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A raw moment of panic seized me as I clawed free from the ragged edges of a nightmare my fractured nerves had concocted for me. The breeze of a nearby fan turned my way, rustling my fur faintly and giving some respite from the sticky sweat of night terrors. However, even with the soothing coolness, sleep was not a notion I wanted to entertain anymore. Swinging my legs and tail out of bed, I forced myself to numb paws and staggered for the kitchen. Gods and goddesses, I kept glancing behind me towards the bed as I gave a shudder. Every evening was a new torment - something indescribably *wrong*, a shriek as the realization sets in, and then the sameness of the ceiling above me, blanketing over everything as I woke up. The picture frame on the nightstand did not help that sense of looming unease, as every evening she was the last thing I saw, and one of the first images to greet me each morning after going through the mental wringer. I hated myself for thinking of her as a tormentor, those warm eyes gazing at me from that dark mask, or impugning that smile that I remembered - turned sharp to the point of cutting in hazy moments of terror.

The patter of orange juice into the glass promised some welcome relief; what it would not do, the pain meds would. Goddess knows I needed both of them, all for the privilege of letting my gaze sweep over yesterday's paper. Half the front page blasting what the body count was, and the other half the learned voices saying that it was a time for calm - all was well, return to the status quo. What a farce, those sickly sweet lies trying to wallpaper over cracked foundations and rotten walls that caused their tellers so many problems. A quick glance towards the TV put the lie to their statement, as nonstop coverage since the start of the Troubles (as they'd come to be called) showed smoldering embers and hollowed out husks of buildings where rioting had leveled half a block with thrown Molotovs and a subsequent delay of the fire trucks via barricaded streets. Columns of smoke still rose from areas where the authorities had yet to reach, where a few enterprising hellraisers were still hard at work foiling any efforts at restoring order.

The sad part about it was that the rioters had a point, even if they were making their displeasure known in the worst possible context. It seemed like nowadays, for every three males there was only one female - selective breeding tied to social mores that belonged in antiquity had upended a stable population base, to the point that those males who were left over turned bitter, and in some cases violent. Multiply that by how many species there were, and the lesser populated species were on the tipping point. A look down at my own unadorned ring finger was evidence enough of where I stood in the grand scheme of things, but... I won't add my own gripes to the teetering tower; there are too many of those already, all set to come down on whatever unfortunate happens to be in the way at the time. There were enough raccoons to carry on, even if I couldn't contribute. Not now, not without her.

The TV hurried the talking heads off the screen once they finished beating the officially sanctioned drums, then back to their regularly scheduled programming. I would have turned it off under normal circumstances, but the sight of the bison Mr. Incredible and his penguin buddy Frozone stopped my paw before I could hit the power button. I don't know why, really; maybe it was the notion that there could be supers out there who could still salvage the whole, sodden mess. Idyllic, perhaps even naïve, but appealing on a level that hit me square in the nostalgia. But really, in the stark light of the Troubles, what could they do? Nothing more than the elected officials, really, as this was a problem brought about by society itself, and I'd heard plenty of how the answer must come from there as well. A flyer sat by the front door, pushed into my paw on the way home from work by a do-gooder calling for an open forum on how to generate a 'socially acceptable' compromise.

Socially acceptable... now there was a thought to kill the smile on my muzzle and bury it under a taut grimace. The lucky few who managed to find mates tut-tutted and waxed on about what was right and proper, never you mind that the numbers simply didn't add up. "Got mine, fuck the rest of you" seemed to be the safe standpoint, lest they endanger what they already had by offering help to the rest of us. Even the ones who came before had offered vague assurances of reforms underway that had ultimately amounted to nothing but lip service.

Padding over to the window, I tuned out the chatter of the television behind me and gazed down at the park across the way; just to let my mind wander. Years ago, I could just about see her standing by the pond partway up that walkway there... It was harder to see the exact spot today; the trees had grown in and put the area under a canopy of green that wholly clashed with the steel greys and sandy concrete. My eyes closed and I could see her smile, the glow that seemed to envelop her and her alone. A mental blink and the scene changed, from a warm, sunny day to a cool evening on a hillside, where she and I laid back, my arm behind her head, and watched the shimmer of a thousand stars overhead. Try as I might, I can't remember what got her to laughing, and that's what's so scary about it. I remember her so much, and I can't remember myself at all. I know the conversation had been all over the place, as one topic led randomly to the next, but eventually I'd cracked some sort of joke, or said something that was taken out of context, and she was laughing. Goddess, I miss that laugh. But every time I try to remember it, I also hear that click of the hammer dropping, a thunderous noise from an objecting ex-boyfriend. There was the other half of the "Got mine..." coin: "If I can't have that, neither can you."

No, no. N-O. Not thinking about the past anymore. Every time I think about it, it leads to another night of dreaming, another panic, another moment of staring at the ceiling. No, not this time. Now needed my focus a lot more than Then. Now was where the Troubles lived. And as this course of current events was more recent, it would have to be resolved by the ones being directly affected by it, not by wizened curmudgeons who were in their twilight years and wouldn't be around to deal with the fallout of their inane prattle. And this time... this time the notion of helping everyone wouldn't fall by the wayside as it had before. That was the pact being made from one to another in the streets.

I glanced down at my paws, and the wear that had creased the pads, the roughened textures that hadn't been present before. Those were real, those were Now. And while I couldn't say for certain that I could so much as budge the needle on where things were going, the thought of countless nights cut short by my own fears... the raw ache burning in the back of my throat when I thought about what I'd had and lost... I couldn't live the rest of my live without trying anything to alleviate that pain from myself and from others. And maybe, just maybe, someone would be able to see my work and that of the others, and have some sort of signpost towards where better times lay, if only they would follow.

Tossing on some clothing, I didn't let that mental image of her face float far from my mind. This one is for her. I didn't bother with breakfast as I pulled the door open, though the chatter of the television left on would keep the silence at bay in my absence. One last glance saw a breaking news bulletin cut in as I swung the door shut. Time to go to work. "This just in on the latest of the Troubles. Anarchy has taken root in the Central district. News sources are sporadic and often contradictory, but what we have is telling us that this city, and indeed this very nation, are becoming a land of... confusion." *click*

Inspired by Genesis, "Land of Confusion"

Lyrics: lyrics.wikia.com/wiki/Genesis:Land_Of_Confusion

Music video: https://youtu.be/QHmH1xQ2Pf4