FSE

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Part I

"What do you think it is?" I say over my shoulder, poking at something on the ground. "It looks like some kind of dog to me, but who knows anymore, his face is almost unrecognizable."

"I don't know. Does it really matter?" My friend, Jack chimes in from behind. "It's all the same shit, he's dead just like the others we've seen this week. So if you're done, we need to get out of here before anyone sees us."

I stay hunched over the body. It's in my nature to be curious, to figure out what's wrong and how to fix it. But, with all the dead that have been found as of late, there hasn't been much I can do. I wait for a moment after Jack's words had left the air.

I need to talk to Jack to his face, so I stand up to look at him. I'm told I'm unusually tall for my race and I guess I am, but I never really notice it until I'm talking to someone. My tail swishes around as I turn to Jack.

"And how would you feel if that were you? If your mangled corpse was just lying there for no one to care about? Not a name in the paper, just another number to add to the toll."

Jack just stares at me, his left ear twitching as he tries to think of what to say. He covers his face with his paws for a moment, taking in a deep breath. "But that's not the case is it?"

"No." I say to him as I walk over to him. "But that's not the point, I'm just saying, he's not nobody, he's one of us." We walk away from the lifeless body lying on the ground.

These deaths aren't uncommon, but they have been getting ridiculous in the past few months. Jack and myself have been trying to figure out why, but we haven't gotten very far. The humans couldn't care less about the death of any fur, it's just written off and no one cares. No one except for the other furs.

Myself being of raccoon decent, and Jack being of leopard, we have to stick together. It's us against them, the furs against the humans. But there are plenty more of us out there. There are almost seven billion humans out there, there are roughly 5 million of us furs. My numbers could be off, I don't really keep track.

We head back to our government sanctioned apartment in the fur-district. It's no mansion, but compared to how it was before it might as well be. Sure, we still had designated living areas, but we may as well have been living like forest animals. Building our dwellings out of anything we could find. Human's trash, sticks and leaves. It was barbaric, it's no wonder we could never get ahead.

I guess my biggest question is: if they evolved from ape, and we evolved from everything else, how did we get pushed aside? What makes them so much better than us? I guess it doesn't matter, as long as they hold power and we're held at a lower standard, nothing will ever change.

Jack places his jacket on the rack next to the door after me and tosses his shirt at the back of the couch before walking over to it. He paws intently at the couch before planting himself face first into it, letting out a deep exhale.

"Would you mind closing the blinds while you're up? It's almost sunrise." He says to me, trying to get comfortable on the couch, his tail falling off the side.

"You know, you have a room where you could be sleeping? Instead of the couch, right here in the middle of the living room. Maybe I wanted to watch TV or something." I don't really know why I'm frustrated, he always sleeps on the couch, he hates his bed and I know this.

I drop the blinds and close the curtain. It's almost sunrise, and I need to get some well-needed sleep. Seems like Jack wasn't even paying attention to my complaining, he's already out. If I could fall asleep that easily, my life would be that much better.

With all the mess in the world, it's always a relief to have my tidy bedroom. Minimalistic, maybe, but it does the trick. My bed, my table at its side, my dresser and a fern by the window. This isn't the nicest place I've ever lived, but for now it will due for now.

Thoughts race inside my head as I lay in bed. Visions of the things I had seen today. The senseless violence, the death, the destruction on the property of us furs. I get it, they hate us. For whatever reason, they think we're scum. I can deal with that. It's the killing, no one should have to die because of someone's beliefs. This has to end.