Void Life-Chapter 3
#3 of Void Life
Void Life-Chapter 3: Homeward Bound
Here is chapter 3, still feel as if I got a ton of errors in here... Anyways, I hope I don't confuse some people with the ending of this chapter.
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The bright lights of the big city shined in and out of the cop car. My eyes would follow the buildings as we passed them by. Street lights would be the only obstacle that kept us from heading straight to my home. To my mother.
Cars parked on the side of the road as furs walked into stores or sat stationary in restaurants. I could see it all through the tinted windows of the cop car. I found that everyone seemed to have a smile as they were either with friends or with loved ones.
"Vail. Vail?" I shook my head as I brought myself out of my thoughts to realize the doberman was back to talking to me. He looked at me once more before he continued. "I know it is late as it is, but do you mind if we take a quick stop before I finish taking you home?"
I just looked at the shirtless canine with wondering eyes. I just gave a slight nod as I watched his muscles ripple through his fur. I probably looked like a school boy admiring a man who could perfectly fit the title of a role model. The doberman acknowledged this turn of events and just had a another smile.
"Like what you see, kitty?" I broke contact with his body and went back to being the depressed sick kid. Roger chuckled to himself as he turned into a nearby gas station. "I'll be right back." He said, pulling his uniform of my now dry body. It seemed almost odd not wearing it anymore. But the feeling shortly was lost as I looked back out at the city in the middle of the night.
This was where I grew up, this was where I was raised, this was the place where I made my first real friend. Central held many of my memories but some of the best where the ones that belonged to downtown. As I thought of downtown, I couldn't help but think of Lance at his home, with his family. Of all the time I have known Lance, not once have I seen his parents.
Even though I never met his family he considered that I was a part of it. But when I ever tried to talk to him about it, he would always give the same answer. "Your the only family I need to worry about." He would always say that line as if it was made for him. He held it with pride and spoke it as if an oath that he would never break. Lance basically said with that one line that he would look after me forever. Almost like an older brother, the one he pretended to be.
The more and more I thought about Lance, the harder I wished that he had grew up in a better place. That we could be true friends, and not a couple of pals running heists together. The robbers we made ourselves out to be and the heat on our backs from the glares that cops gave us as they find another crime scene. As for me, I was the unlikely suspect. A constantly sick panther, laying in waste with a loving mother.
Forcing myself to stop thinking about my life, I turned to look at the gas station. I could see Roger talking to the cashier. He had that grin on his face and seemed to be laughing. In his hand looked to be coffee and a box of cigarettes. I wouldn't have thought Roger was a smoker from just the look at him. Then again, I hardly knew anything about him except that I have seen him once or twice. Mostly because of my mother I have seen his face but I never remembered his name, unlike he did so to remember mine.
As I watched the doberman he just seemed to be getting more and more childish as the night went on. A grown dog, acting like a pup. Now I have seen everything. Roger paid for his items and headed out of the gas station, heading straight towards his car. I just waited calmly for his return and as he opened the door he jumped into the vehicle.
I noticed that he quickly put the cigarettes down beside his seat, so that he wouldn't be tempted to smoke them. I could see it in his eyes that he was doing his best to not open it up and pull out one and take a puff. He was doing his best to resist, he didn't want to smoke with me in the car with him. For that, I was grateful. I never really did like smoke.
Sipping his coffee he pulled out of the parking lot in the gas station and we were back on the road home. As we drove down the street I started to feel my own eyes grow tired. My eyes just watched the blinding lights as my eyelids drooped shut. Letting out a loud yawn I was about to close my eyes when... "You want some?" The doberman was referring to the coffee that he had recently purchased. I just looked at him as his eyes were fixed on the road.
"I don't want to be the one having to wake you up and carry your half-awake ass-, sorry, up the stairs."
"Don't want that do we?" I teased him as I reached over to take hold of the cup in my hand. It still felt hot at the touch, but not hot enough to scold me. Taking a sip of the hot liquid I started to feel a little more awake. The caffeine helped to an extent, hopefully enough that I could carry myself to my home when I we stop.
"Can you make it?" He asked without taking his eyes off the road. As he spoke he looked to his right and took a quick turn followed by a sudden stop. The jerk that shook the car shipped the last bit of drowsiness out of me. Looking out the window I saw that I was at the building that held my apartment.
"Yeah, I think I can." Unbuckling the seat-belt and stepping out of the car, I stumbled a bit before catching myself. My legs were asleep and I hadn't realized it until I decided to walk.
"Err, maybe I should come with you, just in case." Roger said following the same steps I took and got out of the cop car. But in his hand held something of mine. "You might want to put this on, or people will just look at you strange." He held my hoodie which he removed when I got into his car earlier that night. But it was raining then, hard, and I was freezing with the soaked jacket, which was now dry.
"Thanks." I said with the same sick old tone. Taking the hoodie I slipped it on over my body. For a second as I had the piece of clothing over my head, I thought I heard a slight growl. But as I saw that no one was around Roger or I, I just thought it was just my imagination.
"Do you remember which floor you live on?" Roger asked as he opened the door to the giant building for me.
"I live on the tenth." I said accepting his gratitude and waited for him to walk ahead of me. If I was the one that lead on, then I would have probably have made him think that I didn't want his help. But in a part of me, I was used to having to follow people and so I grew accustom to people leading me on.
As we headed towards the elevator and I watched Roger's back. I couldn't believe my eyes as it seemed as if it was Lance walking in front of me. I had to shake my head to get the image of the doberman to reappear. I didn't want to make the mistake of calling him Lance, by accident.
Pushing the button to call an elevator, Roger took this time to look over his shoulder, at me. Probably making sure that I didn't wander off somewhere. With a high pitched ding the double doors slide open and several furs headed out into the tiled lobby. Unlike the one Lance and I were at, this one was nicely furnished and had a great bit of artwork and plants.
"Tenth floor." Roger muttered under his breath as I stood inside the elevator with him. With a push of a button and another ding, the elevator was off. As we went up the multiple floors separating the 10th and 1st, I couldn't help but watch the blinking number on top the door, indicating which floor we currently were on.
As it reached 10, the elevator stopped and the doors opened with the same familiar ding. This time Roger waited for me to lead on, as he didn't know where to go. There were about twenty rooms a floor and each room shared the same size. Taking the size of the building and dividing the area of a single floor by the number of rooms on said floor, gives you the area of such room. Even though many rooms stayed on the tenth floor, it didn't seem to reduce the fact that the rooms where rather large.
As the numbers went up by odds and evens, I looked at them as Lance did in the old apartment. Finally we had reached our destination. Room 1019. The doberman just looked at me, as if making sure I was right. With a grunt he turned to face the door and knocked on the door.
The door almost instantly opened up to reveal a panther in a pink bathrobe. As soon as she make eye contact with me, she embraced me in her arms. "Thank god you're safe." I heard her prayers whisper in my ear. Even though I stood slighter higher than her, she managed to get her muzzle to rest on my shoulder.
"Good evening, Chief." The doberman chimed in as he stood beside my mother and I. I turned to look at the larger fur and he seemed to have a sheepish look on his face. He scratched the back of his head and looked at us.
"Thank you, Officer Wolfe, for bring my son home." The panther held a stern voice as she spoke to her underling. At the sound of her voice, the officer stood straight up and ears perked. It was almost as if she was a commander of an army and that the men in her platoon obeyed her every order.
She soon let go of me and pushed me inside as she talked to the officer. I looked around the place that I called home. The finely carpeted floor, the open kitchen, and the living room off in the distance with a window view. I walked forward, straight towards the living room to take a glance outside the window. My eyes met the darkness and lights of the outside. It was something nice to see, the outside, since the inside of the apartment was basically all white. White wall, white carpet, and white tiles in the kitchen. Although, the kitchen appliances seemed to all be chrome.
"Vail?" I turned to see my mother standing behind me with her arms crossed. "Have you took your medicine today?" I couldn't help but get the same sheepish look on my face that Roger had when he was here. This was my mother for you. A hard chief of police and a over-worrying mother to protect me.
My supposed conditions was that I had tremendous amounts of stress on my body and my mind was filled with depression. Along the feeling of always feeling sick, the down feeling that you get. So, I was supposed to be a sad little kid who could do much of anything. Having good grades was all that could reflect on me, seeing as how I wasn't allowed to participate in sports. But this was all Vail's problem, of course.