Tears Burn Bright
Tears Burn Bright
All characters are (c) to me as far as I know and permission should be asked if you wish to use them, other than that there is no yiff so the standard 18 and up doesn't stand here.
This is the first part in a multi chaptered story and is being posted in the hope of criticism good or bad.
Enjoy.
Lone sat by the window looking out into the swirling white of the falling snow.
"If only if only, I weren't always so lonely." Lone softly sang to himself, one of his favorite little jingles that he made up when the mood struck.
Now to describe this particular fur's past you would have to understand just what had happened to him. There was no war ravaged country, there was no death filled scene to greet him while running away from an AK-47 wielding crazed fur in the middle of a massacre, there was no witnessing of murder, there was no sudden trauma that would cause this young fur's life to derail from its apparent course so drastically, but there was a certain kind of trauma that could cause such a scar to form on an otherwise perfectly fine fur,
and it was called loneliness...
....
"Just another day at the doctor's office." said Lone with just a hint of resigned sadness to his voice and a weak sigh as he walked into his kitchen and set his car keys down on the table. It was many a time that Lone would say such to himself after a visit to the afore mentioned place. Yet they still didn't know what was wrong with him.
Lone had been suffering from an unpleasant feeling in his gut and something of a fatigue in his movements, and it began to bother him enough to make him go to the doctors. At first the doctors didn't notice much of a difference in his health from the average fur besides his strong muscles, quick reflexes, and apperently lower body temperature, but things were not as they seemed. For this fur had always been lonesome, and as the phrase goes, "Change is good, but hard."
And this time, that was no different.
As Lone walked into his bedroom he couldn't help but take a glance at the small box sitting alone on his dresser, as if mocking him with the memories it brought to mind. Sitting down on his bed Lone stared at it, just like he had on the day that box came into his possession, just like the day he had lost his parents.
....
: Afternoon, 4:51 :
Jessica came walking into Lone's bedroom, "Honey, your dad and I are going to go shopping at the mall... are you ok sweetie?" Jessica asked her son with concern and worry evident in her voice.
"I'm fine mom, now can you please go away, I'm busy." Lone asked gruffly, quite annoyed even though he loved his mom.
"Ok, I'll go, I just wanted you to know where we were going in case you needed us."
"I'm fine mom, bye." Lone said, waving his mom a goodbye and leave motion.
"Bye hun." Jessica said, mouthing the words 'Love you' while leaving the room quite disheartened after being treated thusly by her only son.
: Several hours later, 8:23 as read in police report :
Walking downstairs Lone grumbled at the lack of food in the house and not having any money to order out while his parents were away. Suddenly their cordless phone started ringing and Lone going to the living room picked it up and answered.
"Hello, is this the Sharp residence?" asked a soothing but somehow hesitant male voice.
"Yes, it is, may I ask who's calling?"
"This is Officer James Shepard, I have called to inform you of an, incident," he said stressing the word incident, "that took place at the Newingston Mall 19 minutes ago."
"An incident at the Newingston Mall." Lone said.
"Correct." said the officer.
"But what does that have to do with me?" Lone asked expectantly.
"You are Lone Sharp, correct?
"Yes, I am."
"Now you may want to sit down first, this may be a lot for you to digest." Officer Shepard informed Lone in a calming tone.
"Just tell me what happened all ready." Lone yelled at the police officer.
....
: Present :
Snapping back to reality Lone found himself still staring at the box which contained the white gold and diamonds that composed the entirety of his mother's necklace. After a few moments Lone also discovered that he had been silently crying the whole time he had been looking at the box, the fur below his eyes a dark gray compared to the silvery gunmetal that surrounded it and covered most of Lone's body.
Walking downstairs Lone noticed all the doctor's bills and notes and decided he might as well get started organizing them.
Standing by the table Lone started picking through the papers and diagnosis forms. "This, is going to take a while." he said organizing the bills, notes, and possible diagnosises all in their individual folders.
"All these tests those doctors keep running me on are goind to cost me my retirement." Lone said even though he was sitting on a rather large sum of money.
What Lone said however had a merit of truth to it though because there were a lot of visits to the doctors and the insurance wasn't going to cover it if he was going to keep on going.
A good few minutes and papercuts later everything was finally filed and put away except for one scrap of paper that had fallen on the floor. Bending over and picking it up Lone scanned over what looked like another possible diagnosis form and noticed "psychological" and "subconciously scarred" inside the description box for the cause of his symptoms but thought nothing of it at the moment.
....
: Sundown, 8:24 :
In two days time it was his parents anniversary and the local mall didn't have a jewelry shop which meant that Lone's dad would have taken his mom to the bigger Newingston Mall to pick something out, which he did because his mom hated it when she got something that just wasn't right. Besides that with the crime of the bigger city the Newingston Mall was located in and along with the fact that niether of his parents were very large or intimidating furs and the jewerly bag. It meant a lot of things could happen, and from the way this officer was talking it didn't sound good.
"This is probably something that should be said in person, why don't you come down to the police station?" said Officer Shepard as if not wanting to tell this teenaged boy the news he was doomed to recieve.
"I don't own a car." Lone said angrily.
"I already sent a squad car to pick you up, we have your address on record. Just wait a couple moments and it should be there." and just as he said that a car pulled up to the curb by Lone's house.
Suddenly turning off the phone on Officer Shepard, Lone opened the front door and walked outside not even bothering to lock it. After some brief dialouge with the police officer Lone got into the back seat of the squad car and had a quick ride to the police station that was agonizingly slow to Lone.
Having reached the station Lone got out of the car and walked inside with the otter who had introduced himself as Officer Mansio guiding him to a leather sofa in one of the back hallways for a little more privacy for the soon to be conversation with Officer Shepard. As Lone sat down another otter came out of an office and after seeing Lone sat down on an opposing chair to the sofa Lone was currently in.
"Hello, I am Officer Shepard."
"Officer Mansio looks just like you." Lone said with an almost questioning expression.
"He is my brother, his first name is Mansio, but both his and mine surnames are Shepard, we just call him Officer Mansio because two Shepards walking around gets confusing sometimes." Shepard explained.
"Anways both you and I are here to talk about what happened earlier today." with a couple seconds thought of how to continue Officer Shepard started speaking again.
"Suffice to say is that someone tried to dash past your mother Jessica and grab a jewerly bag she had in her possession at the time, but your mother apparently had a firm grip on the bag and there was something of a tug of war between the two before your father grabbed the bag and knocked the thief away." explained Officer Shepard with a cold yet caring voice.
"What happened next?" Lone asked quite hesitantly for fear of what the answer to his question would be.
"The bag containing the piece of jewerly in it ripped in half when your father pushed the thief away and the necklace in the box fell to the floor between where your parents stood and where the thief was laying on the ground. After seeing it both your mother and the thief both went for it, but your mother got to it first." the officer depicted in excruciating detail.
"Having stood up the thief pulled a gun out and pointed it the chest of your mother Jessica, the thief demanded the necklace but your parents were quite stunned by the thief using a gun inside the entrance to the Newingston Mall. After demanding a second time the thief fired at your mother and hit her square in the chest killing her almost instantly, your father was so angered that he rushed the thief and was shot in the neck, unfortunetly he was alive for a good number of seconds while he bleed profusely." Officer Shepard using a tone that was no longer soothing to Lone in any way or form.
"After the first shot having been fired many furs took notice and by the second shot a few already had their cell phones out and were calling an ambulance, but I'm afraid it was already too late for your parents Lone." the officer using Lone's name to try and calm him, although to little effect.
"Did you catch the thief, the murderer?" Lone asked with a quiet burning anger in his voice.
"The thief had a gray hoodie on with the hood up so nobody was able to see what the thief's face may have looked like, although it was most definetly a female." answered the officer.
....
: Present :
Lone only being seventeen at the time of his parents was not a legal adult but because he would soon turn eighteen the legal system put everything concerning his parents' death on haitus besides their funeral, which quite sadly had rather poor attendance. With his father being an orphan he had no parents to speak of and his mother's parents had both sadly passed three years prior to the passing of Lone's own parents. The only people who attended were Lone's aunt and uncle who he was going to be staying with until he was of legal age to more properly deal with all of the proceedings of his parents passing.
Brian and John, Lone's dad, were twins, and besides being twins they were orphans also which meant that they only had each other to rely on in their childhood, all of this led to a uniquely close relationship were Lone ended up seeing his aunt Crystal and uncle Brian quite often even though they lived in Australia. And on one occasion both families flew to Hawaii to have a tropical vacation together that Lone had some very fond memories of.
When Lone turned eighteen he had most of his parents possessions sold along with the car and the house, and having already taken all of the insurance money for his parents death and placed it in a bank account to gather interest which started of as $720,000. After a years time and the money from the auction of most of his parents stuff added up to a total of $1,258,000 which Lone left in the bank.
Lone walked slowly into his living room and defly swiped up the remote and fell onto his couch in one swift motion. As he flipped through the channels he came upon the news and decided to just go ahead and watch that for the time being since he had nothing better to do, and besides, he was depressed, what better way to feel better when depressed than to watch something even more depressing, the news, right.
"All this shit about about politions and celebrites, what don't they show us that doesn't have any importance other than stocks." he spat out disgustedly.
"Oh yeah, they show us all that crap about the racism bewteen humans and furs that we all love so much." Lone said, answering his own rhetorical question, sheathing and unsheathing his claws, becoming quite annoyed with the stupidity of so many humans and furs alike. "Who really cares if your human or fur, " he thought to himself, " does any of it really matter."
Stomach growling Lone went to the refrigerator to get something to eat. After having opening the fridge and sticking his head inside "Hmmmm, week old lunch meat, some stuff in a tubaware container that will never see the light of day nor the inside of anyone or anything's mouths, an apple core, some eggs, and a tennis ball?" he said quite suprised to have actually found his long lost favorite toy picking it up and rolling it around in his paw to inspect for what it seemed like any damage that could have befallen it while inside the fridge. "I've been looking all over the place for his thing" he exlaimed, placing it in his jean's pocket.
"Hmm, what else do we have here, old milk, a moldy sandwich, ohh, and some chinese take out too." Lone said, having a thing for chinese food as he took the cartoon and the left the kitchen not bothering to get any silverware considering the chop sticks were stuck in the side of the cartoon pointing up. Setting down on the sofa in the living room and switching the channel over to Comedy Central to watch Mad TV Lone began demolishing what was left of the food in the cartoon.
"I don't care what anyone thinks, shrimp fried rice with soy sauce plastered all over is simply the best." said Lone, getting pieces of rice and chopped carrots all over his muzzle, couch, and paws. Having noticed this Lone made a mental note to shower off and clean up all the spilt pieces of shrimp fried rice, of course all of this happening after he had enjoyed the still rather large amount of rice before him. "I love chinese food." he murmered quietly to himself, after having polished off, or should I say, demolished, everything within the confines of the container.
After having thrown away the empty food cartoon and cleaned his living room Lone sat down on the floor with his back leaning on the coffe table. Taking the tennis ball out of his jean's pocket and throwing it against the wall and then catching it he began to think back over his life.
He was a male of 23 years of age and a wolf, well, mostly. Fact is that his mother was half wolf and half rabbit and his father was all wolf which led to an interesting relationship and an even more interesting cross of genetics. Lone was physically all wolf, with some quarks, first was that he had inherited his mother's endurance and virtility, which could have led to some interesting nights but alas Lone never really got the chance. Second was to his suprise and actual pleasure that his ears were extremely sensitive to sound and touch alike which gave him a heightened sense of hearing and made him putty in your paw whenever you started massaging his ears, which he enjoyed very much so it never really bothered him to begin with.
Stilling throwing the ball back an forth between the wall and himself Lone couldn't help but have conversation with himself over a topic which he had discussed in such a fashion many a time beforepaw.
A topic which was his life.
Why would god give me such a life?
Hell, do I even think he exists in the first place?
Well I'm mad at him, so he must exist, right, otherwise I would be mad at nothing.
Maybe I just haven't done what he wants me to do yet?
Maybe I just haven't done what I want to do yet?
I'm not even sure if I'm mad at him at all, just pissed.
Well I just wanted to have a normal life, and I do don't I?
So then what are you complaining about you gloomy sack of fur.
I'm not, complaining, I hate complainers.
You are complaining and stop it, we both hate complainers.
We both, we're the same fur here, aren't we.
Well then who are you talking to.
I would have to think myself.
How did we even get started on this issue.
I don't know, you were complaining I think.
No, YOU were complaining.
Whatever.
Why would you say whatever to yousel...
Suddenly there was a knock at the front door, interupting Lones inner monologue. Grumbling from this sudden unexpected and, unwanted interuption Lone went to the door to see who it was.
"Agh, its you, what do you want this time?" spat out Lone.
"Hey, calm down, we were supposed to go for our run fifteen minutes ago, whats wrong with you?" Chris said wearing a slightly angry expression.
"Oh come one Chris, every day I have to do this with you," Lone said, "let me take a break, just once."
"No way Jose, your coming with me, now go change." Chris stated firmly.
"Ugh, I'll be right back." Although Lone had every intention to keep his best friend Chris waiting for him to return so that they could go on their daily run.
Chris was Lone's best friend heck, his only friend, and he always made Lone run with him, even in the freaking rain for gosh sake, but it didn't hurt and Lone was almost grateful for it every once in a while. But every once in a while really means every once in a while and Lone would much rather just stay home.
"What to wear, what to wear?" Lone said idly to himself rummaging around in his closet, and eventually in his dirty cloths hamper.
Afrer many a minute of looking Lone finally just picked some black shorts that had two layers of cloth and a bunch of really small holes in them and an elastic waistband. "Pretty good running shorts, and breezy too." one of his stray thoughts confirmed.
Having spent quite a long time preparing Lone hurried down his stairs and went to his kitchen which wasn't really a long walk considering he lived in an average sized home, still it was better than what a lot of people had. Making it to the kitchen Lone put his muzzle to the faucet and turned on the cold water, "Might as well get some water in my body before I sweat it all out." was his reasoning, quite a good reason too, Lone being a smart wolf as wolves were prone to be.
Lone got up, turned off the facet, and started walking towards the door, " I have a feeling he is going to make this run just a little harder for me because I kept him waiting so long. " and as it turned out that is exactly what Chris was thinking about doing.
"Ohh FINALLY, you decide to grace me with your presence oh gracious one of whom I'm baredly worthy to place my line of sight apon."
"Your not worthy." Lone responded in a quite but sincere and masterful tone.
"Oh I beseech the my lord, I beg for thy's pardon and forgiveness," Chris stated formally while bowing quite low, "but may we please get this train on the road." he finished reverting to his usual self.
"Nay, because trains do not travel on roads, they travels on tracks and therefor would be impossible and unpractical for one to travil on a road."
"You know what I meant now lets go." Chris said while firmly grabbing Lone on his upper arm. Having no choice he just followed Chris until they reached to road, living in the suburbs of a city that was slowy becoming a metropolis with the two other close by cities was quite enjoyable actually, it made for some adverse shopping and company to say the least.
Anyways, the part of this city that Chris and Lone lived in was just far enough out that it could barely be called the suburbs of Graystown, even though it wasn't really much of a town anymore with ten and twelve story buildings towards its more immediate center.
Basically the surrouding area of this road that both Chris and Lone lived on had farms and forest and such which meant it was pretty good terrain to just walk in. But the unimportance of this road also meant that there was little traffic to be had, which was one of the reasons Chris like here running so much, but then again he was a rabbit, so what do you expect.
Being a rabbit running came naturally to Chris, same thing also went for Lone though considering he was part rabbit and wolves were definetly animals that ran a lot. And so with their naturally inherited abilites they would both run, a lot, for a long time, fast. And so it went that today, was no different than most of their days of running went, but they always started out by talking.
With both Chris and Lone running the converstation started, and what better way to start a conversation than with something thats been worrying you.
"So Lone, have those doctors finally figured out whats gumming up your works?"
"Not really, they ran more test and are running more tests now, but they don't know a freaking thing."
"Really, sounds bad, at least your insurance is helping out, right?"
"It did, after a while my agent simply said that if I was going to keep letting them run these tests then they weren't going to pay for them all, so I started paying for them a couple days ago."
"Sounds bad, but your still running pretty hard, are you sure there's really something wrong with you?" Chris asked with concern clearly in his voice.
"Oh there is, my body temp. is too low, and I have been sleeping way too much."
There were long pauses between every time one of them spoke because they were running and besides breathing they both had to concentrate where they were going and because of this they were already rounding their first mile.
"Sleeping isn't a bad thing, you need sleep."
"I made myself stay awake and only sleep for seven hours twice on the advice from my doctor to see whats up, and when I woke up the first time I was just tired and couldn't function right, the second time though."
"That bad huh?" Chris asked.
"That bad is right, I couldn't hardly get out of bed let alone get downstairs, and it wasn't just tiredness, I could barely move at all." Lone replied, his room being on the second floor of his house.
Both Chris and Lone continued their run and after their third mile they had made it back to both their houses, and since Chris was worried about Lone they decided to call it a night. The sun was setting anyways and it would be dark soon.
"Talk to you later lone."
"Yeah, I'll see you tomorrow." Lone answered, panting.
With Chris running to his house which was two doors down Lone walked up to his front door, enjoying the view of the setting sun which he was glad he could see clearly. Lone began zoning out and stood staring at the sun like an idiot that have never seen it before.
"I need to stop doing that." he said to himself after snapping back to reality.
"What I really need is to stop talking to myself." Lone said before realizing that he was talking to himself again and went growling up the stairs to take a shower.