Goodbye, Tomorrow; Chapter One: City of Lights, City of Death
This is a new story I've been working on. It's set in the same world as my series 'Hush', but it takes places a few generations afterwards, so it really shouldn't be neccesary to read that series first, especially since it's not entirely done.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/4377242 - Art of my fursona, Katz
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Chapter One: City of Lights, City of Death
The sun falls down, and the city lights up with glittering neon light as its night life begins. Doors are shut and curtains pulled across windows as the day life ends.
As darkness falls, and downtown comes alive, shadowy figures move through the slums--criminals out to live another night.
And, for one wolftiger, another sleepless night begins.
"Damn it!" Katz snarls to himself. He swings his legs over the side of his bed, and stands up. "Damn, damn, damn..." he mumbles to himself as he paces across his small room.
Resigned to another night of sleeplessness, he gets dressed again, pulling on a pair of jeans and a red shirt over his grey-and-black-striped fur. He grabs his jacket from where it hangs next to the door, pulls it on, and head out the door.
**
In ten minutes of walking down nearly-empty streets, Katz reachee the brightly-lit centre of the city, where neon glow and bright spotlights reigned supreme, all so bright that the stars in the sky were invisible.
The wolf-tiger hybrid sighs. He misses the country, he misses sprawling forests and bright stars and running down a lonely highway with his friends, nothing but the moon to light their way. But that is all long gone to him--a life he'd never be able to have again.
Katz finally comes across a crowd, and begins to merge, though he stands out--he is mostly wolf, with a tiger's stripes, a feline tail, and feline eyes, wearing a black jacket, among a crowd of fur who were mostly all canine, and mostly dressed nicely; tourists on vacation, desperate to waste their time and their money in casinos and clubs in the great city of Newspire.
The fur soon finds the side street he's looking for--this one was barren, only a few shady-looking furs walking it. Katz turns, and begins heading for a bar a little distance along the street, a small place he's familiar with.
He pushes open the door and steps inside, into a haze of smoke and the stench of alcohol.
"Hey, Katz," the bear bartender calls, "haven't seen you for a while. But there's somebody who's been in here lookin' for ya; he just stepped into the washroom, I think."
"Looking for me?" Katz asks, "why?"
The bear shrugs. "No clue. Just some panther that's been in here every night for a few weeks, trying to find you. You need a drink?"
"Nah," the wolftiger says, heading for the washroom, "I'll go see if this fur's in there. See what he wants."
Katz reaches the door to the male washroom, and pushes it open--he can see a panther standing in front of a sink, dressed in a floor-length trench coat, fiddling with something in his paws. Then, the panther lifts it up--he holds a menacing-looking pistol, with a long silencer screwed onto the end.
Katz gasps and steps back. As the door swings shut, he can see the panther's head turning back to see what the source of that gasp was...
Katz turns and runs, fast as he can, charging straight for the front door of the bar and pushing through, hitting the sidewalk outside. He runs for the much larger street ahead, hoping to be able to lose himself in the crowd of tourists and citizens.
A slightly muffled but still loud gunshot rings out behind him, and Katz feels a bullet flash by his left ear. His eyes widen, and he tries to run faster as his heart pounds like a jackhammer against his ribs.
He reaches the crowd and forces his way in, pushing furs aside, as he tries to make his way deeper into the group.
More gunshots, and screams from the crowd as people are hit. What the hell is he doing? Katz wonders, as furs on the edge of the crowd fall to the bullets.
The gunfire continues, and Katz realizes that he can't hide in the crowd--the panther is clearly insane enough to simply fire into the crowd of furs.
Katz moves to the right, stepping onto the crowded street, and begins weaving through slowly-moving vehicles as drivers hurl insults and obscenities towards him. He makes his way to the far side of the street, and turns right, running along a barely-lit street that will carry him home.
He enters his apartment and spins around, slamming the door shut and locking it. Then, he runs for the kitchen and begins tearing through drawers, setting anything he can possible use for a weapon on the counter.
When his search is done, he whimpers as he sees the small defence he has for himself--one large knife, two smaller ones, and a revolver he doesn't even know how to fire. Nevertheless, he tucks the revolver into the back of his jeans, wraps each of the smaller knives in cloth and sticks them in his jacket's pockets, and picks up the large knife, holding it in a reverse grip.
There's a knock on the door. Slowly, cautiously, Katz makes his way to the door, looking through the frosted glass windows to try and see who it might be.
He hears a click, and dives to the side, just in time to avoid the bullet that crashes through the glass and flies through the air where his head had been less than a second ago. A black paw reaches inside and turns the lock, before the panther throws open the door and steps inside.
Katz runs at him, swinging the knife. The panther throws up an arm in defence, taking the slash to the forearm, and the feline snarls in pain and fury. He swings his weapon, smashing Katz in the side of the muzzle with the barrel of his pistol, and the wolftiger is stunned. Still, Katz swings his blade blindly, and hears a satisfying hiss of agony. He leaps forward and swings the knife down, and feels it slide into the panther's body, the sharp edge slicing in between his foe's ribs. The panther struggles and twitches, before he falls to the floor, dead.
Shocked, Katz can do nothing but stare at the bloody corpse on the floor, as the panther's wide-open but lifeless eyes stare back up at him.
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And, of course, comments and (helpful) criticism is ALWAYS welcome and appreciated!