FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

First Breeze

Well, this is it. Today's finally the day I officially join the special academy and become a college student. I take a deep breath, making sure I don't trip over anything as I continue to walk.

This is it, my fresh start. Finally, I'll be able to leave behind the metaphorical shackles that figuratively held me down in high school. I even got a new look! Of course that look was "border collie".

I didn't mind it too much, I like being a werebeast. I mean, look at me! I'm all cute and cuddly now, and my fur's all soft and fluffy! Besides, I'm just glad that I had a natural affinity with the shifting process. Usually it takes a whole year, but I was able to fully trigger my werebeast form in a week, and learn form control and "animal etiquette" in a month.

Of course, by my parent's request, it was done from home. In all honesty, I was surprised they gave two cents about my safety, actually for once caring about my well being to do that. although, I suspect it was so that they could make sure that this shift didn't get in the way of any of my studies, being their only son and having the responsibility to uphold the family name, being the "genius" that I was. I'm just glad to be away from them and their constant nagging of how I never do well enough in school, and how I should always be studying. It was all I ever did, yet it was never enough.

I take a deep breath, exhaling it all at once. The air was nice here, calm and clean.

Bump*

I stagger back after I accidentally bump into someone as I turn the corner. I look forward towards them . . . then up, because he was really tall. He was a german shepherd, and quite the attractive one too.

"Oh I'm s-"

"Watch where the fuck you're going, dumbass!" He screams out in pure rage. My ears flatten out submissively, my tail going between my legs. Huh, that's never happened before.

Guilt flashes across his face, but he just grumbles and walks past me. Great, literally here for ten minutes, and something goes wrong. My high school life all over again.

"Maybe it won't be as bad as before." I say to myself, trying to lie. I keep walking forward, thinking about how life was a complete bitch. I notice how I was walking differently, how my steps didn't have the same bounce in them, and I notice that the air didn't smell as sweet anymore, just stifling now. At any rate, I suppose this is different from my high school days.

I still remember those hateful glares, how I was an outcast for no particular reason they could name, the loneliness I felt. But ...it isn't the worst thing out there, so I can't really complain. I can't be so selfishly sad over a bit of loneliness.

* * * *

Welp, I'm lost. I look at the map they provided me with for the thousandth time.

Yeah, I give up. Okay, time to use "World Atlas". A brief explanation to no one in particular, "World Atlas" is a personal skill, otherwise known as an abnormality. Those are biological skills and abilities that a person is born with. "World Atlas" is a skill that allows me to connect with a special field in the world. You see, humans emit special brainwaves, and those waves create a "cloud". I can connect to this "cloud" and bring up all sorts of information from the collective pile. Think about it like surfing the internet, only infinitely more invasive, which is why I didn't like using the skill unless it was absolutely necessary.

I close my eyes and listen. Sparks seem to run through my fur.

"Where is my apartment complex?" I think to myself. The electricity seems to get stronger, making the fur on my neck rise up, ever so slightly. Suddenly, I see an image of the apartment, as well as the general route from my exact location. Well, that was faster than usual. I guess my werebeast form is better for using "World Atlas". I'll have to look into that more, but later.

For now, I'm gonna get to my apartment and sleep. ... Ok, first I'll unpack. Then I'll sleep. But I'm pretty hungry ... Ok, unpack, eat, then sleep. Or maybe I should clean the apartment a bit. Who knows what the previous tenants did there. You know what, I'll decide once I get there.

And with that, I start walking off. I walk with the directions I got, managing to get there in no time. Soon enough, I see the large apartment complex, "Alexius's Vanguard". Why they named it that, I have no idea.

I walk up to the apartment building . . . my new home. I let out a sigh of relief, grateful that I was able to get here without much else going wrong. All I have to do now is just walk in.

Wait, how do I get into my apartment? They never gave me a key. Talk to the landlord? No, social interaction was never my strong suit. I'd probably go in there, trip on a twig and just die of embarrassment! Or something else, but definitely along those lines. Gosh Darn it, what do I do in a situation like this?!

"Thank you school." I mutter to no one in particular. "Showed me how to do logarithms, scientific conversions, and all that good shiz, but I'm completely, utterly lost when it comes to getting into an apartment!!"

. . . Wait a second. I pull out a small slip of paper with information on it. Aha, just as I remembered, I was put into the roommate program due to a bit of financial difficulty. Christopher Alatrion, quite the fancy name. This is good, if he's here, then he'll let me in! I'm still scared of the whole talking and social interaction part, but it isn't as bad since I have to meet him.

I quickly find my apartment, shown by the door with a mailbox, in bold red letters "938", the address on the slip of paper.

I stand in front of the door, my tail wagging in excitement. I wonder what kind of person he'll be. Will he be strong, handsome, romantic, the perfect gentle-men? I knock on the door, four times exactly. Wait, why was it four, why not five? I guess it's just some social standard type of thing. Actually, maybe it changes between places, like how in Europe, the streets are switched, or how the water in an Australian toilet swirls the opposite way!

My ears twitch in excitement, and not because of reverse flushing toilets, but as I hear heavy footsteps approach the door. Anxiety, or excitement? Definitely excitement.

The door opens, creaking just the tiniest bit, revealing . . . a muscular chest. I look up a bit and see . . . a german shepherd, towering over me with a kind smile of his face.

But not just any german shepherd, cause that would be way too easy for that bitch (also known as life), nope, it was the german shepherd. The one from this morning. My tail immediately goes between my legs, my ears going flat on my head.

Oh gosh.

For a moment, guilt flashes across his face, but he looks away, his ears going half back, as if ashamed.

. . . Why? Why is he here? I'm screwed, royally, fucking, upside-down screwed, wait, maybe he's just visiting that Christopher guy, wait no, I'm not so fortunate.

God, I have officially started to believe you exist. Because only you could make a set-up this cruel and perfect.

He glances down at me, but quickly looks away. Seriously, though, the guy was huge! He stood over me, about 6'5", while here I am, 5'6", just standing here, cowering in fear.

"H-Hi" I say nervously.

"Hey." He says, quietly.

"So-"

"Look I'm . . . really sorry about today." He says, interrupting me.

". . . What?" I say, a bit confused. That's . . . the first time anyone's ever apologized to me.

"It's just . . . I was having a crappy day and I took it out on you. It was a dick move, I'm sorry."

"I-It's ok." I say, happy he was kind enough to apologize.

"No, it's not. I shouldn't have done something like that. I don't know how I'm going to make this right." He says, scratching the back of his neck, a gesture of either being nervous, or having an itchy neck.

"Um . . . I guess you could start by letting me in." I say meekly.

". . . Wha?"

"I'm Kendrick Escreed, your new roommate."

* * (Perspective Change, Christopher Alatrion) * *

. . . This guy is Kendrick Escreed? A wave of guilt washes through me, once again. My first time meeting with my future roommate was me cussing him out. Great.

"O-Oh, I see. Then come in. Sorry again." I say.

"I-It's ok, I'm actually glad that my roommate has it in him to apologize."

After acting so shamefully, how could I not? He walks past me, tail slightly wagging. I blush a bit, seeing him acting so submissive and cute . . . kind of gave me a small problem. Well, a semi-problem, if you know what I mean.

"Well, at least I'll be able to make it up to you a bit easier now." I say, smiling at him.

"You don't have to do that." he says quickly.

"No, I insist. How about I start by helping you unpack your things, and then maybe buy you lunch later?" I offer.

"Y-You really don't have to . . . wait, how did you get my stuff?" he asks nervously, pointing to the corner of the living room that had his luggage neatly lain out. "They got taken off my hands when I got into town . . ."

"Don't worry about it." I say, putting a paw on his shoulder to reassure him. I see him glance at my paw, his ears turning just a tiny bit pinker. "They delivered it a while ago, but I didn't take anything out, since I thought it would be rude."

"Oh, Th-thank you." he says, a small smile crossing his muzzle. Damn, I can't believe he's this adorable. I really lucked out on this one.

We quickly get into unpacking, putting his stuff on his side of the room, since we only had one for the both of us. Luckily (or unluckily in my case) there were two beds.

"You don't mind sharing a room with me, right?" I ask, trying to make sure he was comfortable. He didn't seem too excited about seeing me again, and I didn't want to make him nervous or anything.

"Not at all. It's actually really exciting." He says smiling.

"Having your own place?"

"Sleeping in a room with another person." He says, catching me off guard.

I look to him, a bit surprised. "That's what you find exciting?"

"Y-Yeah, it's something new. This whole day has been pretty exciting."

"That's great!" I say, grinning widely. "College should be fun."

". . . Not according to them." he mutters under his breath.

"What was that?" I ask, hoping to get more out of him.

"N-Nothing." He says. I feel a small twinge of sadness, a bit hurt that he didn't want to confide in me. Then again, we met just today, and out first meeting was much less than desirable. "Oh, by the way, what got you so angry?"

"We~ll," I start saying, holding out the "e" sound in well for dramatic emphasis. "It all started this morning."

* * (Flash back, this morning) * *

Finally, getting my own apartment. Kinda. I still had a roommate, but I didn't care much. In fact, I was hoping that this one isn't as straight as my last one.

I walk outside to my car, getting my keys.

Suddenly, a tree comes flying out of nowhere, smashing into my car.

". . . Ok." I say, screaming on the inside. Someone was going on a rampage. I turn to my right, deciding to just walk there. My insurance would handle it, and if not that then the school government would compensate, since most likely it was one of their members responsible. Now that I think about it, does insurance work this way? I'm fairly sure it's much more complicated, like with pictures and calling them up and all that good stuff. Strange, it was almost as if there was someone writing up this world, and setting some unspoken rule that somehow altered the way insurance worked.

Abruptly, the clouds gather thick, and it starts absolutely pouring.

I look up to the sky. What next, hit by lightning?

As if on cue, lightning strikes my car, creating an explosion and shaking the ground.

Man that was close. Good thing I got behind the building, standing in the alleyway. In the split second that the lightning struck the car, I activated "Cerberus", finding the safest and closest escape route in order to avoid the explosion of the car, as well as any metal shrapnel.

I leave the alleyway, grumbling. Lightning doesn't even work that way! . . . Does it? I thought it struck the tallest thing since it was just opposite charges from the ground and the sky connecting, and therefore connected with the tallest object. I rub my paw against my head, grumbling even further about my headache. Using my ability always gave me a headache if I activated it too quickly, and thinking about the whole lightning phenomena didn't help either.

Today's not a good day. What next, mugged by a 5'6" border collie? Well, look on the bright side. The rain stopped and my fur and clothes dried off surprisingly quickly, though they were just the tiniest bit damp.

Bump*

I look down, feeling that something had just bumped into me. A border collie. Of fucking course.

* * (Flashback over) * *

"I'm sorry, but how did you dry off so quickly again?" he asks curiously.

"The rain had stopped fairly quickly, and my clothes dry pretty quickly. As for my fur, well that's a trade secret." I say, smirking a little.

"Oh, well I'm sorry it's been such a bad day" he says.

"Why're you apologizing? You didn't do anything wrong." I say.

"Because the world doesn't have the ovaries to apologize for being such a dick, so someone has to do it." he says. I laugh a bit, smiling at the strange phrase, but it made me feel incredibly good to have such a cute pup apologize for the entire world to me.

"Well, I'll be fine." I say, leaving out the "especially now that you're here" part. But he really was helping. Sure, he was adorable and just my type, but he was also really nice, and for some reason, with him here, all my problems just seemed to fade away. Heck, even my headache disappeared.

"So is this your first time in the city? I ask.

"Yeah." He says. "I'm glad I was able to get here."

"Didn't like it back home?" I ask curiously.

"It's . . . really complicated." He says, distancing himself.

Another pang of sadness. "Well, I'm not good with complicated things, but you can always tell me anything if you want." I say, making sure that he knew he could confide in me.

"Thanks." He says, giving me one of those cute smiles of his, again.

"Well, that's good enough for now." I say, admiring the great job we did. In just a few minutes, we managed to get everything unpacked and set up in the room. Of course, he didn't have much to begin with, just the pure necessities from the looks of it all.

"We did pretty good." He says, a bit of pride in his eyes.

"How about we break for lunch?" I ask, just now realizing how hungry I really was.

"Sounds good to me." Ken says. And with that, we both head out.

* * * *

* * (Perspective change, Kendrick Escreed) * *

"Wow, this city's really big." I say, glad that we got to sit down after the long walk. The breeze was cool, and there were clouds in the sky, offering shade, but it was still a bit hard making the trek.

"Yeah, there're some really cool places here. There's the forest, and even an old clock tower!" He says excitedly. The forest didn't seem too appealing, but the clock tower piqued my curiosity.

"Really? I wanna go see that clock tower."

"Why?" Christopher asks curiously.

"I've never seen one before, and I've always liked analyzing things piece by piece. It was always just so fun knowing that you were one step closer to truly understanding something for every second you spent really looking at it."

"Curious one, aren't you? You know they say that curiosity killed the cat."

"And it was satisfaction that brought him back." I retort.

"And that's why they all have nine lives." We both say in unison. We both laugh, enjoying how we seemed to sync up so well.

I finally stop laughing and look at the big guy. At first, I thought he was just some huge chunk of muscle, but there was a lot more to him. Yes, he was tall and muscular, but he was also compact. No muscle bulged out abnormally, but they all seemed to hug his body tightly, giving him a strange cross of a body builder and a swimmer. Other than his muscles, there were his ears that always stood straight up, swiveling and twitching to every sound. There was also his smile that seemed to warm up the entire room, and those strange vermillion eyes of his, almost a crimson red when in the dark. You'd think that red eyes like that were creepy, but I thought they were kinda nice. True, I thought that he was going to eat me alive, but now they just sent this pleasant tingle through me when he looked my way with those beautiful eyes, as if he could see right into my core, but he wasn't absolutely disgusted with what he saw.

Unlike all the others who just saw what they thought was an outside.

"Hey Christopher-"

"Chris." He says, interrupting me.

"What?" I ask, slightly confused.

"Call me Chris." He says kindly. "I don't like Christopher, it sounds way too stuck up. And we're friends now, right Kendrick?" He flashes me a warm smile, making my heart beat faster for just a second. Although, that second seemed like an eternity.

The waitress suddenly comes, carrying plates of our food. I was honestly surprised. Not only had we been able to order immediately, they brought out the food just as fast. You know it's good service when you feel like they're moving way too fast and need to slow down.

"Thank you." Chris says politely as she places our food down.

She leans over the table toward him, showing off as much cleavage humanly possible with a shirt on.

"No problem hun." She says, just a tad bit lustily. I feel a bit of annoyance rise up from inside me . . . wait, annoyance?

She walks away, much to my great enjoyment. "S-So, um, Chris then?"

"Yeah." He says, taking a sip of his lemonade.

"Th-Then, you should call me Ken. Kendrick never really rolled off the tongue naturally for me, and Ken seems a lot simpler." I say, blushing profusely. He smiles, giving me a small nod and taking yet another sip of his lemonade. "U-Um, you and her got a thing going on or something?"

He chokes a bit, almost spraying his drink all over the table. "What?!" he shouts out, coughing just a tiny bit. "What gave you that idea?!"

"Well she was obviously into you." I point out.

"Really?" he asks, as if it wasn't totally obvious. "That's too bad."

"Why?" I ask, slightly nervous to hear the answer as to why he couldn't date her. I mean, c'mon, she was a catch to any straight guy, right? Pretty face, big boobs, female genitalia, and all that good feminine stuff. I take a drink of my water, my mouth suddenly feeling dry. It always feels dry when I'm nervous.

"Because I'm gay." He says bluntly.

This time, I choke on my water, spitting out just a tiny bit out. He laughs at my reaction.

"H-Hey, stop laughing! It was an honest surprise." I say, grumbling a bit.

"S-Sorry, but why was it that surprising?" he asks, putting a paw on his belly to calm down the laughing fit.

"Are you kidding? You're like an Adonis, the definition of all things maleness and . . . well, straight!"

"Meh, I like girls, I guess, but they just don't turn me on. I'm more into submissive guys, kinda short, skinny, and adorably subby. So I guess . . . guys like you."

My face burns up. "I-um-uh-"

He breaks out into laughter again. "It was a joke, don't worry. I do like guys like you, but I'm not going for a straight guy." He says.

"W-Well, I'm not . . . exactly . . . straight . . . so to say."

". . . What?" he asks, tilting his head a little and giving me the "confused puppy" look.

"N-Never mind." I say, letting out a small, disappointed sigh.

"Oh wait, I get it now." He says, having a "light bulb" moment.

"R-Really?" I ask, hoping he got the subtle, yet not so subtle hint.

"Yeah." He says, smiling widely. "You're into . . ."

C'mon, say it, say that I'm-

"-Into masculine women!" he says. I drop my head in further disappointment, wondering honestly how thick headed this guy was. I guess he was just an idiot when it came to realizing that people were coming onto him. Wait . . . was I coming onto him? Did I like him? Wait, no, I knew him for literally less than an hour. C'mon brain, stop being confusing, this isn't some "love at first sight" soap opera.

"Not even close." I say. "Don't worry about it, it doesn't matter."

"No" he says firmly. "I'm gonna find out what you meant. Don't worry, it'll just take a little time."

"Why try so hard?" I ask, lifting my head up and looking into his crimson red eyes.

"Because I don't like ignoring people." He says, surprising me. My heart starts beating faster. "And making you say 'it doesn't matter' is the same as ignoring you. I refuse to look away from something so easily."

"Huh . . . that's a first." I say.

"Having someone try so hard?" he asks.

"Having someone care enough to pay attention." I mutter under my breath. "A-Anyway," I say, changing the topic. "We should eat."

"I'm already done." Chris says bluntly.

I look down to his plate, noticing that it actually was cleaned off completely. ". . . How?" I ask, totally baffled by the sight.

"I just took small bites between every sentence." He says, smiling. I let out a light giggle, then proceed to dig into my plate of food. "So what do you plan on studying here?"

I plan to go into the science wing of this school that studies abnormalities and personal skills. As far as I know, this is the only school in the world that offers this kind of scientific focus on the one phenomena, though that's understandable since this is the school that encourages people with these abnormalities to come here." I say, but not with a mouth full of food, of course. Because half chewed food is way too attractive to show off. Speaking of food, nom*.

"Really? I never fully understood the whole concept of personal skills."

"Ah, well they're basically rare skills gained by genetic mutation and evolution." I explain. "There's more to it, but every skill is complex on its own, and abides by its own sets of rules and regulations. In all honesty, it's a hard study since the definition of an abnormality, in a sense, is a skill that defies what we expect as the norm."

"Sounds complicated." Chris says bitterly, snatching a small bit of food from my plate.

"You think that was complicated? There's also the whole controversy on what we as humans should do with these skills. It would be easy for us to just take over the entire human race with a small army of abnormals, but can we as humans really do that? Then we would just have people standing on top and an unhappy bottom."

"And no one likes an unhappy bottom." Chris says, chuckling for some reason.

"Exactly. I mean, I know I wouldn't like being forced onto the bottom like that, though I'll admit there are the perks of being one of the bottoms." I say.

I see Chris stare at me, his ears a dark red. "O-Oh? Elaborate, if you can." He says. Is . . . is his nose bleeding?

"Well, on the bottom, you don't have to worry about those on top as much. If it's a mutual relationship, the top handles quite a bit of it all. I mean, sure, the top can get a little rough, but in the end it's for the best, that is assuming you have a good top."

"Oh my gosh, ok." He says, pinching his nose shut.

"What? Is something wrong?" I ask.

"N-Nothing at all, Ken. Let's change the topic." He says. Darn, I must have bored him. "So do you have an abnormality?"

"Yeah, it's called 'World Atlas'." I say.

"Cool, wanna tell me what it does?" he asks, curiously.

"Um, it's kinda . . . personal." I say. I see his ears droop a bit. Dang it, I wish I was more comfortable with all this but . . . I don't know, I just can't tell him.

"Ok, well since you told me yours, I'll tell you mine." He says. At the mention of this, my ears perk up, and I feel my tail thump against the chair in excitement. "My personal skill is called 'Cerberus'." He says, with a bit of pride.

I could tell that my eyes lit up, and my tail was now in overdrive. "Really?! What does it do?!"

"W-Well, it basically doubles my processing power. And by that I mean that I can take in and interpret data sent to my brain faster, increasing my reaction time. It's not like everything goes in slow motion, but more likely thoughts on what's happening and what I should do in response come much faster. In fact, this is why I named it 'Cerberus', after the three headed dog."

"But I thought-"

"Exactly." I give him my best confused-puppy-dog-look. "The reason I named it after a three headed dog is because I can actually triple my processing power. You see, there's a myth about Cerberus that says that he always has two heads awake, while another one sleeps, kinda like taking shifts. I can do the same. Normally, when the power's active, I have two 'heads' awake, and I have a third one 'asleep', ready to jump into action."

"Do you mean, like, literal heads?" I ask.

"No. my power works like this. I can activate 'Cerberus' and double my processing power twice every hour, and the effects only last about five minutes a pop. But I can activate both charges and triple my processing power, but the trade off is I can't use 'Cerberus' for two hours."

"Wait, so is it like a 'five minute max' for a use, or does any amount of time burn up once charge?" I ask.

"One charge takes five minutes, any less and I can save it for another use, and I'm always recharging it since that's more of a passive skill, so I only have to wait for a little bit." He explains.

"Ok, so it takes an hour for ten minutes, so~ . . . you get one charge per six minutes of rest?"

"Yeah, saying rest as in not using that ability."

"That's such a cool ability. Can I examine it later?" I ask, like I was a little pup trying to ask their parents for candy.

"Sure" he says, giving me a kind smile.

"Thank you!" I say, letting out a light giggle. Maybe this wouldn't be high school all over again, after all.

* * * *

I look out the window to the bright moon as it let a small sliver of its light escape from its surface, that small sliver of moonlight just managing to find its way through the void of space, through the clouds in the sky, through the blinds and curtains, and into our room. I hold out my paw and look at how the moonlight lit up my fur. Moonlight always intrigued me, and in this city with the air filtration plan to help clean the air and repair the atmosphere, the moonlight seemed so much brighter.

Seriously though, they even managed to muffle the light pollution to allow the stars to shine. How they did, I'm not exactly sure. But hey, I'm not complaining.

I look at my recently finished journal entry, as I lie on my bed thinking about the day. After the lunch Chris promised me, we went back to the apartment and just hung out. We ended up watching this hilarious movie about two gay guys who end up dating each other, but one of them was cross dressing and pretending he was a girl. Got some pretty steamy scenes, too, in TV terms. Seriously, a whole kiss!

. . . Ok so I've never really watched TV other than documentaries and have no idea if it was good or bad due to not having anything to compare it to, but I kinda liked it. After that, we just talked and joked around, and he even showed me his abnormality. Apparently, when he activates it, his eyes start to glow. Something about the pigments in his iris glowing in the dark due to an increase of chemical fluids releasing from his brain, or something of the sort. We didn't really know, since he wasn't ready to get his eyes dissected.

He . . . he was my first friend. It feels like a dream, in all honesty. I guess that's why I'm afraid that any minute now . . . I'll wake up and . . . and I'll be alone again. It really hurt me to think of anything like that happening . . . the thought of him leaving me.

Wait, wait, wait a second there. What? Did I-? No. I can't-. But maybe. . . .

Just maybe . . . did I think of him as something more than just a friend? From my vast knowledge of love (gathered from countless cliché and romantic stories I managed to smuggle in from my old school's library), all the events of today may suggest I am, indeed, in love with him.

Ok. First off, am I gay? Yeah, duh.

Next, did my heart start beating faster at odd times while he was in my presence and I was doing no noticeably physical activities? Yup, quite a few times. There was at lunch, then at home when he wrapped his arm around my waist and rested his head on my shoulder. He was just tired and bored of the movie, but still!

Did I feel like I could trust him? And did I like to be around him? Well . . . I trusted him more than anyone else, and of course I like to be around him! He's smart, nice, funny, and he was just so . . . different than anyone else I knew. He was kind, compassionate, and he refused to let any little thing slip past him, he was always thinking about not only the big problems, but the little things too.

Ok, one last test.

I glance over to his bed on the other side of the room, at his sleeping form. He looked so . . . peaceful, so at rest and calm. It made me smile for some reason. And not just because he was wearing only boxers.

I keep looking at him, for some reason, entranced by his almost naked body. He had dark brown fur over most of his back, going down to the tip of his tail, with the same dark fur covering his muzzle and wrapping around his arms and legs up to his elbows and knees. He also had a lighter shade of brown on his chest, legs, and arms, and just a bit seeping into his face.

In the moonlight, that fur seemed to glisten, just a tiny bit, as if his fur was infused with small flakes of gold, and it looked so warm and soft. I just wanted to run my paws through it. Oh shit, I'm in love with him!

Watching your maybe-love interest sleep? Sadly, yes.

Ok, no. let's think about this rationally. I only knew him for literally a day, if that! And besides, this is real life, not some story. No matter how hard I wished . . . it was never one of those stories.

I look down at my journal, wondering how many times that I had wished to be whisked away by someone like him. Too many times to count, that's for sure. I close the small book, placing within it my pencil as well. I place my journal carefully under my pillow, since I was always so scared of it.

All of my secrets, all my feelings, in a single, brown leather book, labeled "The Book of Lies", because I always wanted it to be lies. I didn't want it all to be true. Yet it was true, right down to the core. That one book was probably as much me as I was yesterday. As I was a few seconds ago.

Well, no use on dwelling on it.

I look back over to Chris, the moonlight still flowing across him. I yawn quietly, closing my eyes that were so heavy. Today was a long day, indeed. A scary one, but one that promised adventure in the future.

Soon, I feel myself falling into slumber's gentle embrace.

Of course, I knew that it had a dagger behind its back, one I knew all too well.

A dagger named nightmare.

* * * *

He hugs me, Chris. And I hug him back. We stay still for a little bit, just staying there.

Suddenly, he simply shrugs me off, quickly step away. I look up to him, shocked and hurt, still caught up in the illusion that I meant something to him. He looks at me, hate clear in his eyes. I look around and see thousands of nameless people doing the same.

I was scared, I was sad, I was a kid again.

"Not again." I whisper to myself, curling up into a ball. I sit on the freezing cold floor, in the small corner that they somehow drove me into. In front of the crowd, Chris, mom, and dad, all three of them staring at me, absolutely disgusted at the sight of such a despicable being.

"Not again." I whisper to myself, trembling. "Not again." I keep chanting those two words as if they would keep me safe, make all the bad things go away. "Not again."

* * * *

I sit up quickly, yelping a bit. A dream, it was just a dream. Or maybe it was some kind of omen, some kind of sign!

Suddenly, something tightens around my waist. I look down and see two arms wrapped around me, Chris's arms. He pulls me close to his chest, (his still shirtless chest), holding me close to him.

"Shh, it's ok, it was just a nightmare." He says, gently rubbing my belly. I blush a bit, realizing just how close we actually were, but I calm down all the same. He was so big and warm, and his fur was even softer than I had imagined, yet it still had a bit of a rough edge to it.

And besides the fact that he was exactly like a giant teddy bear, there was something else about him that just seemed to make me feel at ease. As if when I was with him, I had nothing to worry about. I guess, in a way, he was like home to me. Funny, I lived in a house for eighteen years, yet this German shepherd was more of a home to me than that place ever was.

"I . . . I know it was just a dream, but . . . it still scares me." I say, whimpering a bit. "Um . . . by the way, why're you in my bed?"

"O-Oh, well . . . I saw you whimpering in your sleep, so I just snuck in and started to hug you. it's something that my mom would always do when I was a pup, so I thought I would do the same for you. Y-You know, to help you calm down."

I don't say anything else, and just relax in his embrace. I had no idea that I was so stiff. Strange how tension can build up so much, and you never notice it until you let it go. "Anything you wanna talk about?" Chris asks, softly.

"W-What do you mean?" I ask, a bit nervous.

". . . 'Not again'." He says. I knew what he meant. "You . . . you don't have to tell me, but I'll always lend an ear." He says, rubbing my belly again.

"It's ok . . . it isn't anything that bad, nothing too serious." I assure him.

"Don't lie to yourself." He says. I look back at him, a bit surprised. If anything, I expected for him to accuse me of lying to him, not the other way around. "It's obvious that something's really bothering you. Otherwise, you wouldn't have nightmares like that, and I can tell that wasn't the first time you had that particular one. Don't try to ignore your troubles by saying something like it isn't that big of a deal. Just because it isn't your usual problem, of even if it seems small, it can still cut deep in you. I'm not gonna force it out of you . . . but remember that you have me. Lean on me whenever you want, I'll always be here for you."

I look at him, still surprised. I never thought that he could get so deep. I smile, knowing that I was wrong about him. "Thank you. I'll tell you one day, but for now, I don't think I'm ready."

"Okay, I understand."

". . .B-But can you stay a while longer?" I ask, almost pleadingly.

He smiles softly, that one smile somehow warming me up. "Of course, pup."

I turn around in the embrace so I can face him. After a bit of awkward grinding and shuffling, I finally give him a proper hug, and hold onto him.

"S-Sorry, it's just that this is the first time anyone's ever done this for me, and I like it." I say, sighing happily and nuzzling his soft chest fur.

"Sleeping with someone else?" he asks, curiously.

"Having someone care." and with those words, sleep takes me once again. But even in my muddled mind, I knew I wouldn't be plagued with my usual nightmares.

Why? Cause I had the guard dog of Hades himself protecting me.