FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The evening's soft, cosseting breeze, its cooling gift to the world, gently extended its arms across the leaf-speckled, damp earth as an athletically tall, brown monkey forced two once-joined sections of a wire-mesh fence blocking his path to separate their bond, manoeuvring himself through a microscopic gap between the two steel poles before vaulting forwards and planting his thick, black combat boots onto the aforementioned ground; his alert eyes rapidly arcing around to complete a final spot-check of any witnesses. Upon realising, with a sigh of relief, that he was indeed alone, Connor couldn't hide a cheeky grin spreading across his face as he glanced back over his shoulder, whisked his long, flowing, white-tipped tail against the fence and, with full control of its movement, wrapped it around the two separated mesh squares before binding them together as tightly as he could; at least, enough to convince practically any potential onlooker that a fierce thunderstorm three weeks' prior hadn't_torn them apart, helped in no small part by the resourceful twelve-year-old's hands. Behind him, barricaded by a gargantuan, three square mile compound, lay the Easthampton Cadet Camp; a place he knew all too well, having spent almost the last year and two months of his life trapped within its often invisible, and sometimes metaphorical, four walls. He was near-certain that there had been another reason, other than simply wanting to instil some discipline into him, why his Father had packed him off to it without so much as a bye-your-leave; indeed, there was plenty about his parents' life that was kept a secret, least of all the _true reason that had led to the events of that one, fateful night, and he'd made it his mission to peel back as many deceitful layers as he could. At this exact moment, however, he had other, far more immediate issues to worry about; the most prominent of which nagging at him from the extremity joined to his wrist.

"Argh; that goddamn pen" he spat, curling and uncurling his fingers repeatedly in an attempt to quell the sporadic bouts of throbbing that emanated through his right hand. He'd heard countless horror stories about people forced to postpone their down-time in order to write a thousand lines; it was one of the most common punishments across any school, military or otherwise, but boredom, it turned out, had been the least of his worries. Even though the line "I must not swear in class" was now buzzing around his conscience like a deranged wasp, the ancient, sharp ink pen had cut obtrusively into his hand, forcing his already tired fingers to grasp it in a painfully uncomfortable way to the point of almost complete numbness.

"Seriously, all I did was call Jeff an asshole, 'cause that's what he is! For God's sake, he was supposed to be mentoring that poor little husky, not bullying him; I guess that fuck-tard of a teacher had his head too far up his own ass to see..." he muttered angrily to himself as he shook his head in bitter contempt, though managing a small chuckle at his quip that would've had the dis-interested, scowling Maths teacher-in-question clamouring to put him back in detention for two weeks straight had he been in earshot. In actuality, Connor had only written seven-hundred lines out of the set thousand; when the doddery History Professor, roped in at the last second to invigilate him, had drowsily nodded off in his straight-backed wooden chair, the monkey had cut and run in an abnormally quiet fashion, but with a clear intention; this stench-ridden, filthy, rickety compound had held him in its grasp for too long, but more to the point, what sat in the garage back home was calling him with a voice far more prominent than any inanimate object should've had the right to. Leaping gracefully over a fallen tree, Connor dug his hands into the earth that was now at a 30-degree angle in front of him as he scrambled up an abrupt incline, before cautiously stepping over the small crash-barrier that marked the edge of a pot-holed, single-carriageway road snaking its way past the entrance to the Cadet Camp and either up into the hills, or down towards Station Square; the bus stop on the other side of the road, with the vehicles in question heading towards the latter destination, was where Connor found himself walking towards, immeasurably thankful for the bus drivers' notoriously anti-social nature.

?

Blotches of gun-metal grey clouds dotted the overcast evening sky and rudely barged the begging, radiant-orange setting sun out of existence as the surface underneath Connor's boots changed from worn, but smooth asphalt covering the pavement to a broken, rough mix of ground-embedded concrete slabs haphazardly joined together, with small ecosystems of ankle-high grass-tufts and thin, withering singular plants poking desperately through their cracks. His attention was abruptly snapped away from carving a random pebble into the concrete by a prominent shaking through the right pocket of his forest-camouflage trousers, and a quick fish within it brought out a frantically buzzing Nokia 3310; its minute screen practically ablaze in its bid to tell Connor that someone was trying to reach him. It was a number he recognised almost instantly, and while it initially caused a warm smile to spread across his face, it faded fairly quickly upon remembering exactly where he was, or rather, where he wasn't.

"Uh...hi Sam; what's up?" he began nervously, glancing around him again to make sure no-one was peering in obtrusively.

"Oh nothing much, I'm just about to start adjusting the carburettor on the SJ; you know, that little Suzuki Jeep one of the obstacle-course instructors gave me to fix? The engine's almost finished, and I was wondering if you wanted to come and help me on the final bits and pieces," asked a calm, though slightly timid, well-spoken early-teen male voice, "that is, if you haven't got any prior arrangements, of course." Connor's heart sank with guilt at this friendly insight; the two had met ironically after Jeff, the husky-demoralising rhino and source of Connor's prior detention, had effectively ruined a lecture that Sam had been standing-in for on the inner-workings of old cars a year prior; Connor's life-long thrill of being behind the wheel had been a perfect match for the grey dog's almost telepathic ability to tinker with, and fix, practically any vehicle that was thrown his way, and within the space of half-an-hour, the two had become best friends.

"I'd love to, pal; really would, but I...erm, well, I kinda' just got outta detention;yeah, don't ask" he explained, refusing to go into any more detail, "but the long and short o' it is that now I've got a shit-ton of homework to do, and lemm'e tell ya, it's killin' me!" he quipped, attempting to pass off an over-dramatic chuckle as a viable expression to signify how tiring and stressful a mound of homework would _actually_be.

"Of course, of course, I understand. Sorry, I forgot how busy you second-years are; to think work actually decreases enough for us third-years to the point where I actually have time to fix up old bangers like this one! Look, I don't have to fix the carburettor right now; the wheel alignment could keep me occupied until you were free. I really would like you to come and see it pretty soon, though; I think this restoration is my finest yet" he proclaimed with endearing, warm satisfaction, causing Connor's already guilt-ridden heart to drop like an anvil; exacerbated further by the white lie that he had already internally kicked himself for before his vocal chords even had time to express it.

"Sorry bud'; if I could, I would, but-"

"Pardon my interruption," the dog cut in, with his voice acquiring an abruptly serious undertone, "but that's quite a lot of wind-noise I'm hearing; if you're taking a break for some fresh air, surely you could spare just five minutes to-"

"No, no it-it's not that, I..." Connor stammered; a cold sweat overcoming his forehead as his brain frantically stumbled over a response, "it's just I've got the window open; seriously pal, I can't take a break otherwise I'll be here all night!"

"Alright, if you're sure; sometime tomorrow perhaps?" He inquired; his jovial, but revealingly tired tone mercifully returning as he stifled a yawn at the other end of the phone.

"Yeah, sure; O.K, take care now, gotta go; bye" Connor mumbled; his shaking thumb slamming the red phone symbol engraved into the button before the dog even had a chance to say another word. Throttling the phone back into his pocket, the monkey dug his fingertips into the palms of his hands and spat a growled obscenity under his breath, hanging his head in shame as he began to trudge the last few steps to the front door of the family home. He desperately wanted Sam to have come with him; to break from the monotony of the camp and indulge in the daredevil adventure Connor now found himself on, but though he'd managed to diminish the dog's fear of lightning six months' prior, he was still considerably too cautious a person to risk escaping; valuing his education more than his freedom. Connor's brain drilled into itself that the white lie was necessary, but try as he might, he couldn't quell the nagging, pained irritancy that he'd lied to his best friend to serve nothing but his own interests.

"No, no, Sam's a good guy; he'd understand...they why didn't I just...no, I did the right thing; for all I know he could've snitched on me" he grimly snapped at his brain as he fumbled under the door mat and retrieved the set of house keys; his eyes arced to his left, however, upon remembering the sole reason he'd escaped from the camp in the first place. Indeed, the moment his hands cupped under the base of a set of tall, metal slats and pulled them upwards with a rickety clatter, the sight his eyes set upon caused his worries to fade into his subconscious. Taking on the appearance of a remorseful puppy thanks to the way it was leaning, a rusted, tatty, Parakeet Yellow Honda Z50A Mini-Trail Bike basked in the pale, withering overcast evening light filling the garage, though taking up barely a fifth of the available space within it.

"Hey there buddy; sure has been a while" he grinned, practically giggling with excitement as he began to jaunt excitedly towards it; his fingers actively twitching as they simulated their empowering feeling of the handlebars. His ecstatic expression was accentuated further upon the observation that the tyres seemed to be no flatter than the last time he'd seen them; the two months during that time had seemed like an eternity. Envious at Sam's mechanical wizardry and the opportunities it had brought, Connor had made it his goal from the day they'd met to learn to fix and maintain something, and, as if by fate, when he'd joined the dog for a romp around the local scrapyard to find a starter motor for the SJ in the sweltering heat of a mid-summer afternoon, he'd spotted the little bike slumped ashamedly against a skip; battered, forgotten and discarded like mere rubbish, it had been crying out for a pair of loving hands to coerce it back to life and, upon quite easily convincing him that it would be the perfect candidate to learn the basics of vehicle maintenance on, his hands, and the dog's paws, had been the perfect source of the love and attention the bike had so desperately needed. To his abject anger, however, they had restored the mechanicals quite literally ten minutes before Connor's Father had dragged him away from the finally-running bike and packed him off to the Cadet Camp for the start of his second semester there; the sour icing on the cake had been his blanket refusal to allow Connor to take the bike to the camp with him.

"Absolutely not; this petty hobby will only distract you, and your studies are far more useful to you than this collection of bolts" had been the authoritative words that the sullen, stone-eyed ageing monkey had snapped into his face; his condescending tone continued to reverberate irritatingly around Connor's conscience even to this day.

"...and Dad thought he could just throw me into that dump and leave me there; pfft, he's got another thing comin'" he muttered through a cocky undertone as he guided his thought train to its verbal destination. As much as he wanted to just get behind the handlebars again, a few bodily necessities had irritatingly reminded him, not least by the odour of his sweaty, dirt-ridden camouflage uniform filling the garage and actively seeming to press in like a physical entity. On reflection though, he thought, the first properly hot shower in two months could only be a good thing; he was desperate, even for one evening, to remove all traces of the Cadet Camp about his person from sight and mind, and one sure-fire way to go about that process was alerted to him by a loud grumble from his stomach, protesting at the months upon months of barely-digestible slop that the Cadet Camp tried to pass off as "food". Affectionately patting the dent-peppered fuel tank, he turned and headed towards the small, oak door that connected the entrance area of the house to the garage, already basking in the warm, tingling serenity of his familiar surroundings.

?

Licking the final sticky remnants of a chocolate bar from around his mouth, Connor's still somewhat pruned fingertips, poking out through the ends of a pair of black, fingerless gloves, clasped themselves around the flimsy plastic handle of an incrementally-lightening jerry-can as he gently guided it towards the circular opening in the bike's oblong, metal fuel tank. He was immensely thankful for his decision to relieve himself immediately before sauntering back into the garage as the flowing petrol uncannily replicated the sound, flowing sedately into the tank from a small, external plastic hose attached rather haphazardly onto the can's nozzle; its overpowering odour doing its best to combat the strawberry body lotion mingled tightly into his fur, forcing him to turn his head away, bunch his eyes and attempt to stop breathing through his nostrils as much as possible. There was no fuel gauge of any sort, but Connor was given a visual aid when the rippling, lapping surface of the petrol became visible at the top of the tank; he gingerly arced the pipe upwards and yanked the hose off the nozzle, but not quite carefully enough to avoid a few drops of petrol spattering against the pair of thick, green wellington boots that now encased his feet.

"Just as long as I don't kick the exhaust..." he chuckled under his breath, placing the now half-empty can against a small oak tool-bench in the corner of the garage before smiling with admiration as he clasped his hands firmly around the dazzling blue paint-finish of a pristine, original, near-fifty-year-old open-face helmet that rested on its top, adorned with an equally ancient, slightly faded pair of dark green leather aviation goggles. Though a decidedly snug fit, the helmet's wonderfully soft, fluffy padding within gently soothed his ears in a blanket of warmth, causing him to sigh contently as he swung the right leg of his dark blue, waterproof nylon trousers over the bike's frame and planted his backside onto the firm seat, slowly rocking the little bike from side-to-side in the process. The sound of two small clicks braved the silence as Connor twisted the ignition key, before guiding the choke switch to its most open position on a small piece of metal that curled out from the front-left fork and glancing across the other side of the bike to his right to perfectly angle the toe of his boot; the sandy-beige, grooved sole kicked against the top of the kick-start lever, jutting it perpendicular to the rest of the frame. A ratcheting sound echoed through the garage as he slowly pumped the lever up and down to prime the miniscule singular carburettor, before taking one final, foreboding sigh.

"Alright, don't lemme' down; two months ain't long" he muttered with firm encouragement; obtaining a physical response of a loud clunk as his right boot shoved the starter lever in a downwards arc towards the floor, only for complete silence to promptly replace it. He guided the lever back up to its starting position before slamming down again, and then thrice more, all for absolutely nothing. Gritting his teeth as he braced his leg muscles, Connor lifted his backside off the seat, straightened his legs, and proceeded to pummel the starter lever with all his might; the mechanism straining under his intense torture, before on what seemed like the hundredth attempt, the exhaust coughed a faint sputter before cutting out.

"Oh come on!" he growled, abruptly stopping and beginning to pant as he wiped a thin layer of sweat from his forehead. Opening the throttle as his gloved hand twisted the worn rubber handle on his right, Connor readjusted his balance and promptly continued, spurred by this, albeit minor, advancement. Two pumps later, a few tantilising wisps of smoke coughed from the exhaust but, at the end of his tether, he'd begun to kick the lever even before the engine had cut out again, twisting the throttle to full as he did so. The exhaust voiced its pain with a sharp _bang_as a sliver of un-burnt petrol impacted the now-boiling pipe, but with a final protesting splutter, the hesitant engine finally roared into life with as much vigour as a 50cc could manage; the oily, acrid remnants of its internal combustion beginning to cloud the garage, but Connor didn't care one bit.

"Fuck yeah_!"_ he exclaimed through gritted teeth, letting off the throttle and fist-bumping the air with a cheek-to-cheek grin plastered across his face. He gingerly relaxed back onto the seat and gently swung his right leg in the air to allow his prominently-complaining leg muscles to regain their composure, sighing with new-found contentment; merely to hear the bike running again was something he'd waited far too long to experience. However, beyond the square concrete floor in front of him sat the outside world; his oyster, unlocked by the freedom that personal transportation brought, and Connor was damned if he was going to just sit there and let the bike idle, having come all this way. At least, being a Z50, it was exceptionally easy to ride, he reflected as he gently guided the choke back into its most inward position; the four-stroke engine was mated to a clutch-less, three-speed gearbox, although Sam had been quick to remind him soon after they'd brought the then-sorry-looking machine home that, with a top speed barely nudging thirty, they were technically forbidden on the public road; advice that Connor was throwing to the wind as easily as the now slightly-diminishing plume of smoke spewing out from behind the bike. He couldn't help but snigger under his breath at the slight oversimplification of his intended usage he'd given to Sam, not to mention his Father.

"Hey, what they don't know won't hurt 'em" he reassured himself, before fixating his eyes straight ahead as the outside world beckoned; with one final, deep intake of breath to calm his steadily increasing nerves, he pulled the tight, leather-trimmed goggles down over his eyes, awoke his left ankle muscles by pressing the lower-frame-mounted rubber gear-selector down into first, and gingerly applying pressure on the throttle as he retracted the stand and momentarily balanced the bike by nothing more than its centre of mass, kicking off from the ground as he did so. The knobbly tyres sketchily felt their way over the surface; embracing their long-overdue initial rotations as the little bike began to creep forwards, incrementally gathering speed in single-digits before the cosseting smoothness of the garage floor abruptly ended.

"Shit; the door!" he suddenly remembered, creaking the sleepy brakes into action as he hastily swung the stand out before leaping off the bike and darting back to the garage. Cautiously pulling the metal slats back down again and crouching as it reached its base, Connor shoved the toe of his left boot underneath it to slow its descent, before allowing it to close gently against the ground with barely a whisper; he was cautious not to make any unnecessary sounds that could attract the eagle-eyes of the suburb's nearby community-enforcement officer, whom he'd had had one too many run-ins with that he would've preferred to forget.

?

As the series of monotonous, seemingly-never-ending uniform rows of Station Square's outer suburbs gradually diminished, a wall of trees abruptly replaced them on the other side of another non-descript crossroad as the incrementally narrowing stretch of tarmac began to climb, forcing Connor to drop down a gear and pin the throttle; the tiny four-stroke hamster-wheel spinning madly as the speedometer juddered above and below 25mph repeatedly. So far, though, he was counting his lucky stars on the fact that he'd only seen one other car; a late-night delivery driver wearily guided by the portable sat-nav firmly pinned to the windscreen of his van, and in the ten minutes since, the roads had been completely deserted. The winding, undulating ribbon of tarmac weaved its way through a wall of trees and, as the breeze whipping past him began to pick up, Connor crouched close to the handlebars and jerked his left knee out, leaning into a sweeping left-hander as far as he dared; the rear foot-rest mere millimetres from the rapidly back-pedalling asphalt. Even the oppressive clouds had finally conceded defeat, moving back to allow thin, but defiant glimmers of moonlight to pierce their way through the trees; an extra source of light that the poultry, single headlight made him immensely glad for. Revelling in the cosseting breeze blowing gently against the fur exposed by his finger-less gloves and rippling the creases of his grey hiking fleece like a curtain, Connor leant backwards and willingly embraced it, unable to stop the escape of a giddy exclamation as his worries faded into the wind. Before he knew it, he'd tipped his head back and burst into a pure, unbridled joyous laugh; his senses tingling with the intoxicating aroma of petrol engulfing his nostrils and the growl of the tiny engine gracing his ears as the wide tyres sure-footedly guided the little bike along.

"Oh Sam, you don't know what you're missin'!" he verbally thought out loud; his underlying sadness quashed irrefutably by overarching glee. His blissful trance caused him to almost completely ignore another pair of headlights briefly coming into view over a small crest in the tarmac before flying past on the other side of the road, but it was the over-styled pair of rear lights that turned Connor's brief glance at his left-side mirror into a perplexed stare; they abruptly lit up, and remained that way for an unusual length of time.

"Huh?" he muttered curiously, wondering if the driver was merely pulling over for something; the amber right-indicator remained blank, however, and the non-descript car's next action suddenly dawned on him as the rear lights suddenly thinned, before disappearing as they were replaced by the pair of white, front headlights, accompanied, to his sudden horror, by those of a rapidly blinking, roof-mounted, dark blue variety. His hands instantly solidified around the handlebars.

"Oh fuck; no, no-no-no!" he yelped; sheer panic taking hold as he pinned the throttle and leant as far forwards as physically possible in a desperate attempt to overcome the bike's monumental aero-barrier. The straining engine vibrated madly as the almost incomprehensible white needle in the singular dial between the handlebars nudged thirty-five, with the steadily, forebodingly advancing blue lights partnered by the ear-piercing wail of a siren that cut into the mountain road's prior tranquillity as Connor's surroundings became a blur; his concentration at an all-time peak as he fixated his vision squarely on the stretch of tarmac ahead of the bike's light. It took his brain a significant length of time to realise that the trees were incrementally beginning to thin, with the reason coming into view as a dip in the road levelled out; a remote, minute junction, implemented by a speed-despising planner with the sole purpose of separating the flowing mountain road from its join with the nearby town bypass, robustly blocked the way, and worst of all for the terrified monkey, a red light brusquely illuminated itself on top of a uniform yellow and green one, all hanging over the road. A knee-jerk reaction from his muscles hovered his left boot over the rear-brake lever, but his brain had other ideas.

"Screw it!" he yelled defiantly, not bothering to look to his right as the tyres passed over the stop line and into the junction; the bike tipping forcefully into the corner as Connor prepared himself for the blaring horn and squealing tyres of a car with right-of-way entering the junction from either direction. Except, five seconds later, the sickening sensation hadn't arrived, and upon suddenly realising that he wasn't plastered across a crumpled bonnet, he whooped with adrenaline-filled relief as the mad chase continued, with an encompassing reminder of his still-prevalent danger barging itself into his conscience in the form of the now familiar, angular headlights, accompanied by the soundtrack of a growling five-cylinder engine as the police car pulled itself around the corner with the merest hint of understeer; the angry, drooping grille of which betraying its make and model.

"Oh great" he moaned; a quick glance back revealing the irony of his situation as the Ford Focus ST Estate, one of the fastest patrol cars that the Easthampton Police Department had managed to get their hands on, bared down on the little Honda like a determined predator as its barrage of lights obliterated themselves into his retinas.

"This is the police, pull over and stop your vehicle at once; we repeat, stop your bike!" bellowed a firm, authoritative voice from a hidden megaphone. Suddenly, as the distance between its front bumper and the bike's back wheel narrowed to mere centimetres, it swung out into the opposing lane and momentarily drew its driver's eye-line level with Connor's, before accelerating slightly further, to the point where its rear-left, rapidly-rotating alloy wheel was directly alongside the knobbly tyre encasing the Z50's front. However, neither the Officer behind the wheel nor his passenger could possibly have known about the numerous Police-Chase television shows the monkey had watched in his twelve years; Connor was already preparing himself as the Focus slammed on its brakes and veered to the left, cutting the bike off and filling his view with the alternating red and blue stripes of the livery plastering its doors. Gritting his teeth, Connor simultaneously veered to the left, leant forwards, compressed the front suspension, and pulled back on the handlebars with all his might. The front wheel left the ground and hovered over the kerb, and the moment it did so, he frantically shifted his weight forwards, bunny-hopping the bike over the strip of thin concrete separating the pavement from the road with impeccable timing; the wheels squeaked upon sailing back onto the pavement as Connor darted around the front of the Ford and accelerated along the pavement. An expensive crunch emanated from behind him, with a cocky smirk spreading across Connor's face as he glanced back to see the costly outcome of the car's attempt to follow him up the kerb; the front-left corner of the bumper, as well as the previously gleaming alloy wheels now wore a set of deep, black scratches engraved into their paint. Soon he came upon a paved path that intersected the large patch of open grassland adjacent to the road and ventured to his left into a small, man-planted forest; without a second thought, and desperate to utilise the bike's lack of size, he cut across the rutted grass before leaping back onto the asphalt and aiming the bike straight for it.

"Wait a second..." he began, wondering if his eyes were deceiving him as the path seemed to abruptly disappear the moment the trees formed a wall around it; its actual direction, however, dawned on him the moment a tall, thin metal stick placed directly in its centre reflected off the glinting moonlight.

"Shit!" he gasped, frantically clasping the brake-lever while simultaneously shoving the heel of his right boot onto the rear brake-peg; the bike's ancient brakes squeaked and rubbed as the Z50 squirreled about and almost slid out from underneath him, before anticlimactically stalling as, in his haste, the act of operating the gears completely slipped his mind. The drop rushed towards his vision but, to his immense relief, he managed to judder to a stop as the front tyre hung perilously over the first of a flight of narrow steps.

"Too...too close" he panted, balancing the bike by his now firmly-grounded, though slightly-quaking left boot, before jolting his vision around as a determined shout echoed into the night from far behind him. Realising the current futility of the Focus, the shotgun-riding Police Officer had leapt out and was now running at full pelt down the path towards him; it was all the encouragement Connor needed and, rather than wasting time by restarting the bike, he kicked the stand back up, leapt off to the right and, with his hand firmly against the front brake, began to gingerly navigate the bike down the stairs like a disobedient Beagle. In protest, the Honda began to buck and bound this way and that as the worn suspension struggled against the onslaught of bumps and knocks Connor was giving it, but the moment it reached the bottom, he leapt back onto the seat and proceeded to freewheel down the narrow asphalt path; the lack of any engine noise plunging his surroundings into an eerie silence. The abject desolation was only exacerbated by his surroundings; gone were the lush, thick evergreen trees lining the immaculately-smooth country road, and in their place defiantly stood bulbous, oppressive oak trees; their fallen leaves lining the coarse, broken concrete path withered and brittle, and their bone-thin branches seeming to bend over, actively beckoning Connor into their dark void. The moonlight, too, had been irrefutably blocked as uniformly anchored, looming black streetlights pierced their harsh, white glare onto sections of the ground that cowered underneath them. Intended to be a welcoming, peaceful strolling area, this force of man was an ugly obtrusion of urbanisation into a once tranquil forest and, despite the comparative warmth of his attire, the monkey found himself uncomfortably shivering at his surroundings; his gloved hands clasping the handlebars a fraction tighter as his socked toes quickly replicated the action, clenching fearfully inside the security of their rubber coating.

?

Winding his way through the bleak scenery, the downhill coercion of gravity was Connor's best friend, and with all traces of the law's arm now long-gone, the omnipotent force pulled the still-silent bike down the mathematically curvy path, not far off its achievable speed with a running engine, before he was forced to apply the brakes as the first properly sharp turn presented itself; a semi-circular bench sat contently in a similarly shaped patch of tarmac that bulged out from a near-270-degree turn to the right across from it. The front brakes creaked against the downward pull as he brought the bike almost to a stop before, for a change of pace, deciding on-the-spot to leap off and guide it along for a little while.

"Takin' your bike for a walk, eh? Beats a dog, I suppose" were the jovial words that croaked from a voice as rough, dry and broken as the asphalt underneath the bike's knobbly tyres. Believing he was alone, Connor almost dropped the bike as he nearly leapt out of his skin in fright before, tentatively, turning to locate the source of the voice.

"Uh...yeah, it does, I guess" he chuckled timidly, but the sight his eyes set upon as they arced downwards caused the fear coursing through his body to evaporate as quickly as his breath against the chilling night air. Lying uncomfortably against the cold metal railing to the right of the bench, an unshaven, weary-eyed black jaguar smiled back at him with an aurora far more content than his situation should've given him any right to adopt; he would have been almost invisible against the moonlight's desperate attempts to reach through the wall of trees behind him, had it not been for the shiny silver label of his contrastingly faded, repulsively stained blanket that sat haphazardly atop his slumped body. A long-deceased cigarette hung limply between his jowls, with the last remnants of ash occasionally dropping from its tip and cascading onto the blanket below. A film reel of emotions and preconceptions rolled their way through the monkey's conscience; Connor had been told repeatedly from an early age to steer clear of the homeless; that they had brought it upon themselves, and that any money thrown their way would only end up wasted on countless bottles of cheap booze and black-market drugs. Here though, alone and able for the first time to properly analyse a person society would've rather forgotten, the monkey curled the toe of his boot over the side-stand and kicked it down purposefully, stabilising the bike against it before diving his gloved hand into the array of hastily-un-zipped pockets on his hiking fleece without a second thought. Whatever situation had culminated in this jaguar finding himself here was irrelevant; this poor soul needed help regardless, Connor defiantly told himself as his right hand clasped around a slightly squishy, rectangular item surrounded by a thin layer of paper.

"Sorry pal, I ain't got any money on me; this'll have to do" he explained, "it's still got two days of its use-by date left." The jaguar arced his head forwards slightly, quietly groaning as his limp back-muscles abruptly expressed the limit of their ability; his eyes momentarily lit up, but his gratified smile quickly subsided upon the small logo of a peanut revealing itself against the predominantly dark brown packaging.

"Thanks for the offer kid, but I can't afford a roof over my head, let alone the hospital bills to treat my goddamn nut-allergy if I ate that; she sure wouldn't pay any of it, the bitch..." he growled forlornly. Peering fractionally closer, Connor suddenly gasped in shock as he noticed that two of the cat's front teeth were missing, with the ones adjacent to the gap in his mouth crooked and speckled in the dried remnants of an unmistakeable red substance.

"Oh...shit, I'm...I'm so sorry" he whispered empathetically, unable to come up with anything more comforting to say.

"Don't worry kid; even being stuck here freezin' my muzzle off is better than back in with her" he spat, staring down and shivering sporadically as a thin, but biting wind had begun to pick up.

"But it...it's not safe here; aren't there, like, homeless shelters or somethin' you can go to?" Connor inquired sympathetically, but the jaguar immediately jerked his head upwards and shot him a forlorn scowl.

"You think I haven't tried?! You need a fucking job before they'll even let you set foot in there, and thanks to the wonders of outsourcing, I ain't exactly got one!" Connor's face fell even further at this revelation; a fumble in his softly-lined pockets quickly confirmed they were indeed completely empty, and if he didn't do something, his conscience would never live it down. He suddenly noticed, however, that the jaguar's head rubbed uncomfortably against a square, angular, authoritative white sign that proclaimed, with thick red text, that rough-sleeping here was illegal; an internal chuckle arose at the cat's blatant disregard for this, but the sight also clicked a light-bulb inside his head with such ferocity that it fused.

"Alright, well...look, how about this? God knows you need it more than I do." Without waiting for the jaguar's response, Connor yanked the two halves of the garment-length, central zip away from their connection before sliding his arms out of their sleeves and retracting the fleece from his body entirely. With his breathing shaky and rapid, he approached the jaguar as calmly as he could; the rubber shaft of his boots flexing and squeaking under their load as he crouched down.

"Just lean forwards a sec...alright, there ya' go; easy now" he cosseted, folding the fleece into a vague resemblance of a pillow before crouching down and placing it gently against the railing. With a quiet shudder, the jaguar steadily leant back and realised that a soft, cotton head-rest had replaced the unforgiving steel barrier; his vocal chords could barely express his new-found contentment as the back of his grey-hair-matted head revelled in the comfort.

"Th...thanks, kid" he whispered; his voice brimming with pained gratefulness as his stained, frail paw patted Connor's knee.

"It's nothin'; really, I didn't need it" Connor assured him, though his cheeks blushed as he slowly stood upright; the new difference in height unhampering the jaguar as he continued to pat the green rubber toe of Connor's left boot that now stood next to his head, "but do me one little favour in return, O.K?"

"Yes...?" the jaguar whispered, already shutting his eyes and exhaling deeply as his aching muscles expressed their gratification.

"Alright, if a cop comes by here in the next few minutes and asks about me, pretend you never saw me, and...wait, no," Connor stopped himself as an even better idea had flung itself into his head, "tell 'em you did see me, but I went that way," he gestured down the hill to a narrow, rocky dirt path that ventured perpendicularly from the continuing asphalt a few metres away and disappeared into the forest, "I'm on a dirt bike; they'll believe you more that way. Deal?"

"Sure thing, kid; wha...what's your name?" the jaguar asked; his weary eyes now alert, but reassuringly sincere.

"Uh...Connor" he responded cautiously, unsure as to what the jaguar was going to do with the information.

"Heh, trust me to forget that name in a flash. You're a good kid, though, thanks for talkin' to me for one; everyone else just spits or ignores me" he chuckled softly, adjusting his posture. Connor retained his empathetic outside look, but inside, a lump was rising in his throat.

"No...no prob', pal; you t-take it easy, alright?" he mumbled, hanging his head as he turned back to face the Honda; with the gritty asphalt crunching under-boot, he leapt back onto the seat and kicked the engine back into action before, with one final pained look back, flicked the rubber gear-selector peg down a notch and set off smoothly into the night.

?

It was an obtrusive sign of his level of alertness that Connor found himself stifling a yawn and taking a deep, serious glance at his small digital watch as he guided the Honda down a sweeping left hander and along a road that ran adjacent to the radiant, lapping sea, with a poorly-kept, vegetation-cluttered verge separating the few metres between the two. His recoil from the engulfing odour of seaweed sweeping into his nostrils awoke him a little, but by this stage the fun had worn off; the warmth of the garage back home beckoned with a curled finger, and became increasingly difficult to resist the more he thought about it. The changing scenery a little further up the road provided a brief visual stimulant that accompanied the seaweed's nostril-bound one; the gapped white line in the road's centre disappeared momentarily as the tarmac narrowed into a petite, single-lane bridge. Suddenly, his heart skipped a beat as a set of headlights came into view from around the large stone wall further ahead of the bridge to its left, but almost instantly his heart-rate returned to double-digits at the unmistakeable absence of the duopoloy of bright, blue lights above them; this car's headlights were perfectly-spherical, thick, tall, and domineering, seemingly to physically stare down at him as the two progressed towards each other. A weather-beaten white sign hammered into the earth beside the road glumly explained that Connor's direction of travel had right of way ahead, and so he twisted the throttle a little tighter as the Z50's front tyre ventured onto the bridge.

"Huh, he seems in a rush...ugh, just lemme' through; I don't have time for this" he growled drowsily, completely disinterested in the other car's abnormal speed. This, it was suddenly revealed, was a monumental oversight that would come back to bite him mere seconds later.

"Wait a..." he began; as the bike passed completely onto the bridge, his eyes frantically computed to his brain that the other car hadn't stopped; in fact, it hadn't even slowed down. Instantly he jammed the toe of his boot onto the rear brake-peg, but the speedometer needle remained exactly where it was.

"Aaargh!" he screamed, frantically slamming the lever with all his might, but to no avail; worn to within an inch of its life, the ruined drum brake had finally given up, and he'd completely run out of space to even think about the front brake. The piercing, blinding glare of a circular L.E.D headlight drilled into his retina as his vision was rapidly swallowed by an all-encompassing, dark blue mass, but as his brain yelled at him to act, Connor frantically put the miniscule window of time he still had to good use; mustering as much strength from his aching muscles as he could, he shifted his weight backwards, pulling the front wheel off the ground before, as it came back down, slamming the handlebars as far left as they would go. The bike immediately began to skid out from underneath him as the wheel contacted the ground perpendicularly, and Connor was already in the process of dismounting the bike regardless, but nothing could've readied him for the sheer force of the impact. The ear-piercing _crunch_of modern aluminium rocketing into ancient steel ricocheted through his ear-drums as the two vehicles collided; the fuel tank whacked against his ankle as the bike was torn away from his grasp, with the blunt end of the left handlebar barely managing to avoid his torso as the serene, but foreboding feeling of weightlessness encompassed his senses. The sounds of the continued battering the Z50 was taking grew incrementally further away as a scream began to rise in his throat, but before his vocal chords had even prepared themselves, zero gravity became earth gravity with sickening abruptness; the rapidly-approaching asphalt rushed up to meet him and reminded him of its characteristics as the side of his body crashed hard onto its surface, with an ear-shattering shockwave pinballing through his helmet as the cold, unforgiving tarmac hammered his bones and tore sharply into his clothes. Momentarily blacking out, Connor groaned in abject pain as he groggily came to, sprawled haphazardly on his back; complete and utter shock was pumping adrenaline through his body as his brain struggled to communicate with his eyes as to what had just happened.

"Wha...wha...." With his vision reduced to mass of swirls and flashes, Connor placed his right hand against the ground, but got no further; he yelped as a sharp, excruciating pain from his right shoulder forced his protesting neck muscles into action, frantically pulling his dinner-plate sized eyes downwards to inspect the damage. Though his now shredded long-sleeved shirt still shielded him from the true extent of his injury, the visual result was plain to see; standing out against the moonlight, a gargantuan dark patch was protruding through the fabric, with a thick, warm liquid rolling down his arm in a small tributary and soaking into his sleeves.

"Oh fuck..." was the only whimper he could muster; adrenaline flooding his pain receptors. His brain, however, had fully regained its composure; the events of the last minute flashed in front of his eyes, with the muscles in question darting his vision ever so slightly to his left as it set upon the end result and sending a cold shiver down his spine. Lying battered and crumpled on its side, the Honda had been pummelled into submission under the all-consuming wheels of a Bentley Bentayga that were slowly backing off of it; the sheer size difference between the two vehicles almost scarily alluding to a determined, victorious predator, finally having caught and cornered its prey that was the Z50. Despite it all, Connor breathed an internal sigh of relief at one crucial thing; it could've easily been _him_lying there on top, or more likely _underneath_the bike, no doubt having breathed his last at the initial impact. Even though he was lucky to be alive, however, that didn't change what had just happened; as his vocal chords chose that exact moment to find themselves, he slammed the beige soles of his scuffed boots onto the ground and staggered to his feet.

"You fucking maniac!" he screamed, stumbling drunkenly towards the stationary Bentley, "I had right of way; you think you can just crash into me like that? I bet you think you're all tough, don't ya; come on, you prick, get out and-" he said no more; approaching the driver's side, the click of the lock was a forewarning that he barely registered before the unflinching slab of the door was flung open; the sharp edge catching just past where his helmet stopped its protection with a resounding _whack_and sending the monkey stumbling backwards against the weather-beaten, chipped stone pillars holding up the sides of the bridge as a trickle of blood began to stream from the corner of his mouth, joined by a small, but deep gash in his cheek. _ _

"Well-well, lookey who we have here; needed some fresh air after those lines, did ya', chimp?" Spitting a rose-tinted thimble from his mouth, Connor suddenly jerked upright; his blood near-erupting as his fingernails dug into his palms.

"Jeff..." he snarled in a ferocious, and somewhat incredulous, whisper, piercing his eyes into the grey rhino's sullen, droopy pair. With his immaculate Dinner Jacket almost bursting over the pressure of his thick, muscular physique, Jeff slammed the Bentayga's door firmly shut, overwhelming the soft-close mechanism, before cockily sneering at the venting monkey as he self-assuredly folded his arms and leant back against the window.

"Well, were ya'? How many lines did ol' sausage-breath make you write?"

"That's besides the fucking point; I wouldn't've even had to in the first place if you hadn't forced that poor Husky to do Seventh-Grade level maths; he's eleven for fuck's sake, no-one at that age can do what you were shovin' down his throat!" Connor exclaimed, pointing an accusing outstretched finger towards him.

"Hey, if he's strugglin' with math, I say throw him in the deep end; he'll thank me for it" Jeff quipped, shrugging disinterestedly.

"No he won't" Connor spat, "he was having a goddamn mental breakdown!"

"Yeah, because he wouldn't let me teach him a life lesson. Look, idiot, I was showin' him his future; that, in case you were wondering, was the third time I'd tried to teach him his six-times tables. I could tell he wasn't even trying, and if that brain-dead mutt can't make heads or tails of his own math grade, then how the hell is he gonna' manage in his final year? I was the best fuckin' hope he had, and after you acted all Mr. Tough Guy and resulted in my trip to Humphrey's office, and my ban from ever teaching him again, you've effectively fucked him over; great job, you retard!

"I..." The monkey began, but promptly faltered; his brain had tripped over itself on the stinging slap to his pride that Jeff, of all people, had administered, "he...well, you still shouldn't've berated him like that; I couldn't just sit back and do nothin'!"

"And look where that got ya', you nosy ape" Jeff sneered cockily, "but anyways, whatchya' doin' out here, eh? Aren't Cadets supposed to stay within the confines of the camp?" Connor turned his head away momentarily, bearing his blood-stained teeth as he did so.

"You...you don't need to know; it's none of your business what_I_ was doin', but what about you?" he snapped, disapprovingly arcing his eyes over the rhino's contrasting attire, "why the hell are you dressed like you're about to go to a fancy dinner or somethin'?"

"Er...because I am; you caught me on the way home from takin' my girlfriend out for the evening, and I wouldn't worry about what that's like; girls value guys with actual substance, ya' know" he grinned, flexing his irritatingly apparent muscles.

"Heh, bet you had to teach them basic math too" Connor growled under his breath; he'd barely been able to hear his own voice, and so yelped in startled shock as Jeff lunged forwards clasped his thick fingers around the scruff of what was left of his grey long-sleeved shirt; his teeth bared in a petrifying snarl.

"You talk like that to me again and I'll make sure you end up under the wheels!" he hissed, spraying droplets of champagne-tinged spit into Connor's bloodied cheeks, before releasing his grip and shoving the monkey backwards; their eyes locked throughout as Connor straightened his collar before glaring with abject disapproval at the vehicle in question.

"Typical; some asshat with boatloads of money thinks he can-"

"Wait, me?! Hold on, you actually think my family could afford this thing?" Jeff snorted incredulously, "Not a chance; these are a cool quarter of a mil'. Connor's eyes began to widen.

"Hold on, you didn't-"

"Of course I didn't steal it!" Jeff snapped, "It's on a twenty-four hour test-drive period. I had wanted to enjoy the drive home, and up until two minutes ago, I was, but..." before Connor could react, Jeff grabbed his wrist in a painfully tight grasp before dragging the writhing monkey around the crumpled corpse of his bike and sticking out his free hand towards the front-right corner of the Bentley, casually ignoring his obscenity-laden, ultimately futile resistance attempt.

"...then you had to come along and do this!" Connor would've preferred not to relive his literal brush with death, but with no other choice, he angrily took a disinterested sideways glance at the Bentayga's cracked headlight, scraped bumper and torn fog-light grille. A brief feeling of grim satisfaction overcame him, though; his ruined Honda, in its last hurrah, had defiantly managed to inflict far more damage upon the supposedly 'solid' Bentley than he'd have thought possible. It was quite clear at this point that attempting to argue his moral high ground was irrefutably useless, but it didn't stop him piercing his eyes into the rhino's cocky, narrow slits.

"You seriously think I give a fuck about your pompous micro-dick-mobile, asshole?" he snarled, attempting to pull his wrist free from Jeff's grasp. Oddly, the rhino remained uncharacteristically calm; he didn't even attempt to intercept Connor's struggle to break free.

"Well, here's the thing; you will care_,_ when I make your parents pay for the repairs!" It was as if someone had flicked an off-switch; Connor near-mechanically froze on the spot, with an incrementally prominent look of sheer horror spreading itself across his face.

"What...?" he whispered; his neck muscles creaking as he slowly turned his head to look at the barely concealable smirk that Jeff was proudly wearing.

"See, with this bein' a demo car and all, they carry a Fifty-Thousand Dollar excess, so on top of a new bumper, headlight and fog-light this car oughta' need, I'd imagine you'd be lookin' somewhere in the region of...uh, let's say thirteen-thousand extra, so yeah, you do the math, smart-ass; you obviously knew more than that snot-nosed husky did." There wasn't even a need to do a calculation on Connor's end; despite the little doubt about his Father's ability to pay, residing, as he did, on the top floor of a prominent Accounting firm's head office, merely the look on the ageing monkey's face when he would be told what had happened was enough to make Connor want to pass out, let alone the sixty-three thousand Dollar bill that would arrive on his desk shortly after. His turbulent, storming brain quickly decided that defiance would be the best course of action.

"No!" he growled, curling his fists menacingly, "they won't believe you; I'll tell 'em what _really_happened, and-"

"Well, here's the thing," Jeff smirked, revelling in Connor's predicament, "what with you riding a vehicle that I'll bet isn't registered, underage and without a licence, you've already broken a whole boatload of laws just by bein' here; you were in the wrong before I was. Besides, use your brain instead of your mouth for once and think about it; who are they really gonna believe? A responsible adult like me, or a shit-talkin', petulant little primate with a...a..." he took a well-aimed, disgusted kick at the limp Honda's battered frame, dislodging an engine mount and tipping the ruined four-stroke motor towards the floor, "a baby's toy?!"

"Oh fuck you!" Connor howled, unable to retaliate with a vicious comeback as tears pricked the corners of his eyes, "I'll bet you're so proud_of yourself; you _like pickin' on me, don't ya'? Does this make you feel better about your own pathetic life?!" The rhino tipped his head back and promptly burst into self-righteous laughter.

"Oh trust me Connor, I'm not picking on you one bit; you've brought all of this on yourself! I'm only puttin' you in your place when you don't toe the line; why else d' ya' think I stayed on at the camp after I'd finished my trainin' to help with the instructors? You just happened to catch me during the one time I was roped in to teach that snivellin' sled-fodder that the real world ain't all rainbows and smiles. Regardless," he continued, "since you're undoubtedly gonna' be in deeper shit than a third-world sewer, and because I'm feeling nice, how'd you like a lift back t' the camp?" Connor began to respond, but his brain hit the brakes as it struggled to computed what Jeff had just asked him.

"I...erm...." Despite everything Jeff had done, he reflected glumly, the thought of having to manhandle his ruined bike the entire five-mile journey back to the house filled him with an almost physical, concrete-like sense of dread, and the sumptuous comfort of the Bentley's lush, hand-stitched, wood-adorned, cream leather interior was beckoning him with its outstretched, ostentatious hand; one that he was powerless to ignore.

"Alright, alright" he growled through gritted teeth, "if you _promise_that you're not gonna' hand me over to the cops, then...just...yeah, go ahead." Even the phrase "thank you" got lost on the way to his mouth if he so much as looked at the thick, domineering muzzle of the rhino that was proceeding to, surprisingly gingerly, pick the bike up off the floor like a wounded animal.

"Oh, before I forget, this car's got a fancy automatic tailgate; just wave your hand under the licence-plate light and it'll open." Connor nodded half-heartedly in affirmation, still refusing to make eye contact as he limped around the back of the Bentley, where the rumbling of its W12 beating heart translated to a barely audible, almost unsettlingly soft whisper from the quintuplet of rear exhaust pipes. Sighing, he thrust his hand towards the warm glow basking the number-plate, but was greeted with nothing; a series of decidedly kung-fu-esque gestures and swipes later resulted in no action whatsoever from the stubbornly closed tailgate.

"Hey Jeff, I think it's locked; open it, will ya'?" A rough grunt shortly hit the monkey's ears, but Connor quickly found himself doing a double take; the sound hadn't been one of affirmation, rather it had been considerably more strained, as if it was the audible result of physical effort. He forebodingly peered around the bulbous rear wheel-arch, but the sight that met his eyes caused an anvil to plummet through him; the slightly rusty rear wheel arch and minute chrome pillion was the last he saw of the Honda as Jeff hurled it over the weathered stone plateau of the bridge.

"Noooo!" he screamed, sprinting towards the edge in a completely futile attempt to catch it, but it had fallen free of Jeff's hand long before Connor had even got close; pulling himself over the bridge's top, he stuck his arms out in a visual plea as a quiet, subdued _splash_locked out all sight of the bike; swallowed whole by the eerie blackness of the body of water below.

"Oops" Jeff chuckled, "I think my hands slipped! Well look on the bright side; at least you won't have to carry it home." An onlooker would have sworn at that exact moment that physical wisps of steam were emanating from Connor's ears; the monkey slammed his boots back onto the cold asphalt, snapped round to face him and, with a pained, livid howl, sprinted towards the rhino before purposefully lunging. He pulled back his left fist and swung it in a clumsy arc, but before it had even made contact with Jeff's four-figure suit, the rhino clamped his left hand around Connor's wrist, twisted his arm with the ease of a rolling pin and yanked his body round, pulling his arm around his back and holding it there. Spewing a barrage of obscenities as he furiously bawled his eyes out, Connor struggled and writhed like a pinned snake in Jeff's firm grasp, trying desperately to ignore the searing pain from behind his back.

"Woah, easy there, tiger; it's just a bike, for fuck's sake! You can get another one, can't ya'?" Jeff snarled; an abruptly serious tinge lining his quip as he wafted his hot, acrid breath into the monkey's ear.

"No! That bike meant...argh, you wouldn't understand, just lemme' go!" Connor howled, with his attempts to break free remaining futile. Desperate times, however, called for desperate measures; in their frantic desire to end the pain, his muscles vehemently ignored his brain as he haphazardly kicked his right foot backwards, catching the heel of his boot against Jeff's ankle with a resounding impact that the rubber sole did very little to alleviate. A shocked yelp emanated from behind him before, capitalising on Jeff's surprise, Connor shoved his free elbow backwards into the rhino's muscular torso; victory filling him as he felt the thick hand begin to lose its grip on his arm. The echoic hollowness of his victory, however, was soon to hit him as a sudden spasm of pain shot along his twisted arm; Jeff having regained his composure and squeezed it with immense force.

"Huh, you wanna' do this the hard way? Alrighty then..." Before Connor could even begin to respond, Jeff swung his right leg forwards with football-player accuracy, upwardly arcing his boat-like shoe directly in-between Connor's legs. The effect was instantaneous; the monkey groaned through gritted teeth as the abject agony of a searing, ferociously throbbing pain ricocheted through the length of his body and, with his guard, as well as his manhood well and truly down, he was powerless as a black, hand-stitched-cloth-covered arm swung around his torso, locked itself against his torn grey shirt and pulled; irony coming back to bite him as Jeff swung the blunt, yet painfully sharp end of his hand-stitched shoes into the underside of Connor's knee, jerking him backwards and sending him sprawling onto the ground. The crystal-clear, halcyon night-sky was completely shielded by the rhino's gargantuan physique as Jeff loomed proudly above him, his hands firmly on his hips and the familiar shit-eating grin well and truly back in full force.

"Wow Connor, I mean, seriously; I'm not even mad, I'm just disappointed. You really thought you could take me on? Jeez; you need to cool that hot head o' yours before you meet someone who won't treat you so lightly. Hopefully I've taught you a few things tonight; I mean, teachin' people by force is kinda' what I do." Reduced to pathetically rolling around on the damp asphalt, groaning and growling in equal measures as the pain refused to subside, Connor could only shoot a livid stare into Jeff's eyes as the rhino sauntered past him; the sound of precise quality emanating into the night as he opened the Bentley's door.

"Oh boy, Humphrey's gonna love this; I'll call him tonight, and I'm sure he'll be perfectly happy to be woken up at this hour; if he doesn't expel you for this, I don't know what will. Hey, it's a win-win" he continued, gesticulating broadly with his outstretched hand, "I won't ever have to look at your pathetic face again, and you won't have to be at the camp anymore; hell, you've made it crystal-clear you hate being there, so I'd be honoured to end your suffering! Sweet dreams, ya' filthy primate; I'll see you in court. Have fun!" he chuckled sadistically, curling himself into the Bentayga's cossetting interior and calmly closing the door, before disengaging the parking-brake and smoothly re-commencing the German barge's journey towards civilisation.

"Ass-kissing motherfucker!" Connor hissed through gritted teeth the moment Jeff was out of earshot; trying desperately to ignore his crotch-centred pain, the monkey stumbled to his feet and leant uneasily against the bridge support.. He was shaking with unbridled rage like never before, but his brain managed to put a stop to its internal battle long enough for him to determine his course of action.

"I gotta' get the bike back!" he exclaimed internally, vocally muttering the thought as the amount of his skin its presence would save dawned on him. Quite apart from the possibility of salvaging it, crucially, the Honda was irrefutable evidence; there was little doubt that anyone would believe such a tiny bike would do as much damage as it did to a near three-tonne lump of aluminium, and if nothing else, it would give him the moral high ground, despite Jeff's irritating reminder of the law-book Connor had invalidated just by _being_here. Intricacies regardless, damage limitation was the best solution he had, and with his once stunning blue helmet thrown to the ground, the rubber soles of his wellies became repeatedly squeezed against the asphalt as the monkey marched purposefully around the end of the bridge and down the small bank of soft grass alongside it, arriving at the bridge's long neglected underside. Sheltering was illegal underneath it, but in reality, the council needn't have bothered; the bridge's mere ten metre length spanned the mouth of what had, until recently, been a sedately-flowing river, but months upon months of a stubbornly sunny, cloudless summer had reduced its speed to zero, locking the river and the mouth of the sea in a permanent stalemate. With his vision fixated solely on its centre, Connor's shadow leapt off the side of the bridge alongside him as he took the first step from the dew-glittered grass into the murky, intimidating water, already pulling his sleeves up his arms in preparation for the inevitable digging that awaited him. The water rippled in perfect expanding circles away from his boots, before the second, more forceful step sent the liquid flying in all directions as he determinedly pressed on, with the repetitive sounds of the displaced water breaking the silence in the night air.

"Splash_...splash...squelch._" Connor thought nothing of the abrupt change, but suddenly froze as he leant forwards and began to lift his right foot out of the water to continue; an invisible, sucking, clawing force had encompassed the ankle of his boot, and its source was revealed when, upon pressing his socked foot against the bottom of the its shaft and tugging it upwards, clumps of a thick, gloopy brown substance dislodged themselves from the rubber exterior and slid slowly down it as he finally pulled it out of the water before swinging it forwards. However, it suddenly dawned on him that his left boot, sinking incrementally further downwards as it forced the mud below it out of the way, was even more lodged in situ than his right had been; kicking and pulling this way and that from within it did nothing to dislodge it.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" he snapped, grimacing as he firmly clasped his fingers around the top of the boot's shaft and yanked it free; the surface underfoot sucking and bubbling in protest at the loss of its victim. The façade that the river had maliciously played was causing an increasingly prominent sense of unease to overcome him as it became ever more apparent; the water was, in fact, little more than two ­inches thick, concealing below its surface a body of ice-cold, viscous tidal mud, ready to grab the nearest wellington boot it could find and refuse to let go. Undeterred, and knowing the bike couldn't have landed any more than a few steps away from him, Connor quickly lunged his left boot forwards, watching with grim disgust as it re-entered the barely-visible wet sediment and began to sink downwards. The hissing and slopping that accompanied its descent, however, didn't stop, and the fact that the ground underneath his partially-submerged boot had just given way was something Connor's brain had barely registered before the green shaft in front of him disappeared and, as the freezing mud hurled itself over the top of his boot and down into his sock, he felt his entire body begin to tip forwards as well; the mud sadistically letting go of his other boot at the worst possible time. Unable to retain his balance any longer, the monkey exclaimed a sustained, terrified yelp as he tumbled forwards and splashed into the water in front of him; the murky liquid quickly giving way to the ooze beneath it once more, only this time for it to spread its open mouth and greedily swallow his entire, flailing upper-body. Ironically, the water at the centre of what had become a gargantuan bog was fractionally deeper, enough to give the mud just enough moisture to completely fall apart under Connor's now metre-under boots and remove any foothold he could've hoped to salvage. Deliriously thrashing against the hypothermia-inducing hell-hole that tugged insidiously at his straining body, the entirety of his grey shirt disappeared as the mud creeped its way towards his neck, forcing him to tilt his head up to a breathless, straining angle as he struggled against the quagmire's onslaught.

"Help; somebody, help me!!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, but the tranquillity of the halcyon, star-sprinkled night sky far above him was a stark reminder of his isolation. Such was his immense panic, he hadn't noticed the increased rate at which he was sinking; his submerged clothes were continuing to take on ever-increasing amounts of mud and drag him down ever further, but as he glanced down and began to tilt his head forwards as part of a joint effort with his aching arms to hurl himself free, the filthy substance curled up over his chin and began to flow into his mouth. Connor frantically clamped his teeth shut to halt its progress, but already the oozing, foul-taste had coated his tongue, and upon spitting it out, a barrage of the vile liquid broke through and filled the back of his throat. His screams were promptly replaced with a helpless fit of coughing and retching as he angrily shook his head from side to side, attempting to find some means, _any_means, of liberating his vocal cavity; alas, his mouth had well and truly lost the battle as it became completely covered by the valiant mud. As his trembling, tear-stained face became halfway engulfed, his brain tried desperately to communicate to him through his dry sobs that enough was enough. What good would it do? Almost all life had been sucked from his limbs, and any further struggling would only quicken the inevitable. The entirety of his so tantilisingly-near-thirteen-year life flashed before his eyes in a haze of happy memories; accidentally setting fire to the family shed on his seventh birthday, building glorious sandcastles with one of his now-intangible, long-separated friends, the very first time behind the wheel of his Mother's old Toyota Celica...

"Mom, help me; please..." he moaned internally; his attempts to verbally whimper stopped dead by the putrid mud filling his mouth. He knew he couldn't savour these precious memories for much longer; his moist vision had begun to swirl in a series of disorientated spirals, with his muscles clinging onto whatever life they could by sporadically twitching. Through his rapidly-fading state of consciousness, however, one of his senses began to yell inaudibly at his brain, for his right boot had come to rest upon a pointy, vertical, and most importantly, solid object below him. As his brain finally decoded the message, it kicked what was left of his senses into overdrive; Connor's vision disappeared as his eyes dipped below the surface, but as they did so, he pressed his boot against the mysterious object and used the resultant force to lunge forwards. His right knee rubbed against a patch of marginally thicker mud and, spurred by this tangible development, he wasted no time in shoving it into the sediment; the new found support enabling him to stretch his arms forwards and claw at the surface. Angling his body further and further forwards and finding whatever means necessary to make progress, he managed to find a patch solid enough to support his contorted, posture and began to furiously crawl through the incrementally shallowing mud. He took a merciful lungful of air as the entirety of his head finally broke the surface, before arcing his eyes upwards and setting his vision squarely on the beckoning grass. Despite the bog's best efforts to contain him, Connor mustered up a level of strength he'd never have thought possible, least of all two minutes prior, as he focused his mind on nothing but putting one knee in front of the other; the mud within the bog becoming indistinguishable from the swathes now caking his body. His hands barely even registered the first glorious touch of the tender, dew-lined grass, but its cossetting surface slowly dawned on him as it spread the length of his body. Having not quite come to terms that fact that he was alive, the violently trembling, mud-coated monkey took one final wretch before his stomach decided enough was enough, promptly hurling as much of the foul substance out of his mouth as he could; its sickly aftertaste wasn't going to leave quite as easily though, and it continued to coat the inside of his mouth as Connor crawled pathetically towards the underside of the stone bridge alongside him, tears beginning to drip from his eyes and mingle with the mud coating the lower half of his face. Fading in and out of consciousness like a pendulum, he turned and slumped against the unforgiving, weather-beaten stone; tilting his head back and bunching his eyes shut, he choked back a steady river from his eyes as an utterly incredulous thought that had nabbed at his mind the moment his boot had touched upon it materialised. In an ironic twist of fate, the tall, pointy object, without doubt, had been the Honda Z50's right handlebar, sitting vertically perpendicular to the wrecked bike at the bottom of the marsh, and though the front forks had been bent completely out of shape in the crash, the plucky handlebars had emerged almost unscathed. The river of tears meandering down his face momentarily became tears of merciful joy; he'd stared death in the face twice in the space of ten minutes, but on both occasions, the little bike had, inadvertently, sacrificed itself for him. He jovially imagined sympathetically throwing a ring of flowers into the bog, hoping they'd sink to the bottom and land on the Honda's submerged corpse, but its final ordeal through what had undoubtedly been the ride of its forty-year life would have to suffice.