Wishful Thinking, Chapter 14.
#14 of Wishful Thinking
Author's Note: Crapcrapcrap! I totally forgot to upload this, sorry people! I coulda sworn chapter 14 was up when I uploaded chapter 15. Bah, it totally ruined the suspense I was going for with Chapter 14. ;_; Many apologies!
Wishful Thinking, Chapter 14
By Mitch Kenzo.
Contains:
Furries. Oh, and other stuff too.
So, we're almost finished with Perry's adventures with his furry friends. It's been a long and enjoyable trip, but at long last everyone will be going back where they belong. I've enjoyed writing this as much as I hope some of the readers out there have liked reading it. Be on the lookout for other stories when I can think up a decent idea!
Chapter 14: One Last Wish
Why? WHY?
Perry had to ask himself that question time and time again as he woke up in the afterlife. Thousands of souls were whizzing past him as he came to a stop at a different gate. A colorless light swept over him, and something beeped as he was rushed through the gate and came stop next to the light being he'd gotten to know so well by now. He hadn't noticed the whole express thing before, probably because he was too disoriented, but he wasn't paying any more attention at the moment. He floated up and next to the light being that gave him a quizzical stare as it continued to process the other souls. "My mother should be in that crowd."
"Oh, and you came to see her though? How thoughtful!"
"No, I came to bring her back! Her death was unfair, unwarranted!"
"Many are, er... Perry, that's it."
"But she could come back!"
"And who's going to bring her back, you? I don't resurrect people from the dead, y'know."
"I just have to wait for Lila, or Emerald... Or someone!"
"And what about your mother? Do you think she'll want to go back? In addition, how do you know that her death then changed anything? There are a trillion and one ways to die Perry, and they can happen at any moment. You can trip over your shoes when jaywalking across the street and a car can split your head open like a watermelon. That seemingly nice stranger at the bank could pull a gun at any moment. You could choke on your peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I've seen them all Perry, I've been here longer than you could imagine. Take this into consideration, what if it was her time? So, you'd go against divine will to bring her back? Even your furry friends knew when to let their own go, usually at old age. I'm sorry Perry, but chances are she might not want to go back."
He hadn't even thought about that. His mother, what would she want? She wasn't the most devout person, but she believed in heaven... And after such a brutal beating, would she feel safe coming back to life?
"Perry?"
He whirled around. "MOM!"
"Perry, what are you doing here!? I'm... I am dead, aren't I?"
"Yes, and I am too... But, not forever."
"You mean you're going to heaven with me?"
"Er, mom, I need to talk to you and show you some things."
Perry steeled himself as he was about to lay a truckload on his mother. He told her about Lila and the others which got an incredulous snort from her, until he showed her to Limbo, where her jaw dropped and she began shaking her ethereal head. He told her about being eaten time and time again, and pointed to where it was happening here, and that people enjoyed it. He'd also pointed out that he'd been brought back time and time again as well. Perry carefully hugged his mother as she began to cry, happy, sad, and confused all in one at what had happened to her dear son. It was a short cry though, as she quickly sobered up, accepting all the things that had happened. He discussed all the knowledge he'd gained from Lila and the others, and she nodded, beginning to understand things more and more as he explained how the anthros did things.
"And I did say I could come back to life mom... Do you want to come back too?" It almost hurt to ask the question. They both knew she could enter paradise if she wished to, or she could go back to that life before...
"..."
"..."
"No." The word hit him like a ton of bricks. "I... I can't, Perry." His world was shattered around him, that feeling of safety and security he got from knowing that there was always a home he could go back to... His father had run off long ago, so it was just he and his mom. His grandparents were gone, and most of his other relatives wanted nothing to do with him. He couldn't go live with them anyway as he was past the age to be treated as a child. He had nothing, not even material possessions as he was sure his computer was gone along with his other sanity-saving devices he'd collected to keep himself from dying of boredom over the years.
"...Why?" He just couldn't believe he'd heard her say it.
"Do you know what happened to me, Perry? Why I'm here?"
"Yes... I kind of... saw it. It was terrible!"
"Do you really think I could feel safe going back?" He'd already asked himself that same question a few times now, and he always came up with the same answer.
"No."
"And the other reasons not go to back... No more bills to pay, no more sickness, frustration, anger... Everything is going to be perfect! I've played my part in life Perry, and I want to move on now that I'm here."
"I... I..." He couldn't say anything.
"Perry, you're my son, and I'll always love you. I want you to go back with your new friends and live as you want to. Let your life be full of things that you've done, because you don't have pain or death to fear."
"I... I love you too, mom!" Perry threw his arms around the spirit of his mother, small tears seeping down his face. He was hurting now... He didn't want to let go. However, he felt the time was right, his intuition told him it was time. "I'll see you someday mom."
"I'll see you too, honey. And you take care of him too, Mr. skunk man." Perry whirled about to see Jizzal standing behind him, waving at the receding figure of the woman. He turned back, and shouted again.
"Goodbye mom, I LOVE YOU!" With those words, Perry's heart wrenched inside of him, and he collapsed down to the ground when he could no longer see his mother. He'd done something few people ever got to do, see their parents off at their death, to tell them that they loved them. Oh, did it hurt. This was letting go, this was how it was going to hurt again. He looked at the skunk and couldn't hold anything else back. Perry started bawling on the darkness of the floor, tears streaming down his face as if he were three again and had gotten a paper cut. He tried to hide his face and felt a warm pair of arms around him. They only made him cry harder, as he wouldn't be feeling them for much longer, but he was glad that Jizzal was there for him now at least. The skunk helped him to stand, and they made their way through the clamor of Limbo to the area where he and Lila had been before, where he could cry as long as he needed to in the silence. The tears just wouldn't stop, and Jizzal tried to use his fluffy tail to dry them up, only to end up with it soaked.
"Perry, for you to be hurting so much... It's not just your mother, is it? Something else is bothering you." The mephit waited for Perry to calm down enough to talk, to get whatever else was troubling him off his chest.
"J-Jizzal, I'm scared."
"Of what?"
"Losing. Losing you and Lila and the others too."
The skunk gave him a puzzled look as he went on. "When we find... that gate or portal, sealed whatever it is, you'll all be gone... I can't see any of you again. I can't stop you from going either. It wouldn't have been so bad, but now losing my mother... I don't have anything to go back to. Nothing." That word hurt again, and the tears flowed some more. Jizzal nodded, stroking his hair as he held Perry close to his furred chest.
Perry just clutched the soft fur with his fingers, gripping it tightly between them and not wanting to let go ever again, just to be able to have his friends with him for a moment that didn't end. He finally got the courage to look up at Jizzal and see the skunk smiling down at him warmly, seeming to understand him perfectly. "The worst part is letting go, Jizzal. This hurt so bad, and now I'm going to be losing five more friends that I've grown to love, you all hold a place in my heart, even you though we just met. I... and I have to let you go now." He buried his head in the skunk's chestfur, hugging the soft body in front of him.
"Perry, I'm honored that you feel that strongly about me... all of us. I haven't known you or any other humans that long, but I think if they were all like you, you wouldn't have anything to fear." He kissed the top of Perry's head tenderly, much like a father would do to his young son, and suddenly Perry felt that missing feeling filled in his heart. All he could do was hug onto Jizzal now, who calmly returned the hug, holding the human to himself.
Neither one knew how much time had passed until Perry relaxed at last, finally - reluctantly - breaking the hug and releasing the skunk. Jizzal didn't let him go though, he knew Perry needed the warmth and touch of someone else right now, even if it was time to go back. "Ready, Perry?" The human nodded and Jizzal hummed while closing his eyes. Slowly, his body changed shape, flattening out and doming around Perry, blocking out the outside. He felt himself held on all sides safely, much like being in the skunk's stomach before, until he realized that's exactly where he was now. The thought made him smile that he got a second chance to be inside of Jizzal, to rectify the peaceful meal the mephit should have had. He sighed and settled in, feeling the wetness about him to be comforting, dissolve his form... He was floating freely now, even moreso than before. The skunk had protected him and was continuing to do so, and he was grateful for that. All too soon, he felt his soul within his body again, but this time held in Jizzal's arms, more or less cradled. It was funny how the size difference was on the furs and himself, that Jizzal could hold him like he would've held a young child.
Perry yawned as if he had fallen asleep for a long time before he realized they were in the alley again. Jizzal was looking at the sky as if there were something only he could hear in the air. It wasn't long before he grinned, his teeth showing out past his lips before his head turned to Perry. "They found it, and wow was it in an unexpected place! Hang on, this is going to be warm!" Perry and Jizzal both turned into misty forms as the others had before, and descended into the ground. Perry was amazed at how the world looked, it was like having x-ray vision through everything for miles around! He gawked as he looked about himself, seeing things as they descended through the layers of ground. His sight became murky as they passed through a gigantic oil field, and then he saw something in the distance glittering, probably a metallic ore of some kind. The ground was getting more rocky and he could tell the world was heating up about him. More and more of the sparkling things were showing up, some much more brilliant than others as he realized they were precious gems, enough to be richer than anyone alive today! He thought a bit. Well, if he couldn't go with Lila, maybe he could ask her for some financial help. He didn't think that would be too much of an abuse of her power, especially since he was skint broke now.
He wondered exactly where they were going now as his vision was enveloped by magma, the searing heat amazingly not affecting him, thanks to Jizzal. More sparkles were in the lava, and some gigantic orb things as well. He looked hard at them and saw they were huge geodes, with some metallic-looking crystals inside of them, very odd. More and more layers of the Earth passed before their eyes, geological wonders beyond compare showing up before him. He whistled as massive diamonds as large as buildings crashed together around them, both forming and dissolving as they floated about and touched hotter pockets of the molten elements they were floating in. However, they were approaching a white-hot, glowing sphere of something now, and that could only have been... Earth's core. Four figures were already there, along with a rock with markings all over it, somehow not touched by the unthinkable heat in the center of the world. They were contained within a bubble that was protecting them and the stone, which Perry and Jizzal soon entered. Lila was looking at him with a huge smile on her face. "Perry! Jizzal already told us what happened to you... That must have been the hardest thing you've ever done."
"That's an understatement, and also false... I'm about to face five times that."
"Why?"
...Was she toying with him? That was cruel, and he felt anger start to stir within him. "Because you'll all be leaving now... And I can't come."
Laughter. So much laughter all around him that he wanted to explode. Why were they laughing at him!? "Who said you couldn't come?"
The anger froze. "...What."
"I said, who said you couldn't come?"
"......I thought the processing orb thing said I couldn't cross over dimensions."
"Oi! You mean all this time you thought he meant that that applied here too? Oh Perry! Perry, Perry, Perry! I had no idea you thought that!" Lila chuckled briefly before sobering up. "No, nobody can cross dimensions in the afterlife like that because it takes way too much soul energy, which is different than the magic we use. Souls collect energy around them, and multiple souls amplify the effect, but even then... When our planet was destroyed, millions of furs had to move to that side of the dimensional afterlife. The light being you described had a fit about it, but decided to see how many it would take to cross over, and it was just over a million FURS minimum. Now, mind you that we're already stronger soul-wise with our magic, so it's hard to imagine how many humans it would take to do that! I mean, we would have probably already been home for the most part if it weren't for that. Now, physical world... That's different. We can move through dimensions much more easily here with the aid of our magic, and things to amplify the effects. I mean, how else would we pull another PLANET out of orbit, hm?"
Perry was just stunned, utterly stunned. "So, you mean..."
"Perry, what would you wish for right now if you could wish for anything?"
"Oh come on, you know already!"
"Well, just wish it!"
"I wish I could come with you, all of you! You already know I have nothing left here! I don't want to stay, there's so many reasons not to! Heck, I could die tomorrow and that's it! No more Lila or Emerald there to revive me, no more comfy nights spent sleeping with some nice warm fur covering me... It'd be an absolute nightmare, no wonder my mom didn't want to come back!" Perry continued on, spilling out all the things he'd thought up in Avereth's navel. "I wish with all my heart I could go with you!"
"Consider it granted then."
There was a wild cacophony of voices and sounds. Perry was screaming at the top of his lungs for joy, Lila had joined him with a deep lion roar, Emerald with a long howl, Morton adding in his squeaks, Avereth with his yips of triumph, and Jizzal with... The cheers abruptly ended.
"What's that... Augh, Jizzal, you didn't!"
The skunk only laughed, falling backward onto the floor of the bubble while Lila kicked his butt, holding her nose from the skunk stench. Perry and the others were on the floor as well, but gagging from the overpowering spray smell. Worse yet, nobody even knew where it was coming from or what had been sprayed.
"Hoo, that's a stinker! I just got excited, sorry everyone!"
"Excited? I'd hate to see what would happen if someone threw him a surprise party!" Perry gagged again, more mockingly than anything.
Morton glanced over at Perry. "Um, yeah, that wasn't such a good idea, we did it once." He shivered at the remembrance of Jizzal nearly exploding with spray everywhere. They'd had to cancel the party and reschedule it, this time as a non-surprise one.
They all finally calmed down, sighing as they at in the bubble. One by one, everyone looked at the stone with the markings on it, and they awed Perry. They were intricate inscriptions from a language long since lost from the cosmos, with beautiful lines running through it in a blue tint. He picked it up and held it in front of him, staring at it. When he looked up, all five furs were standing around him in a circle, laying their paws on him and closing their eyes. The feeling of intuition sprang up inside him urgently, and he flipped the stone over to see a small hole in the back of it. He also saw his body begin to glow, light spewing forth from his skin and growing brighter by the second. It didn't hurt at all, it felt good, like being lost in a dream. It was all about him now, and he held the stone directly overhead, with the hole pointing down over them. A long moment passed as a blue dome began to spread out from the stone, which hovered above them as Perry released it and brought his hands inside. The lines upon it pulsated, and different colors began to shine forth, changing the colors of the dome which had completely enveloped the group. The light was still building, engulfing everything in the dome, until he could feel it as a pressure, weighing down upon him, and then pulling him into that hole, swirling him about much like water swirled down a drain. He entered, leaving the molten core of Earth behind him, leaving the life he'd had before behind him.
He was free.
Gwahaha! Surprise! Nope, I'm not quitting the series at all! There's too much potential to just end it here, and a whole new world for Perry to explore... And now, I think I can start writing side stories for the series since Perry will be in contact with a lot more furs than what's given. Careful though, I'm still not doing sexual scenes or anything of the like, and I'm slightly picky about what I'll have the characters do or not do.