1-2
Anastasis
The cool morning air nipped at Mae's cheeks as she sped down the sidewalk on her bike, ears flapping wildly in the wind. All she could think about were the contents of Moly's voicemail, the information rattling around in her brain like an echo chamber.
'Casey is alive?' She pondered 'No, that's impossible, the cult sacrificed him almost 2 years ago now! But then how is he alive? Is Aunt Molly lying? But why would she?...' The more Mae thought about it the more it made her head spin, and she hated it. She wanted to just ignore it and pretend she didn't hear it, but at the same time, there really was no way she could. The young cat parked her bike against the rack and rushed inside the house.
"Mae!" Molly called out to her niece. She looked over to see her auntie sitting down in one of the waiting room chairs, slumped over with a distant look on her face. Instead of her normal police attire, she wore a pink sweater and jeans.
"Hey" she nodded as she sat down next to her.
"Hi." the police officer responded with a small smile before slumping back into her chair. She had big dark circles under her bloodshot eyes.
"How's Casey?" She asked, worry filling her voice.
"No idea, I've been here all night and they haven't told me anything."
"Oh." Mae let out a deep sigh before she plopped down into the chair and began to look around. The cramped waiting room was sparsely populated, with only a sickly old man sitting across from them. Calling this a waiting room was frankly an insult to actual waiting rooms. In reality, it was a living room turned into a shitty lobby.
"Did you tell Christine that you're here?" She asked.
"Yeah she knows, Lori is covering me. You?"
"The chief understands." She answered.
"He's that old dude from the city, right?" Molly gave her niece a stern look.
"Don't call him old." She told her.
"It's not my fault he's old." Mae looked up at her auntie with a bored look.
"And what would that make me?"
"Old." The police woman groaned before slumping back into her chair. The two of them sat in silence, the rhythmic ticking of the clock overhead only emphasizing the loneliness of this place. Seconds turned to minutes as the quiet ticking began to drill its way into her head and fuck with her. She began to get tunnel vision as her mind began to ask the same question repeatedly with no answer. 'How is he alive?'
"I'm…" The officer took in a deep breath, " I'm gonna tell him about what happened." Mae turned her head towards her.
"Tell him wh- oh, right. Shouldn't we wait?"
"No, he'll find out soon enough. I'm going to tell him when we see him."
"I know him, he won't take it well-"
"No." Molly commanded, "I'm telling him, OK?" The officer looked her right in the eyes, a serious look spread across her façade, and her familiar returned the favor.
"Yeah whatever, mall-cop." The young cat stood up and began to pace back and forth anxiously.
"Why is this taking so effing long, man?" She muttered under her breath.
"Mae, it's been 5 minutes"
"Yeah I-I know but could they hurry up?"
"Miss. Tiedemann?" A nurse poked his head into the lobby.
"Yes?" Both of the girls said as they turned their heads on a dime to face him, ears up and listening.
"The doc wants to see you, well one of you I think?" He said as his finger swapped between the duo.
"He can see both." Molly stood up.
"C'mon Mae." She pats Mae on the back as she followed the nurse, with the young cat quickly following behind them. They entered Dr. Hank's office, a small and cozy little room with a faux fireplace against the far wall. Sat in a cozy-looking swivel chair was the man himself, an overweight lion with a thick and fluffy mane and a pair of vintage spectacles. Behind him were his diplomas, their validity being iffy at best. He smiled wide and stood up, his stomach brushing against his desk.
"Ah, Molly! It's good to see you again!" He sauntered over to the police officer and extended his hand.
"It's good to see you to." She gave him a small smile as she shook his hand.
"Oh, and is that Mae?" Dr. Hank beamed down at her as she awkwardly stood in the doorframe.
"That's meeeeee." She said with ungodly amounts of spunk and optimism in her voice.
"Mae! How are you? It's been so long since we last talked, has that journal been helpful?"
"I guess." The cat shrugged.
"Goood, good!" Dr. Hank beamed at her, and got an ambivalent response.
"Alright, well I suppose we should discuss Casey now." The overweight lion waved them over as he sat at his desk, with the girls sat parallel.
"Alright, Casey, Casey…" The doc took a moment to think about his words.
"So, Casey! Lets start with the good stuff, right? We got him all cleaned up, so that's good. We sent that gunk that was covering him off for testing, that'll be back in a week or two, and the blisters should heal on their own. I can't speak to how he's going to deal with all this mentally just yet, but physically he's been making a quick recovery. From what I can see he didn't receive any major injures, just a lot of the small scars and marks we saw on him. They should all heal fairly quickly."
Mae's face shifted to one of confusion. "What happened to him?" She asked with worry.
"Well, we don't know. He says he doesn't remember anything. Just that he woke up like that." The doctor said as Mae softly nodded.
"And the bad?" Molly asked.
"Right, the bad. He's incredibly malnourished, I can't really describe to you how bad it is." He suddenly snapped his fingers. "Uh, you know those African kids you see on TV commercials that are starving and are asking for you to donate to their charity to help feed them? Well he makes them look like obese. Also his fur is very, very unhealthy, so I can give him some medication for growing it back if that's what you want." The lion leaned back in chair and let out a deep sigh.
"Other than that I can't really see anything else yet. He might get better, or worse, we just have to watch his condition for now and see what happens."
"Is Casey awake now?" The young woman chimed.
"Awake? He been nothing but awake, he said he can't fall asleep."
"Thank you Dr. Hank, if there's anything I can do to help then do let me know." Molly reached out and shook the lion's hand.
"Oh don't worry about it, just doing my job here." He said as he shared his warm smile.
"Say, could we see Casey? I'm sure he'd love to see Mae."
"Ah yes, I'm sure he would. I used to hear about her all the time whenever my patients came in for therapy." A flustered look spread over Mae as both adults looked down at her with disproving looks, before Dr. Hank broke the tension with his booming laugh.
"I'm joking, don't worry Mae. You're not in trouble, yet. Give me a moment with Casey, OK?" Mae gave out an awkward smile as the chubby lion went through the door. Just a moment later he opened it for the girls.
"He's ready for you two." The duo entered as he shut the door behind them, leaving them alone. The room had a few empty hospital beds which we illuminated by the morning light flowing through open window at the end. Basking in this sunlight was Casey, who was looking at both of them with a wide grin.
"Mae?" His voice was raspy and cracked, like his vocal chords had been baking in the sun.
"Casey!" She rushed over to him and gave him a hug.
"I thought I'd never see you again." Casey cried as he held himself close to his friend.
"Me to." Mae's eyes were filled with tears. The two of them embraced each other for another moment before she pulled away from him and gave him a smile.
"I-I'm, fuck…" She whipped her eyes of tears before continuing.
"I missed you so much." Despite already knowing about it, Mae was still shocked over how Casey's body had been abused. His fur was falling out, and through it you could see a collection of strange wounds covering his body, some of them had been covered with bandages but most were laid bare.
"O-Oh my god Casey! What happened to you?" Casey's eyes seemed to slip away for a moment, like he was remembering something, before he just shrugged.
"No idea." He said before letting out a soft laugh.
'He's lying' She thought, 'he knows what happened' That awkward laugh was his tell, every time he lied it was thrown in there like a brick through a window. 'But why not just say so? Something's wrong.' Still, she thought it would be best not to push it, for now.
"Okay… Are you feeling alright?" She asked.
"If I'm being honest, no, but I feel fantastic." Casey giggled as he grinned at her.
"Hey, Miss. Teaman." He waved as Molly approached.
"Tiedemann; Good to see you again Casey."
"Oh my bad. Thank you, for saving me." He groaned as he sat up in his bed.
"We're just glad you're safe." Molly leaned in and gave the boy a brief hug. Casey cleared his throat before speaking again.
"Hey, if they're not busy, can I see my parents please?" The warm feeling that had wrapped around the trio suddenly flew away like a piece of paper in a hurricane. Mae felt a bottomless pit open up in her stomach as Casey's face turned to one of concern. He threw his blanket off and sat on the edge of the bed, the gown doing little to hide his boney form.
"What's wrong?" He asked tentatively.
"Casey," Molly got down onto her knees and placed her hands on his shoulders, before taking in a deep breath. "...your father went missing last year, and your mother… She got into a car accident and-"
"What?" He asked, his expression turning to a horrid mix of dread, shock, and disbelief. You could see the lights in his eyes escape him like soup through a fork as his breath became quick and heavy and his mind raced.
"OK, my parents are dead?" He looked at her with a hurricane of emotions in his eyes.
"OK." Time froze, Casey and the others sat there in silence for ages. It wasn't long until he understood, and soon the broken cat began to weep uncontrollably into her chest. Molly hugged him tightly, with her niece beginning to hug him to. The young woman could see her auntie trying her hardest to not break down herself. Molly's phone suddenly began to ring. She glanced at her niece before back down at the phone, so she quickly pulled it out of her auntie's pocket.
"It's the old guy." Mae said. The officer sighed in response.
"Give me a minute." She hung up the phone, but they just called again. Molly groaned before turning to Casey.
"I have to go now, OK?" The cat said as she pet the poor boy's head. The dazed boy simply nodded in response before she rushed to her phone and answered it.
"What do you want?" She stated in an angry tone as she quickly rushed out the door. Then it was just Mae and Casey, the 2 friends alone at last. Mae sat down next to a distraught Casey, his body quivering and his face streaked with tears. They shared a seemingly never ending moment of peace together.
"..do you want me to get some Clik Clak for us?" She asked.
"Yes please." Casey answered, still dazed.
"OK, I'll order it." She pulled out her phone and dialed Clik Clak's number. As she talked with them Casey stared down at his feet. He felt nothing, thought nothing, just simply existed for the time being, and he took some comfort in that.
End
Hello there! So this idea has been floating around in my head for some time now and it feels good to finally put hands to keyboard and just go for it. I've been a FF user for years now, but I'm on a new account to disassociate from 13 year old me as much as I can (Dankius Memeius being my username explains it all). I'd always post random fanfictions (mostly involving Zootopia and TAWOG) then delete them after a week after I realized they were shit, but I'm hoping to keep this one up and going. I'll see if I can post regularly (every Friday, if I can) but that might not happen as I've got midterms and then vacation on the other side of the country. I've got lots of ideas for this story and I wanna share em all with yalls, so hopefully I don't lose motivation. Be sure to follow if you like the story, and if you don't then leave a review saying why! Have a great day/night!