Yes, I'm still alive! Can you believe it!? Nearly two months of not posting!
Basically, Uni has been completely screwing me over day in and day out and I had a good chunk of last month in which I just had to study the hardest I've ever studied in my life. However, now I am back and I should probably be posting normally from now on, maybe even a new Fox and Bunny Stew oneshot.
For any questions, please PM me.
From that very moment, everything changed.
Hope was replaced with desperation. Desperation that he had gotten into a hell that he could no longer get out of.
His boss had greeted him with a hero's welcome. All of his "homies" were waiting for him, cheering that he had rid the world of a vile piece of meat - a scourge on all predators .
He had to fight hard not to spit at their feet and storm out of the derelict building. Instead, he forced himself to play along with his boss and his fellow gang members, smiling, laughing, and trying to have a good time over the death of a mammal who just had the balls to try to earn a decent living in the worst place imaginable.
Yes, the ram may have been nearly as much of a bigot as Carnivore, but considering what experience he had had with preds, it was somewhat understandable.
The wolf spent quite a few hours in Dr. Greco's office, a retired Dingo doctor who took care of any mobster, assassin, or gangster that crossed his doorstep, no questions asked as long as they left him money. He was the only choice in the area for most Underworld members, because if you went to the hospital with a bullet wound, first thing they did was call the police.
Truth be told, it was far better than he had expected. Three cracked ribs, a sprained wrist, major bruising in his skull, and all his teeth were - remarkably - still in their place.
But even if he would have been forced to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, it wouldn't have compared to the emotional damage all this had done to Zacharias Alexander Wolfbane.
The sound of the silenced bullet carving its way into Dodge's skull, and the hot blood rushing down his paws refused to go away. Zach squeezed his eyes shut as Greco put his ribs back in the right position, but amidst the darkness of his own eyelids, the ram kept appearing. So, he was forced to bear the pain as it was, in its purest form.
Exactly the way he deserved it.
His mother had called him a few times, the poor woman wondering what was taking her son so long to come back from his "job." The avatar of his white-furred, blue-eyed mother was painful to look at, even as he flicked the red "Reject Call" button in the next second.
Eventually, he turned his phone off as the illegal Dingo doctor prepared an antiseptic for him. He couldn't bear to imagine his mother's concerned features and groans of worry every time he didn't answer.
Zach thought about answering and saying something quickly along the lines of his boss keeping him overtime, but the simple thought of facing his mother after what he had done, her warm voice welcoming a murderer, a savage like him. It was too much to bear.
So, he settled for simply shutting it all out. Delaying the inevitable, something he had been doing for the past several months. What was he thinking when he accepted this twisted world? Had he not seen then what vile sins he would be forced to do? What he would become? How many lives he would have to ruin just to save one?
And most importantly, had he not seen once he got in that there was no escape? How could he have been so blind, so selfish? How could he have lied to his mother in such a vile manner for months, her cancer treatment being funded by blood money?
Every penny he made was blood money. Even something as simple as delivering packages led to the death and suffering of dozens of innocent mammals. And for what? Just so that he could save his mother's life without breaking his back at the docks, or his face in pro kick-boxing?
Zach had been a selfish bastard. Only now did he realize that he went into this not because it was the only way, but because it was the easiest way.
He had chosen killing for a living over an honest life. And his entire lifetime would be haunted by this choice.
"Right. You got pretty roughed up, but for your first job, I'd say you didn't fuck it up too badly. No one called the cops, and the boys were able to secure the body and clean up the scene without any problems. Just take it easy for the next few days. I told the boss to give you a week off. Have fun, but not with hookers; your ribs were nearly broken and the slightest shock will negate everything I did," said the doctor for whom the Hippocrates Oath meant nothing anymore, but Zack wasn't even listening. He was just trying to get the image of Dodge Woolerston's lifeless eyes gazing up at him out of his head. Not that it mattered; nothing would change the facts.
His life from this very moment was over. Hope was gone.
"Hey kid!" exclaimed the doctor, snapping his fingers in front of the youngster. Zach's head jerked upwards at the dingo's brown eyes.
"It got to you, huh?" the doctor asked casually. Zach didn't answer as he stared at the doc with a blank expression. Apparently, that was all that the dingo needed.
"Don't worry, most of your homies are like that. It always does something to you the first time. Then you get used to it. Hell, you may even start to enjoy it." The dingo said in an almost cheery tone as he lit a cigarette.
The wolf felt his insides twist with how much casualness and joy this mammal used while talking about taking lives. It was ironic, considering the dingo's occupation was to stop the pain. However, the fires of rage were stamped out before they were even lit. Zach had long since developed an apathy to everyone around him being a complete psychopath. He had become desensitized to evil itself.
And thus, he had become part of it.
Helping and accepting evil is the same thing as being evil itself.
He set off for his home. It was night. Usually in Zootopia, the night was brighter than the day, with neon lights shining bright among hundreds of thousands of city lights, stadiums, and nightclubs against the dark blue sky. The sounds of distant concerts, traffic, laughter, and chatter from the nightlife lit up the atmosphere.
However, the night was now barren. The run-down neighbourhood was dark and dingy. Even with his night vision, it was difficult to focus on anything. The lights and the nightlife were somewhat visible, yet unreachable.
His old, noble life could be seen, but not touched. It was over. All he had left were regrets. Zach began slowly trotting down the street, not looking at what was ahead of him and simply using his mental map to get back to his house - back to his mother.
He could have taken a cab. Carnivore had given him a small fortune for the job, his ribs were hurting like hell, and he would have arrived much quicker to his worried mother. But he didn't. He hadn't even considered it.
His overheated brain ran on autopilot and simply blanked his mind out, possibly as a self-defence mechanism to not succumb to his thoughts of what he had done only hours ago.
He kept going forward, feeling empty. He didn't feel guilt. He didn't feel worry. He didn't feel anything.
It was if someone had yanked out his frontal lobe: he was completely emotionless.
He didn't think of what he'd do from now on. He didn't think of how he'd take care of his mother.
And just like that, in what felt like no time at all, he was in front of his apartment building. The Zootopian nightlife was somewhat present in this neighbourhood on the outskirts of Tundratown. In his emotionless trod, Zach hadn't even noticed the dramatic temperature shift.
Usually - even with his thick, frost-used pelt, owed to his mother's arctic wolf genes - he almost felt as if he was getting hypothermia when he switched from the dreadful, gang-controlled neighbourhood to the smooth, white neighbourhood with the great, snow-capped domes of the Tundratown Cathedral visible in the distance. The bustling Fish Market could be heard, a family of polar bears walking away from it, laughing and chatting as they looked inside their bags and the children screaming in joy at their mother about what they'd be eating tonight. Zach's breath caught into his throat when he noticed that one of the younger bears, about his age, was pushing an elderly bear in her wheelchair. He instantly knew from her rare fur and glassy eyes that she was a cancer patient.
He held her paw tightly as she smiled in spite of herself, her son pushing her just so she could be with her family - so she could enjoy her last few days with the mammals she loved the most.
Like a good son…
He hitched a sob in his throat as he threw himself into his apartment building, shutting out the happy family and the rest of the world with a simple slam of the door.
He breathed in and out periodically as he walked to the entrance of his apartment. He paced in circles, as if inserting the key or ringing the doorbell were abstract concepts to him.
No matter how easy the task at hand was, his brain refused to do it. It was as if he knew that he no longer had permission to enter the apartment.
A towering, wooly mammal appeared in the corner of his eye. The ram snarled, seemingly ready to strike.
Zack yelped and jumped backwards, ready to face the ghost of his own victim. It was gone. Just his imagination.
He felt his sanity slipping away as he saw blood splash on the dark and dingy walls. He heard a muffled shot and the sound of a bullet penetrating a skull soon after. It went away just as quickly as it came, but new and terrible hallucinations took its place.
He couldn't take it anymore.
He put his weight on the handle, but the door refused to budge. The murdered ram approached and emitted shrieking noises, a chilly knife protruding from between his ribs.
No! It was just his imagination! Just his imagination.
His shaking paws took hold of his keys. Which one was it? There were only three keys; how could he not remember which one it was?.
Just as the ram produced another shriek and placed an ice-cold hoof on the wolf's shoulder, Zack dropped his keys.
No, no, no, no, no!
He dropped to the floor to find the keys and to avoid the ram - his ghost, his imagination, he didn't care. All he cared about was getting away from the it, get away from the guilt and the blood he had shed.
He managed to open the door just as an icy, boney hoof grasped his wrist. Without thinking, he slammed the door closed and breathed a sigh of relief as he slumped against the old wooden barrier that now kept out his demon.
He walked into the hallway, hoping that his mother had not heard anything. Maybe she was asleep. She often was at this hour and-
"You're back," a dry voice stated.
His mother sat on the worn red plush couch. Her blue eyes had dimmed by an incredible amount and almost seemed to have shrunken in size as they regarded her son with a sad disappointment.
Her white fur - which, despite much of it having fallen out, still retained its gorgeous shine - now looked matted and dirty in some places.
"M-Mom," Zack stuttered, not knowing what else to say. Her gaze didn't change.
"You look horrible. What happened?" his mother asked, barely choking back a sob. Zack felt the cold knife of guilt stab his heart even more so than when he had murdered - no, don't think about that now.
"Well, at the gym, I-" he began.
"Don't you fucking dare say that it was just another sparring accident!" she snapped, tears streaming down her face. Zack gasped in surprise. This was the first time he had ever heard his mother swear. And she had never used that tone with him before.
"No, really, me and the boys got jumped as we left. It was," he paused as he formulated the rest of his lie, "that tiger I beat last week. He was pissed off that I had ruined his perfect record and decided to grab a bunch of his friends and catch us on a street corner. We were outnumbered, but thankfully," another pause, "some cops were around and we were able to hold our own. I had to give a statement and stay at the hospital for a while." He was surprised that he finished the lie with minimal stuttering.
The glare that only a heartbroken mother could give went straight through his soul.
"Really?" she asked, crying in barely a whisper. "You're lying," she accused simply, wiping her eyes. Zack wiped his own tears of guilt before continuing.
"Mom, I'm-" he tried to say.
"Yes, you are lying, and don't you dare say otherwise! You've been lying for months, I know!" she screamed once again, ending in a fit of sobbing and covering her scarcely-furred face with her boney paws.
Zack began to sob as well as he saw how all his sins had finally caught up to him into this very moment.
He went to the couch alongside his mother and wrapped his paws around her heaving, shaking frame. For a moment she gave into his embrace, burying her head into his shoulder and trying to find the comfort she usually felt when her son helped her overcome her cancer.
However, the moment had passed as all moments do, and she pushed him away.
Zack simply stood on the couch, avoiding his mother's gaze and focusing his eyes on nothing in particular. He knew that it was over. His mother knew, probably not of exactly what evils he had done, but she knew that he had lied and lied and lied.
"I called every hospital," she began. "And every single police station in this damned city, asking about you. Nothing. You are lying," she continued. Even though Zack didn't look at her face, he knew that tears were streaming down it once again.
"I should have known. I should have known that all that money couldn't have come from part-time jobs. But I contradicted reality. Why? Because I trusted you. Because I thought you were a good enough mammal to not give in to the temptations no matter the circumstances. It never even crossed my mind that you were doing something like this," she trailed off in a heartbroken whisper. Zack felt the need to dig his own claws into his throat as he heard his mother struggling to not completely break down. Where was the kind-hearted son she used to have? He sure as well wasn't someone who was capable of killing another mammal for money.
"Mom, look, there's no other way. Do you know how much chemo costs? It would have been nothing but a dream if I hadn't made this decision! I could have done nothing but watch you die! Nothing but cross days off the calendar until you died in the worst way possible! I chose to fight, like you. You fight in the hospital ward, I fight out there. It'll all be over as soon as I save up enough money to pay for your treatment until the doctor gives you the right surgery.
"I'm not proud of what I'm doing. But what I am proud of is that I'm saving you. You come first over every other life in the world. I love you, Mom, and I'd do anything to save you. You think I like what I am forced to do out there? No. But if it will save you, and save me in the long run, I'm willing to do it," reasoned Zack. He felt his heart shred itself apart in his chest. He hardly believed a thing he had said. There was no excuse for what he did. There was always an alternative to selling your soul.
Zack's mother remained quiet for a few moments, eyes downcast on the aged carpet. "You know, we also cared about our families back when we maimed innocent prey to stay alive," interjected his mother harshly.
"What?" he asked, not having listened carefully as he was lost in his own dark thoughts. "You heard me. Before our evolution, back when we were all savages, we still cared about our families. We did everything for our cubs and our loved ones from our pack. Be it butchering an entire burrow to get some meat for the winter, killing the Alpha male to establish dominance, or drying a river to force prey to fall into our waiting jaws, we did it for our loved ones. But we were animals. Savages.
"We've evolved. We can think outside the box. We can realize what the consequences our actions are on other mammal's families. We can think about others. We have developed the ability to care about animals that we don't love," his mother lectured, using a pleasant tone for the first time that evening.
She gently cupped his paws with her own. He still remained motionless, deep in thought.
"After all, what am I, Zacharias? One animal among billions. You cannot ignore all the other souls to just save one. I love you, and I want you to live without innocent lives lost pressing on your shoulders, your past following you at every corner like a hungry ghoul. I know that my time has come earlier than either of us would have liked, but look at yourself.
"You are an adult now. I gave birth to you, I raised you, and I made sure that you were the best mammal that I could raise. You need to hold your own in this world and become independent of me. Do you know why I protested you leaving college to get jobs? Because you were sacrificing your vast future for my few months left. You talking about me living six months, one year, two years as if it's the only thing that matters.
"But what is life when my only son is throwing away everything just to buy me some time? What am I, Zach? A drop in the ocean living on borrowed time. Some artificially living mammal," she soothed, rubbing Zack's shaking back as he was choking back sob after sob.
Zach embraced his mother, thinking of all that he had done and how he had justified it with maybe saving one person.
"You're such a good boy, Zach. Don't ruin that because of me. Live your life. And know that I am satisfied with what I have done on this Earth. I have left you on it. That's all I can ask for," she said, tears streaming down her scarcely-furred face.
Zach lost himself in the moment, trying to forget about the fact that there still was no getting out of this dark world he had become a part of.
He recalled all the moments he had with his mother, helping her through all of this during the few months before joining the gang. Since that day, he worked his fingers to the bone all the time, coming back to his mother at eleven in the evening. The arctic wolf waited for her son's return, a son who she thought was sacrificing everything for her.
He was doing that and so much more, dragging other innocent mammals down with him into the pit. He needed to man up and tell his mother the truth.
"I want to get out of this world, Mom. I've been wanting to do so ever since I figured out what they actually were, but now I can't," Zach sobbed.
He could almost feel his mother's heart dropping to her stomach and her tears returning to her eyes.
"He - he revealed today that-" Zach paused, looking away from his mother's shocked and disappointed gaze, "He's been watching me ever since I joined. He knows about you, your schedule, my schedule. He's probably got someone watching right now. Wiretaps, microphones, just plain-old spying - I have no idea how he's doing it, but I can't leave. Not anymore. Not without putting you in danger," He said simply, looking out the dusty window into the endless white of Tundratown washed over by the radiant orange light of the lampposts and scarce traffic.
His heart twisted with guilt and self-hatred as he heard his mother letting go of tiny, almost inaudible sobs. He then felt a thousand bee-stings assault his cheek as his mother slammed her atrophied paw against his cheek. The impact didn't even make him flinch, but the emotional damage was done. He simply wanted to slam his head against the aged coffee table, hopefully bringing him peaceful oblivion into the next day in the form unconsciousness. But he didn't; not in front of the mammal who used to be his mother.
From that moment, she had given up. She would simply stare at him every morning with the combination of an angry glare and a disappointed gaze.
Every time he went out, Zack made a point out of closing the door as fast as possible and not staying so that he wouldn't hear her beginning to cry uncontrollably. He had learned this trick the hard way.
He had stayed behind one time. When he heard his mother beginning to sob as soon as she thought that he was out of the apartment block, he slumped against the wall, slid down and began to cry himself in tandem with her. He wanted to go back and comfort her. But what for?
What good was the comfort of the mammal you've raised with all the love in the world, yet still became a cutthroat and then had the audacity to rub in your face that he's doing it for you?
What good was the comfort of the one who made your life a living hell? One without expectations, without vision? A life where the sole thing that you left on this Earth was a son who turned to evil?
What good was the comfort of a murdering thug?
Zack's days began to blend together.
It was the same background of filth and decadence day in and day out.
It was not just sinking into evil, his world became nothing more than a never ending circle of decadence, sinking further and further, yet… he felt nothing. It was monotone…
He had no one to talk to. Those that were willing to talk to him were killers, the very thing that he had sworn to stay away from. He realized just how hypocritical he was, being a killer himself.
He had completely enstranged himself from his mother, from his girlfriend, from his best friends, from everyone that cared about him.
What did he have to lose? Absolutely nothing.
Zack got worse. He didn't know much about cocaine, except that it was some pretty powerful shit and that his "homies" couldn't get enough of it. He once learned in some long-forgotten school lesson that it jostled up the pleasure sensors in the brain, or something.
He didn't care as long as he forgot - as long as he could escape his hellish reality.
Day in and day out he reveled in the grimy decadence, the endless circle which slowly but surely pulled him into the abyss continuing.
Might as well hurry it up himself.
His "friends" were overjoyed that he had finally joined their "parties".
He was already idolized for killing the ram that had mocked and defied them for months, and they were all too tucked away in their own flimsy ideology indoctrinated by Carnivore to realize just how sickened Zach was with the lot of them.
Or was he anymore? He had long since developed a complete apathy and indifference for them. Seeing his counterparts performing vile deeds had stopped affecting him.
And now, everything had stopped affecting him. Even the begs of his own mother.
What did he have to lose? He could be transported to an artificial world of infinite pleasure rather than face his problems and try to solve them.
He floated outside the building straight into Tundratown. How had he gotten there so quickly? And why was he now in Sahara Square? It didn't matter. Just keep on going while everything felt so good. Wherever his destination was, he was going the right way.
Right?
"Hey, why are you laughing at me?" Zack asked a deer. Or was that a leopard? The mammal jumped back as he saw the wolf.
"Um, I didn't laugh at you sir. Please excuse me," said the mammal nervously as he crossed into another dimension. Or was that just the other side of the road?
A sharp pain erupted from his abdomen, causing the wolf to fall to his knees. However, it was soon replaced by pleasure once again. He was floating back to the seedy neighbourhood. But what was so seedy about it? It was wonderful! All his friends were there. And there were always more drugs there to keep him there, to forget about… actually what had he wanted to forget about? Who was he?
And where was he? He didn't care.
Suddenly, however, he was cornered. Trapped. By whom? By what? He didn't know, but terrible vistas of emptiness revealed themselves. Wherever he ran, his path was obstructed, the cold stone itself seeming bent on preventing his escape from this mad world. His screams went unheard by even himself. The screams of the ram, the sobs of his mother, the hellish chants and claps of his homies when he announced that he had killed the "feeble prey," all of it echoed through his skull.
Quite a fitting experience, as it was just like him joining the gang. Milk, honey, riches, and pleasures to tempt him in the beginning, while the darkness, madness, and evil of what he was doing only revealed themselves once it was already too late to turn back.
Days later, it was all over again. Or had it been weeks? Months? He didn't know. The days blended into each other. His sole true companion, his mother, became a stranger. A borderline enemy. No longer was there thought in his mind of paying for her treatment when he did the evils deeds for the gang. He mechanically drove her to the hospital, as if incapable of denying his programming.
All his escapes were now related to that fucking gang.
There was no fighting it. No denying it.
And it was all his fault. It was his own greed, arrogance, and desire to be the "alpha male" that drove him to put himself and his mother's health over other mammal's lives, including his and his mother's.
She would have rather died a million times over than seeing her son become that.
Nick Wilde kept on tailing the wolf. He still didn't trust the kid 100%, and he sure as hell wasn't going to let him wander off after he got a mission from his boss. He was sure that Judy would have frowned upon it, but the kid was an informant, their only informant, and he might have been playing both sides to get his boss's favour.
Yet, there had been a genuine sadness in the lupine's eyes when he told his story and of his mother's passing. Nick Wilde had hustled others nearly all his life by reading mammals, and he knew an emotional wolf when he saw one.
Still, knowing what the kid was up to was a must.
The fox pressed on, the relative warmth of early spring being replaced by the artificial, biting cold of Tundratown. Nick was glad he had put on a thin fleece jacket to fight the cold at least a bit. Not that it bothered him too much, but being warm helped him concentrate.
He had tailed mammals before, and his police experience had only helped to further establish the trait. He used pipes, rooftops, and side alleys only he knew to remain unseen while still keeping a firm eye on the dark-furred, blue-eyed wolf.
The black wolf's posture was slumped: shoulders fallen, muzzle pointed downwards at the snowy pavement. Despite being quite tall for his species, he seemed small. No, he seemed as if he wanted to hunch into himself, deliberately disappearing from this world.
Nick chased those thoughts away and continued following the mammal at a safe distance, cutting through the back alley of a nightclub as a shortcut to where he had deduced that the wolf would be heading.
After a while, the wolf stopped dead in his tracks and sat down on a bench. He didn't seem to be waiting for someone, but rather seem to be deep in thought. He rubbed at his eyes constantly, and he kept on changing his position as if the bench was covered in nails.
Nick squinted his eyes at the wolf. What was he doing? Why was he so nervous?
The wolf eventually jumped up as if something had burned him and Nick flinched despite being dozens of yards away. What was it with this kid?
Zack then walked into a flower shop that was on the other side of the road. It was then that the fox had realized that the wolf had been staring at the flower shop ever since he had been sitting down. Was he going there to collect protection money? No, this was Tundratown, way out of Growl Street territory. They were walking on thin ice as they were; they wouldn't have dared cause trouble in other neighbourhoods.
Nick saw through the condensed window that Zack had calmly picked a rose bouquet and the exchange between him and the arctic hare salesmammal was more than cordial. They even seemed to know each other. The hare got up on the counter to be able to reach the wolf's shoulder as if to comfort him about something, but Zack simply gave a fake smile and waved him off.
Was he going to see his girlfriend or something?
"Couldn't help yourself, huh?" came a familiar, disapproving voice from behind the fox. Sure enough, it was Judy, dressed up in a silky blue sweater and jeans. She was looking disapprovingly at her fox, thumping her foot at her lover's inability to trust someone who had put their safety on the line to help a righteous cause.
"You could have driven us to Harry to have him share some info with us. You could have called Zack to set up a meeting beforehand. You could have called HQ to request all the files we have on Growl Street, yet you decide to tail this poor kid to-" Judy stopped right there, her eyes downcast.
Nick's brow furrowed. One moment, she was all thumping paws and narrow glares, and now her ears had drooped as much as her eyes.
"Don't you get it, Nick? He's going to his mother," whispered Judy. His mother? But from what Nick understood, Zack's mother was dead.
It was then that it all finally clicked for the fox. Zack's posture was one of a mammal sent to hang, the way he waited outside the flower shop as he rubbed at his eyes, the way the arctic hare tried to comfort the wolf, it all told of one fact:
He was going to his mother's grave.
"Nick, there's, there's something about Zack. You're better at reading mammals than I am, Nick - have you not seen just how broken he is? He lost everything! And he holds himself responsible! He has no one left except those scumbags from the gang! He has lost hold of everything good from his life and he knows it!" Judy said firmly as she glared up at her partner.
Nick glanced to where the wolf was going. He was walking along a main street that he knew connected to the place where Clawhan's wife was buried. Tundratown cemetery.
Nick felt sick to his stomach as he realized what this kid had been through.
"I, I should go to him," said Nick. Judy looked up at him, flabbergasted. "Judy, he needs to know that there's still something worth living for. You said it yourself, Carrots: he feels responsible for all that went wrong in his life and thinks of himself as a monster. When he barely responded when I threatened him, I realized that he thinks he is deserving of anything that I might throw at him. He thinks that this is him. I have given him nothing but doubt so far. It's about time I gave him the benefit of the doubt," Nick said sincerely.
The two partners walked through the giant frozen stone gates guarded by two ebony black gargoyle statues.
The white-blue glow of the snow shone around the gravestones. This, combined with the chill, created a somber, but not oppressive atmosphere.
There was something strangely beautiful about the way the snow and the ice naturally formed around the stones of all ages and sizes. Several of the grander gravestones had small pictures of smiling arctic mammals smiling near friends and family, the snow and ice hugging the stone.
They were truly frozen in time. If this was intentional, then the architect of the cemetery was a genius. It was beautiful in its own way.
Zack kept on walking with the bouquet in his paws, his dark leather jacket and dark fur helping him stand out from the blinding white of everything else. He eventually stopped at a modest, yet relatively new dark marble tombstone.
Even from the distance, the couple was able to see the wolf gasping for air and turning around for a moment as if he wanted to leave, as if whoever was over there hated and shunned him. However, this had lasted for only a second as he turned around, inching his way closer and closer to the plain black tombstone. He carefully placed the bouquet on the stone itself and held his paw over there.
"H-Happy Birthday, Mom," the keen ears of the two lovers picked up. He then got down on his knees and began sobbing softly as he held onto the tombstone, muttering something incomprehensible.
Nick watched the poor kid silently wail in front of his mother's grave. The fox knew that Zack had gotten into the gang as a desperate, last-ditch attempt to raise money for her expensive cancer treatment.
Yet it ended up killing her.
Nick's jaw was clenched shut, and his eyes darkened as he watched. This was a mask, just like the one he had used before he had met his bunny, Judy thought. No, it wasn't just like that one. That mask was meant to cover all his suffering with the illusion of happiness.
This mask was meant to mask his feelings toward someone else's suffering.
And as usual, Judy could see right through it.
"Let's go, Fluff. We'll talk to him later," Nick said, grabbing Judy's arm and leaving the sobbing wolf to himself.
Two hours later, Nick and Judy found themselves inside of a run-down apartment building. They had moved as quickly as possible, and Nick had led Judy through numerous back-alleys to avoid being spotted by anyone.
There were hardly any tenants, except for the cockroaches which went under doors at regular intervals.
The vacancy was good as Judy didn't feel like encountering any occupants of this damned neighbourhood. Not to mention that the faces of the ZPD being spotted in that place would have completely compromised the operation.
They sat down on the stone-cold, rusted radiator that looked like it hadn't been turned on for at least a decade.
All of the lights were either burned out or smashed, and black-green mould firmly controlled of the walls, its corruption spreading like a cancer throughout the entire building.
The smell of old liquor, mould, drugs, and rot hung in the air like a timeless reminder of where they were. Thankfully, the hallway was aired out by a broken window.
Judy began to feel more appreciative of her former hole-in-the-wall apartment more and more as the unbearable seconds of being trapped in there ticked by. She understood why Zack had asked them to come here, but sweet cheese and crackers!
Nick's expression hadn't changed ever since they had left the graveyard, and she knew exactly what he was thinking about.
The bunny snuggled up against his long, lean form, rubbing her head against his chest the way she knew would comfort him. Nick's reaction was instantaneous, wrapping his paws around his little bunny and cradling her to provide warmth.
And just like that, the smile was back.
The repulsive scenery disappeared for both mammals as they held each other for warmth and comfort.
"The stuff you have to do for informants, huh, Slick?" murmured Judy into his chest fur, humming in delight with the way her partner gently massaged the base of her ears with his padded paws.
"It's not so bad. At least it's inside. I've seen worse places," said Nick, chuckling while still being serious He gently kissed the space in between his lover's ears.
"Hi, Officers," came the same voice from a few hours ago. It was Zack, arriving just on time.
He looked different. His shoulders were slumped, and his eyes were downcast, making the wolf look like even more of a wreck than when they had first seen him. His eyes were red and swollen, the fur beneath his eyes matted - telltale signs that he had been crying heavily.
"Let's go. The room is this way," said the dark-furred wolf before either of the two cops could say a word.
He led them through the half-collapsed apartment complex until he reached a slightly newer door and unlocked it.
"I rented this for twenty bucks a week a few days ago," he explained, leading them into the room. The only thing that the old room had was a table with three chairs. The window was boarded, but Nick and Judy could see that the boards were new signalling that Zack had boarded it up himself to prevent the gang from watching them.
"Smart," said Nick, but he was quickly shushed by the wolf, who pulled a small device out of his pocket. Upon pressing a button, it beeped sporadically, as if it was scanning for something.
"Alright, we're good," he said, exhaling in relief as he pulled two chairs for the cops.
"Detective Clawhan gave me this. It scans for hidden bugs and cameras. We're in the clear," Zack said as he took a seat.
He exhaled once again, looking at the old table, yet at nothing in particular at the same time.
"So, what do you want to hear about?" asked the wolf, not moving his gaze.
Judy opened her mouth to speak, but Nick raised his paw to silence her. Before this young wolf helped them, he wanted to help him.
"So, you said your mother passed?" asked Nick, wincing at just how blunt he had sounded.
The wolf's gaze remained unchanged, though he blinked several times.
"Y-Yeah, Officer. But I assure you that it has nothing to do with what I'm doing right now," he answered casually.
The fox was impressed with the young snitch's ability to control his emotions. Aside from a faint, almost unhearable stutter at the beginning, there was no sign in his voice that this very subject was the reason he was as emotionally wrecked as he was.
"Well? Are you gonna have me wear a wire or something?" asked Zack stoically.
"Zack, your emotional and mental condition is vital to this operation. We read your file," stated Nick.
The wolf looked downwards for a moment before dry-swallowing. He was trying to hide his eyes as much as possible, but neither cop had any trouble reading him.
"Did it say there that she died because of me?" he asked rhetorically.
"The docs said that stress made the cancer worse. A few weeks before she passed she, she found out. But I couldn't leave the gang. Every day I went out that door, I knew that it was killing her, but," the young wolf stopped to choke back a sob as he rubbed his eyes and looked the other way from the two mammals.
"I, I put me and her above every other mammal in the world. I just thought to save her, everyone else be damned. And later on, I did it only for me. I, I liked it," he said with disgust.
"As much as I tried to deny it, as much as I shunned my 'colleagues,' I stuck by them. I extorted and hurt innocent mammals just because a psychopath pointed the finger at them. And for what?" he asked, seeming to become angry with himself.
"Zack, stop it! You are not to blame for anything!" stated Judy firmly, trying to place her paw on the kid's forearm, her much more compassionate personality being able to comfort the wolf better than Nick.
The wolf stood up violently, nearly making his chair fall down. Both fox and bunny flinched, not expecting such an aggressive reaction. The wolf's eyes became bloodshot, his paws clenched and his breathing heavy and hitched.
Nick's paw went to his taser in his back pocket, ready to draw the weapon. Judy simply stood on her chair, mouth agape at how quickly the youngster's attitude had turned.
"Really!? I'm not to blame? I joined the gang! I kept on going, despite the fact that I knew deep down what they truly were! And when I finally found out, I wasn't even surprised! And then, when I found out there was no getting out, I didn't feel panicked! I didn't feel like I had just shaken hands with the devil! Why? Because I was - am a bastard! I could have just taken a few more hard-working jobs and scraped by, but no! I had to pick the easy way!" he ranted, tears streaming out of his now red eyes.
"You know what I was doing while my mother was dying!? Huh? I was high in a ditch! I was getting high with gangbanging scumbags after I had beaten the shit out of an innocent rabbit for not paying the boss! That's me! That's who I chose to become! She didn't want anything to do with me after she found out, and can you blame her!?" he continued screaming.
"I threw my past, present, and future into the toilet for the life of a criminal! All the stuff I was repeating in my head that 'I was doing it for her', 'I don't agree with what I'm doing' was nothing but a bunch of bullshit!" All the pent up self-hate and grief that had accumulated over the past few months had come out. He hadn't confided to anyone thus far, the boiling emotions having grown poisonous to him.
"I became a thug, a selfish piece of shit who hurt other mammals for scraps of cash, and I did nothing to change that!" Zack finished, breathing heavily his chest rose and fell shakily as he desperately tried to hide his tears from the two mammals, as if that would have changed anything.
"But you have," suddenly came Judy's soothing voice, breaking the train of thought of the two canines. "You came ahead and chose to help us. You chose to do something to change what you did wrong. And you got into that world, not because you liked it, but because back then, you thought that there was no other alternative. You made mistakes, Zacharias. But you chose to confront them. The simple fact that you recognize what you did wrong, and the fact that now you're risking your life to right your wrongs, proves that you're so much more. You are a good mammal in a bad situation. Nothing more," said Judy with the soothing voice that the wolf hadn't heard for months.
No one had talked to him like that since Mom.
Sure, Harry Clawhan had tried to get him to confide, but the panther's stone-cold attitude hadn't managed to do that.
But this little bunny, bless her soul, had done just that.
Zack covered his face with his paws and poured out months' worth of grief and self-hatred. All the pent-up rage, grief, doubt, apathy, good, and evil - it all came out as he confided in to two strangers.
As the fox and the bunny whispered soothing words and rubbed his shoulders in an effort to get him to relax, he finally felt free.
He finally felt as if things could get back to the way they were once-upon-a-time. He would destroy the gang, make them pay for what they had done to him and countless other innocent mammals.
He felt as if his mother would have been proud of him.
He wanted to continue crying and sobbing into the two strangers' arms, but he didn't want to completely drain himself.
He wanted to get it done.
"That's enough, Officers. Thank you," the wolf said eventually. Judy beamed up at the former thug, and even the fox had an approving smile.
They had brought his life back.
"Now," he began, his teary voice now much thicker, and his bloodshot eyes filling with a determination he hadn't felt in nearly a year.
He took out a stack of papers. Plans, maps, conversation transcripts, even a few photos.
"Let's get down to business," he snarled. Time to end this madness... What better way to leave hell than to destroy it?
The overhead light swung on the ceiling, creating an ear-piercing sound. It wasn't much, but as someone with sensitive hearing, having to listen to it over and over again made the middle-aged rabbit buck's head swoon.
If only he could open his eyes, but they burst with pain every time he tried moving his eyelids. Now that he thought about it, so did the rest of his slashed and battered body. His paws were cuffed to two rusty, but thick and solid pipes in such a manner that it was impossible for him to relax as it strained his muscles without respite. Yet despite this, he was grateful for the pause in what Carnivore had been doing to.
An excruciating white-hot pain erupted in his abdomen, feeling the way his flesh was rubbed against his ribs. The brown hare used what little energy he had left to produce a pathetically weak scream.
His senses were once again filled with fear and panic as he heard the giant wolf snarling and roaring in his face. It didn't help with anything except that he began squirming uselessly against his shackles, the most ancient and primal parts of his prey brain demanding him to run away from the predator. Having no means to do so kept him, his mind, and his subconsciousness in a cruel, inescapable hell.
His eyes opened without his consent, and he defeated his own instincts by glaring up at the tall wolf. Carnivore's face was completely unreadable, his strange red eyes twinkling with… actually the buck wasn't even sure what the light in those eyes was supposed to mean. But the rabbit was sure he wouldn't like it.
"Listen, you bastard. If you're gonna kill me, then just fucking do it already, because I won't give you the pleasure of begging for my life," the buck spat, snarling as harshly as his genes would allow him.
The simple sentence had made the rabbit cough uncontrollably, spitting blood at the wolf's feet. The fact that he had been a heavy smoker for twenty years didn't help either.
Carnivore's face continued to be completely stoic, which was far more terrifying than if it had been snarling and raging like a predator of the stone age.
"No," said the wolf simply. Those two simple letters carved a path of ice down the buck's spine.
"You see, Mr. Bucksworth, it is not as simple as you 'not paying taxes'. It's the fact that you do not respect us," said the wolf, his blood-stained claws flashing for a moment in front of the rabbit. He flinched away, squeezing his eyes shut. One of the thugs that was guarding the room barked out a laugh at the rabbit's natural, inescapable cowardice. Even those thugs looked different than the rest. Their eyes were colder. They wore themselves with more pride and they showed no signs of drug addiction. They held their UZIs much more professionally, barrel pointed to the ground, butt close to the chest, finger off the trigger.
They seemed completely and utterly devoted to protecting their master, and doing it better than any average goon. They also looked simply different from any other wolves - or preds for that matter - that the rabbit had ever seen. Their dead glares looked almost like the deathly stares of the predators of the stone age, ready to kill and feast on prey.
"You are a history teacher, Mr. Bucksworth. Therefore, I expect you to understand my motivation better than most, even if you see everything through the rose-tinted glasses of prey," said Carnivore, leaning forward toward the buck, his fangs mere inches away from his throat. Try as he might, Bucksworth couldn't help but back up against the cold, mouldy wall as if it would help him escape. His heart and lungs worked in overdrive despite the battered state of his frail body.
"W-what motivation? You're a two-bit scumbag who doesn't care about the lives of anyone. You'll dos anything you can to fill up your coffers while sacrificing innocent youths to die or rot in jail for your own benefits!" the teacher managed to say despite how scared he was. He had always been a strong-willed mammal, but he was actually quite proud of himself of how he had managed to control himself.
The wolf didn't even blink at his prey's barrage of insults. The mere fact that his expression remained unchanged frightened the bunny more than any roar or snarl the wolf could have thrown at him.
"No, Mr. Bucksworth. What I do is rooted in what all of you did to us. Long ago and now as well," said Carnivore, maintaining his same unreadable face, but the buck could sense an undertone of anger in his voice.
And it terrified him.
"When the so-called 'Great Peace' came - together with the formation of Zootopia - we predators were the ones who extended the olive branch. We were the ones who saw, or thought, that you were just like us. That you were worthy of not being mere prey. We denied Mother Nature's call, we denied our instincts, we denied our destiny, our pack, our very identity, all for your sake," the gang leader continued, his voice becoming more and more angry, his face joining in with a terrifying snarl.
The buck could see where the wolf was going.
"And how did the fair and gentle prey treat the benevolent predators? The very predators who denied their superiority, their labourers, and main food source and instead saw you as brothers?" spat the wolf, his anger becoming more and more apparent. The claws and fangs that were stained with the buck's blood shone in the dim light, causing the formerly strong and steadfast buck to yelp in fear and close his eyes as he pressed himself against the wall. "You subjugated us! From the beginning of history to now, there are laws about how sharp our claws are allowed to be, about how much more 'privileged' a predator is to keep you thinking that you're still the underdog. It's all just an endless cycle to fuel the hatred that you pieces of meat feel toward your overlords! You need to keep feeling and fuelling that hatred, because you all know that we are superior. That we could take our throne back whenever we wanted. That we could maim and kill each and every one of you at a moment's notice.
The only predators who had the guts to stand up to you were the Pred Axis! But guess what? Traitorous predators joined the Zootopia Allied Forces! They fought side by side with prey, their oppressors, to kill their own predator brothers! To put the ball and chain around their own ankles for the sake of prey!" ranted the cult leader, the two guards beginning to cheer for him while still remaining at their posts.
The buck remained motionless, his ears folded over his eyes, buckteeth grinding and whimpering constantly, the very image of lapin panic.
The very image of prey panicking.
He almost wished that the wolf would swing a killing slice just so that the terror would end. So that his brain and soul could stop being trapped in this hell. His slashed and battered body almost disappeared from the equation as it barely even added to the immense suffering that the psychological torture from the sadistic predator inflicted upon him.
"You know, I have proof that biologically, predators are still meant to use prey. Ever since I made the switch - whenever I eat the disgusting protein meals that you prey shoved down our throats - I spit it out. Even chicken doesn't have the same taste it once had. Those two guards and my closest acolytes are examples as well. We cannot eat anything else now, because our own bodies are now aware of what Nature wishes for us," the wolf preached.
The buck dared to open his eyes and look up at his gigantic captor once again. The wolf now housed a sadistic smile of satisfaction on his muzzle, and his two bodyguards joined his side with an identical expression.
"W-What are you talking about?" asked the teacher, though his brilliant mind had already found the answer; he simply couldn't accept it.
Surely, not even this killer would stoop down to such a level.
Another surge of white-hot pain exploded in his chest as the wolf carved him with his nature-granted weapons. Only that this time, it was different.
It was… no.
"Today, you get to experience what it truly means to be prey," the wolf said, his red eyes twinkling with pure evil. Bucksworth couldn't even scream as the wolves descended into their ancestor's footsteps.