-stupid,” she murmured in agitation that could not be tamed.

“You said something?” the wermal hare asked, but she didn’t even give him a glance, just grabbed for the thread and pulled it tight in place.

“It’s Cindy. Don’t bother her.”

“What? Why?”

“She’s no—” Karla zipped her mouth, the opened paper bag showing off small forms of stale potato chips.

“Whass our place then, huh?” Cindy shot, looking dead-center into the taller wermal’s eyes.

“Um… hi to you too,” he said and looked away at Karla and the other quiet hare. But nobody said anything, and Cindy kept up her expectant stare. “What?”

“Tell whass our place?”

“I don’t… follow.”

“You said, ‘He’s to know his place, just like us.’ Whass our place?”

“Just tell her,” Karla whispered at the wermal hare who was too perplexed and confused.

“We’re prey. We are wreally not supposed to interact with preds. And if they do, we wlisten and do. We are underneath ‘em.”

“So we’re munchers with 1 brain cell for them?”

“Yes.”

“I don— Yo—”

“Cindy, can you please leave?” asked Karla. It cut off Cindy’s momentum to a long gawk as she was processing all her internal confusion to why her fellow lagomorphs behaved so latently, so weak. And then being asked to go away? It got her to experience of high grade of disrespect. All that now was aimed at the vermal hare.

“Whass wrong with ya and not wanting to share? Tiss gonna cost ye so much of your life to give her one bun? Bah!” Cindy shouted and shot away to get her backpack, not even a second interested in trying to stay around these sedated classmates.

Something formed on her tongue and she felt like wanting to share it with a shout just as she neared the staircase door, but as she turned around she saw the vermal hare giving Karla his bun, which put a sharp stop to Cindy’s bubbling rage. Her mind was made, there were no need for words any further.

C5
Jar

With a renewed step down further into the ground, she traversed 3 levels and got to the section where the teacher offices were. Further down was not lit and she knew it was where the lower level toilets and janitor was, not a place she normally dared to go to due to the darkness that her eyes failed to pierce.

Here the corridor into the teacher offices was covered in thick carpet in vibrant red and many fragments of shapes and forms of predators, prey and buildings. Cindy shoved her paws into her pockets and took a slower step, rather enjoying the added warmth that underground was offering, plus the padded steps of comfort under her feet.

Portraits of teachers that were deceased were hung on the walls, boards filled with names of students of excellence, filled with dates for exams and timetables of studies. Flower pots with tall plants gave life to the stones and tiles and carpet, UV lights humming into their deciduous leaves.

Cindy wondered why the student hallways were so barren and gray in comparison, why their walls only had schedules and dates without any accompanied acoustic, tangible and visual comfort.

Even the benches were nicely cushioned, put before nicely varnished tables where mugs with names stood. If a mug like that was left anywhere in the student area, it’d be gone in less than a minute.

She rounded a corner of an intersection of corridors, knowing soon to get close to Marta’s office. There was that nicely cushioned spot she could get comfy while waiting for the teacher. Maybe there’d be time to have a quick snack from whatever leftovers were in her paper bag?

But then she saw familiar white fur and a familiarly long muzzle, which only went on to sour her mood and pull out those certain notes of fear. He did not look at her and appeared slumped into that same spot she was thinking about. Part of her shouted to just go away from the horrible fox, but she scowled and just silently got closer.

Was he asleep?

Softening her step she took great caution in sneaking by, partially interested in giving more observation to his appearance, now that she couldn’t be caught doing so by him.

His jacket was put off and only his short-sleeve shirt was in the way. His ears had slumped at an angle, his muzzle and eyebrows were relaxed, giving off a feeling of inhostility, and his posture was slumped. This gave him off looking smaller and harmless. Cindy noticed the scars on his shoulder where fur hadn’t yet regrown. It looked deep, nasty and red. It got her to touch her own that the same fox had caused just a day ago.

Sudden rage overtook her and she felt the need to go over and hit him straight in the throat. But in her overview of his body, she noticed that he was lanky, a bit too lanky as the small tanktop was actually kinda big for him. She’d always thought of him being a fat fox, but how often would he be seen without his jacket or longsleeve shirt?

He stirred, a sudden deep inhale making Cindy’s breath stop, as she realized how close she’d gotten to him, her breaths having been rapid and her heart raging.

His eyes snapped open and that calmness turned into a snarl, yet the eyes kept blinking rapidly as the obvious issue of focus was quite at play.

Instead of making a noise or running away, she stood still and just stared at him. She didn’t want to show him she was afraid or that she had done something she wasn’t supposed to. After all, he was in her favourite seat.

“I wasn’t— It’s that—” he rubbed at his eyes and pulled himself up a bit, the tallness of his body taking shadow. “I did— ugh? What do you want?” he asked and slumped back with crossed paws, suddenly aggression coming into tone.

“It’s my seat,” she pointed, her scowl deepening at the confused white fox.

“Eh, now it’s mine. What you gonna do about it, schlopsie-schlops?” he insulted through a malicious smirk. Cindy’s teeth showed up and she wanted to say many things, yet what was the point? She wanted to lash out and fight him here and now, that fear that would usually overwhelm her, for some reason it wasn’t acting up. Yet there was something else, as if she didn’t care.

“Nothing ye’v not done yourself,” she retorted apathetically and moved on the other side of the same table, taking on a seat closest to the open side. Hunger beckoned and she was sure there was something left in there that would at least give tiny satiation for another hour. Sure the vending machine could’ve helped even if what was left was stale bread, but she wasn’t spending her woodies on trivia like that.

All attempts were made to not give him even a tiny glance, even if he was shuffling around in his spot. But when he tried to put back his jacket, an evil smirk played out her words.

“Hiding how bony ye are?”

“No! What’s it to you, muncher,” he snarled and threw the jacket in front of her. She gave him a nonplussed glance to what was obviously a weak retort. “I’m not weak. Foxes are slim, it’s what we are.”

“That why ya put it on?” she pointed at his jacket, getting him to also stare at it.

“I— I was cold.”

“Then put it on.”

“No, no, I’m good,” he digressed and looked away to what she thought was embarassement which made her scoff maliciously. His eyes narrowed on her, and then she burst out laughing, suddenly feeling light and rather invigorated. She used to think he was much more stupid, hostile and dangerous. But somehow all of that was falling apart as an impression.

“You’re an awful mal, you know that, Schlopsie?” he snarled. “That’s why nobody likes you, because you act like you’re better than everyone else, like they are beneath your gnarly feet.”

Her eyes got her to look at her feet real quick, feeling somewhat self-conscious about them for a tiny bit. But after realizing it was more an insult than an observation she pointed a finger at him and shot back, “I don’t care if I’m liked. Ya do. Ya have no idea how ye’re talked about behind your back. It even disgusts me.”

“Who!” he called in balled fists, his posture going into the table and closer to Cindy, who heart had skipped a beat at the potential violence that could unfurl. Yet, something was fuelling her resolve, and she couldn’t pinpoint that.

“Anyone’s who’s afraid of ya,” she answered after thinking things through and wanting the heaviest impact of her words. His expression morphed through satisfaction to regret, until it reached sadness.

“You afraid of… me?” he asked, the cockiness or anger not lingering in those words. She got taken aback, the urge to say an instant no playing on her tongue. But deceit and lies were not something she liked, and somehow despite the vulnerability of answering truthfully, she found a way to remain tough.

“Yes, ya make me afraid.” She played nervously with one of her ears, eye contact devoid of adression. “But that means nothing to me,” her words shot, a stare of determination boring into the wide-eyed fox. “Because ye are an angry, wicked cub who enjoys hurting others!”

“No I don’t,” he quickly tried to defend himself, visible perplexity playing out that Cindy did not accept as sincere.

“No? No?!” she stood up onto the seat leaning over the bigger table and staring at the shocked fox. “That why ya bit me? That why ya clawed me? That why ya hate me?” she shouted trembling, waiting for any reaction, but all he could do was gawk and stay still. “Fuck you, liar.”

Her heart was boiling, her clothes were constricting and she was overheating. She wanted him to react, to show his true self and to cement her opinion of who he was.

His snarl was twitching, but there also was some kind of duality that did not allow for what exactly she was expecting. That did not satisfy her, it made her even madder. “Admit it. Just, admit it,” she climbed onto the table, towering over him and pointing that finger of prosecution.

His teeth were all out, and the snarl was all in the open, red lines intermixed with white and ebony. Her adrenaline was in her every vessel and it was impossible to hold off her sporadic shaking.

Just as the tensions had reached a point where she was to get exactly what she wanted, his snarl fell and he looked away in what could be considered humiliation.

Her stance slacked and all she could do was look at him in utter puzzlement. What on terra had just happened?

But there was no backing off. She wanted an answer, demanded an answer to be given to her so she can prove to herself that she was right, that he was a piece of mangy fur.

“I didn’t mean to…” he mumbled, tho her precise ears got every single note of that. Had he just said that he hadn’t meant to hurt her?

“Ya laughing at me?”

“It was wrong…” he muttered and his eyes showed remorse that she’d never seen in him. Surge of confusion and frustration took over Cindy’s limp paws, and she sought for the closest thing to grab, Jar’s jacket, which she just threw at him with a muffled scream.

She held her paws over her ears upon which she pulled, trying to stop the lake of emotions that was currently swimming in her spiked blood. But she couldn’t say anything, couldn’t do anything. So she just got off the table and sat, crossing her paws and staring at the guilty fox.

Quietness persevered for a long while, only a few teachers passing by the corridor and giving the both of them odd looks. Cindy would get some small specks of food, while wondering if the world she was in right now was real. Her dislike and hatred of Jar was reducing, and she disliked that part a lot.

“Haven’t reported what ya did yet,” Cindy brought up all of a sudden, not knowing what she wanted to get from that. Maybe she wanted to see what he thought about that, maybe she wanted him to call her a coward as a way to betray his prior words.

“Will you?”

“Ya think I shouldn’t?”

“Go, tell them everything. You think I’m scared? That’s all you prey are good for, leaving others to solve your problems because you’re weak and cowards.”

“If that’s the case, what does that make you, Jaromey?” she asked calmly to the fangs and slits, which was equal to her hitting him over the face with a wet fish. He grumbled, put on his jacket and walked away from the table without saying another word.

Cindy didn’t feel content with that, touching on the stinging wound of her neck that only bled as a reminder of violence and malice. Yet she could not banish the feeling of sadness for his situation of confusion and regrets.

Certain ideas roamed her mind of her legs carrying her right in front of him, putting forth how she fully felt about him and the things that she wanted to do that involved his skull and the floor.

Ended up just shoving her fingers into the paper bag and bringing out a stale potato chip to-be-eaten. Notebook was slipped out and opened at the artistic page that had made her reconsider things during class.

There it was, her face, staring back with a tug of smile with hope in those big eyes that sought her own. Sort of deep appreciation squirmed around her heart to Marta’s sweet gesture of encouragement.

Grumble of Jar got her to look at him with a scowl, not wanting him to get close and see the personal thing that was done just for her. She knew he’d ruin it so taking that chance was a major no-no.

Laughter bounced from around the corridor, and Cindy was quick to turn the page to older Biology notes, not wanting any eyes on the prize. Speech that followed then did sound familiar enough to put her at ease, as Marta then appeared from the corner and took spring to her office. Cindy smiled up at the gray fox teacher who gave her a little affirming nod, proceeding quicker to her door, unlocking it and telling Jar to get inside.

Before she closed the door, Cindy got one last look which told her enough.

Now it was time to wait.

C6
Marta

Lines, lines, reaching other lines, forming different shapes, giving meaningful takes. For letters they shaped and words they scraped. Conjunctions and nouns forming meaningfully thoughtful towns.

It ended with a fullstop that Cindy sought as end, smiling at the train of thought she’d had, for what better use of time than that to discover and unravel her position’s at.

A while had it been since Jar had entered Marta’s office, and Cindy more than at least ten times fought the urge to get close and give eavesdrop the satiation it deserved. Yet she did not like the idea of getting caught doing that, as well as disliking someone doing that to her to begin with.

Don’t do the things you don’t want done to yourself, that as sure was a personal philosophy that kept her back from getting ahead, but she as hell believed in it, or at least wanted to.

Cindy yawned and swung her feet in simmering impatience as she had no idea what she was being called for, while also wanting to occupy herself with something productive, which did not take into account mental torture of dead ends.

Of course this situation provided her with a perfect opportunity to report Jar’s assault, especially since he himself was being taken in and talked to for whatever reason. It was going to be perfect, and he’d take so much heat for his mistakes. It’d be justice.

But was it justice? Would anything substantial really happen to him? If she recalled correctly rules somehow worked differently for every species, and that was something that just ticked her off.

Figure emerged from around the corner, tall with certain a hunch and silent as death. It got Cindy to recoil audibly from the startle, thinking that somehow her thoughts had been heard and that someone was coming to punish her for them.

Slim figure walked quickly to her and just stopped. Cindy was sure she’d seen this brown wolf somewhere, at least more than once. Her clothes were of a dark green colors, mixed in with grey. It was a padded leathery hoodie, it’s hood drawn back before her acute ears, with slick trousers of premium fabric. Didn’t look like the wolf needed feet wraps, those feet were probably pretty durable on their own.

“What are you doing here, Cindy?” she asked eloquently, taking Cindy aback in startle to how this mal she didn’t know one bit knew her name, name that was used by those who knew her and her dislike to the other one. “You have been asked a question.”

“Ah, waiting… waiting for Ma— to be called into my teacher’s office,” she pointed at the closed door that was yet to be emptied-off a certain fox.

“What for?”

“Dunno, was told to go ‘s all,” Cindy said and wondered to the point of this questioning. There was resistance within her that wanted to defy and not answer any of it, yet she felt this immense pressure to just comply.

The wolf leaned against the wall, paws still hidden in her pockets, gaze sternly resting upon Cindy’s discomfort. But after a bit the gaze lifted and she looked to the office, visibly deliberating many things at once.

“You were not in your room yesterday restnight,” she said with scrunched brows in deepening distrust. Cindy tried to stop her mouth from spoiling her chance of exit, but all this silence was just digging her own hole which by every elapsed second was just an irreversible chasm.

“No,” she just answered due to seeing no way out. Wolf’s eyes widened to a change of a smile.

“Explain yourself,” she pulled out her heavily clawed paw, long lines of sharp obsidian glinting in the hum of light. It was startling at first, making Cindy’s ears flop loudly, a flinch of her own that got her to look around herself in confusion.

“I um—” she tried, the sudden startle that her ears did doing no favours to her concentration. Wolf’s paw retracted back into her pocket, making the instinctive race of heart dull down a notch. “Was hard day. Wanted to be alone.” Cindy waited to see if that would be pleasingly enough, but the wolf waited… waited… waited.

Hell was expected of her?! “Through fields, to forest at opening. Then look at New Unity.”

“By yourself?”

“With the storm,” Cindy quickly reacted, realizing how she’d tried to hide the fact that Sam was there, or the exact location of the scrappy vehicle.

“Uncharacteristic,” she murmured and got both paws out, gracefully shortening the distance and getting slowly close to Cindy’s face, whose nose was picking up twitching-mad. Black oily nose flared air in, tongue lapping at sharp teeth in sweetening of her Cindy’s flavour. This was wrong, invasive. It was making all her instincts scream in bellows.

The eyes glared, and Cindy felt like wanting to elaborate further, just so she can make this… this predator to go away.

“You are your father’s coat, be it so,” she sighed and pulled away, taking careful step towards Marta’s office. Cindy was at a loss of words, the mention of her father springing up a can of worms.

“My fa— what you?” she tried to get the attention, but the wolf did not turn around. The disrespect made Cindy to drop on the carpet and run at the wolf who was rapping at the door. “What ya know about him?!” Cindy demanded, making the wolf turn around in puzzlement.

“Tell me,” Cindy uttered, her accusatory finger pointing murder at the long figure. But instead of an explanation, anger, authority, the wolf put down her hood, exposing white spots around her ears, and then she squatted down, so that Cindy was looking down on her.

“It’s just a figure of speech, Cindy,” she said warmly, her tail wagging quite slow on the carpet. “Who did that to your neck?”

Sudden change of course managed to defuse her reluctance to accept the answer, which only made her react rebelliously to anger, “Nobody.”

Her paw was grabbed, enough force to keep her in place, but not hard enough to cause pain. Wolf growled, “You are lying.” But as her snarl reverberated across the walls, her teeth hid and she let go, putting back her hood and standing up. Cindy had no idea how to respond. Obviously someone had done it, so she wasn’t sure why she felt so offended at being called a liar.

“I am no liar!” she shouted, feeling all the urge to spill all the carrots, but a sort of rock was stuck in her throat which made it a struggle of the ancients. Wolf did not turn, did not say, did not react.

Door creaked open that made Cindy snap back to reality, seeing Jar come out with eyes filled with dread and distance. “Come now, Jarome,” wolf said as she grabbed him by the arm, pulling him on the corridor’s track and away from the office. He did not resist, did not say anything, did not even give Cindy a single glance.

Door was half open, giving way to the desk and Marta whose muzzle point up and words came as, “Come in.”

“Get my bag—”

“It’ll be fine. Come in,” Marta assured the indecisive Cindy. How could it be alright, what if someone swooped and took it? She didn’t trust the words and hurriedly went back, took her belongings and then entered the small office with the thunk of the wooden door.

It wasn’t an unfamiliar place, as she had been called here many times during her years, and it never ceased to amaze her how the place was just stuck in time with its changeless nature. Bookshelf with books, desk with papers, cupboard with cutlery, dishes and plates, electrical hob with the tea kettle, coat and hat hangers just next to the door.

Cindy didn’t even wait to be invited and sat on the chair, adjusting the levers beforehand to prop it high so she can see over the desk.

It smelled a lot of fox musk, and it was somehow not pleasant. She didn’t remember smelling Jar to have that scent when they were at the table, but from that dejected stare something quite damning must’ve occurred here. She wanted to ask, but shut her jaw. What, was she now concerned about him? This made her remember the claw marks on her neck, which she covered by raising her shirt’s collar.

“Put your notebook on the desk,” Marta said and got up, reaching for the boiling kettle and grabbing an additional mug. Cindy did as she was asked with a delay, finding her thick note book and carefully putting it on the middle of the desk.

“If you look back on all the things you did that got you to this moment, what drove you to keep going?” Marta said, using a tea ball of shiny chrome that spread darkened liquid into the teapot.

“Dunno…” Cindy raised her shoulders and gave a warming embrace to herself. Question was rather hard to answer as it was something she had struggled with a lot. “Think I just drifted… Expectations?”

Marta slowed down the pouring of hot tea, giving a look of affirmation. “Whose expectations?” Mug was now filled up, another one getting clawed close.

“Um… other mals? Teachers? Yours?” she drew, unsure which answer was the right one.

“And what are my expectations?”

“Get excellent score and study hard,” Cindy blurted, suddenly feeling embarrassed for finding so much excitement in the answer. But the reassuring smile made that blush go away, and tea poured into the 2^nd mug.

Marta put it close to Cindy, the scent of lavender ticking in warmthy air. Cindy took it and held the nice heat in her paws, waiting a bit until it was ready for enjoyment.

“What’s taking you away from this path, Cindy?” Marta asked, the use of the name Cindy preferred widening her eyes. Marta would nearly always use the official one, yet why not now? What could really be answered, the truth? But what even was the truth when uncertainty was all that breathed dust in her mind.

“Whass am I walking path for?” Cindy asked, a question being the most sensible thing she could bring to the desk, warmth of the tea nicely spreading across her paws. Soon he could sip.

Marta breathed and looked at the mirror on the door. “A better life for yourself. Better opportunities.”

“I… dunno if that matters to me,” Cindy sighed, taking a risk of sipping the dark liquid, which burned her pink tongue. Marta was scowling, her claws tapping in rhythm on her mug she then put down. Marta walked back and forth in her musings of thought, until she got to the bookshelf and attentively took parchment wrapped in foil.

“Make space in the middle, please,” she told Cindy whose ears went up in compliance as she did as asked, and Marta opened the rolled parchment, the old leather softly rustling as it showed its guts.

Schematics of dimensions, sewer lines, electrical positions, roadways, rooms of different floors, detailed information for insulation properties and soil density, humidity calculation and water resistance, structure material density… Cindy had no idea what most of the information meant and how it was supposed to be used, but it gave a full picture of what she knew to be her school. Was it really this huge? She didn’t know there were more levels further down from the basement below.

“I see you figured out what you’re looking at,” Marta smiled, putting weight on each corner so the schematics wouldn’t roll back. “This is the work of my great-great-great-great grandmother, Eng. Varlian Jenn. Maybe I forgot a few more ‘greats’ but the point stands: she took care of herself and developed invaluable skills. These skills then gave her opportunities like the one before you. And if not for herself, the work she did became invaluable to the workers, to the teachers and to the students who would then reap the fruits of her labor.”

Cindy stared, trying pretty hard to follow the thought-expressed, and slowly she was realizing what exactly Marta meant.

“Is this something you think would matter to you? If not for yourself, you can do it for the benefit of others, so they can have a better life than that of yours.” Cindy was now staring into her tea, sniffing the humid waves as they rose, a tiny reflection looking back at her wide eyes. Was this something that mattered to her? Did she want others to walk the road of suffering? Did she want injustice to reign supreme? Bigotry, violence, inequality?

Cindy frowned, grip tightening around the porcelain. Her lips licked and she gulped the bitter taste which made her gag, yet some sort of smokey aftertaste lingered on her tongue which made her in puzzled appreciation. Another sip was taken and the gag came no more. This was really good.

“Think I understand, ma’am. Think it’s something that might matter to me.”

“That’s so good to hear, sweetheart,” Marta smiled, her shorter claws rubbing together as she put her paws into and embrace. A rare sight, rare gesture.

“Can I really do it?” Cindy asked, seeking desperately the right answer, no matter how complex and long it would be.

“Yes,” Marta only said, her eyes unwavering and dedicated at the gawking Cindy. A sudden surge of warmth spread all across her and giddiness tickled in her belly. This brought up a long and genuine smile as she allowed herself to enjoy the cup of tea further.

“What is that?” Marta asked urgently, head tilting and eyes narrowing. What was she looking at? Someone at the door? The wall? “On your neck. What is that?” she asked again, the tone angry and fully serious. Cindy realized a bit slow what was meant and tried to tuck up the collar and hide the marks. Somehow it had been pushed down and had exposed those nasty wounds. She could use this perfect moment to put that white fox in his place, to make him see that his actions have severe consequences, to enact justice.

And yet her tongue stayed still and her mind felt indecisive. For some reason she did not want to do that, for some reason she thought that nothing would come of it and that this way was not the way. Somehow she wanted it to be her who makes him see the errors of his ways…

“It’s nothing. Doesn’t matter. I fell in thornbush too, took a bad path home. Didn’t see it,” she dodged and weaved through the web of honesty, failing to outright just lie and ending up saying about the thornbushes in her ridiculously flawed attempts of deceit. It made her happy, and it also got her steaming-mad.

But Marta stood up and swiftly got close, slowly reaching her paw to Cindy head, whose nose flared up at the sight of claws getting close. Still, she stood still and looked from the side, not wanting to appear disrespectful or to showcase her fear at the similar claws she’d remember slashing her throat yesterday.

“This does not look like thornbush… No…” Marta ran her knuckle over the wound that brought about a wince. “Claw marks. Cindy,” she shot, kneeling down and grabbing her by both arms. “Who clawed you?” Cindy gaped her eyes, confused and shocked at the sudden care that played out in utter horror. Did Marta actually care that much?

But Cindy only looked to the side in embarrassment, not wanting to lie yet also not wanting to tell the truth.

“I see. I’ll find out another way,” Marta relented after the long silence of patience, getting up and stretching her paws with a brush off against her blue trousers. She got to her desk and unlocked something, pulling out a glass bottle with a strange crimson color. “How did you treat it?”

“Soap, water,” Cindy said, trying to not be seen looking and focusing on her leftovers of strong tea. It was kinda giving her a sort of rush in her heart. It was getting a bit uncomfortable to be sitting.

Marta came around and looked to be holding a linen bandage that was soaked in the crimson red. “Tilt to the side.” Cindy did so, pain spreading across her severed flesh. Real quick she felt cold drops spreading fire on her wound. She yelped from shock but stiffened her fists. “Hold still. Clawings can be fathal. This is on your neck, right next to the artery to your brain. An infection can be deadly.”

Bandage pushed against her wound, a quick wrap of linen going around her neck and getting tightened-up.

“Make sure it stays there until tomorrow. Tighten it if it loosens, understand?” Cindy nodded in affirmation at the gesture. “Now go home, Schlopps,” she finished and stepped away, moving off the items from her desk and preparing to roll back the parchment.

Cindy touched on her wound, the burning reducing and giving her a sort of relief. With a quick swing she drank the leftovers of tastiness and jumped off, grabbing her backpack and skipping to the door from all this energy.

“Moment,” Marta called, bringing Cindy’s ears to fall and shoulders to sag. What now? As she turned back she saw Marta holding Cindy’s notebook forward.

“Oh, heh,” Cindy grumbled awkwardly and skipped back to pocket her thick notebook.

“Make sure to copy over the rest of the lesson’s notes that you missed.”

“Of course, of course,” Cindy nodded squeakily and ran to the door, jumping up to grab the handle and pulling it down to a tasty click of open. But then she stopped in the doorframe, thinking, pondering, feeling a sort of deep flutter that made her heart swell.

“Thank ya, Marta. This… was everything,” Cindy beamed, unsure how she had dared to say the fox’s first name. But Marta did not scowl, did not bare fangs. She smiled truthfully and gave a friendly wave.

With a pull at the side of the door that closed, Cindy moved quick down the carpet to the destination of the staircase, new energy and excitement carrying her steps to the future.

If not for myself, then for the benefit of others.

C7
Goodbye

Pushing against the thickly reinforced door, a gush of hard draft air dashed between Cindy’s ears to en ebb of darkness and cold. She braced her eyes and did her best to slide between the small opening that the wind was making tremendously tricky to hold.

Loud crunch got the door to close, a muffle playing from inside she guessed to be of the security guard whom she’d passed by mere moments ago. Hugging herself close to the distasteful chill the late day carried. Orange weak hum illuminated the surrounding stones that marked the entrance to the school.

She walked down the step to the courtyard of yellow-short grass and pine bushes of well-groomed shapes. She couldn’t see anyone around and felt a tingle of dread to the loneliness. The sky was heavy, laden with thick clouds that dropped speckles of melting snow.

It’d take a bit of walking for her to get back home and the journey was never fun in the blackness that asked for her to constantly crank her light for guidance. It’s why she wondered if she can just go back to the school and crash somewhere in a storage closet, but there was no way she could sneak by the wolfish guard. His smell and vision were too much to try and outplay.

So she forged down on the cobbled path, passing by small mounds, fences, bushes and benches, until she reached the basketball court and noticed some student playing in the shorts and shirts.

Suddenly the hard weight drifted off her heart and she was happy to see mals outside. Hurriedly she skipped through the crunchy grass and got to the fenced-off court where she took a seat, trying to see if she knew the players.

It was 2 hares, 1 of them being the guy from the vending machine… and a fox…

“Sam!” she shouted, twitching the fox’s ears just as he was rushing with the basketball to score, leading to the hare smacking it out of his paw and taking the lead. But Sam didn’t react and waved back at Cindy as he took step in her direction.

Excitement filled warm blood in her exposed toes and she flashed through so many words, sentences and ideas that she wanted to share with him, forgetting the woes of yesterday and cherishing the newfound answers Marta had helped her discover.

“Cinds, hey,” Sam said with a carried skip in his step. He seemed in goods spirits too as maybe he’d figured to stop the nonsense of rebellion and to follow the path of usefulness.

“Ey, Sam.” He sat next to her, breathing rapidly from all the dribbling he’d done. “You’ve got a bandage.”

“Um, yea. I do.” She felt him adjust the white linen up a bit and gave him a rather puzzled eye. All the words were stuck in her throat and she had no idea where to even start. So they just sat and watched the 2 hares battle each other by running and dribbling left and right.

“Cmon, I’ll keep you company.” He stood and gestured away, leaving foot without even waiting for her acknowledgement. It felt strange, uncharacteristic, forced. Wasn’t he going to put something warmer and get his backpack? Wait, he was already far away!

Quickly she caught up to the hasty fox, and she grumbled her discontent, “Ya getting cold. Where your jacket?”

“I’m alright.”

“Mhm. This mean ya back?” she asked in dissatisfaction of seeing snow land on his neck and bare paws.

“Maybe, I have no clue yet.” They crossed over the small pedestrian bridge and were now close to the exit door, leading a path between pine trees and raised dirt, the way illuminated by the weak orange glow of scarce lights. “Did you report him?”

Cindy’s scowl shifted away and she now felt as if the trap had sprung on her. Whatever she wanted to think of an answer would’ve sufficed with a simple, “No.”

“Can you blame me for what I said yesterday then?”

“Wha’? That ya think so lowly of me,” she got in front and shoved him back to a stumble. “Can’t say I blame ya.” His ears fell and guilt played through his teeth.

“No, but everyone else does. It’s why you didn’t do it. You don’t trust them to do anything about it.” His paws rubbed his arms and her finger of accusation drifted in thought. Was that the reason for her inaction? Was that why she sought to handle things on her own? Was the lack of trust or was the personal craving to get things right? Was it the weakness of letting someone fix her problems the main wheel that steered her decisions?

Sam brushed by her, little twigs crunching under his steps.

“Whass would I do then, Sam?” He didn’t turn to her question, muzzle pointing up at the crowns of pine, while a certain breeze pushed against his fur. It was nice to have that long and deep inhale. Focus filled her eyes and she impatiently awaited.

Sam stopped, looked around and squatted. “Build your own path,” he answered with open paws at the gravel trail. Staring was all that she could do at the idling fox. Then she turned around and stared at the distance of the path that curled ever so slightly left and right, a result of manual labor and imprecision of long distances.

“How?” she asked as he stood up and dusted his fur.

“You want justice, right?” Sam asked.

“I think… Yes, yes. I want, um…” her paws squeezed into fists, the uncertainty of what she sought slowly raising her pressure. “I want justice.”

Sam smiled and took off, followed close by Cindy who was mostly staring at her steps through the swim of her mind. She wasn’t sure at all if that was what she truly wanted. But did it matter that much right now? Her wound was taken care of and her friend was back, and she was given a reason to keep following the system before her. Things were okay.

“I don’t think you’re a rag,” Sam said in the ambiance of breeze. The word ticked off a nerve, but the accompanied addition made her ears spring fully at attention and curiosity. “I think you’re a good mal with a big heart,” he smiled at her attention and she looked away through a sudden blush. She couldn’t mask the appreciation she was experiencing right now for his subtle apology. But because he hadn’t taken back his words when she’d asked him, she faked a frown and shoved her paws in her pockets, a glance at Sam revealing his ears having lowered.

She didn’t mind, enjoying the ‘justice’ in him having the short end of the carrot as a consequence. Coldness blew through the wind that made her shudder with breath coming out as steam. They were getting close to a spot where the lights had died. Sam rubbed his shoulders as mist flare out his black nostrils.

“Where’s ya jacket, Sam?”

“Oh, I think somewhere ‘round here…” he looked around, seemingly too distracted to even look at Cindy’s confused eyes. There were the pine shrubs and trees… Sam moved closer to the ridge of dirt and climbed up towards the dark shrubs.

“Whass ya doing,” Cindy asked and got to the base of the ridge, sudden tingles of dread asking to spread uninvited across her blood.

He didn’t answer, did not turn back, did not stop. So she chased after up the ridge, her leather straps softening the piney needles that lay scattered everywhere between pebble and root.

“Sam, Sam! Uhg—” she grunted as a rock pulled her back in a stumble. “Samuel, argh!” she shouted and kicked into a sprint, finding his disappearance behind the bush rather maddening and disrespectful.

Her paw prepared for the impact and she shoved through the sturdy branches. Collision of soft fur and a hardened yelp instantly followed as the mass of fox stumbled down the ridge and into the darkness that she just couldn’t see through.

“Whass ya doing?” she shouted into the dark, sudden suffocation flaring into her lungs, and slow dizziness defocusing her vision. Breeze was gone.

“Come,” Sam finally responded with and she wanted ask again, only to be faced with a deep scowl and a rather strange curiosity to what he was doing, nocturnal predatory eyes glinting in the black.

Reaching with trained repetition, she got her manual flashlight from the pouch on her belt, quickly cranking it around and seeing Sam pulling out clothes from what looked to be his backpack covered with dust and dirt.

With a slide down the ridge, she stopped by his efforts of putting on his trousers and jacket, wondering what was going through his foxy head of his. She noticed jars of food, several loaves of bread and chocolate. Her ears fell and a pit in her stomach formed deeper than the distant sky.

But as he got comfy and put the pack on his back, he just tried to walk away, which made her grab his arm and yank him back.

“What on terra are you doing, fox!” she hissed, demanding answers with zero intent of letting him go without one. Her light died slowly at the inability to crank it, his uncertainty fading to a final glint of his nocturnal orbs.

“I’m going to the traintracks.”

“Whass?!” Her grip tightened, claws digging into the soft leathery fabric. Now she had even more intent to not let go of him. “No, no, ya’s going home, ya’s going with me,” she yanked in the darkness. But his paws grabbed on hers and tried to pull her off. She pocketed her light and used her other paws to cling on.

“Lemme go,” he mumbled but she did not comply, slowly moving backwards to where the light shone from the top of the ridge. His soft touch turned harder, until he yanked her paw off to a sharp sting of shooting pain that spread itself around her wrist.

“I don’t want let ya go. I want ya stay.” Her words got him to hesitate for long enough for her to re-assert her grip. She wasn’t sure no more what exactly she was holding on to, but all it mattered was that he stayed.

“I can’t stay…” he muttered, his paw resting lightly on hers. The pit in her stomach grew colder, wider and sudden whispers found their way through it. Was it regret? Was it pity? Was it rage?

Suddenly she felt repulsed, suddenly she felt unappreciated, suddenly she felt disgust. With a hard gulp and tricky tears trying to streak down her eyes, she released her grip and shoved him away from her, sudden yelp and crack of branches resonating with her decision. It sounded like he’d hurt himself, but she was fuming with confusion and bitterness to even notice.

“Then leave. Flee, coward. Coward-fox. Coward-coward-coward! Abandon ya friend and never come back!” she screamed, the nocturnal glow moving closer to her and then squinting. She took steps back with her obscured finger of accusation shaking madly, great depth of treachery bleeding from her heart.

“Goodbye, Cynthia. I hope… No… I know, I know you’ll get citizenship and find your place,” Sam said through a long idle of nocturnals, and then they disappeared, marking his leave of scrunchy footsteps that slowly faded to the quietness of wind above piney crowns, Cindy’s rapid breaths of dizzied frenzy. The air was so suffocating, so heavy…

Her knees buckled from the crushing weight, the cloth that encased her body insufficient against the cold that was now spreading in a flash of frost, with an epicenter of her betrayed heart.

Disease of loneliness’ rotten cloak had finally arrived.

If only there had been more time…