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I started experimenting with different brushes on the recommendation of another artist so I'm still trying new things out in terms of drawing. I'm also clearly still focused on getting characters down than landscapes. Okay, chapter six, let's go.
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The vert pasture, like a dancing emerald sea, and equally as vast as its azure counterpart, distantly waved their millions of individual fingers like a beckoning call; all the while, each discrete appendage cradled the pads of my feet. When at last the time came to pass their heavy burden onto a neighbouring hand, each blade left with a gentle kiss of my calloused skin, and just as when I approached, they waved me away all the same.

The sensation alone wasn't wholly unfamiliar, but I'd never seen so much of it at once. It was an endless expanse of green, fragmented only by a lonely, sun beaten dirt road. And then there was me, the only other anomaly for kilometres within the floriated landscape. The force of the sun's undiluted rays turned the field into a desert and the road to a bed of hot coals. Providing my unlikely respite from the relentless barrage of heat waves was the heavy, dark fur cloak draped over my shoulders, lagging motionlessly behind me in the stagnant, windless air. This is hell.

My ears, sticking straight out from the unsnapped flaps cut into the hood felt as though melting atop my head while they tasted the fresh open air. Fresh, was only a word existing in contrast to the sweltering heat plaguing the remainder of my body, my eyes included, which found shelter beneath the blessed shade of my hood.

"This is HELL!" I thundered with anguish, for some reason expecting my booming shout to come bounding back into my own ears, but it didn't. It couldn't. There wasn't in three hundred and sixty degrees of vision a surface around for that sound to echo off. Instead there was a caw and a frantic flapping of wings as a murder flew off ahead.

How very enrapturing. How astounding, creatures designed by the world to inhabit the skies opposed to the ground. What would it be like? I gave chase as if to ask those I pursued. Six steps later and my legs grew heavy. Within my lungs there was not the smallest breath of air, just heat like hot dust or ash. It choked me, and with a raspy gasp my foot paws no longer felt the wet grass licking at their soles. For a second I felt it on both knees but then I felt nothing at all. This is hell.

Vibrations in series shook the insides of my ears – a hammer on an anvil. Each individual strike felt with a discrete ringing while successive clangs produced gradually more coherent tones.

"Am I alright?" That was a good question. I don't really know. Is this just a dream? Just a blank dreamless sleep? Devoid of all images, all light, and all life. Hey, am I alright? I don't know. Probably not. I feel nothing, taste nothing, see nothing, smell nothing, not even the scent of my own fur. And I hear…something that is not my own voice. No, I'm not alright.

"What?" I slurred dreamily, rolling my head to the side and snapping a string of dribble connecting the tip of my muzzle to the matted grass beneath my face.

"He's waking up, hon," the woman chirped excitedly, still beyond the black veil of my own cloak. "You'll suffer heat stroke under that thing. Here, you need to drink something." There was not even a second to ponder the nature of that statement as a suggestion or a demand, considering the animal hide canteen presently being shoved against my muzzle.

"Uh yeah, okay, thanks," I responded, still unsure to my degree of sincerity as I sat up and adjusted my eyes to the piercing sunlight. The canteen opened with a pop more akin to the hollow sound of blowing into an empty handle of rum while the blurry outlines of my two hosts slowly solidified into comprehensible forms. "It's fresh from our well," the feminine figure continued to inform me. Although, I half expected that clause to be finished with an and, a but, or a however, but that wasn't the case. She fell silent the moment the container touched my lips. Politeness was perhaps the only thing keeping me from emptying every drop of that half-litre container on the spot.

My first look at the woman came not as a result of my own actions. I hardly possessed the energy to keep the canteen pressed to my lips, removing the hood from over my eyes never even entered my mind. The angle of my head as I drank like a castaway rescued from the sea allowed gravity to remove the obstruction for me. What met my eyes however did not quite fit the picture her voice painted. Both her and her husband were small cats, rather small-er cats covered nearly head to hindpaw in black spots. Beneath the loose purple dress covering her swollen midsection rested one of her paws, cradling her barely contained stomach while she none too subtly elbowed the taller male at her left. Each cat had identical body structures despite the obvious differences between male and female anatomy. Each were small-boned animals with likely no more than a kilogram or two of fat between them both. The light outline of bone pressed against skin was visible beneath each of their coats. Though not physically strong creatures, the pair looked able to take off like a gunshot. Nevertheless, none of these physical features where what caught my interest. A whip of my head over my shoulder revealed nothing more than the same empty field meeting my gaze ahead. Yeah, I thought it was me; I just had to be sure.

"Everything uh, alright?" I inquired, struggling to form those few words so quickly after swallowing. Both felines nodded their response with equally astonishing degrees of promptness and synchronicity. Wiping my mouth, I offered the canteen back to the female cheetah, doing my best to act polite considering my growing suspicion there was either something about me specifically which was startling the cheetah pair, or I had some terrifying insect on my face. Suddenly my fur was crawling. I shivered and shook my head. No, there was not in fact a spider scuttling across my skin. Wait, are spiders insects? No, not the time for that. What was it then? Her following response offered no further clues.

"N-no it's yours. Please, you're still anhydrated."

"Dehydrated?" I didn't get a response to that question, though it was less of a question than a clarification. The cheetah's eyes darted back and forth to her husband two or three times, likely as she tried to work out what exactly it was she said which warranted correction.

"Oh god I'm sorry. I mean not god but-"

"Why don't you just let him drink his water, babe. You can tell he's still thirsty." There was a gesture thrown at me with those words. It was either a subtle flick of the wrist or an upwards inflection somewhere in that sentence, maybe even a flash of a smile. On the surface it felt considerate, but I knew better. He had that same apprehension shared by the cat beside him. The difference was he masked it better. It was when I pulled the canteen from my lips a second time I worked out what happened. An experimental shake of the now empty animal hide container confirmed what I'd been thinking. Damn him.

"Uh, thank you," I expressed my gratitude mostly sincerely. Behind that emotion was a dubious undertone directed at the larger of the cheetahs. He probably caught it too if he was at all aware of the subliminal messages accompanying his last remark. There were still a few things I needed to know from the two, and that much could likely be accomplished just from saying my farewells. I told them my name and reached out with a paw. The couple in return engaged in a none too subtle aside for a few short seconds. It wasn't easy to completely hide any words from an animal with such acute hearing, especially when that animal stood within paw shaking distance. The distinct words of "I didn't know it had a name, hit my ears and they turned back to address their company. Tentatively, the male reached out his arm. It felt less like an organic creature reaching out than it did some sort of machine. The motion of his upper arm was just as well, no less mechanical than the gears I saw frantically turning in his mind. Prior to the opening of his mouth to form his next sentence, the pupils contained by those hazel irises seemed to seize up or twitch. Perhaps they even took in the details of our collective surroundings in an amount of time so minute as to be completely indiscernible by a mere observer.

"My name's Tree, uh Tr-" it was like his body just hit a wall. His arm pulled back at the very instant those words cut off. With a cough into his fist which I was supposed to interpret as him clearing his throat, the cheetah tried again. "My name's Tre. Tre uh, C-Cornfield. And this here's my wife-"

"Lavender Cornfield!" she shouted as if coming to a sudden and life changing realisation.

"Yeah, okay," came my response in a tone which came off as far more confused than it did distrusting. Distrusting and dubious were words which still suited my attitude towards the two, but I still couldn't figure out why it was deserved. It couldn't possibly be they were afraid of what I was. Even if I was worried about having twisted the dimensions while I slept, I was certain another reason existed. Lavender didn't get anxious until she saw my face, and the first glimpse of me was what startled her. "I should get going," I continued at length. The resulting pause was purely to gauge their reactions. As expected, Lavender's chest contracted as she let out the breath she was holding. Tre remained the more reticent of the two; his body language was slightly more difficult to read. "How far down the road is the next city?" Even while addressing my inquiry to Tre, I kept one of my eyes on his wife, knowing by now she was more trustworthy. Her body language was honest and thoughtless, making her motions more valuable than either of their words. Her paws twitched once and she interlaced her fingers. If it was physically possible for someone covered in yellow and black fur to turn white I think she would have. Filling her silence however came her husband's blessedly prompt response. After all, I was now out of water and I was still cooking beneath the afternoon sun.

"Few hours walk. You'll be there well before nightfall."

"We have family there!" Lavender proclaimed rather abruptly. Immediately following her outburst, she proceeded to slink behind her husband's shoulder like a frightened cub.

"That's uh, nice," I attempted to play off my reply to the out of place comment as casually as possible.

"If you're looking for a place to spend the night-"

"That wasn't where I was going with that, hon!" the smaller cheetah nearly squeaked with surprise. The two exchanged another few words through whispers, and although I understood the symbolism of the cupped paw obscuring their muzzles, it didn't stop me from being able to understand almost every word they spoke. This entire experience bordered on being a farce two minutes ago. Now it was ridiculous. Tre was apparently unfinished with his statement before Lavender interrupted. Rather than making an offer, he was insinuating I wouldn't find an inn with vacancy. I didn't bother asking. The last thing I needed right now was another run around from these two.

Excusing myself, I mouthed my words of farewell beneath the discordant sounds of their continued bickering and motioned my paws to the derelict road ahead. Like a desert, the wind swept up a billow of dust into my eyes and mouth. It was a breath of nothing but dry, hot air, like receiving mouth to mouth resuscitation from Lucifer himself. The only respite offered by the inhospitable landscape was the knowledge that the sun still sets at the end of every day. I started with one foot in front of the other, uncertain as to how my body would respond to any physical strain. It was slow going for the first few steps. My legs still felt heavy, but the feeling wore away as I pushed forward, replaced by a burning sensation reminiscent of black stone roads under the direct heat of a summer day's sun. But those were just the first few steps. Now I likely only had a couple tens of thousands left. A second gust of wind, or rather just a massive front of warm air rushed to greet me, subsequently brushing the hood from atop my head and caressing the side of my face. The hot air tickled my whiskers, causing an impulsive shake of my head and a snort which cleared a small puff of dust from my nose. Only four more hours of standing in a dustpan shoved into a bread baker's oven? Can't wait.

And so continued my gruelling journey continued, across compacted soil roads like hot coals, over parched fields even more starved for water than I was myself. Grasses were brittle, snapping underfoot with the frailness of glass. Many of the blades, aptly named, broke off between my toes or into my pads. Torn and bleeding or charred and melting, I didn't really have a preference, not at first. The torture my feet suffered was identical either way, but I found my steps gravitating towards the road regardless – just a subconscious response likely. Roads were meant to be travelled upon; somewhere in the back of my mind I probably registered that fact.

While the day gradually drew to a close, the air lost its bite, though its stagnation was unrelenting. Never once, since my last lungful of ashen dust and stale, desert-like air has even a mere puff of cooling wind washed over my now uncloaked face. The low light of the golden hour was welcome, as was the dropping temperature accompanying the sinking sun, but the still air maintained a feeling of tension. It was a thickness like the festering air above a poisonous bog, which gives home to breeding, disease carrying insects. It was the hostility between two villains in a standoff at noon. It was the very same tension as when prey first catches the eyes of its predator and the whole world stops to watch for just a moment. Beneath me at a concurrent point in time was a stubborn path, unwilling to change its character like the atmosphere above it. Each step was a reminder of the pain I'd willingly subjected myself to over the past seven, eight hours. I lost track. Even as the burn faded away, the possible and perhaps permanent nerve damage came bounding back as a resounding, calf-high jolt with each tap of paw against pebbly, dirt road.

The proceeding few minutes never made it far enough into my brain to hit the part responsible for storing short-term memory. My legs, now functioning solely on autopilot, stopped taking discrete steps at some point, replacing the sound of claws tapping against hardened, sun baked and beaten down dirt with gentle swish swish swishes of dragging feet. For a while longer I hadn't realised the sun setting behind an uneven horizon. My attention was enraptured by the sudden change in the ground's composition. The foreign smooth stone surface welcomed me warmly, catching my toe and nearly sending me tumbling onto all fours. The clicking of claws against the out-of-place paving stone finally opened my eyes once more and in the distance the jagged, black horizon formed a city skyline. Leading from the industrial behemoth of a metropolis to the spot I stood was what could best be described as an unfinished road – a sparse and haphazard arrangement of stone blocks along a path, the lateral boundaries of which were invisibly defined by an abrupt absence of any stone surface. Over the course of about twenty paces there formed a gradient between the city's cobblestone streets and my own isolated island of grey.

With each step forward I grew more aware this city was in a world far detached from my own. Possessing an entirely stone exterior, this city hid itself against the horizon while the sun set in the background. When cracked open however, the town told a different story. On all sides the city rose up, dwarfing its residents behind towering rows of oppressive charcoal stone. Within the dense urban jungle, these structures blotted out the sky. Inside the city walls, people lived in a fusion of stone and a material I've only ever seen used for swords – for killing prey or waging war. Buildings, even the ground itself was stitched together between grey and silver. One oppresses, the other threatens. And this unholy marriage of stone and steel grew like a weed, smothering what soil and plant once grew beneath. They grew taller than any tree. Then they spread horizontal again, connecting into a labyrinth suspended in the air. Since my arrival minutes and minutes ago I've ceased receiving direction. At the city limits, an unrepresentatively green sign outlined in white offered the only clues to my current whereabouts, "Welcome to Lefier."

Getting an estimate on the city's population proved to be a challenge, considering the combination of the empty streets and my attention which lied elsewhere, or more accurately, on everything but the dearth of animals filling the streets. Lining the streets were rows of lanterns, as a stand in for the natural sunlight blocked out by Lefier's vertical growth. Spanning the skyline was a spectrum of colour ranging from golden to red to indigo, though not even the starlight I'd grown familiar with in nights past succeeded in penetrating the impervious canopy of this secluded, urban jungle. It truly was a city in its own world, severed from even the scorched rural pastures within an- I turned around, expecting to affirm my own suspicions. Conversely, I succeeded in doing precisely the opposite. Once entering Lefier, the street doglegged left. Or was it more of a zigzag I wondered idly as my eyes met with not the pasture I anticipated, but just one more stone giant. An unexpected turn of events for sure, but did it not further my point? Everything about this city's atmosphere made it more alien, like a drop of oil sucked through an eyedropper and transplanted into a glass of water. A place so otherworldly as Lefier would never mix with its surroundings, all it could do was settle at the bottom of the glass and try to stay out of sight.

The lanterns lining the streets held a similar flame to what riddled the wall before me. Perfect columns of three and rows stretching as high as the heavens. Inside each rectangular door a yellow flame burned. It was a still fire, uniform in colour as if frozen in time before captured in glass, and each cookie-cutter window held either an identical flame, or none at all. Only once a silhouette passed over the yellow backdrop on the second row did the similarities to my own world become apparent. I was staring at someone's home both seamlessly and endlessly stacked one atop the next. Satisfied with my deduction, I turned back to the main street and followed the path laid out by the lights on either of my sides. Occasionally a lantern would stand out from those around it, the magic within ostensibly weaker as the flame flickered with life every few seconds in a hollow threat to escape the first of its prisons. It sang in a low hum all the while, a quiet scream and a plea for help which I, as many before and after me, ignored.

First thing was first, and now that I was here I could take all the time necessary to gawk over any architectural marvels. Architectural marvels or horrors, I hadn't really decided if there was any difference quite yet. I was starving, and I'd be needing a place to stay for the night. Likely seeking out the latter would inherently lead to resolution of the former, so an inn was my first priority. But that in of itself was a problem. Lefier wasn't a tourist destination – it was a labyrinth, removed from the sun, painted black, thrown into the deepest shadows beneath the ocean, and forgotten. Outsiders were not meant to navigate its streets. A confused net of thin black ropes hung overhead, suspended by metal posts as a constant visual reminder of that fact. I needed to stop and ask for directions. Towering over me, the charcoal towers stood as silent sentinels, watching but never relinquishing even the smallest of secrets; navigating this place would be impossible on my own. Yet as my feet guided me forward my solitude only seemed to grow more omnipresent. I wasn't walking abandoned streets. The signs of degradation weren't so ubiquitous as to suggest a complete lack of any and all life forms. Even if the figure I saw was an apparition, made of no more than ethereal energy with enough mass to refract the surrounding light and produce a silhouette from two floors up and some fifty paces out, I knew this town couldn't be empty.

Having that thought fresh in my mind allowed me to make a second deduction about the nature of Lefier. It seemed to act as a function of its occupant's mental states. Just as I finished convincing myself this town was not empty, my thoughts were confirmed. I'd have seen them sooner, but it was also likely their intention was to remain concealed. A glimpse of the yellow streetlights glinted off their eyes. It was a silver flash I might have missed under any other circumstances, but nothing else in this city was reflective. Of all the sloppy patchwork of iron and stone comprising many of the buildings, most of the metal lied a few metres off the ground, almost intentionally keeping them from reflecting the light of the street's lanterns. The streets paved with metal meanwhile jutted from the main avenues, unlit by the still fires showering the main roads.

The creature remained glued to the shadows cast along the perimeter of the buildings in queue, dressed in black clothes and wearing a black coat beneath. He removed his eyes, pushing them down his face with a paw to reveal another pair. The second pair was more lustrous, a green-yellow shade with the reflective sheen of a nocturnal predator. Suddenly I heard a thump in the back of my mind and then another. My feet stopped and it came again in quickening intervals, two at a time. Once I understood the source it slowly started to fade. That was my own heartbeat. It gave me relief in a strange way. At least I was certain I was still alive rather than wandering some twisted dreamscape. My only real fear was the figure quickly approaching from a few intersections away. By the time I shifted my attention back up to him he had his removable eyes back on, shielding his second pair from my presence. I'd seen eyes like those before, but only as a clear pair for improving eyesight. Those eyes stayed trained on me while he crossed the street. His vector remained the same despite his small detour. A heavy breath was expelled from my nose and my tensed shoulders dropped. I now had the entire side of the road to myself. No sooner did I make that realisation than I remembered I was looking for directions.

"Hey!" I called out and turned towards the panther. His initial reaction wasn't that easily recognised, but it would have been difficult to miss him running away towards a side alley after the small jump. "Stop!" I called out after a step in his direction, probably not realising right away that my word choice was doing nothing to reassure the black cat. First the cheetah couple and now this panther. This place is weird.

The cat changed nothing I suppose. I still needed to find an inn, and I still had no idea where I was. No posts marked the streets; no signs classified the buildings. I expected it to start raining soon while I wandered about, not because the air looked or smelled like rain. It just felt appropriate given the situation. I kept my course for another five minutes. Taking any side streets meant I risked getting lost. I paused. In its own regard I found that hilarious. I was already lost; I don't think getting more lost was much of a possibility.

I needed a landmark if I wanted any signs I wasn't hopelessly lost. What I wanted was something with bright colours, something that stood in direct contrast to the mineral landscape on all sides, below, and above me. Any kind of sign was welcomed at this point. I envisioned a big "you are here" with a bright red border. I could see it clearly in the distance, just floating while it waited for me. No, wait. Suddenly those colours on the horizon felt like they could be more than tricks of the mind. For nearly ten minutes the city was a monochrome maze. I was just going through withdraw. Yeah, colour withdraw, that was a thing. But no, there was definitely something breaking up the monotony. From a distance it appeared as a simple shape outlined in red, and yet with some steps it wasn't there at all. I wasn't hallucinating. A thin red rectangle floated above the ground at a height close to twice my own. And then it was gone, and back, and gone, and back again, flashing in an out of existence with no discernible pattern. It was a fickle shape; I knew that much. I guess I didn't give shapes enough credit on their personalities, though I would have guessed the most fickle shape would be something like uh… like a rhombus. It's a shape that can't really decide what it wants to be.

Wait, I stopped myself after a few more steps and the bright red rectangle flickered back to life once more, more in focus than it had previously been. What the hell was I doing? Was I actually insane? No, it was probably more a combination of being hungry, sleep deprived, and lost. I get hysteric when I'm hungry; I just find things funnier than they should be when I haven't eaten. The shape that drew me from blocks away did make initial promises to remedy the problem of my ravenous hunger. Up close, the outline glowed like the strange, static lanterns illuminating the streets, only this one was red. The longer I stared the more I was convinced this one was also not quite static. The source of the light appeared fluid as it rushed throughout a length of clear glass-like piping. Within the outline a single spelled out word identified the building as simply "Bar." The letters b, a, and r were dark despite their composition closely resembling their luminous surroundings. Maybe their magic ran out. Deciding it wasn't my concern, I pushed on the door leading inside. It didn't budge. I didn't come all this way to be locked out, especially when all the signs (some of them literal) told me they weren't closed. In the lit up window rested a sheet of paper with "open" spelled out in red block lettering, beside that sat a larger banner advertising their vacancy. The raucous sounds of the numerous dissonant conversations told me, if nothing else had thus far, the inside of this building was filled with a large and quite possibly drunk crowd.

While I stood motionless and continued to justify my stupidity, the door was pushed open and two creatures, one striped and one spotted stepped through. The striped one bumped shoulders with me on his way out and turned around. At any second I expected to be the target of blind, drunken rage, and for the first few words I was correct. He managed to yell out "Hey, watch where," he didn't even finish the word "you" before an elbow to the rib cage turned his demeanour a hundred and eighty degrees.

"Yeah uh, never mind. Sorry," and then the two had put nearly half a block between us before I finished processing what happened. I guess that was reasonable; I never did fully understand what caused his sudden change in attitude. The spotted one made a few glances over his shoulder while they gradually quickened their escape to a more brisk pace. It was the kind of walk when someone figures out they're being followed, but they don't want to alert their pursuer by moving too quickly.

With a sharp tug and a step forward I found myself inside, the mental image of spots and stripes fading while I walked towards the front desk. Fire code, I told myself. Yeah that was it. If there was a fire inside they'd need everyone to get out quickly. If the door opened in and not out everyone would die. Yep, that was totally it. Why was I so hung up on why the door was a pull? No one was going to notice my trouble. There's food here right?

"Good evening. Do you need a room for the night?" the receptionist interrupted my train of thought from behind a desk which was (as I understood from the reflective metal lettering hung on the wall behind her) "not bar."

"Uh," I stalled while fishing a handful of coins from my bag. "I…yeah. I guess so," I replied hesitantly and spread the coins out across the surface of the polished wooden desk. In the time the receptionist looked over the currency I presented to her, my eyes observed the rest of the inn's interior. A row of furniture created a straight corridor from the front door to where I currently stood. The other three quarters of the room was an assemblage of seating with only the occasional circular end table holding an identical bouquet of wax flowers. Around the perimeter, all the furniture was positioned to face inwards, creating a defined sitting area containing small groups of two to four seats sat scattered in the confined space. Just about every seat was filled by creatures of varying species. Another seven or so remained standing, totalling somewhere around twenty-five or thirty individuals, none of which held a glass or a bottle. Behind the social scene, off in a dark corner to the room's right rested an abandoned looking bar counter. Appropriately, on the wall behind the counter was the word "BAR" embossed across the wooden panelling; however, the word "not" was painted in red just to the left of the wooden letters. This place really was "not bar".

Busy as I was taking in the puzzling scenery, I didn't notice the receptionist walking into the back room. What I did notice was her coming back with a larger male dressed up in a gaudy black suit. I don't think it was her husband. She looked a year or two younger than me while this literal big cat could have passed for double her age. Once returning to the front desk, she pushed the organised stack of coins back towards me before turning over her shoulder to what I still can only assume to be her father. She kept one coin and held it up to him, but even so, that was my least expensive coin. At most I might be able to get a shot of cheap vodka somewhere, just not here at "not bar". The lion took the coin in two of his fingers before asking his daughter what exactly he was looking for. Sighing, she stepped up next to him and extended her claws in order to point towards the bottom of the coin. He read the year out loud and the young lioness shook her head, instructing him to look above the year. Above the year was where the mint location goes I think. The next sound I heard from the middle-aged cat wasn't very reassuring. Paired with the flash of emotion across his eyes, the entire situation was starting to become rather unsettling. That flash, was it fear?

"Get out! We don't want your money," the cat suddenly exploded and thrust the money back at my chest. Being that he couldn't quite reach me, he ended up throwing the silver coin and it soundlessly collided with my cloak before clattering to the ground. The normally soft sound of such a small coin striking wood was elevated by the sudden termination of all other conversations in the room.

Close to three dozen. Three dozen was the number of stares I felt pressing down on me at that very moment. What was I supposed to say? My thoughts didn't ever materialise. Without a word I sank down to one knee, aiming to retrieve my money while retaining eye contact with the lion. I didn't ever pick up the tossed currency from the ground due to further interference from the young female.

"Dad stop it," she reprimanded her father while also confirming my earlier suspicion, not that I really had my mind on their relation at the moment. "I'm sorry about that," she further apologised and inexplicably managed to beat me to the coin resting at my own feet. With a smile she turned the coin over to me. No, that wasn't a smile, that was a sales technique which she wore over her real feelings. It still worked on me, at least initially, and I headed back towards the front entrance. The only sounds in the entire building were my own echoing footsteps. I reached the door and gave it a one armed push. What just happened, I wondered when I heard a loud thump from the other side of the door accompanied by a sound that was either a gasp or a shout of pain. What just happened, I almost vocalised this time. I peered through the half open door, fully expecting to see, or at least hear who I hit. A dark blur flashed across the gap in the doorway and I saw nothing more of the figure. It was a figure I was sure, rather than another scintillation from the inadequate streetlights. I took that as my cue to step outside and close the door behind me. In time with the deadbolt clicking back into place, the boisterous conversations started up once more. I hadn't more than a few seconds to consider the preceding events when a sound I could only describe as a clap of thunder compressed into a single moment assailed my ears. That was the sound of a firearm; I couldn't imagine it as anything else in the world. A low, hollow metallic gong followed the thunderous boom and led me to the source of the gunshot. Almost immediately the low chime came again, its pitch depressed slightly on the second iteration. Proceeding this sound was something I was more familiar with – a curse.

It wasn't my business, I thought to myself, not making the connection of what kind of people might carry firearms. It could be an officer, someone who could give me directions, or maybe just tell me where the hell I was. Those two requests, I quickly realised, were vastly different in nature.

Everyone I've met had acted suspiciously, just not necessarily at first. Why did everyone behave so peculiarly, and why did I expect someone with a gun to act differently? That last question was of course, an afterthought considering an officer could be carrying a gun, but so could virtually anyone else who had access to them. The yelp I heard from just a few metres away substantiated their identity as the same creature I hit with a swinging door. Not two steps after hearing the yelp I watched them emerge from a cloud of smoke and chase a decidedly canid looking animal into an alley. Despite initial impressions, their attire didn't quite scream "person of authority" the way I expected it to. They were dressed in dark grey from head to foot, a hood over their head, and red tribal looking markings painted over their face. I was just going to assume they wore a mask and it was not their real face painted red. And even though all the signals were telling me not to walk forward, not to entangle myself with the business of these two animals, my feet didn't stop until I was standing at the entrance to the narrow alleyway. Something told me I'd just made a terrible mistake.

While I distinctly remember two living creatures entering that side street one after another, I only saw one now. The animal in the mask whipped around and stepped back with their right foot, falling into a more stable combative stance. Past the grey, possibly mottled clothing and mask which protected his identity, I faintly registered the colour orange. In addition to his features, the mask muffled his speech, but I was still fairly certain I heard him correctly when he said "not that." His next words were whispered even quieter and I acted on impulse. Something told me I'd just made a second terrible mistake.

His attack was thwarted, but the rushed footsteps in the street behind my back told me it would be too late to hide what I've done. Lying wouldn't work either. I didn't have the brain to bullshit on the spot.

"Well now, what do we have here?" the thus far unseen third stranger questioned from behind my back in a tone with just enough condescension to suggest her paws already found themselves on her hips or crossed over her chest. I wasn't positive if she meant my "creation," but for the time being I forgot the corpse and the cloaked figure who seconds ago threw about ten needles at my head. I just responded with the token "come again" sort of grunt as a way to buy myself further time.

Those short few seconds provided me with more information than I would have thought possible. The woman walking up from behind me was dressed in clothes which would have made it hard to see the orange furred murderer as an officer of anything. This female canid wore an outfit emblazoned with enough patches, badges, insignias, and plain embroidered words like officer, police force, and "K-9 Unit" that her occupation was really never in question. Her uniform top was black with a strap running from her right shoulder down to her left hip. From the strap hung a small holster containing a similarly black contraption with a thin spiralled string connecting the device to her pants. Her black top was tucked into a belt holding a small bag and a second holster, this one empty. The fact her firearm was drawn but held loosely in her right arm told me the second holster was for carrying her weapon. The pair of pants she wore were tan in colour and tucked into a pair of leg braces that pulled tight to her legs by way of a thin red ribbon weaved around the circumference of the garment near the top. Ordinarily her leg wrappings would be an indication of social status, but considering her occupation it was likely they were given to her as part of the uniform. Over her paws were a pair of elbow high, black gloves. Her left arm rested on her hip while her right hung limply at her side, still clutching her firearm. In the few spots left uncovered by clothing her fur was light, more of a cream colour than tan or brown, but also not quite white.

The officer ducked under the pillar I created spanning both ends of the alley and continued walking forward. I didn't know what she expected as my next move so I followed her lead. She paused once reaching the other side of the low clearance and pulled one of the many thin metal blades free of my impromptu barrier. She did not stop for anything else until she reached the body, but something was obviously wrong. The other animal disappeared. On three sides we were surrounded by solid stone and iron. As far as I knew no sentient animals could fly, and I had still yet to meet one who could turn invisible. But even if they were invisible there was no way he could mask his scent and his footsteps. He was just gone.

"Single stab wound to the throat," the canid spoke aloud, brushing aside some of the corpse's bloodied clothing. "Clean cut severing the brachial artery. Not surprising." I wouldn't call that unsurprising. There was a corpse at her feet and she thought nothing of it. How was she so calm considering she missed standing before a vanishing murderer by just a few seconds? And somehow that wasn't where my shock ended. This canine lying on the ground, did it have…horns?

"Hey foxy man, I got a few questions for you."