Chapter 1 The strangest meeting.
And there she was. Running through the forest, crying. The only thing she wanted was to get as far away from the others as possible, just to be alone. She wasn't scared of being alone in the forest, not many things could threaten a five foot anthropomorphic vixen and none of them lived in that forest. Of course as with about everything there were some legends about humans hiding in the forest a long time ago, but nobody except small pups took it seriously - humans were a fairytale.
She was mostly brown, but her belly was cream-colored, her rear paws and the ends of her ears were black. She didn't stand out from the crowd, many other species were more interesting and colorful than she. That day she was wearing blue jeans and white t-shirt - and in those clothes she was running deeper and deeper into the forest. Her paw got stuck inside small hole in the ground and she fell down.
"Why is it never me?!" she shouted.
At this point you should know why she was in that state - her best friend just got a boyfriend - a lion. The most popular guy in their school. After hearing that the news from her friend she totally broke down realizing how alone she feels.
Furthermore she got rejected by the wolf she loved earlier the same day. Everything was just too much for her, and from the desperation she just ran into the forest with the fur on her face completely soaked in tears. After what seemed like an hour running she became tired from both running and crying, she heard someone shouting.
"STOP!"
She did not dare to move, her mind trying to place that tone of voice to any species that she knew, but she just couldn't.
Several day earlier in the same forest a bright flash of light scared all the animals, for none of them knew what was happening. After a while, the light faded in the middle of the burned ground that the flash left behind, revealing a teenager, a human...
When after several hours had passed he woke up and saw the sun rising above the trees, he started recalling what had happened. Back at his home there was a terrible disease, its/the mortality rate was above ninety-nine percent, leaving those who survived heavily weakened, causing them to die even to the common flu. The pandemic caused widespread panic,; the army was killing everyone that even looked at them.
That boy lived in the suburbs and somehow he was immune. After seeing all his friends and family die he decided that it will be safer to leave the city before the government (if there still was one) takes "drastic means." He packed supplies for his refuge: some personal things, a solar battery charger with many batteries, food for almost a month, several bottles of water, some medicine, bandages, some survival guides, and military books he printed before the power went down. Geared up, he just left home and started walking away from city.
On the second night he noticed a bright light coming from the city. - At first he thought it was just a bomb, but then the light got closer and closer until he felt intense heat and passed out form fear and exhaustion.
After regaining consciousness in this new place he started looking for water and then he set up himself a lithe camp hidden in the bushes by the river. Those activities took him all day to finish. When the night came, despite being tired, he climbed up to a top of a tree and surveyed his surroundings. He noticed a glow on the horizon, it wasn't a red fire glow but rather bluish - it meant that there is a city nearby.
Filled with hope he returned to the camp, making sure he marked the direction to the city, and fell asleep. For the first time since his parents died he fell calm. The next day he took only a small snack, a bottle of water, and a knife for self defense and went towards the city he spotted earlier. He didn't want to take everything with him,; he wasn't sure if people there would be friendly...
The trip to the city was quite long. When he was close he heard cars, people talking, and everything seemed normal. However, he started to sneak towards a bush that would be a great point to observe what was happening. He just did it from his experiences of the past. When he finally got to the bush and took a look at the city he froze in place.
"What the?" he whispered - there were no humans in the city - only some kind of humanoid animals talking, laughing and generally going about their daily lives. He was surprised beyond words. Trying to find a logical explanation he thought that he was still dreaming, but the reality checks that he wanted to calm himself with gave the opposite result - he was surely awake.
His frantic train of thought was interrupted by a family walking past him, forcing him to hide deeper in the bush. While they were passing by, he heard another thing that confused him even more - they were talking English! Sure it wasn't his primary language but he was fluent with it. The thing that surprised him more was what they were talking about. The white wolf (probably the father) was telling the little one a story about humans. 'He is talking like humans are some kind of mystical, non-existent animals, again what is going on?' He thought and started going back to his camp.
After gaining some distance he put his headphones on, turned up the music, and smiled weakly.
"I think I'm going insane."
For the next several days he didn't move out of the forest again, and he hadn't seen any of those creatures again. He was busy with gathering food and other daily activities. Some evenings he spent crying over the photos of people he used to know before the pandemic.
But that day he was checking traps that he had set in hope of catching some fresh meat when he spotted a fox-like thing running past him, and yelled for it to stop.
She was frightened - she couldn't recognize the voice. She didn't know what was behind her. She stopped sobbing and just froze in place. Then she heard a sound that sent the chills down her spine - the sound of metal sliding out of its sheath and footsteps. Whatever was behind her was getting closer to her, but she was unable to do anything, being exhausted after the run and paralyzed by fear.
"Turn around slowly, clockwise, and everything will be OK"
She complied, when she saw who was standing there, when she realized that it was a human she just fainted on the spot.
"Now what will I do with you?" The boy said, "I think I should take whatever it is back to the camp,; I can't leave it in the middle of the forest." He picked her up and carried her towards the camp.
After just a few steps the wind suddenly got stronger and the strange creature in his hands started shaking.
"It's cold, go figure he sighed, " why did I take it in the first place?" He asked himself, and took off his jacket to cover the creature. He was used to colder temperatures, just the wind was making whole experience unpleasant. "Oh, and then there is the fur" - the jacket truly started to look as though a cat was sleeping on it for at least few days.
When he got to the campsite he faced another problem, he just couldn't leave it inside the tent. He had to keep an eye on it constantly, and have some space to move in case of whole situation turning violent. In the end he put the creature on his sleeping bag, covered it with a blanket and rolled the jacket into makeshift pillow and placed it under its head.
He got himself some spare clothes and sat under the opposite tree listening to music and drawing something while keeping attention to the creature waiting for it to regain consciousness. Like that passed an hour, and then the second one.
She was slowly getting a grip on reality, but she was to tired and shocked by what happened to move or even open her eyes. The last thing that she remembered was that strange face - probably a human - and then feeling weak in the knees, falling and world rapidly turning black. She didn't feel the grass underneath her,; she definitely had a pillow and a blanket. She thought that someone had found her in that forest and now she's back home. Then she heard some strange tones, tones that she never heard in her entire life. Yes they were muffled, but her good ears allowed her to catch some kind of weird melody. The smell of the forest hit her nose at the same time, and she realized she is not home, but she may have been caught by that human. That thought was enough to make her shiver in fright.
That was enough to alert the boy, he closed his notebook, turned the music off, took the knife 'better safe than sorry' and got up.
"Well, you're finally awake, do you feel better now?"
She became alerted when the tones stopped, but when he got up and started talking to her she just did not know what to do. She just curled in a ball and waited for something to happen.
'It will be harder than I expected' he thought, but out loud he said, "I know that you can hear and understand me, so don't make it harder by behaving like a wild animal." Then he noticed the rabbit that he caught that day was hanging dead in her possible view range, he realized that it made his speech more intimidating than he planned.
She decided it's best to not make human angry so she opened her eyes and saw that rabbit 'He wouldn't do that to me would he?' the doubt appeared in her mind, but she only managed to say several words before she started crying. "P-please, don't hurt me..." Then she covered herself with her paws and awaited for something to happen.
"And here goes the aggression that I expected..." he walked over to her and kenneled down next to her. "There's nothing to worry about, really." 'No reaction, it's becoming more and more difficult to communicate with her, she's just mortally terrified of me, but why?' He accurately read her behavior because fear was the only thing that she felt or thought about right now. Wondering what to say, he asked about the first thing that came to his head.
"Calm down, or at least tell me your name, please" he added please after a while hoping that it will make his request a little more friendly.
"It's... it's... A-amber" she said with a shaky voice between sobs.
"Ok then, listen Amber, you have no reason whatsoever to be scared, so please stop crying or at least tell me what's wrong."
"You really won't... won't eat me?"she asked slowly calming down.
"No!" he laughed "What made you think I would do something like that?" His laughing calmed Amber down almost completely. He also sat down next to her and put a hand on her shoulder that made her jump a bit.
"Well, you're human! You are not supposed to exist. Everyone has heard at least couple stories about humans, how intelligent, deadly and violent they are. Those stories were supposed to keep pups away from forest. Then when I'm awake first thing I see is a dead animal, so you wanting to eat me seemed like a logical conclusion" Then she turned around to face the human, he saw her fur wet from tears and her eyes red from crying.
"So why did you bring me here if not to eat me?" She asked, while the human was trying not to laugh out loud.
"I guess I just couldn't leave you unconscious in the middle of the forest alone. Bringing you here seemed like the best idea. Please don't be afraid of me." He could see trust in Amber's eyes growing with every word he said.
"Thank you for everything, I... I... just don't know what to say" She almost broke to tears again just from realizing how the entire situation looked.
"Then don't say anything" He patted her on the shoulder and got up. "Maybe you're hungry or thirsty? Would you like something?"
She realized her thirst, running and crying left her throat somewhat painful from thirst. "If it's not a problem, I'm quite thirsty." She said with a doubt in her voice trying not to somehow offend the human.
"OK, care to get up?" he offered Amber a hand.
She had almost forgotten that she's still laying down on a makeshift bed. Amber immediately nodded and grabbed his hand. She was mildly surprised by the force that pulled her to standing position so she was thrown out of balance and nearly fell if not for the human holding her hand. She really enjoyed this kind of contact, but he quickly ended the moment by showing her a nice boulder to sit down on and disappeared inside his tent grabbing some of his thing along the way.
When Amber sat down on the rock which the human somehow managed to cover with a blanket on his way to tent, she got some time to think about the situation. Her feelings took a hundred-eighty degree turn since she had met him. Instead of feeling extremely lonely she had a feeling that someone cared for her and her feelings, he gave her a feeling of being secure. Amber also liked the way the human looked, yes she could see in his eyes sadness and exhaustion, but otherwise he seemed to be full of energy. He knew what to do and say, she also realized she likes the way he looks, sure he was not like her but his exposed face combined with a little messy dark made him look very appealing. Then it got to her: she was falling for him, and there just was no denying it.
The return of the human brought her back to reality. 'I can't confess to him so soon, I could scare him away. I need to keep it as a secret.' She thought but didn't say anything out loud.
He brought back two simple white metal cups and a bottle of water. "Sorry, I don't have anything else to drink, so water is the only option," he sat down placed the cups between them and poured some water inside them.
"It's OK, water is fine, don't worry," She assured him.
Amber had some problems using the cups designed for humans, she tried to grab it with both paws, it worked partly - when she eagerly drank the water to extinguish her burning thirst she spilt most of the water.
"Let me help you with that," Said the human finishing his own drink, he took the cup from her and helped her drink her part. Amber was surprised when he took his sleeve and dried her wet fur.
"Thank you, you didn't have to." He could have sworn that he saw Amber blush - mostly on the ears but it looked like her cheeks also got little redder.
The human got up and took everything back to the tent, when he returned he was carrying a bowl with some dried berries inside. "You have to be hungry Amber, I don't really have anything else so it'll have to do."
"I told you, it's OK, but what is this?"
"Cranberry, it's not poisonous if you're wandering" He said with slight smile, and immediately ate handful of berries.
"No... I was just curious." Amber was afraid that she somehow insulted him.
"Relax. Now when you are calmer tell my why did you come to the forest in the first place."
Then she completely opened to him, she somehow trusted him completely and told him everything from how her dad died to the reasons behind her escape while enjoying the new taste of unknown berries. They talked for over an hour telling the stories of their lives and enjoying spending time together. Then the conversation was cut short by the boy when he looked at his watch and said:
"It's getting late, you should go back home"
"Please let me stay here with you." Amber was surprised, she was hoping to stay with him longer, even the whole night.
"No. The forest is a dangerous place in the night and your mum will be worried sick that you're gone." He knew that he had to convince her to go back, because the last thing he wanted was meeting rescue party sent for her. That would give him a lot of trouble, and he wanted to keep his existence secret from that strange nation.
"But.. but I don't know the way back" Amber was quickly running out of arguments.
"I'll lead you to the edge of the city, I'm sure you will be able to go home from there."
"Fine I'll go," Amber gave up.
They continued to talk while walking through the forest,. The human learned that Amber was living in a house just on the edge of the forest, away from city and other buildings - that's why she liked spending time there so much.
When they could see the edge of the forest the human stopped.
"I'm not going further, so goodbye," he wanted to go back when Amber stopped him.
"Can we meet again sometime? Maybe tomorrow?" She asked fighting her shyness.
"Of course, even tomorrow if you want to."
Amber jumped for joy. "Great! But how I'm going to find you?"
"Just come to this place tomorrow at, let's say three p.m.? I'll be waiting for you here by then."
"That sounds fine, see you tomorrow."
"Just please don't tell anybody that I'm here. I do not want any unnecessary attention." He offered her piece of paper. "It's nothing fancy, but I figured I should give it to you. I got bored while waiting for you to awake so I made this. See you tomorrow, remember three p.m."
Amber opened the paper and saw a sketch of a vixen, looking like her running and crying in the forest. Nobody in her world could draw or ever write without a computer due to the lack of hands.
"It's beautiful, thank you. Oh, and before I forget to ask, what is your name?" Nobody answered her, when she lifted her eyes form the drawing she realized that the human was gone. She heard her mother calling her name. Amber hid the paper in her pocket like it was the most valuable thing she had and went back home thinking about meeting the next day.