Alex awoke with a frantic gasp for air. He scooched his body back against the wall behind him and clutched his chest, the brick prickling his skin. After a few moments of hyperventilating, he began patting each part of his body from bottom to top making sure that each bit of him was still there. The wet slap of his hands against his clothes clinging to his skin somehow helped maintain his sanity. Once his palms reached his cheeks, he stopped. The sound of his breath was still labored, but the shock was finally starting to wear off.
Though he was still drenched from the storm, there wasn't a single drop falling now. The intensity of that storm was nothing he'd ever experienced before. He was certain he was a goner once he left the ground. The weird floating must've been from a tornado blowing through cause he woke up nowhere that he recognized. It was a damp alleyway that reeked of refuse. His office buildings were all pretty far from each other, so there wasn't a chance he ended up anywhere near his work. Sure, he was beyond grateful just to be alive, but this was a little bit more than unsettling.
He pulled out his phone, noticing the bullet hole crack in the top left corner of the screen. Between the shards of cracked glass he could make out the time: 11:52 PM.
"Geez… I've been out for that long?" He asked nobody in particular.
He unlocked the phone, grateful it still worked. Well… partially worked. Dead pixels were splattered across the screen accompanied by an incessant flickering. He pressed his finger on the 'Maps' icon. The application stuttered multiple times trying to open but eventually popped up with an aerial view of the business park. Unfortunately, it proved to be no help determining his current location. Service and GPS signal were completely gone. Storms must've knocked the towers out.
The man stared absentmindedly at the multicolored alley wall across him before shaking his head clear of residual confusion. He slowly hoisted himself up onto his feet, his legs and arms still a little stiff, and glanced in each direction of the alley. One dived deeper into the corridor's stench and the other led to a sidewalk illuminated by the soft glow of a street lamp. He made his way towards the light, glancing down at his phone again, praying cell service would pop-up.
As he crossed the alley's threshold, an unnerving feeling crawled its way up his spine. What city is this? What KIND of city is this? Up and down the street the concrete and masonry edifices cocked an eyebrow at Alex. The buildings themselves didn't look anything out of the ordinary, but the names and aesthetics completely threw him off. He didn't recognize a single business.
"Bug-a-Burger?" He scratched his head. "Did I end up on a different continent?"
With 'No Service' still glaring from his phone, he felt his next best bet would be to find something open and ask where the hell he was. He wasn't sure what he'd find open at this hour on a Sunday night, though.
As he walked down the empty sidewalk, he took a mental note of the strange city towering over him. It felt like he got lost in a theme park. Everything was strangely 'animal' themed. Company names were littered with animal terms, but it didn't seem likely that every business was pet focused. Some buildings were enormous and looked like run of the mill financial firms, yet the goofiness of 'Otter and Pups Financial' was plastered in bland LED lettering to the top of the skyscraper. Unless you were a small business, it felt really strange to take a chance naming your international conglomerate with a pun in mind. But, what did he know; you don't get a building that big unless you know what you're doing.
Some shops even mimicked names he was already familiar with.
"Fur-ever 21?" He rolled his eyes. " I guess that's covered under parody law. But why?"
Alex was so lost in thought at his unfamiliar surroundings that he didn't notice another figure engrossed in his phone walking towards him. With a soft thunk the two collided, each giving a respective 'oof.'
"Sorry, dude," Alex apologized. "I didn't see…"
He trailed off when he finally got a good look of the person he'd bumped into. Person might not be the right word, though. In front of him stood a brown bear; the strangest brown bear he'd ever seen. The creature was almost 7 feet tall and wore slacks with an unbuttoned dress shirt. He'd seen bears stand on two legs on national geographic before, but this looked unnaturally natural for it. Then there was the gender: unmistakably signaled 'man.' It was a strange feeling to have gender cross your mind when being dwarfed by a half ton wild animal, but here Alex was staring at a man-ish bear. The phone is what completely broke his mind, though. It was just flicking its furry fingers across the screen nonchalantly, a motion he knew intimately well.
"Yeah, whatever, man," the bear muttered back, still lost behind the light of a phone screen. "Just watch where you're…"
The bear broke eye contact from his device to address the person, its eyes widening in bewilderment as it saw the stupefied thing in front of him.
"What the fuck?!" The bear shouted.
"What the fuck?!" Alex screamed just a bit louder.
With a spin that nearly gave him whiplash, Alex took off in the opposite direction as fast as his legs could take him. He huffed arduously, dashing past the cracks in the sidewalk, the unfamiliar shops blurring in his vision as he passed them.
What is going on?! He screamed internally.
He tried to piece the puzzle together from the insanity he'd experienced since waking up. Unfortunately for him, each piece that fit together only increased the number of pieces the puzzle had. Wherever he ended up, it sure wasn't earth. It couldn't be earth. Or at least, it wasn't his version of earth. Things looked familiar at a glance but nothing made sense the more he analyzed them. An animal society? It was like stepping into an impressionistic painting.
He glanced over his shoulder at the bear standing where he'd left him, its figure gradually shrinking in the distance. Even if this society was civilized, he wasn't about to risk finding out what their diet consisted of.
WHACK!
Something solid crashed into Alex, sending him to the ground. He clenched his teeth and grabbed the arm that stopped his fall, pulsing with soreness. He sat up, wincing in the process, and peered at the figure of a jackal moaning in pain, curled in a partial fetal position. A couple feet separated them, and right in the middle sat a ratty white purse with a gold chain and accents.
Alex shook his head in an attempt to rid the discombobulation from the collision and cocked his head at the purse. That's when he glanced behind him to find a cat-like female figure a couple of sidewalk squares back, mouth agape and a horrified expression plastered across her features.
Just the look on her face snapped him back to the present, the fear and confusion sending a newly developed headache into orbit. He looked back at the purse just in time to see the jackal flip over and mirror Alex in sitting position, a black hoodie drawn to cover most of his features. They briefly made eye contact, a clear look of befuddlement shared between them. Then, almost simultaneously, they glanced down at the brightly colored purse, over to the woman gawking at them, then back at each other. It only took a second for Alex to put the pieces together.
Without fully thinking his next move through, Alex reached out, grabbed the purse, and threw it wildly in the direction of the woman. The object flew like a frisbee, casting a small shadow as it passed under a street lamp, and landed a few steps shy of her feet. As Alex sat there with his arm outstretched, the jackal's confused features transformed to rage. The human tried to scramble to his feet, but the jackal latched onto his wet shirt and yanked. Alex briefly made eye contact with him once more before making direct eye contact with his furry fist.
Alex's chin swung to the sky, his body weight shuffling to his heels, forcing him to fall backwards and into the street. His hands reached for his face, finding a throbbing nose paired with a thin smear of blood trailing along his upper lip. The jackal was now on his feet, hands in a hoodie pocket, and a fury in his eyes. The hooded mammal took a step towards the curb and casually pulled a wooden handle from his pocket. A click rang in the night air, and the sheen of a four inch blade glistened under lamplight.
The human spastically shuffled his body backwards like an injured crab, his eyes never leaving the threatening figure. His breath hitched when the jackal dropped from the curb and onto the tarred pavement. His heartbeat grew loud in his ears as he scooted his way to the center of the street. The jackal took slow and menacing steps towards his human prey, spinning the blade in his paw. Though his mind screamed for help, his vocal cords were still.
Alex couldn't handle a regular Jackal, so there wasn't a chance in hell he'd beat a hyper-intelligent knife brandishing one. He hadn't even gotten the chance to figure out where he was, but it looks like that wasn't going to be a problem after a few more steps.
All of a sudden, the Jackal lost focus and snapped his head to his left. Alex caught a glimpse of concern dawn on his face. His nose twitched briefly before taking off down the road in the other direction. The sound of paw pads against the pavement petered out and was quickly replaced by sirens wailing in the opposite ear. He sat up and glanced towards the noise, coming face to face with blinding headlights, hints of red and blue flickering in his peripherals. The taste of blood dribbled onto his tongue, but he didn't bother to wipe it away. The distinct clicks of car doors opening and closing was heard, followed by the static of someone activating a police radio.
"Uhm… Clawhauser," A feminine voice spoke. "Get Bogo for me…"
With the car lights still burning his retinas, Alex's mental state snapped from stress. For the second time that day, everything went black before he hit the ground.
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