{"sf1_id":822755,"sf2_id":"k1VPMGWm","title":"The Story of a Fox","author":"gigarandom","words":1496,"posted_at":"2015-02-23T07:15:00.000Z","tags":["Bear","Beaver","Deer","Depressing","Desperation","Emotional","Fear","Feral","Fox","Heartbreak","Human","Morbid","Rabbit","Sad","Wolf"],"url":"https://fse.anthro.fr/stories/822755-the-story-of-a-fox","original_url":"https://sofurry.com/s/k1VPMGWm","image_url":"https://cdn.sofurryfiles.com/submissions/thumbnails/cb/d8/cbd89819-042d-4fde-a94d-235a93c18426","description":"","content":"Once upon a time, deep in the heart of a great forest, lived a fox. He was a normal fox, but he lived with wolves. Normal wolves, but they lived with a fox.\n\nThe wolves were older, bigger, and stronger than the fox, so they controlled what the fox did. Not directly, but they punished him for being himself.\n\nIf the fox tried to burrow in a hole, the wolves would crash the ceiling. If the fox tried to pounce a rabbit, the wolves would chase it off.\n\nThe fox wasn't good at wolf things though. The fox would try to work with the wolves to take down a deer or elk, but the fox wasn't fast enough, or strong enough.\n\nThe fox would try to hide his troubles, but the wolves noticed something was off. They got mad at the fox for being different, for being weird. The fox pointed out their failures, but they just beat on the fox.\n\nThen one day, the fox found others like him. They burrowed in holes, chased rabbits, and ignored the deer, and were open about who they were and their emotions.\n\nThe fox preferred to be with his own kind, but he had to hide from the wolves that he was with them. That he was like them.\n\nThe fox made good friends in that group. They'd play, hunt rabbits, and do normal fox things. It was good to be with his own kind.\n\nThen one day, the fox couldn't find the other foxes. They had all gone away, and the fox grew sad. He missed the other foxes, he missed his friends.\n\nThe wolves caught on, and they punished the fox for showing his emotions. They punished the fox for being different, and the fox couldn't take it anymore.\n\nThat night the fox left, decided to go find a new home.\n\nHe found a family of rabbits, but they turned him away because he'd killed their kind.\n\nHe tried to be with the dear, but they turned him away because they knew he lived with the wolves.\n\nHe tried to live with squirrels, but couldn't climb the tree.\n\nHe tried to live with beavers, but couldn't swim down the stream.\n\nHe tried to live with domesticated dogs, but they were worse than the wolves.\n\nHe tried to live with bears, but they tried to eat him.\n\nHe tried to live with badgers, but they were all hidden away in their homes.\n\nAll the while the fox tried to find the other foxes, but winter came, and he got cold.\n\nHe wandered through the snowy forest, shivering and frozen, but there wasn't anywhere for him to go.\n\nAll the birds had gone, and not a cheery sound was in the air.\n\nAll the beavers were sleeping, for no dams needed to be built for frozen rivers.\n\nAnd all the foxes were still gone, gone far away from the fox.\n\nThe fox gave up, and tried to go back to the wolves, but he couldn't find them, either.\n\nThe trees were different than he remembered, having sharp points for leaves and gross bark for fruit.\n\nThe fox tried to find shelter, but the new trees didn't have big cavaties in their roots, and the branches were too high up for him to reach.\n\nAt some point the fox found shelter under something shiny. It was big, white, and radiating heat and warmth. Underneath, he was kept dry, and he tried to burrow into the ground, but it was too hard for him to do so.\n\nHe hadn't eaten in days, and he just slept underneath the shiny thing, afraid of whatever lurked in the dark, afraid of whatever lived inside, afraid of whatever would hurt him next.\n\nIn the morning he woke up on a cold, hard surface. It was slippery smooth, and there were a lot of bright lights.\n\nConfused and in a daze, he slipped and fell off the surface and onto another creature. It didn't have any fur, and was something he'd never seen before.\n\nIt wasn't warm like other creatures. It was kind of cold, and had rubbery skin.\n\nThe thing didn't have paws either. It had massive claws, that moved and bent like joints and pivots. It grabbed the fox from a top it's head and held him in front of itself to look at it.\n\nThe fox was paralyzed, from both fear and the monster holding him by it's scruff.\n\nThe monster's eyes were big and something about it's mouth seemed happy and silly.\n\nThe fox could sense how young the creature was and tried to squirm away.\n\nOnce free, he skittered for shelter, but the creature could move everything the fox could hide in or under, until he hid under something tall and wooden.\n\nThe wood smelled weird and musky, and it confused and scared the fox. The entire ordeal scared the fox.\n\nHe was sure he was going to die, sure that these were the last breaths he would take.\n\nAnd then something reached under the object. It grabbed him and picked him up. It set him on a squishy, warm thing, and gave him food and water. The food tasted weird, so did the water, but he didn't care.\n\nLater he took a nap, and woke up with something around his neck. The object choked him a little, and a shiny thing dangled from it, rattling and making tinkling sounds.\n\nIt itched, and he scratched, and he yanked, and he pulled, but it wouldn't come off.\n\nThen the young monster sat down next to him, and started scratching his head. Not like clawing and digging, but softly and gently, rubbing his fur in places he couldn't reach.\n\nIt was nice.\n\nThen a bigger monster came over and made loud sounds at the younger one. The sounds felt threatening and scary, and reminded the fox of the wolves, and how everyone had gotten mad at the fox, and told him to be with his own kind, but the fox had lost his own kind, and had no where to go.\n\nThese sad thoughts made the fox wimper and cry. The monsters stopped being loud, and they tried to comfort the fox with food and water and more petting, but it didn't help.\n\nThe big one left the room, and the entire thing the fox was in came to life. It moved, roared, and vibrated. It scared the fox even more, and he fled for the nearest escape.\n\nHe slipped and fell out a window, hurting himself when he hit the hard ground, and then the machine started to move.\n\nIt moved away, and the fox was left in the cold.\n\nHe was shivering, hurt, sad, and heart broken that no one would love the fox.\n\nThe fox limped back into the forest, where the days were long and cold, and the nights were even longer and even colder.\n\nAs spring came, the fox found his way back into the old forest.\n\nHe found bunnies, but didn't try to chase them.\n\nBeavers greeted him, but he ignored them.\n\nA deer threatened to kick him away, but he didn't care.\n\nHe found the wolves, and when they tried to take him back, he didn't want to go back.\n\nHe didn't want to do anything.\n\nHe was too heart broken for anything.\n\nHe'd lost the only people who'd treated him fairly, and he'd given up hope on ever finding them again.\n\nAnd then he did.\n\nThe foxes greeted him, and offered him shelter and warmth and food and water and wanted to play and hunt with him...\n\nBut he thought it wasn't true.\n\nHe thought it was the others making fun of him.\n\nAnd he yelled at them.\n\nHe yelled about how he'd looked for the other foxes for a whole winter.\n\nHow he'd tried to find a new home, but no one would take him.\n\nHow he'd gotten lost and scared.\n\nHow he'd been taken by monsters, and they were the best thing that'd happened to him since the foxes had left.\n\nHow he still couldn't take off the thing around his neck.\n\nHow it still itched every time he moved and spoke.\n\nHow he hated himself for leaving the wolves.\n\nHow he hated the wolves for being mean.\n\nHow he hated the foxes for leaving him behind.\n\nAnd then he left.\n\nThe other foxes were heart broken, and were ashamed for not telling him about hibernation.\n\nThe wolves were ashamed for not being nicer to the fox.\n\nThe other animals of the forest felt sympathy for the fox.\n\nThey all did.\n\nThey all felt sad for the poor fox.\n\nBut the fox didn't know.\n\nHe never looked up enough to see their faces.\n\nHe never was around them to hear their voices.\n\nHe never was hopeful enough to consider the possiblity.\n\nHe never was joyful enough to stop himself.\n\nHe never was alive enough to leave the bottom of the river...\n\n  \n  \n\n"}