Chapter two – A place to call home
Imported from SF2 with no description.
A pair of golden eyes slowly awoke from the sleep in the Veterinary Medical Station. Blinded from the bright light on the ceiling, Kass tried to look around the room he was in right now. Yes, those golden eyes belonged to Kass. He was all right; laying on a bed in the furry hospital and was very confused about how could that be. Next moment, he saw Niaa sitting in a chair next to his bed and looking down at the floor with her eyes wet from tears. Kass gently touched Niaa’s paw and silently called out her name. On this, the snow leopardess lifted her head to see Kass’ somehow tired expression while he asked what have happened. Niaa jumped from the chair bending down to embrace him carefully from the joy that he was all right. After a while and on Kass’ begging, she let go of him, sat back in the chair, and begun to talk. She told him, that she got a call from the vet who told her that he was brought here with a deep wound in his chest, so he was immediately brought to surgery. The blade hit the heart, so it was critical, but fortunately, Kass had a wolf blood in his veins so they had a donor for his new heart.
Kass stayed surprised. Someone gave him a new heart? He lifted himself up to sit on the bed and put away the long shirt, he was now wearing, to see the bandages around his chest. It was a strange feeling to know that the heart of someone else was beating in his chest. He slightly put his hand on top of his new heart to feel its beats, when a question shot through his mind.
"Aki, where is Aki?" - Kass asked looking at the snow leopardess.
On this Niaa lowered her ears and turned her look away. Kass wanted to thank Aki. She was the only one who stayed with him and tried to help, he explained to Niaa; but in fact Aki has done much more for Kass than he could in that moment imagine. When even after a while Niaa was not answering the question, Kass started to worry. On this, Niaa finally spoke up. She asked him, if he knew why Aki was on the wheelchair when she was able to walk. He answered that he knew only that Aki was ill and got very fast exhausted, nothing more, but why was she asking this? Niaa told him that because of the disease, Aki's life was slowly fading away and that each strain made it only worse; and that, what happened in the park let Aki come to her limits. Niaa did not know all details, only what Wuffy told her when they met in the medical station, but from what she understood, Aki rescued Kass’ life by giving her own. Kass froze... They had a donor for him, because he was half a wolf and Aki gave her own life for him? Should this mean that the heart in his chest belonged to...but how? Why? Tears started to drop down onto the bed cowers. Kass, squeezing the shirt above his heart in his fist, started to weep silently. He begged Niaa to say that it was not true, that Aki has not done that, that Aki has not gave him her heart, but...the only thing Niaa could say was what Wuffy told her. It was not happening often that a wolf calls someone a friend, because this word is special, but when it happens, the person can be sure, that this friendship will last a lifetime and maybe even longer.
Then Niaa took out a collar and with words - "Aki wished that you should have it, and that one day it will rescue your life..." - she handed it to Kass.
Kass lifted his head and looked at the collar. His hands were shaking as he held it. The last time, he held this collar in his hand, was in the bathroom at school while it still was around Aki’s neck. Now, it was empty. He would like to see her again so much. Kass then wiped the tears from his eyes and put the collar around his neck, then he lay back down on the bed, because he was still weak from the surgery. Niaa looked very surprised when Kass put the collar around his neck. She never heard about a human who would wear a collar after a furry. Well, she also never heard about a human that would have a wolf heart as well, and she was looking at one right now. Only now she understood how much Aki meant to Kass, no wonder that he tried to protect her.
When Niaa wanted to stand up and leave the room the lights flashed again and turned off for a short while. As Kass saw this, he immediately remembered what Luke told him about the explosion in the ERF before all this happened in the park. That was now two days ago and since than, Kass had no idea what was going on outside in the city. He asked Niaa about his father and if she knew anything more about what actually happened. She answered, that his father told her through the phone that he will stay at work until everything will be finished, but that was all he told her.
The most parts of the city still stayed with minimum or no energy since the explosion, including the medical station Kass was in right now. Such important buildings had a second connection to the ERF through underground tunnel network and their own energy capacities, so they could still be supplied with energy. Maybe not with as much as normally, but at least with enough to work.
Before Niaa left the room, she told Kass, that she will come to visit him every day, so he will not be alone there, but the boy already felt alone, even if Niaa was still there. For the short time he and Aki knew each other, he got used to Aki’s company so much and he has not even noticed it and now, without her, it was like a part of him was missing…a very important part.
Kass never got a chance to say goodbye to his mother and he did not want to miss it this time too. He called out Niaa’s name to stop her before she could close the door behind her, and it worked. She turned around, and came back into the room ready to listen to whatever he wanted to say. At first it surprised Niaa a bit that Kass wanted to say goodbye to Aki right now, but in some way she has expected it, even if not so soon. Niaa knew, that Kass was not really in the condition for this, but saying no would not be the answer to him. She just took a deep breath and told, that she will see what she can do by talking to the vet. She has promised nothing, because since yesterday, a while after Kass’ surgery, the lights started to flash and the whole medical station turned dark for a longer while. From there on, the energy was very unstable, so there was chaos in there. When Niaa walked out, Kass got down from the bed and knelt down on the floor to put out a pair of slippers from under the bed. He quickly realized that sharp fast moves were out of order as he fell on his nose. It was quite different to land with his nose on the hard floor than in Aki’s soft fur. On this Niaa walked in again. At first she was scared to see Kass laying on the floor, but when she saw him reaching a hand after the slippers under his bed she calmed down again and asked smiling if he lost something.
"Other than my balance, no!" - came the answer from Kass when he finally got the slippers and sat up to put them on.
Niaa told him that his body is probably still partialy under the influence of medicine, so he will not be able to move as easy as usual. Kass just stroke his hurting nose letting Niaa know that he has already figured it out his way! Then the boy reached out his hand saying that a bit of help would be appreciated there. On this, instead of a paw, Niaa just handed him a piece of paper with words, that she was helping him already and that it could be appreciated too. Usually, Kass would not tolerate such a intimate and personal behavior from her side, but now, he just asked what the paper was for. From Niaa’s explaining he understood, that it was sort of a permission to see Aki one more time to say her goodbye. Niaa wanted to ask Kass if he was really sure about this, but was interrupted by him saying that it was as if he would owe this to Aki. He just must do it, because otherwise he would feel like a traitor. On this Niaa closed her eyes and turned with her back to Kass. A tear run down her cheek when she touched the door handle. This was the Kass she always knew was inside.
"Let us go…" - said Niaa, helping Kass out of the room.
They were heading right, to the elevators on the end of the corridor. They were walking slowly because of Kass’ condition. Niaa was sure to be always one step ahead to assure that Kass will not fall on his nose again. They reached the elevators, but unfortunately, they did not work, so the staircase was the only option. Well, it sounded easy, just walk down the stairs from the fourth floor to the second basement, but after the first row of stairs, one of Kass’ legs gave away and he fell forward. The boy landed with his nose neatly on Niaa’s chest fur as she was instinctively turning to catch him. He immediately lifted himself blushing hard and apologized to Niaa that it was just an accident. The beautiful snow leopardess just smiled and said again to Kass, that if he will be exhausted they will hold on and rest for a while. Yet, Kass did not want to hear about any rest at all. Aki was doing this daily at school and she never dared to ask him for a rest. The boy thought, that this must be a piece of cake for him, but Niaa interrupted him quickly. Maybe he was right about Aki, but she was not after a heart transplantation and under influence of medicine! The snow leopardess also added, that he does not need to prove anything to anyone. He was not responsible for what happened to Aki, but Kass thought exactly the opposite and nothing what Niaa would say to him would convince him about the difference.
Niaa continued her way down followed by Kass close behind. They walked down floor after floor when Kass took Niaa’s tail in his hands and yanked at it softly. Niaa turned around to see what Kass wanted and found him sunk in thoughts with her long silver tail still in both of his hands in front of him. She had absolutely no idea what should this be, so she called Kass by his name and asked what was wrong. Kass said, that it was already the third time she ran her tail across his face when she swished it from one side to the other. He wanted her to stop, but as he grabbed her tail, it was so familiar to him as if he would have been doing this hundred times before, but he had no idea how could that be possible. Niaa just smiled gently and said that he probably could not remember, because he was very young, but once this, her tail, was his favourite toy. Poor Kass, he stood there completely confused and blushed hard. What she meant with "his favourite toy"?
It seemed to Niaa as if it would be just few days ago when young, just four years old, Kass was trying to catch her tail every time he had a chance to. Often, used to his mother's fluffy warm fur, he could not sleep well without something that soft and warm, but small enough to hold it in hands and Niaa’s tail was exactly the right thing for that. Each morning after that, Niaa had her paws full to groom her pride, her tail, back in its former shape again.
Kass could not believe what he just heard. Did he really sleep wrapped around Niaa’s tail? Few days ago he would not believe that no matter what and would yell at Niaa how she dares to say anything like that! Now, they both laughed at this as they finally reached the ground floor. From there it was not fair to the second basement where, at least after the paper Niaa brought to Kass, Aki was. There was only one small problem; the building never had a second basement! After the info-desk, the Veterinary Medical Station had fourteen floors, the ground floor and only one underground floor marked as a B1, the first basement. Kass scrolled the virtual info-desk up and down again and again, but it always ended just and only with the B1 underground floor. He turned to Niaa to ask for help or at least some advice, but she did not seem to be very surprised by this.
It was, because Niaa was here several years ago and so was Kass. It was the day when Kass’ mother died when Niaa was waiting here with him and tried to comfort him a little when they brought the sad news. It seemed that it was too painful for Kass to keep this memory in his mind, so now he could not remember this place.
The number was probably just a mistake the doctor made when issuing the paper, because as said, now it was chaos in there. In a city this big, just a few hours without the needed energy were a catastrophe, not to mention a few days! Many furs and humans needed help, and there happened many injuries too. Kass nodded to this and together they walked down a floor one more time. After passing through a dark empty corridor, they found themselves in front of a large stainless steel double door leading to the morgue. Niaa pressed the button that signalled that someone was waiting in front of the door and after few moments the door opened and out came a nicely looking raccoon. When he asked what do they need that they came all the way down there, Kass slowly gave him the permission. At first the raccoon wondered why the permission was written on a paper. All official documents must have been kept in a digital form to access them and to verify their authenticity any time necessary. This was highly unusual, but as he noticed that Kass was from a LV9 family, he immediately put on a smile and apologized for the holdup. No one wanted to mess up with anyone from the ninth level. Not even the humans, not to mention just a mere fur like the raccoon.
He said to them that the vet was not there right now, but that should not be a problem. He reassured them that they could pay the last visit to their friend in peace and no one will disturb them. The raccoon then took another look at the paper to see who the furry was and in which cooling box was the body.
On such documents were written basic information about the person, like if it was a human or a furry, gender, age and name, if known. By furs must have been added few things more, like the species or the fur pattern and colour. So in Aki’s chase there were written this information: she was a furry, a female, a white furred wolf, with the age of twelve, and the name was Aki, and for the last, there was written the box number, in this chase B13. The raccoon froze when he read the last part.
B13?…but there are only twelve cooling boxes!
Kass wanted to know what the problem was, but the raccoon reassured him that there was no problem at all. Only someone must just have made a small mistake when issuing the paper by putting a wrong box number on it. He just needed to look to his database to find the little furry by the specifics written on the paper. The raccoon walked few steps away from them to a wall and activated a virtual screen in front of it. He opened a folder where were written all the information about the furs in the boxes. Unfortunately, all the boxes were full, but in none of them was a furry that would match the specifics on the paper. The sad thing was that all of the furs in the boxes were cubs, but only one of them was a wolf, but with a grey fur and it was a male and he was, like all the other cubs, just four or five years old. Their whole class was on the way home from a planned class trip, when after the explosion in the ERF, a part of the energy infrastructure broke down and collapsed on the bus with the cubs.
"It is sad, that even nowadays happen things like that." - added the raccoon after he turned back to them.
However, Kass could not understand why Aki was not there. He read the paper again and again, hoping that he just overlooked something. He began to lose hope for seeing Aki one last time. Niaa took him in her embrace to calm him down and asked the raccoon if he could not check it again or find out where could Aki be. The only thing the raccoon could do was to take the paper and walk up to find the veterinarian who issued it to ask directly him or her. Then they walked together back outside to the dark corridor where Kass and Niaa were supposed to wait until his return. Niaa could finally take out her cell phone and call in the kindergarten to ask if everything was all right, because her young, just four years old, sister was supposed to go on a trip with her class and they should arrive this morning. She started to worry when she heard the raccoon talk about the accident with the bus full of cubs. She just hoped that it was not her little sister’s one. The phone rang, but no one was taking it. Maybe they were still in the bus and could not hear it. Or maybe not, but she had to stay calm, if for nothing else, then for Kass, who started to walk up and down the corridor. The boy had now more tension in himself than a small town in winter and Niaa feared that Kass could collapse if this will take any longer. Suddenly Kass stood still in the dark back of the corridor and suggested Niaa to come closer.
She could not believe her feline eyes when she found Kass standing in front of a black steel door with the number B13! The door had a label in light blue capitals that read "WARNING NO TRESPASSING BEYOND THIS POINT!" The door also had a small key-card lock with a number keyboard. It was all strange. What had such a high-security door to do in the medical station? Niaa said that this was probably the door leading to the service tunnels with the emergency energy infrastructure, so the medical station could be supplied with energy in situations like this, but Kass had a different meaning. When he tried to find the second basement back there in the reception hall, he scrolled the info-desk and the plans of this building complex up and down at least dozen times. He was sure that this door was not shown in the plans. He has also noticed that on the key-card lock was still the green light, so the door was opened. It seemed as if something would prevent the sensor from locking down the door. Kass wanted to open the door just to see what was inside, but Niaa stopped him.
"…you shouldn't be doing this, we can get in real trouble! Haven’t you read the label on the door?" - she tried to speak reasons.
She was right and Kass knew that, but this was his only trace to Aki’s whereabouts while the raccoon was still not back. And then, he just wanted open the door to see why they have not locked themselves up, and by this occasion just take a slight look inside. As he did so, he saw that a piece of white fur was sticking on the sensor which was locking the door, so it was not working properly, but most important was what Kass and Niaa have not seen! They have not seen the room behind the high-security door, because to their surprise there was none to be seen. Instead of it, there was a long corridor with a staircase leading…downstairs? Was this the second basement? It seemed impossible, because this building never had a second basement, but so it was, exactly like written on the paper. As if someone would want them to find this place, but why? Was this really the place where Aki’s body was? If yes, why? Now was Niaa as curious as Kass and both of them knew that there was only one way to find out…
Kass fully opened the door and stepped in as first followed by Niaa closely. They just took the first few steps down the staircase when the door behind them closed tight. Niaa quickly jumped back to try to open them, but she soon realized that it was hopeless. They were locked there tight unless one of them had the key-card and the proper code to unlock the door. Well, the piece of fur was sure there for something. Whoever put it there knew what he or she was doing. Kass did not plan to leave earlier than he would find out what happened to Aki, anyway. So now, with the door locked, there was only one way to go, and that was straight down the stairs.
After a while, they reached the bottom of the stairs and the light turned on, illuminating a small hall. It did not shine too much and it flashed too, just like in the medical station above them. Here, Kass needed to take some rest, because this whole thing was very tiring for him, while Niaa looked around the hall they were in, hoping to find a way out of there. Well, she found a door, but as she saw in what condition it was, she had no lust to walk through. There were a large double door and they were pretty damaged; bowed form the inside out. Meanwhile, Kass has recovered a bit and walked towards Niaa, wondering what a power could twist a steel door that much. They slowly walked to the door as Kass suddenly stepped on something on the ground. In the flashing light he could not really see what it was. Only as he and Niaa looked closer they could recognize the shape of that thing. It was one or the flying security cameras.
With those small things, the security forces, which were responsible for the safety in COHAF, were monitoring the situation in the whole city, because COHAF was just too big for ordinary stationary IP cameras. The small things were called security bots, and they were not much bigger than an ordinary video camera. They had one rotor left and one right and on top they had two small wings formed to a V for a better stability. With the attached stun gun they could safely stop any criminal without hurting him or anyone else, so they were very useful.
The one, Kass and Niaa found, seemed to be broken. It must have been smashed down by the door when they were forced out, but what it was doing there Niaa had no idea.
Behind the door was a large room full of electronic devices, but they were all broken as well. The whole room was damaged, as if by a strong blast. From the looks of it, the room seemed like a very modern lab, even for COHAF standards! There, a stainless table was dominating in the middle. Kass immediately dashed to it. On it was a large silver cover and under it was something what looked a lot like a body. Kass wanted to find Aki so much, but now he was afraid to pull off the covers, fearing to find her for real. He slowly took the edges of the covers in both of his shaking hands and then slowly uncovered the person’s face.
And there she was...Aki, laying on the table in front of him. She looked so peaceful, as she would be just asleep and could wake up any moment. Tears started to run down Kass’ cheeks and drop down onto Aki’s silky black nose. The tears were as bitter as Aki remembered them from the school's bathroom where they touched her heart. Kass bent down to Aki and put one of his hands under her head and the other hand around her neck in a deep embrace filled with all the love and sorrow at once. Niaa could not hold herself back and started to sob at the image of the two young ones now together maybe for the very last time. If only all humans and furs of this world could see this! All the hostility, hate and differences were gone, left was only the sincere love Kass felt towards Aki and the sorrow he felt after losing her. He just stood there with her in embrace, his face pressed against her fur, crying like a small boy he was. His hot bitter tears were rolling down, right into Aki’s fur to the place where once her heart was, the same heart that was now beating in Kass’ chest.
"I love you so much… Why you must have done that?" - he said to the little wolf.
All the way here he thought about what he will say to her and now, the two sentences were all he was able to say.
"Why? Why for me?" - Kass was asking silent.
Suddenly, he felt a paw no his back - "…because I love you too, Kass…" - came a silent whisper to his ear.
His heart skipped to beat, his eyes opened wide! That voice, but…how? Kass lifted his head from Aki’s chest and their eyes met in a way like never before. Both of them were surprised to see the other one alive and in next moment, they found themselves in an embrace filled with so much love, that the words could not possibly describe it. It was like this whole nightmare turned into a beautiful dream, but it was far from being over yet!
Niaa stood there absolutely surprised, not believing what she was seeing. Aki was alive, even when her heart was now beating in Kass’ chest, so Niaa wanted to know what was there happening. She disturbed the two young ones from cuddling and hugging to each other to get few answers from Aki, but she seemed to be more surprised by all this than Kass and Niaa together. She did not even know that she was not up in the medical station complex anymore. Well, the greatest surprise was still just waiting for all of them to come. In that moment, as Kass helped Aki to sit up on the table and she stretched her limbs wide as after a sleep, a pair of snow-white wings rose from behind her and stretched wide as well. At first, it scared everyone, but then they just stood there with open mouths. As Aki hopped down from the stainless table, a long swishing tail with a fluffy tip appeared behind her. It was a very long tail, much longer than what she had before. She was looking like an angel, but far more beautiful.
The silver covers on the table were not covering her beautiful, yet naked body anymore, so as Kass saw this he immediately turned red like a fox. He covered his eyes with his hand even if not that much happened, they were still just kids, but it was a nice gesture of decency from him. Kass could not understand what happened with Aki. Not just she has not died, but now she was looking like this, and it seemed that she did not have the breathing problems anymore! Aki was looking very different now, but that did not seem to matter for the boy at all. For what she did, he will never be able to thank her enough.
Meanwhile Aki was discovering her old-new body. She was surprised and scared a bit, she felt so strange with the wings on her back and that big, long tail she was looking at right now! Poor Aki, she was so confused, and this damaged room they were in did not make it any better. She turned to Kass for a hug to comfort her a little bit and begged Niaa to take her home. Niaa immediately agreed to that, as she did not feel well about this place too. When suddenly, her cell phone rung and scared everyone to death. It was the teacher of Niaa’s little sister, she was answering the missed call she had from her. Niaa was glad to hear the teacher's voice, because she was already getting so worried, but after few words, Niaa’s expression changed from worry to scared. Saying in the phone that she will be there as soon as possible, she put the cell phone back and asked the two to hurry up, because they must get going! As Kass let go of Aki, she embraced herself with the wings to cover herself. She put the wings forward under her shoulders, crossing them above her chest and then wrapping them around her waist until the wingtips crossed under her long tail, which she wrapped around her waist as a belt what reduced its length to an acceptable size.
Meanwhile Niaa answered Kass’ question when he asked her what was happening. She explained that the bus, which crashed because of the explosion, like the raccoon said, was the one her little sister was in and it seemed to be bad! Niaa’s voice shook as she was saying that and her eyes were already wet from tears. She quickly gave her jacked to Aki, so she would wear at least something and then she turned to the door and started to walk towards it. Worrying about her little sister, Niaa completely forgot that the security door they came in was locked tight and there was no way to open it without a key-card and the code. She realized it only when she walked out the twisted steel door to the hallway, where the staircase was they came down with. Kass and Aki were following her when a beeping noise could be heard from the top of the stairs.
"Something triggered the silent alarm in the damaged lab, so proceed with extreme caution!" - a female voice came from upstairs.
The beeping noise indicated that the security door has opened. So the persons there had access to this place and maybe it was the same person, which has done the things to Aki. This was not good. They were not supposed to be here in the first place! They wanted to hide, but it was too late. Down came a security bot just like the one they found next to the door. It probably triggered the silent alarm as Kass unwillingly stepped on it. The security bot flew closer to the boy, because Aki was hiding behind him. She was scared; she was often seeing the things flying through the streets, but she was never so close to one of them. The things were only supposed to attack criminals, so why they were after Aki?
Kass tried to defend her, but he was too weak to do something. Maybe he was not under influence of the medicine anymore, but he was hungry. The whole day he ate nothing and was getting tired. He was not supposed to be even off the bed by now! In last moment Niaa stepped between them and the security bot, so it would not hurt the young ones, but unfortunately, it hit her full strength with the stun gun and the big snow leopardess went to the ground. The sound, Niaa gave out as she was hit scared Aki to death. She was so scared, that she just stood there shaking, with her look on the ground and tears dripping down from her cheeks onto the floor. For a single moment, the time stood still for Aki. Suddenly, she felt so cold. Her new heart, or something what was replacing it, has started to beat faster and faster. Her senses have sharpened to their maximum possible, her body stopped to shiver and then suddenly, her tears stopped dripping... She could not hold it back anymore. The new heart, or whatever it was inside her, overtook the control and unleashed the new strength in her...
Wham! The security bot flew through the corridor like a rocket when Aki’s strong tail hit it directly in the middle. Kass used this chance immediately to check on Niaa to see if she was injured. He knelt down beside her and tried to lift her, but as he put his hand under her head he felt something wet and warm. He looked at his hand to see...blood! Oh, no! This was bad! Even if Niaa was not hurt by the security bot, it just knocked her out, but as she fell down she hit her head on the edge of the table and was bleeding.
Everything was getting worse and worse, they had to get out of there, and fast! There was no way to get to the door they came in. Their only choice was the service shaft above them. It seemed to connect this room with the emergency energy infrastructure tunnels of this building, but some of the damaged pipes and electric cables were in the way, so it was risky. There was no way for Kass to reach it now. First he had to take care of Niaa who was injured. He was lucky that there were enough medical supplies around so he could put bandages around Niaa’s head and so help her at least the way he could.
The security bots seemed to be interested only in Aki, so as long as she was keeping them busy they let the others be, but Niaa needed help immediately, so they had to hurry. As Kass has shown Aki the only possible way out, she quickly ran to the two, took Niaa in her arms, and told Kass to climb on her back and grab and hold tight on her neck fur. After this was done, Aki jumped in the air as strong as she could and made few powerful flaps with her wings to lift them higher. She was never doing this before, so it took her a moment or two to get used to the rhythmic moves with the wings. To fly into the shaft was kind of a risk, but Kass trusted Aki his life before, and she has not failed him. As they flew into the service shaft, they realized that it was a very tight place. Aki was almost scratching the wingtips against the inner walls and Kass needed to be leaned against Aki’s back to not to forget his head on one of the pipes above them. The flying cameras have lost our young heroes in the tunnel network, because it was difficult to navigate. One could get lost in there in no time! For Aki it was nothing, she was just following the scent of fresh air with her wolf nose and after a short while, they flew into the energy infrastructure tunnel and from there out to safety.
They came out near the ERF and that was not good, so Aki turned to the other direction and disappeared in a back street between the buildings. Many security forces were posted around the ERF now. They were there earlier too, but never this much! In the whole COHAF it was not much different. After the blackout the whole city was in one chaos. There happened one accident after another and everybody feared what will now happen with them. Schools and offices were closed, everyone was sent home. The beautiful city became somehow dark, even darker when you were a furry. In this situation, there was only one place our heroes could go.
Aki brought them home, to Wuffy’s house, the safest place she knew. It was already afternoon and everyone was hungry and tired, but when they finally came there, no one was opening the door. Wuffy must have been out somewhere. Fortunately, Aki knew where the second key of the house was; the only problem was, that it was inside. Niaa was in a bad condition, so they decided to break into the house by smashing a window on the upper floor and then Aki unlocked the door from the inside. They brought Niaa in and laid her on the bed in Wuffy’s bedroom, but none of them had really an idea what to do now.
The house itself was like a museum for Kass. No virtual screens, no holographic projector, no voice control like in all the others so-called "intelligent" houses. It did not even has a security system as they broke in! This must have been a really old house, if you would ask Kass. Even through all this, it still was a large and luxurious house with two large floors. The ground floor was divided to a large kitchen with a dining room, a living room, a big library, a hallway and a bathroom. The floor above was a bit smaller, but the same luxurious. There were six large bedrooms and each with its own bathroom and there was also a big balcony on the side pointing into the huge beautiful garden. Most of all was Kass impressed by the large wooden library. He has never seen so many paper books on one place, at least not for real. He read about it in documents and articles, but in reality was the place even more amazing! After that, he came across the kitchen. There he picked up something to eat for everyone and head upstairs to Aki and Niaa, but none of them had really appetite, ever if they were really hungry.
Kass just sat down on the bed to Niaa and started to explain to Aki everything since he woke up in the medical station. Most of all he wanted to know why Aki has decided to give him her heart, literally. She wanted to answer him, but she was rather just looking on the ground silently, wanting to say him the four well-known words that she desired. You may think that the words "because I love you" were too much for someone in their age, but so it was and nothing could ever change that.
Aki then stood up and walked out of there to her room to bring some clothes for Kass, because he could not stay just in the shirt he got in the medical station. As she walked inside her room, a picture on her night table immediately caught her attention. It was a photo of her and Wuffy when she was younger. Wuffy was carrying her on his shoulders and she was holding his ears in her paws and was yanking at one of them. It has made a really funny pose and it always caused her to smile whenever she looked at it. It was as if nothing would happen, so peaceful, so silent, only the changed picture of her in the mirror gave away that it was not like before.
Aki still could not believe how she was looking now, and looked closely at herself in the mirror. Spreading her wings wide apart she discovered her new body part by part. She noticed a strange mark on her left cheek in the darkest black colour she has ever seen. It was so warm when she held her paw on it. The rest of her fur remained unchanged, snow-white. The body parts with no fur on became the same black, even her tongue. They also became extremely sensitive on touch, so she must have been careful where she was putting her paws. Her claws and her fangs became black too. Well, she did not need to worry about a clean white smile now, but that was not a reason to not to brush her teeth every morning. Then she turned around to see her backside in the mirror. As she saw a scar on her back, running down diagonally from right to left, she just sighed. Her body changed so much, but that scar did not disappear. The scar was there since she could remember and Wuffy never really told her where she got it from. Well, that was enough discovering for now, but she could tell that she has become more curvy. She was a bit chubby even before, but now, her chest became definitely bigger as she found out when she needed to readjust the braces on her favourite pink jeans. It was as if something would need to make space in there. No wonder, that Kass almost jumped out of his skin when he saw her naked back there. Aki was still curious about how could her body change so much only in a single day. There, the braces were finally adjusted and the pink jeans were fitting perfectly. They were the only thing that was covering her body and was still uncovering enough free part of her back for her wings. Now she had to bring some clothes for Kass too, but she could not expect him to wear girlish stuff. So a pair of jog pants and a t-shirt must do it for now.
She took a last look at the photo of her and Wuffy and with a soft whisper - "…please, come home soon…" - she left the room and went back to Kass and Niaa.
As she was walking back, she moved her tail from one side to the other hitting everything nearby as she was still not used to its current size. At least she found out what it was for. By the wild escape, she used it to steer to the direction she wanted to fly. Such a tail had much more ways of use as she will very soon discover, but until then, she and Kass will get some rest. After she brought the clothes to Kass and saw that Niaa’s condition did not get any better, Kass laid down to the snow leopardess from one side and Aki laid down to them from the other one and let her wings rest on top of them, covering the two with the wings as with soft warm white covers.
It was a hard day for our heroes, so let us leave them to take some rest, because the adventure will continue sooner than expected…