Adapting to Change: Chapter 1 Part 1
This is my first story ever, so, I don't know if it's me, or that it's 2 am, or that I'm just falling flat on my face. I'm running out of details... Better yet, am I using too much detail? Too little? Too many seperated paragraphs for people talking? Not enough grammatical correction? Am I not sticking with one way of storytelling? Are you still reading this? Think you can give me a little criticism? Or maybe a lot? Would you like more? Would you like me to stop typing now? Would you like to get on with the story? Are you seriously still reading this? Ok, seriously, I would like criticism and other forms of 'help this writer becomeanudderparson'... ahem.. 'become a better person'. Thank you, and enjoy.
The clear sky was his only comfort. Frozen wasteland as far as the eye could see. As the sun began to dip into the horizon, James took comfort in that the sky didn't fade out completely. After quite some time of staring into the horizon, James turned around and began inspecting his new kill, a polar bear. Being an anthropomorphic wolf, he felt sorrow for killing a fellow animal, evolved or not, whether necessary or not. After carefully removing the arrows from his kill, James tied the bear's legs, slung the rope over his shoulder, and began the trek back to his hovel.
"Two and a half months..." James muttered to himself. "Two and a half fucking months," he cursed, acid in his breath. "Would they even think to send out a search party? No." James gasped as he mistakenly stepped into a snow-covered hole. "It's not that fucking hard to use thermal imaging to find someone in the snow..." He grunted as he dragged the bear over a small, but steep hill. "Someone will find us... They will... They have to..." James kept muttering this to himself all the way to his temporary home.
Finally making it back to his shelter, James dragged the bear to a small ditch he dug out previously and packed snow around the bear to keep it preserved. Once he finished, James tiringly crawled into the hovel and flipped on his manual lantern. It was not very spacious, almost five feet high by seven feet by ten feet. Most of this space was taken up by gear that James had gathered from the crash. What little space that was left was taken up by James and a beautiful blue vixen that happened to be sleeping. James curled up next to her on the fur blanket she was on. Once he got comfortable, she moved closer and nuzzled his chest. James fell asleep holding her, praying for survival. Though this is not the end, neither is this the beginning.
"It's six a.m. here in Royal Coral, we got a nice sea breeze starting to drift in from the coast for you in-landers. Just cause it's such a good day, we're going to start you off with something bad, so bad, it's 'Bad to the Bone'. Keep it tuned to WKPR-X, Radio X's, Rock FM."
As the music starts to pour in through the speakers, James grins, "It's gonna be a real good day today." Hopping out of his bed, he grabs a towel, smacks the top of his alarm, and jumps in the shower. Nearly an hour later, James dives out of the shower and does a SWAT roll onto the floor, right into the bathroom door. While not fazed at all by his failed attempt at being cool, he gels the tuft of hair on his head and checks himself out in the mirror.
James is not a buff wolf, nor is he even muscular. James is a tall, midnight blue in color, lean wolf that may not look like it, but can bench three hundred pounds on his best day. He has a black streak of fur that travels from the tip of his nose, over his head, to the tops of his shoulders, it then spreads out and covers the backs of his arms, legs, tail, and all the rest of his back.
Being twenty years old, James is still the spitting image of a teen; he has posters plastered all over his walls ranging from jet fighters, to guns, to bows, to rock and metal bands. Leaving his bathroom, James wades through the clothes and junk on the floor, picks up a Three Days Grace tee, sniffs it, and puts it on. His performs this same ritual with the rest of his clothes, ending up with his favorite pair of Harleys, a pair of jeans that has a giant hole in the left knee, the 3DG shirt, a leather jacket he got from his dad, and a pair of mirrored aviators.
Skipping every other step down the stairs, James grabs the corner of the banister and flies into the kitchen.
"Why the rush James?" his mom asks him, as he opens the fridge and grabs a soda.
"Got something planned for Krystal today," James states quickly, rushing through the rest of his house, "something big. Now has anyone seen my keys?"
"Where did you leave them last?" his dad says to him from the kitchen table, "Think where you were when you last had them." He continues for the umpteenth time. James' little brother just points at the garage, eating and playing on his Xbox at the same time.
"Thanks bro, I owe ya." James says to him, then to everyone, "Love you all, see ya later!" Right as he gets to the garage door, his sister tackles him to the ground.
"And what about me?" she states with a smirk on her face.
"Uhh..." James stuttered, surprised at being tackled and not knowing what she wanted.
"You can't be serious," she says, losing her grin. "Maybe these," she holds up a pair of tickets, "will refresh your memory..."
"Look, I'll pay you back later, right now I need to go..." James says, lifting his younger sister off of him and reaching for the door. His German Shepherd-colored sister pulled off a mean puppy-dog-eyes face when she wanted to, and now she wanted to.
After several seconds of total silence, James gave in. "Ugh, fine, get in, just don't mess with anything."
"Home by nine Julia..." dad says to her and "Drive safe James."
Hitting the button to open the garage on his way out, James grabs his keys off the key rack and looks at his beautiful steel-blue 1967 convertible Camaro SS with dual-white racing stripes. Leaping into the driver's seat, he turns the car on and revs the engine a couple of times before he turns on his stereo.
"And that was 'Riot' by Three Days Grace. Now I guarantee you're already on your way to work, here's a little reminder on where you're probably going. Continuing your hour of commercial-free rock, here's 'Highway to Hell' on Radio X"
"Love this song, so you better not mind if I blast it." James says to his sister. Before she can utter her next comment he turns it up until the car starts thumping and rolls out onto the driveway, then out into the street.
About five minutes later, they end up at Julia's boyfriend's house, Gary. Julia's boyfriend, who happens to be a llama, is outside, trying to look cool. James looks at him, then his sister, "I'll kick his ass if I find out he does anything to you. I swear to God I will," he mutters, making sure she understands him.
Julia nods her head and hops out of the car, sprinting to her boyfriend. James scoffs, turns up the beginning of Free Bird and peels out of Gary's street. "Who the fuck would date a llama..." James asks himself.
Just as Free Bird is ending, James pulls up to his girlfriend's house. There aren't any cars in the driveway, so James revs his engine to get her attention. A few seconds later, a beautiful blue vixen with a cream colored chest and belly saunters out of the front door, a sexy grin plastered across her face, a revealing turquoise blouse covering her 'gifted' chest, a black miniskirt that could turn heads, and black stilettos that she was probably going to break, or break into.
"C'mon Krystal, do I need to play 'Strutter' every time I come to pick you up? Get over here!" James jokingly yells over to her. She laughs and jogs over, all while James is thinking is "Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, face!"
"Eyes are up here babe, and the road is over there," she says, gesturing, and already in the car. "And what is it that is so important that you had to rev your engine? I definitely heard you pull up."
"Don't worry about it," he smirked, "just hold on to whatever you can grab." James winked at her, then preceded to peel out again.
Thirty minutes of driving landed them at the beach, specifically the port. After calling up his friend, and ten minutes of looking around, James finally pulls over. Once James finished flipping the soft-top, he turned around to see a black wolf in a bouncer-suit, standing with his back to the sun, looming over him. Krystal gasped, but James just laughed.
"Dude, I own that move. You can't use it on me." James said proudly. He then brought the wolf down to his level, "Sun isn't low enough, and you definitely aren't tall enough to work it on me, but being buff and black-furred works for you."
"So you're saying I'm black? Hah, look who's talking, you're black and blue!" the black wolf stated sarcastically.
Dropping the formalities, James starts off, "What's up Andrew, I haven't seen you in forever bro!" and gives him a bro-hug.
"Nothing much man, life's been treating me well though. Check out the boat, right there, sitting off shore." Andrew says, pointing to the yacht that was well worth more than James and Krystal could imagine. "But enough of me, I see you finally got your second-best dream car, and a hot new girlfriend too... And I probably deserved that." Andrew smirked as James had just hooked him in the arm. "Just kidding, but you are good-looking, maybe a 6 in my bo-" Andrew was cut off by a sharper jab in the stomach by James. "Alright, alright, I know when I'm pushing it. And before you ask, yes, I'm still with Emily.
Anyways, you guys have everything you need for tonight? Everyone is already onboard, we were just waiting on you... it's gonna be a wild night tonight." Andrew winks at them both.
"I'm wearing everything I need..." Krystal says seductively to James.
"I have everything in my bag, plus essentials, plus the stuff you 'personally' requested." James said, intentionally directing the last part towards Andrew.
Krystal tilted her head slightly, wanting to ask what James had, but was interrupted as they begin to head towards the docks.
After hopping into the boat that would take them to Andrew's yacht, James reached in his bag and tossed a paper-wrapped package over to Andrew. He caught it and nodded at James. Krystal questioned this in her mind, but whispered in James' ear, "Are you going to tell me what that is later? Or am I going to have to get that information out of you some other way..."
"Soon baby... Soon." James stated softly, kissing her forehead.