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"Reports are coming in of an incident on the southbound side of the East Mersea Parkway Bridge. Two lanes are currently closed as police and medical teams try to reach a young man who is threatening to jump from the bridge into Safeharbour Bay. Drivers are advised that the situation is ongoing and they should attempt to find an alternative route if possible. We'll bring you updates as the story develops through the evening. We now go live to the scene -- "

*

Caleb stumbled down the road, his open coat flapping around him as he walked. The winter wind was thin, cutting through his coat, clothes and fur alike to bite into his skin. Though it blew gustily into his eyes and caused him to stagger with the harder blows, he found himself grateful for it: the cold numbed the pain of his bruised, aching hands and gave him a rationale, and an excuse, for crying.

"Hey, Caleb? How's it going? D'you miss me this weekend? Did you see your girlfriend on Friday? She's a real -- OOOOOOFFF!"

In slow motion Caleb's mind played back the events of the day. The details stood out, crisp and preternatually clear, the colours hypersaturated, the sound echoing in his mind. He saw, again, his roommate's expression change from frivolous bonhomie to stunned disbelief as the young tiger's inexpert fist buried itself in the pit of his stomach, the Doberman's ears twisting and perkingas his jaw dropped to give him that somewhat ridiculous look common to many canines.

"What the fuck, duuu-ooooof!"

"You sick bastard!" The sound tore itself from Caleb's throat. "You fucking - fucking - AAARRGGH!" Words and his brain failing him, Caleb took half a step back, not thinking but merely acting, and with his fist tightly closed gave a vicious backhand sideswiping punch across the dog's face. Eric staggered and almost fell, reaching out for the support of Caleb's bed, but in his rage the tiger was faster than the jock and got there first. A flurry of punches and kicks and slaps battered the dog, one kick landing between his legs and causing him to howl in high-pitched distress; his body went simultaneously limp and yet tried to curl upon itself into a foetal position for protection.

"Caleb - Caleb, please! Please! Please, stop! Please!" The words came quickly and easily to a mouth that had rarely begged before. Blood ran from bruises and cuts where Caleb's claws had managed to dig through his clothes and fur to score parallel wounds. Eric felt Caleb picking him up and shaking him; his vision a blur from blood trickling into his eyes, he could barely discern through the haze of pain and fear the pure, unadulterated rage and hatred on the young tiger's face. A moment later he felt himself thrown across the room to land awkwardly against the wall; something in his shoulder took too much of the impact and broke, and he howled again, sinking to the floor, leaving thick trails of blood as he down.

The tiger turned around, left his field of vision for a moment, and then returned. He had something in his hand, something thin and long and flexible. Oh God, oh fuck, he's gonna kill me, I'm gonna die! thought the pup, wriggling around in an attempt to get some purchase, an attempt to find some way to defend himself from the insane feline. But one arm was out of commission, hanging at a sick angle from his shoulder, his body was a morass of aches and screaming cuts and just didn't have the strength, and when he tried to lift himself up even a little his good hand slipped out from under him, slicked by his own blood. A moment later Caleb was standing over him, and then kneeling down. The thing in the tiger's paw was held in front of his face, roughly rectangular, coloured: the blood in his eyes and bruising to his face made it hard to make out. He did his best to focus on even a part of it while it was steady. And when he did, and saw what was there, he understood. His brown eyes filled with true fear as they looked up, searching for Caleb's, trying to make that smallest of connections. "I'm sorry..." he whispered.

Caleb looked down. "What?"

"I'm sorry... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

"What's that you said, dog? I can't hear you."

" I'm sorry!" Eric's voice was a desperate, high-pitched scream of repentance. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Caleb, please! I'm sorry!"

"You're sorry for what, you ratbastard? Sorry you did it? Or sorry I found out about it?"

"No, no, no!" The dog was crying now, blood mixed with tears coming from his eyes. "No! I'm sorry I did it! I shouldn't have! I'm sorry, Caleb! Please! Oh, God, no, oh please, please, pleaaaaaaase...!"

Caleb's scent was full in his face, hot breath panting from young lungs unaccustomed to exertion or anger. "You're sorry, huh? You're sorry? You say you're sorry and that makes it all better, does it, you motherfucking dickwad?! You think that makes us even? You think we go back to playing Rock Stars now, like before? We clean up this mess and have a big old bro-hug and everything's just as it was?!" Sheer wordless emotion erupted in Caleb and he gave voice the only way he knew how, with a single wordless roar that came up from the very depths of him and exploded into Eric's face. Acrid scent and a hissing noise filled the air and moments later a warm wetness reached Caleb's hindpaws that he paid no heed. "I LOVED HER! D'you hear me, you rindless, gutless, brain-dead piece of muscle-bound turd?! I - love - her! She is the best, the most wonderful, the sweetest, the brightest thing in my entire fucking life! She was the only person to treat me like a person! The only girl who's ever done more than look at me and laugh! And now she's _ gone , you _bastard! you unmitigated fuckturd! you illiterate, brain-dead, hormone-driven, musclebound excuse for a slack and sloppy cunt! _ She thinks I did this! _ ME! _ Because I'm a computer scientist and so _obviously I'd know how to do it! And now she's gone, and I'll never see her again! Never! Never -- see -- her -- again! Never! Never! _Never, you bastard! Never! Never! NEVER!" _

Caleb had reached for Eric as he spoke, hands made strong by anger, claws digging into the dog's shoulders as he pushed him, screaming and howling, onto his back and banged his head and shoulders against the floor in time with his words. Each time Eric's head impacted the floor it made a satisfying thump, the broken bones in his shoulders cracking in rhythm and sympathy. After the one final screamed word, punctuated by a particularly violent shake, Eric's eyes had rolled up into his head and his tongue lolled as blackness finally took pity on the boy and gathered him unto its merciful bourne.

As Eric's head finally lolled to one side, Caleb felt the anger that had scorched its way through his body begin to fade. He saw properly for the first time since he had thrown that first punch, saw the state of the room, blood everywhere, a wide puddle of canine-scented urine across the bare wood by the door and soaking into the square rug by the bed, the total disarray yet again from where he had flung Eric in his rage, and most of all he saw the other young man lying on the floor, barely and shallowly but still breathing, beaten from head to toe, face almost unrecognisable, claw-rent clothing sticking to his body where blood had flowed thickly out and clotted, matting to the bruised and broken body it covered. Shock and fear replaced anger, cold where the excoriating heat had been, and his own legs, now, threatened to give out beneath him. Stumbling, he reached for the bed and fell, bodily, upon it; his face landed in the pillow that still bare Abigail's scent together with his own. But now there were no tears to come, no anger to be expiated, but merely a sadness that filled his entire body and a sense of shame and fear he couldn't describe. Stiffly, aching, his hands hurting from the bruises they gained with every strike on the dog, he pushed himself up from the bed and stood. Behind the door his heavy jacket hung, and he felt its comforting weight encompass him as it slipped on. Not wanting to see again what he had done to his roommate he pulled the door open without looking, feeling it catch on the dog's hand, and slipped out into the hallway...

The cold sound of water shushing below him drew him back to reality. In his fugue he had walked several miles from campus to the harbourside. In better times, this was one of his favourite places to come, even on the grey and dull days, simply to look out across the ocean's vastness and hear the steady hiss and shush, the suck and pull of the waves as they skittered up the pebble beaches below the sea-wall. To his left the road went up and around, rising to meet the bridge. As he turned to look, the wind caught the jacket, pulling it open and tousling his hair at the same time. Shusshhhhhh, said the sea, shusssshhhhh... Hhussshhhhh...

Caleb turned and began to walk toward the bridge.

*

"Oh, holy fuck! Shit! Who did this to you?" The young antelope reached out for the dog crumpled in the middle of the hallway, then thought better of it. His friend stared down at the broken figure on the floor and the trail of thickly smeared blood that led back into one of the rooms.

"Holy, holy fuck..."

"Hey, Florian," said the antelope. His friend didn't respond but continued to stare down at the wreck of a canine in the middle of the floor. "Florian!"

"Whuh?" Florian looked up and blinked, his horizontal pupils contracting.

"Dude, call Public Safety. You know I don't have a phone. And tell them to get here now, with an EMT."

"Right." The goat fumbled in his trouser pocket, pulled out a phone and turned away from the sight to make the call.

The antelope squatted back down and now reached out and carefully put a hand one on of the dog's hands. He was shocked at how the well-built young man flinched from his touch, and annoyed at himself for how his own body responded to the feel of soft fur against his hand with an unbidden swell of desire. "It's okay," he whispered, "it's going to be okay."

"Please..." The word came from between bruised lips. "Please... please..."

"It's okay. It's okay. Help's on its way."

"... don't..."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"... please..." Two brown eyes looked up helplessly, desperate and sightless.

"I promise."

"... please..."

"I promise. I'll be right here."

The doors at the end of the hall slammed open, and the antelope looked up to see the EMTs and the school security walking down the hall towards them and the shock and disbelief on their faces.

"... please... please... oh, please..."

"I'm here."

"... please..."