Chapter 1
Were Moving?




















Hariq wakes up with a start. He’s late for school! He’d slept in for 3 EXTRA HOURS! Why didn’t his alarm clock work? He jumps out of his bed and runs for his closet.
“Hariq! There you are!” His mom yells.
“Sorry mom! No time to talk! I’m late! SUPER LATE” he shouts back. He was running around the bathroom when he slipped. He lands hard on his tail, bending it in a way it’s not supposed to bend. Hariq lets out a howl of pain.
“What happened?” his mom asks, “and what are you late for?” Hariq sits up, tears streaming out of his eyes and down his snout. They drop to the floor soundlessly. He grabs his toothbrush and starts brushing.
“I’m late for school!” Hariq says, voice muffled, toothpaste dripping down his muzzle. “It’s Wednesday.” He hears a sigh coming from downstairs. He gets up and walks down the stairs, his tail still aching.
“Hariq, you were excused from school because of the ‘trip’ we signed up for,” She says with another sigh. The way she said “trip” was making Hariq a little bit suspicious. Why was his mother saying it like that? He looks up at her. She’s a Wolf with Ice blue eyes, and the fur around her snout is bright blue. Her paws are a deep brown, slowly fading up to her elbow, where it was a dark gray color. Her collar floof is an electric blue, and she is wearing a red shirt saying, “Bring me a Dr. Pepper and I’ll love you forever” She has “mom jeans” on, and her tail is almost as long as she is, with a lot of bushy fur. The tip it seems, was dipped in ice blue paint, and shifts into her usual gray after about a foot of fur.
Hariq is only part wolf, mainly in demeanor. His paws are the same brown but they fade into Fiery red at the elbows. His eyes are the same color as his mother’s, and his ear fluffs are the same Electric blue as his tail. His collar fur is connected to his chest color, and it was a bit duller of a shade than his tail, but not by much. Hariq looked more like a fox, with smaller eyes and sharper features. His name came from the Arabic word for “blaze”.
“Well?” Hariq’s mom asks with a quizzical look, “are you going to get ready?” Last night's meeting came back to him in a flash. The city council had called everybody into the center for a large announcement. He had been talking about his gaming adventures with his friends, Kira and Jake, when the loud screech of the speakers blared through the crowd.
“Anthromedans of the city of Laminan! We as a council have decided to attempt to re-integrate into the human world's society!” At this there was an outroar. Everyone was screeching and howling and barking and shouting.
“What?! But the humans tried to wipe us out! They teach that in the first unit of our history classes every year!” Jake yelled. Kira didn’t hear him, and Hariq only caught the first part. His ears started ringing and his head started throbbing, and he doubled over in pain. The cacophony started to die down, but Hariq could still hear someone screaming. Hariq realized it was him, and tried to stop, but the pain wouldn’t let his brain function. It felt like someone was taking a jackhammer into his brain and then filled the cracks with salt. He reached up and grabbed his ears and pulled them over his eyes. The fur was comforting, and the noise died down slightly. He could still feel his mouth wide open in a scream. The headache suddenly stopped. No sign that it was there at all. Hariq’s ears had stopped ringing and the pounding stopped, there wasn’t even an ache from where it had started. He got up, disoriented, and ran into someone. He felt arms wrap around him, and he saw Kira there when he looked up. Hariq was glad he had fur covering every inch of his body, because he could feel his face burning. His stomach felt like it had turned into little butterflies. He jumped up out of her arms, and now his whole head was burning. He glanced down at the fluffs on his cheeks, and they were their regular red.
“Are you okay?” Jake asked. Hariq turned around, and smacked his muzzle against Jake’s. “Ow!” Jake barked. Hariq looked around. Everybody was staring at him.
“I… I have to go.” Hariq muttered. He heard Kira calling for him as he ran into the crowd.
The councilors resumed their announcement as if nothing happened. “We are asking for twenty four families to help us in this experiment. The information will be on the sheets on my left.” The spotlight that was on the councilors flew to the right and landed on a table with donuts and juice. They heard clattering and shouting from up above, and the spotlight moved two tables down and landed on a table with pens and papers. Hariq began making his way over, and he ran into his mom.
“Hariq! I’ve been looking for you! I’ve signed us up for the experiment. I feel it would be a good change for us.” She said it with an insincere tone, and her smile looked strained.
Hariq snapps back to reality. He takes a quick glance at the clock. It’s ten AM. The plane for the experiment would leave in 30 minutes. His electric toothbrush turned off. Hariq finished getting ready, and by 10:15 they were about to get in their car to leave.
“Wait!” they heard a feminine voice yell. A slim female jaguar anthromedan is running towards the car. She has a small snout the color of roses and large eyes the color of plums. Her fur has deep purple accents around her eyes and on her long, flowing tail. Her collar fur is a pearly white with a pink gleam. She is wearing bright jeans and a sky blue T-shirt with clouds and a sun saying “Head in the clouds.” It was Kira! She runs up with tears in her eyes, and Hariq hears panting from behind her. The noise is coming from a wolf with fur the color of mountains with white paws and highlights. He has a dark green shirt with the top half white, the cutoff was in the shape of a treeline, and dark green sweatpants the color of the forest ivy. His face is downcast and his eyes are on the brim of tears, but he isn’t crying. This was Jake! What were they doing here? Kira runs into him, unable to see through the tears. Hariq lets out a grunt from the impact.
“Guys, what are you doing here?” Hariq asks.
“W-we c-couldn’t just let you leave w-without a g-goodbye, c-could we?” Kira stammers. She tries to smile, but all she can do is twitch the sides of her snout. Hariq feeuls his heart do another flip. She looksed up into his eyes and something clicksed. Hariq feels something flood his systems, and he can feel his back and neck straining to bend down. Nope. Not going to go there yet. They were just friends. He was only 14. Plus, she could never like him. He messed up too often. But that look he saw in her eyes… Nope. He has to stop letting his heart get in his head. He would probably never see them again. And just when they were getting somewhere… NOPE. He had to get his head in the game. Kira was saying something.
Kira steps away from him “s-sorry…” she mutters. Jake gets there, and he tackles Hariq.
“DON’T YOU EVER FORGET US, HARIQ!” He yells into Hariq’s shoulder. Jake began shaking violently with sobs. How could he ever forget these two? “PROMISE ME!” Jake yelled.
“O-ok.” Hariq said, tears welling up in his eyes. “I-I promise.” The tears start to flow.
“Hariq, will you get in the car?” His mom says with a goofy smile on her face. Her sly little fox has made that good of friends? Where were hers when she was a kid? Kira rejoins the hug and Hariq starts sobbing. After a few minutes of the hug, they break apart.
“H-Hariq?” Kira mumbles.
“Yeah?” Hariq says with a sob.
Kira walks forward and hugs him again. Her tail snakes towards him, wrapping around his. Hariq curls his tail to hold hers as well. What was this feeling? Hariq had intertwined tails before, but it never felt like this…
“Sweetie?” his mom whispers into his ear. “It’s time to go.” Kira pulls away and Hariq sees that same glimmer in her eyes as before and his heart does another flip-flop.
“Bye, guys. I’ll be sure to stay in contact.” Hariq says. He could barely get the words out because of the lump in his throat. He gets in the car and it drives away. Hariq rolls down the window and shouts out “I’ll miss you guys!” he falls back into the car and rolls up the window. He slumps back into the seat and stares out the window with a sigh.