NOTES:
Furry giants. But not giants and not furries.
It might seem like a world of furries, but it’s actually not. I will explain later, but for now, enjoy.
This chapter is in Zane’s perspective
(Ps: sorry for not posting in a while, not like anyone reads this anyways)
Another school day over. I can finally go home. I have to walk. I hate walking. At least, in public areas. There aren’t many private places to walk though. Walking with other people around is exhausting. They want to have conversation. I hate conversation. All they do is talk about themselves. Well… not always.
“Hey, legs!” Oh no. Not again. “Why are you so tall?! Bunnies aren’t supposed to be tall.” Here comes the questions… “Why are you ignoring me?” I have a question. Why do you need me to speak? “Are you scared? Im two thirds your height, and you’re scared of me?” Yes.
Oh, by the way… I forgot to mention, where I am, some people are hybrids. There’re animal hybrids and mystical creature hybrids. I’m one of the more common, animal hybrids. As you read before, I’m a ‘bunny’. It’s actually hare, but most people don’t know the difference.
“Hey! Let him be! He didn’t do anything to you!” The shortest kid coming to save the tallest? What a coincidence.
“Chill, rich boy. Just because you have money doesn’t mean you have to flaunt it.”
“Huh? I didn’t though.”
“Whatever!” The mean one runs away.
Oh no. He’s turning towards me. “You okay dude?” I can’t even talk to normal people. If I did try to speak, the sound would only reach a couple inches. How could I reach him when he’s so far away?
“Y-” Nope. Can’t do it. I shut my eyes.
“Hello?” His voice is louder now. Is someone holding him up? I open my eyes just barely. “There you are! Wanna be friends?” Friends? I don’t remember the last time someone had asked me that.
I tilt my head to the side, trying to communicate without my voice.
“Do you not know what a friend is?” He’s smiling. Is he making fun of me? I shake my head. “Hmm… Are you mute?” I shake my head again. “Then why won’t you speak to me? Meanie.” He must not understand what antisocial is. Wait a minute. Is he flying? It must be his breed of hybrid. Horns and a tail… I’m pretty sure that is classified as demon? I take a step back and eventually start walking off. “Hey, you could write to me! Or… I don’t know… I could learn sign language.” He floats over to me. “If you’re okay with that.” Why is he so persistent about being friends with someone who never speaks? He stopped. “Uhh… if you ever want to speak to me then y’know where to find me.” Right. He’s in my classes. I’ll figure something out later. I keep walking, just ignoring him. I walk and walk and walk.
Finally. I’m home. Home is supposed to be a safe place. Why does it feel like people are watching me? I take a quick glance around me to see if anyone is there. Nothing. But wait, I see something moving behind the bushes. I don’t even want to know what it is. I quickly open the front door and run inside, closing it behind me. I run upstairs and into my room. That was scary. Whatever was behind those bushes was watching me. I should just ignore it and see what that short kid is up to. Maybe he has Snapchat?
“Let's see…” I unlock my phone and open snapchat. I type ‘Zacharias’ into the search bar. I scroll down the list of people with that name. There aren’t very many, but I don’t see any with his last name. Maybe a nickname? I type ‘Zach’ in the search bar instead. Now there’s way too many. ‘Zach Cortés’. That’s his name. I click on it and stare at the empty message screen. ‘Hi, it’s that boy from before’ DELETE. ‘Sorry for running away earlier’ DELETE. ‘Is this Zacharias?’ SENT.
Not even 10 seconds later, he replies.
ME: is this Zacharias?
Zach: yeah
Zach: who are u
Why is it so scary just to type my name?
Zach: …
What do I say? Right. My name.
ME: Zane
ME: sorry I ran earlier
Why would I say that? Now the topic is up and he’s going to want to know why!
Zach: oh, it’s you!
Zane: it’s fine. I know you were just scared
Zach: I won’t pester you about it
Oh. Most of the time, people need to know why or how something happened. He just brushed it off... This is confusing.
Zach: you okay though? I hope that dude didn’t hurt you
ME: I’m okay
I feel so awkward…
Zach: do you have an answer yet?
What was his question again…? Ah, right. ‘Can we be friends?’
ME: yes
ME: I mean we can be friends
Zach: cool
Cool? I guess it’s better than being made fun of.
Zach: can u video chat?
Zach: u don’t have to obv
Okay, now he wants to call me?! Is this what friends do? I was not prepared for this.
ME: uhh sure
Zach: kay
My phone starts ringing, and I almost drop it onto the floor. I climb onto my bed and sit criss-cross. I lay my phone face up and answer the call, making sure I’m unable to be seen.
The first thing I see is Zacharias’s face. “You there?” He asks, leaning into the camera.
I already don’t want to say something, and showing my face is scarier. I push a thumbs up into the camera, and shakily pull it back.
“I swear, you gotta talk to me.” He leans back onto the chair he’s sitting on, crossing his arms.
I turn off my camera and scamper to my desk. I prop up my phone on the desk and sit in the chair. I pull my knees to my chest and hide behind them before turning my camera back on.
Zacharias just stares at me for a moment. “…you good?” I nod. “You’re shaking a lot.” I know I’m shaking. “We… don’t have to call if you won’t wanna.” I raise my head a little. “Maybe you can write whatever you wanna say on paper and show me?”
I nod. Luckily, I always have random papers laying around. I quickly scribble on a paper and hold it up so he can read it.
He starts reading, “…I have severe social anxiety…” His eyes widen and his jaw dropped, as if it wasn’t obvious enough. “Oooohhhhhhhhh… that makes a lot more sense. As you can tell though, I’m a social butterfly.” He leans in and grins with mischief. “I’ll get you out of your comfort zone…”
I take the paper and erase what was there before scribbling again. I bring the paper up again.
“‘Don’t do that please.’ Fiiiiiiiine… bummer.” He looks around a bit, then looks back at me. “Can I at least help you say ONE WORD?”
I shake my head quickly. I realize I’ve become more comfortable around this guy, considering I’m sitting (almost) straight up.
“You can’t stay silent forever…” He throws his face into his hands and groans. “You won’t be able to get a good job!” He leans forward so all I can see in the camera is his face. “Unless you wanna be jobless…” He squints his eyes. “You wanna be jobless?” I shake my head. “That’s what I thought.”
I hold up my index finger then run off to grab something. I come back, looking down and fidgeting.
“What’s that?” I write on the paper from before and hold it up. “A book? So?” I write on the paper again and hold it up. Zacharias’s mouth becomes the shape of an ‘o’. “That’s so cool!” The paper said, ‘I wrote it.’ “Can I read it sometime?” I nod. Who knew someone would be interested in my writing? “I can be your publisher!” Finally, he sits back. “I can read your books and I won’t even have to pay for it. With other people too. I’d get money to read books. Ooh that’s actually a good idea!” He rubs his hands together as if thinking about something malicious.
I write something on the paper again. When he begins to read it, I get embarrassed once again. I shouldn’t’ve even asked.
“You can call me Zach.” What? He’s not mad or something? Phew…
I slowly put the paper down and stare at the camera. At some point I attempt saying this new nickname. I take a deep breath, but I give up. Without warning, I run out of view and whisper it to myself. “Z… Zach…” I smile, knowing I can whisper it, despite the inability to actually say it to Zacharias himself. I run back.
“What was that for?”
I look around, frantically, then I blurt it out. “Zach!” I feel a mix of embarrassment and pride. I’m proud of myself for saying that, but I still feel shame over my voice. I don’t know why I feel this way, but I do.
“Yeah?” When I don’t reply, he realizes what happened. “Oh! Yay! You said my name!” He starts clapping. “Good job!” This praise completely eliminates my fear. At least temporarily. “Are there any other words you wanna say?” I nod. “Write ‘em down and then we can practice?” I nod again. That’s what happened. For the next hour, we practiced saying the alphabet and numbers, along with some essential words. I know the alphabet and the numbers, but I still needed to practice speaking it.
I hear this awful screeching noise coming from my phone, affecting me but not Zach. I look at him with a ‘what was that?!’ face. “Sorry! My parents want me, gotta go!” I wave to him and the call ends.
It’s around 10 pm. Time for dinner! Oh, right. You’re not from here. We have 32-hour days here. I run out of my room without bothering to shut the door, and I run down the steps.
“Bunny, I made Alfredo!” My mom says as she’s holding out my plate. I grab it and rush to my spot at our double seated table. “Someone’s hungry.” I try to play it off as that being true. “Zane.” I look up with a mouthful of noodles. “You normally aren’t this energetic. Did something happen today to make you this happy?” I don’t want to say yes because if I do, she’ll wanna know what it was, but I don’t wanna say no, because it’s really not the truth. I just end up staring at her. “It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me.” She walks to the kitchen to grab her plate. The rest of dinner was silent. Other than out eating, obviously.
Once I’m done with my food, I put my plate in the sink. As I’m walking by, I see out of the corner of my eye, through the window, a silhouette of someone. I stop to investigate, but nothings there. I’m probably just seeing things. …Again.
I wave to my mom and dart back to my room. Along the way, I skip a couple steps, and once I get to my actual room, I don’t falter with my momentum, successfully shutting the door with my foot and diving on my bed. I angle myself so that I roll to the wall, and pull the sheets over me, breathing heavily. I hurl myself into an upright sitting position and stare at the blanket, completely disregarding the hallucinations from before. I guess Zach really set my mood for the day.
I reach for my notebook and flip to the last page of my story. After staring at it for a couple seconds, I lay it next to me, unable to think of the next scene. I climb off my bed and start pacing around my room. I must not’ve closed my door as much as I thought I did, because my mom is now in the doorway.
She knocks, despite the door already being open. “Y’know you can talk to me, right?” She nudges the door open a bit more.
I flinch, swinging my head towards her. “Eh-”
“Haha… is this what you do when I’m not around?” I see her look above my head. At… my ears. “Hm.” I immediately lower them. I didn’t even realize that they were up. I just got so caught up in my emotions that I let my guard down. She grins. One of those grins that parents give you when they know exactly what is going on in your head. “I’ll let you be. Just calm down with the stomping next time, ‘kay?” I nod and she closes the door.
My eyes move to the floor. After a moment of processing, I pull my ears infront of my face in embarrassment. Slouching, I drag my feet across the floor and to my bed.
After some time, I end up somehow wrapped up in my blanket like a burrito. I try to sleep even with my mind being clouded with my new friend. I did just have dinner, but for a person in my world, in our typical daily schedule, we sleep not much after we have our last meal.
The next couple days were much happier for me. I have a real friend, who in fact is the richest kid in school; because of that friend, I’m not getting bullied as much; and I’m finally gaining a bit of self confidence.
“Hey! Zane! Wait for me!” Zach calls, running towards me. I stop and let him catch up. “Phew… okay. You wanna walk to school together? I can beat up the bullies if they’re mean to you.” He smiles, showing—almost—all his teeth. “Let’s go.” He starts walking and I follow him. As we walk, I admire the pride he has.
We arrive at the school doors and step inside.
“What time is it?” Zach looks up at a clock hanging in the hallway. “OH SHIT!” He grabs my wrist and pulls me along as he flies to our homeroom class. “No wonder no one’s in here! We’re gonna be late!”
I run along as he drags me. When we walk in, everyone is staring at us. This isn’t where we’re supposed to be. Homeroom already left.
Zach pulls me to our first class, and luckily, it’s our class. Other than getting scolded for being late, the day goes on as usual. At lunch, I got to sit with Zach. I normally sit alone, so that was probably the highlight of the day. It was much better than after lunch. Oh, right.
After lunch, we have breaks in school. That must seem great! It’s kinda like recess that’s in elementary school, but we have assigned rooms to go to. Walking back to our separate rooms, Zach has to use the bathroom, so I wait in the hallway. Just my luck, my bully’s back.
“What are you doing here?” He snickers. “You too scared to go to the bathroom because you’re too tall to use a urinal?” I hate questions. Especially these ones. The ones that make me feel like I shouldn’t be me. I shouldn’t be this tall. There’s no use. I get stuck in doorways, I block peoples view if I’m infront of anyone, and I’m noticeable to everybody.
One of the bully’s friends walks up to me as well. “Hm, I wonder: can you control the weather? You gonna make a thunderstorm so that you can shoot lightning us?” I don’t say anything. Again.
All of a sudden, I see Zach flying this way. He speeds up, getting ready to use the two as bowling pins. Gladly, the boys dodged Zach. If they didn’t, it would’ve caused trouble for me and Zach.
“Hey! You assholes! Stop messing with him!” Zach demands.
“Why should we? It’s not like you’ll be able to stop us. You’re so short, it almost balances out him being tall!”
“Hey! I’m gonna be super tall one of these days…!” Zach says. I can tell this is one of his weak points.
“Fine, rich boy. Don’t want you to rat us to your mommy and daddy.” The boys walk off, leaving me alone with Zach.
“Hah! You see that? I totally scared em.” He nudges me with his elbow.
CRASH! THUD! SCREAM!
“Wha… who are you?!” Zach yells.
The ‘hallucinations’ were real?!
NOTES:
heheh… Zach and Zane. Is it romantic or platonic? I WANNA KNOW SO PLS COMMENT!!)
[OUT OF AO3] platonic.