You were tired. You only wanted to have a moment of reprieve. Something to remind you that the world was so much bigger than you could imagine and that your problems were so small in comparison. It's not like you've never climbed up the side of your building before, never sat on the edge and looked out over the city so you could feel small, never sat, and not wondered if it'd be right to just end it right there.

You wouldn't of course. You had things to live for despite how shitty and trapped you felt. There was your little succulent garden that you took care of that would die without you because no one takes care of it like you do. There are all those stray cats you feed once a day on your way to college that would wonder where their free meal went. There were the kids at the closed-in park, that you walk by every day, and they would make faces at you, and you'd make them back. Making you and the kids laugh. You'd also miss hearing all the new music that could be made and can be listened to.

Those were good moments. Not something you'd want to end for the world just because you felt like you had no control over your life. So after looking over the city for an hour or two, you'd get back down and put your nose to the grindstone. Unfortunately, what was supposed to go by as a normal day of ruminating, became your death.

It had rained recently, but when you were sitting on the roof it didn't occur to you to worry about it, and the rough rock was slick under your worn-out shoes. You lost your balance for a second when you were getting up and the sudden shift of your weight made you slip, and you fell off the side of the seven-story tall building.

It happened so fast. You didn't even get the chance to make this choice yourself. You had plans. You wanted to see the world. You wanted to live a little. You wanted to grow more plants and make people laugh and watch the sunset over a countryside or something and not just in your cramped city. You wanted so much but it was just going to end…

Then at the last moment, before you thought you'd hit the concrete, you only hoped you didn't accidentally land on anyone.

Then you kept falling… And falling… And falling… It shouldn't be taking this long for you to hit the ground.

You squeezed open an eye, having scrunched up on yourself as you waited for the impact, to see what was going on.

It was sunny. Like it should be. You look around a bit more, but you can't see any of the tall apartment complexes around you. You unfold yourself as your confusion mounted. Did you die? Is this the afterlife? You'd think you would have felt something in the last second before passing on.

You twist your body to face where you were falling and as you twist you see nothing but an expanse of sparkling ocean. It was a light blue and teal color, contrasting with the dark blue of the sky. It was an amazing sight. A sight that became less amazing the moment you realized that you were still falling, and that water was coming at you quick.

You flailed your arms as you tried to position yourself like you were standing. You've seen Mythbusters you know it'll hurt like a bitch to hit water from so high up, but at the very least you can try and make this into a not so fancy dive. As you got closer you managed to get into a standing position, you wrapped your arms around yourself, pointed your toes down, and at the last second held your breath and plugged your nose.

Everything hurt as you cut through the water. The initial shock of the cold water and the sting of salt in your closed eyes kept you motionless. As your need for air grew though, you hoped that you didn't break anything in your landing and that you're just going to have some weird bruising. You swam to the surface and gasped for breath.

For the moment, you floated on your back as you processed what just happened.

Is this where dead souls go? Are you going to see others like you soon? This better not be like those "truck-kun" situations…

You look at your hands as they drip from the salt water and block the sun out of your eyes. They still looked like your hands. You still felt pain. You still need to breath. If this is the afterlife, then will that be the only thing you'll need? You won't need to eat or drink or get tired or anything?

Your thoughts were distracted when you felt something fuzzy brush against your head. You flailed immediately as a scream escaped you. Splashing water and accidentally inhaling the droplets. As you sat up, treading water, and coughing, you looked around to find the source of your spook, and saw a coconut.

Laughing at how silly you were being, you swam over to the brown, hairy thing and picked it up. It was slightly slimy on the bottom of it, so it had been out on water for a while now. You looked around hopeful, thinking that you might be close to land, but after a second you sighed. Coconuts in water isn't a guarantee that you'll find land, but as you eyed the thing, you did realize that wherever you are, it's still very similar to where you came from.

You set the coconut back into the water and pushed it away from you, "Good luck little guy. Hope you find land." You smiled as it was bounced by the waves, and you made believe that it was waving goodbye to you and wishing you luck as well.

Sighing, you looked around again. When you were falling, you don't remember seeing any land masses. You look up at the sun through your fingers and guessed it was a little past midday. You would check your phone that was on you, but you know it was absolutely ruined at this point. You kicked off your shoes since they felt like they were dragging at you and making it harder for you to swim. You only kept them long enough to get the shoelaces off them so you could have some emergency string. Your shirt, jeans, and socks you kept on. Even if they also felt like they were dragging on you, if you didn't get out of the water before nightfall, you were going to be freezing and you'll need whatever extra protection from the cold you could get.

Not knowing what else you could do, you picked a direction and started swimming.

You weren't a bad swimmer, but you weren't good either. You don't have the stamina that's required of a regular swimmer, and you found yourself floating on your back to rest, more and more as the sun slowly sank to the horizon. That whole theory about not getting tired being immediately busted, along with your need to eat and drink.

As you swam, you suddenly understood all those stories you'd read about people lost at sea and how they'd drink the salt water despite knowing it'd just kill them faster. It's like it's taunting you. Daring you to drink of it and perish. If sirens were real, salt water's the true siren of the sea to a thirsty man.

You kept going though, and you were hopeful that you were at least going in the same direction and not going in circles like you feared. You were also keeping your other fear of deep-sea creatures coming up to grab you by the ankle and eating ya at bay, pretty well you might add, but that was getting harder to do as you watched the sun set to your right.

Being in the middle of the ocean, surrounded by darkness, and shivering from the cold, was not an ideal place to be in. You wish you had some driftwood, something big to lay your head on so that you could take a short nap so that you're not just treading water or having to float on your back. If you didn't keep moving though, you know you'd probably freeze to death if you didn't drown first.

Your fear of what could be swimming below you radiated at the back of your mind, but the sight of the night sky helped to calm your nerves. The night sky was bright and pockmarked with so many stars, it was mesmerizing. The moon was crescent and to keep yourself awake, you tried to pick out the constellations that you knew as you swam.

The longer you looked to the sky, the more it became obvious that you had no idea where any of the constellations that you were looking for were. You know the major constellations for both the northern and southern hemisphere so you should have been able to at least pick them out, but you recognized nothing.

You hummed a quiet whine to yourself. You don't know what this all means but you don't like it. You were going to keep swimming until you truly couldn't anymore, or until you found land, or even more unlikely, a boat found you.

The night was long, and cold, and hard. There were several times where you felt so weak that you let the waves wash over you and push you under, just so you wouldn't have to move. Then your lungs would burn for air, and you'd swim back to the surface and keep going. You were very lucky to not be in the middle of a storm, or maybe you weren't lucky. Considering if you were going to die, this slowly drowning to death thing wasn't the greatest to experience.

Eventually, agonizingly, the sun started to rise to your left, so at least you know that you were still going in the same direction you had picked for yourself. It doesn't look like you're any closer to any land, though.

You sigh as you lay on your back, the waves washing over your form. Your whole body hurts form being forced to swim. You wish for the millionth time that you had something to hold on to or to have a lifejacket. Something just so you could actually relax.

You turn your face towards the rising light. Wanting to be warmed by the sun's rays but as you looked you saw a shadow. You squinted your eyes at the rising sun. The outline of the distant shadow looked like a boat.

You sit up quickly and start treading water, trying to rise yourself as high up as you could to get an even better look. The shadow was a boat. You don't know how far away it is, but it was hope. With an extra burst of energy, you started swimming towards what you hoped would be your salvation. You didn't try to swim quickly though, if it was a mirage or they weren't going to cross paths with you, you didn't want to waste your energy trying to get to something you couldn't reach.

As the sun rose higher into the air, you could see the boat getting closer. They were at an angle from you, but that's okay. You just had to get close enough for them to hear you. When the boat was less of a speck and looked like it was big enough to fit in the palm of your hand you started screaming and yelling.

It was hard to do. Trying to swim and shout at the same time, but you got closer still and you could see the shapes of people on deck. You don't know if they've noticed you until you see that the ship's sails started to move and go against the wind that was pushing it, affectively stopping it. You swam even harder as you kept screaming and yelling. Determined to fight until you couldn't anymore.

The ship was huge and shadowed your form. You heard voices and the sound of many feet on wood. You expected to see a lifeboat drop or have a floating donut thrown at you but neither of these things happened.

Instead, you saw a rope ladder drop against the boat in front of you and you heard shouting encouragement to climb up. At the very least you knew you were going to understand each other once you climbed up.

Your arms and legs felt weak and shaky as you climbed out of the water and up the side of the boat. As you got closer the encouraging crowd became quieter and it became deathly silent when you finally had a hand on the railing. You felt no one attempt to hoist you onto the ship but that's fine. You weren't thinking about the implications of what that meant as you swung your leg over the wooden railing and fell onto the deck.

You groan with relief as you patted the deck with your hands and smooshed your face into the semi-rough wood.

"Thank God. But more importantly thank all of you. I thought I'd be resigned to slowly drowning to death."

"What happened?" A kind sounding woman asked.

You kept laying down, not wanting to move much.

"You know, I'm not entirely sure about that. But it's a story I think I should save for your Captain."

You felt something like a stick poking into your shoulder.

Another voice spoke up, this one sounding like a stereotypical pirate as he asked, "What tha hell are ya?"

You frowned at that.

"Wow," you said as you started shakily getting up onto your knees, "Rude much?"

You turn to look at who had asked you that, only to be faced with a big fury rust-red colored fox with an eye patch over his right eye.

Your eyes go wide at the sight but you're much to tired to scream about it. You look past the fox and see even more anthropomorphic animals on the ship. All eyeing you like you were the exotic animal and not them.

You crawl backwards onto your ass and press your back against the wooden railing. The anthropomorphic animals started at you and you started right back. You were much too tired to do anything else. As the silence dragged on, you were starting to feel a bit awkward.

The rust-red fox stood up from crouching close to you then he poked you in the leg with his left peg-leg. Most likely the stick that you were poked with before.

"Yo're certainly not from around her', though ya do look like a stickman," the fox said, "but barely."

You stopped your gawking long enough to give the fox a questioning look. Instead of asking for an explanation though, you force yourself on to your feet. Your legs shook from the exertion but with a firm hold on the railing, you managed to prop yourself up.

A white chicken woman moved closer to you, her hands reaching out to you like she was going to catch you if you fell, "Easy now."

You raise a hand at her, motioning that you're fine. You're not, but you didn't want them getting too close to you at the moment.

You cleared your throat, then said, "So uh, again, thank you for letting me on board. And you know, I got to say, you all are intimidating and adorable at the same time and you all are rocking it."

You smile and give them a thumbs up. A few of the anthropomorphic animals smiled at you, more were still frowning at you with suspicion. It looked like you were surrounded by at least ten people in total, but with a ship this big, there had to be at least ten or fifteen other animal people below deck and elsewhere.

The silence started up again as you were being scrutinized by the crowd. You honestly don't know what else you could do, and your legs were starting to shake harder form the effort of just standing, despite how heavily you were leaning against the railing.

"Okay! Okay! What's the hold up!?" A voice shouted, "Did we get whoever on board or not!?"

Two tall figures strolled through the crowd. All of the animal people were tall, like six feet or something, but these people had to be eight feet if not nine. They strolled through the crowd with confidence and authority and when they made it to the front of the crowd where everyone was staring at you, you were gawking again.

One, human-man looking person, stood tall and angry as he looked at everyone. He had the general shape of a stick figure; long legs, long arms, a long torso and a big round head. His face had the coloring of a crescent moon with a red eye in the black side of his face and a black eye in the white side of his face. He was wearing clothes that were reminiscent of old-fashioned pirates like from the Pirates of the Caribbean movie, but they were decorated in deep blues and purples with little patterns of stars and moons in jewelry or as actual patterns on the cloth.

Another one stood close behind him. He also had a stick figure shape to him, but he was colored in yellows and oranges, and he had weird little flaps or organs situated all around his head in a perfect circle making his face look like a child's drawing of a sun. The only thing not yellow was his eyes, just as blue and as clear as a cloudless sunny sky. His pirate clothes were bright yellows and warm browns with little patterns of stars and suns in jewelry and as patters on his clothes. He had a soft curious smile on his face as it seemed like he was letting the moon man take charge of the situation.

Both stick figure people turned their attention on you, and you stumbled to your ass as they both had very different reaction towards the sight of you. The moon guy stood back, looking at you like you were a bad omen. The sunny guy held the moon guy up, keeping him from standing too far back as he seemed to want to press forward towards you like you were an interesting new critter he wanted to play with.

You picked you jaw off the floor. You may be in an unfamiliar situation, which is completely an understatement, but you weren't about to be rude. You looked away and cleared your throat. Then you looked back at the two strange men.

"Um… Hi?" You waved at them.

The sun guy immediately moved out from behind the moon guy and charged at you with an energy you weren't expecting, pushing the fox man out of his way. You slammed the back of your head against the railing behind you in a feeble attempt to run away. You hissed at the pain, and you were about to rub the back of your head with your hand when it was ingulfed by two big hands.

You were face to face with the sunny looking guy as he was examining your hand. Every other part of you was as pulled away from him as possible. You felt very much like a cat unable to run and all you could do was stay frozen.

"Look at you," he said out loud.

You weren't very sure if he was wanting a response out of you or not, but he kept on being handsy with you as he dropped your hand and then he forced one of your legs out from under you so he could look at your foot.

He laughed as he poked the middle of your sole, "You're so squishy."

His hands felt warm like he had been warming them up by a fire, but they felt like normal human hands, if a bit calloused. So you didn't understand why you were being called squishy.

Before you could ask him to back off, he had let go of your foot and grabbed your head turning your face, this way and that as he examined you.

Laughing even more, he asked, "What even the fuck are you?"

You felt your eye twitch in annoyance. You were tired. You were hungry. You were thirsty. You had no fucking clue what was going on or how there were walking furries. And most of all you'd like to not be treated like some freak in a freak show.

Growling, you said, "If you don't let go of me, I will bite you."

"Oh-ho! Fisty aren't we," he said still not letting go of your face as his blue eyes bore into you curiously.

You opened your mouth and started leaning towards one of his hands and he immediately let go and backed away.

"Okay. Okay. No need for that," he said. He was still crouching close to you, but he was keeping his hands to himself and smiling excitedly at you.

You sighed and rubbed at your eyes with one hand.

"Throw it back into the water."

You and everyone else looked at the moon guy. He was glaring at you with a look you mistake for hatred.

The sunny guy quickly stood up. "What why?"

"You know what it is. You know the stories," the darker guy said, "We're throwing it out. We don't need anymore trouble than what we make of our own."

"Oh come on. Look at it. It's harmless."

"That means nothing."

"Besides, the stories aren't all doom and gloom Mister Apocalypse," the sunny one said with a bit of sass.

"I'm not arguing with you on this, Sun," the darker moon guy pointed at a wolf and an alligator and said, "You two. Throw them overboard."

They took one step forward and Sun said, "Don't you dare," at them.

They immediately froze and you would have laughed if this wasn't about your life hanging in the balance.

Sun put his hands on his hips as he stepped in front of you, "Think of all the information it could give us, Moon. The stories. The technology."

"It's not worth it."

"Is it not worth it to believe in the good it can do? At least a little?"

"No."

"But—"

"No!"

"Oh come on!"

"The longer it is here the more endanger our crew becomes."

"It can't be all that bad!"

You've had enough.

As loudly as your parched throat would let you, you screamed, "Heeey!"

Now all eyes were on you again.

"I don't understand anything and nothing y'all are sayin'. All I know is that you think I'm going to bring a travesty to these people," you said pointing at Moon.

Still glaring at you, he nodded his big head.

"These good. Kind people who were willing to help a stranger at sea even if it meant you guys were losing time to whatever mission you all were on?"

The glare on the moon man's face was softening, and he nodded again.

Out of the corner of your eye you could see Sun looking between you and Moon in a panic, like he was trying to think of a way to stop this train of conversation.

The thought process you were having wasn't exactly the healthiest, but you were tired and if you really weren't dead and you're somehow in some magical alternate universe, then maybe it would be best if you weren't here anymore. Just so you could avoid becoming someone's exotic pet, or being in a zoo, or whatever else this messed up universe might hold for you in it.

You throw your hands up in frustration, "Well fine then! If the situation is so dire. Might as fucking well." You get into position to quickly jump to your feet, "But I'm going to be knocked out for this so, uh, thank you everyone for saving me and fuck you for deciding I should die."

You spring up quickly as you flip everyone off. As you expected you were immediately seeing stars from the rush of blood leaving your head and going to your legs. The last thing you felt was you falling from passing out. You knew when you were conked out, you'd stay conked out until your body decided it was done resting. Not even water to your face could wake you up, so whatever painful fate they decide for you, all you'll be is asleep.