FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Written by brazy "birb" seeker

Inspired by K.A. Applegate's "Animorphs"

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CHAPTER 5

As we snuck down the stairs I could hear Mikey's mom crying in her room not far away. My heart couldn't take much more of this, we had to get out of here as fast as possible. The back door clicked closed softly and we were gone into the dense springtime air. The McDonald's wasn't too far away, only a mile or less, but we were on foot so it would be a little bit. I pulled my Walkman out of my backpack and clicked on some 70s tunes my dad gave me long ago, they were good for wandering, and we were off down the road, taking in the atmosphere along the way.

We walked in silence for a while before I turned over to Mikey. "Hey, Mikey?"

"Yeah?" Mikey said.

"What if we did end up in California? What do you think you'd do first?" I said.

He sighed as if he was already thinking about California before I even mentioned it.

"I don't really know. I never really thought much about moving away from here," Mikey replied, "I mean, I've thought about moving away plenty of times, in a normal sense, I just mean the whole..."

"Yeah. That." I responded.

"You think its actually real?" He said "I mean... I saw it, some of it, my mom recorded the whole thing on tape, but it's just... it feels so surreal. Do you really think we could just leave like that?"

His voice seemed different from the last time we talked about the invasion. "Wait, I thought you said you were going to stay." I said. "I mean, you're right, I know you are. You've got a lot of life to work towards, and-"

"I know, I know, but it just... what if we did go." Mikey replied, cutting me off. "I mean... if we were animals, if we could even figure out how all that morphing stuff works... we wouldn't need to worry about all this anymore, this... this... life bullshit. My dad..."

My eyes widened. I was almost shocked. Was he really suggesting what I was thinking before? The hawk. "You don't mean... are you saying you want to go with me?"

"I know it seems crazy, but look," Mikey's voice picked up as he spoke. We turned down the main street of our small town and could see the McDonald's all the way at the other end. "What if we did leave. What if we just packed up all our shit, hell what if we took that car your dad lets you drive and just... went. It wouldn't even matter, what would they do?"

I looked at him stunned, but I couldn't help but feel an excitement brewing in me, in both of us. I could feel something. I had never seen Mikey like this.

"I... but your family-" I said, stuttering some.

"What family?! My dad, he's gone! Hell, I don't even want to live in a world without him, do you even know how much he meant to me?" Mikey burst again, yelling practically right in my face. It scared me, deeply. I didn't really know what he and his dad were like, I barely saw him outside of school and our hangouts. I'm a little ashamed to admit I didn't really know what it was like to lose someone close like that.

"I'm sorry Mikey, I just... I didn't know, I don't know. My parents never really... I wasn't close to them like that" I responded timidly.

"Look, I don't give a rat's ass about what your shitty relationship with your parents is like right now, my dad is GONE." He yelled at me in a way I had never seen him speak to anyone, let alone me. "Just... AGHH!" He picked up the pace and ran off ahead of me, yelling back at me. "I need some time, just go... cry to someone else"

I stopped walking and my heart sank. I wanted to cry right then and there by the road. I just sat down, right there in the road where I stood, watching him jog off into the distance, speechless. I watched him travel down the road until he disappeared into the McDonald's. The cars drove around me, but I was close enough to the side to be out of the way. Part of me wished I were a little closer to them, but I knew this time Mikey wouldn't be there to pull me out of the way.

I just stared at the restaurant, watching the cars fly past, staring in silence as soft peaceful music played quietly through my headphones, and I cried. I thought about the last year, all the adventures we had been on together. I thought about the time we packed up our school bags full of clothes and tarps, snagging a six-pack of beer from my dad's fridge and went off to an abandoned apartment complex one weekend. There were homeless guys there, but we made friends soon enough with the offering of free beer and some cigarettes we found in Mikey's place. We spent all weekend looking at the stars on the roof and talking, talking to the homeless and to each other. All of us shared our own stories, turns out some of the homeless had traveled a lot too, a good few were just there by choice. They had no real home, they made their homes where they went. We both envied them. I wonder what they would do if they could morph too.

Now in one swift motion, I felt like it was all gone. I realized there was someone in my life I did care about, and he was there the whole time. I felt like an idiot, and now it was too late. It was too late to talk. Too late to apologize. He was gone.

I stood up. Headlights came over the horizon. It was time to fix my mistake. It was time to finish what Mikey was too heroic to let me do before.

I stepped into the road.

"SCREEEECH HONKHONKHONK- THUD!"

It didn't hurt as much as I expected. I was there, and then it was over. Lights out. The last thing I remember was sirens and Mikey. To this day, I don't know if I imagined it, or if he was really there, carrying me off the road, crying for me to wake up.

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up...