Tales of the unfortunate
#2 of Why do I bother to write this
Here's the first part of the story I promised at my journal. Sorry for any grammar mistakes ;)
The forest laid cold, in the darkness of the silent night. The only audible sounds were those from the wheels of the cars frictioning against the asphalt; what were people doing driving so late at night, I have no fuckin' idea. Perhaps some random man going to a brothel God-knows-where, perhaps a much younger boy who's going to meet his love, perhaps a bunch of criminals escaping. Nobody cares, and no one will ever care, for the night is when the world of the Morpheus mixes with ours. And sometimes, someone has a nightmare, a real nightmare...
Suddenly, a car stoped. Its occupants entered the forest, invading the silent of the night. Hours passed, and a blood-freezing howl echoed; then the sky was completly dark, as the moon has hidden behing the wings of thousands of scared birds. As quick as it took off, the flock returned to their nests; no one noticed that the car was driving again, albeit slowlier, perhaps due to extra weight. Nobody cares though...
"Wake up Shizuka!"
"Mom, shut the fuck up!" the girl replied. This only made her mother throw her off the bed.
"Look what you've done bitch!"
"Don't you dare speak to me like that! I can put you out of here just like I did to your father!"
"Yeah, right."
The 16 year old girl went to the bathroom. Lately, the relationship with her mother became worse and worse; a month ago her father was arrested, as Shizuka's mother claimed he raped her and their daughter. Actually, what happened is that Suzan (yeah, thats her name; she's american), who only married Takashi for his money, discovered that he was cheating on her with his old friend Brenda, who had fallen in love with him in her teenage years and later expressed her feelings about one year ago. Fearing divorce and therefore no more access to Takashi's money, Suzan got rid of him, and Shizuka would never forgive her mother for that...even if she was banned from her home.
The girl always walked to school; her mother never gave her money for a ticket in the bus, and her father was no longer here to drive her to school. And she didn't care; after all, extra excercise didn't hurt anyone. And the school was just a kilometre away. After half an hour or so she was already at the corridors of Otaku High; not the best school in the world, but at least she'd get a good education there. She had arrived almost in time for her first lesson of the day
"Hi Shizuka!" a male voice came from behind her.
"Oh, I haven't got time to speak now Kit. See ya later!"
"See ya" the fox replied. He was one of Shizuka's best friends; they had known each other since the kindergarden. Shizuka was also the first person he told about his sexuality, and she continued to be his friend, even saying that she knew that he was gay since she met him.
Not to far from Otaku High, a building stood among the houses. It was once an orphanate, but the original owners decided to move elsewhere, thus allowing Lord Kryptos, the panther who rules the city in name of King Charles IV, to buy it, and while the building hasn't suffered any significant changes (aside from reparations), it certainly wasn't an orphanate anymore. In fact, nobody knew what was the function of the building, or what happened to the cubs that weren't adopted (all human kids had been adopted prior to the orphanate's end).
A somewhat modest car parked right in front of the building, though from it came the owner of the building; Lord Kryptos prefered avoiding the attention of everyone else, specially with the increasing presence of republicans and communists, as well as the men sent to kill him by rival lords. Not to mention that he had to keep the building's function secret. The panther was still a noble though: his clothes had gold and jewels in them, his natural claws were surgically replaced by ivory ones and so were his teeth, his whiskers were also surgically replaced by platinum ones, and the building's hall was decorated with several expensive greek pots, a hint of his macedonian ancestry. On the hall a raven (not an anthro one, as there are only sentient and non-sentient birds) greeted him. He supervised the building in the lord's absence, which made him almost the owner of it. Each one of his feathers had been covered by silver powder, and his right eye had been replaced by a ruby; he too was rich.
"Welcome my lord. You came just in time; the hippopteroi was caught yesterday, as you ordered."
"Great. But I'm afraid we'll have to take specially precautions today."
"Another visit from the Prince I suppose?"
"No, he won't bother me ever again. No, I'm refering to the fact that today Otaku High has planned a field trip to our "social center". If I am to avoid rumours and my eventual down fall at the hands of my enemies, I had to agree. So you know what to do; a single mistake and we're both out of business."
"Yes my lord."
A phone call made the bird take off and fly to the desk; with some much weight from his expensive body alterations flight was extremely tiring for the raven, even if he had to fly for just a meter or two.
"Hello?"
"Hi Mr. Passer. It seems we're going 1 hour earlier than expected."
Lord Kryptos, who heard the conversation with his very sensitive ears, nearly panicked, but gave a gesture to the bird to say yes.
"Okay, we'll take care of everything. Bye!" Passer turned off the phone suddently, without waiting for the answer.
"How much time do we have?"
"More or less 10 minutes."
"Then move your fat ass and do something!"
The raven mumbled something, and took off; he turned on the artificial air currents, so he could fly more easily across the whole building.
"Alright boys! Hide youselves in the cantine; the cops are comin'!"