Deox Wars: Departure (Editing!)

Chapter One

      The wintry afternoon held a sharp bite in its chill. The garden fountain was half frozen over, creating a shell for water to flow through, and what little grass was still visible was covered in crusts of frost. The young man lying on the ground shifted slightly, the unfamiliar coldness of the air waking him. He sat up stiffly, a dull throb in his head making its presence known. A quick and slightly panicked glance around the area revealed that he was in a garden, albeit covered with snow. Nowhere he recognized.

What happened...? 

He wondered, but the more he tried to remember, the worse his headache got. He pressed a hand to his forehead to quell the pain, and as he did, a small purple pendant bumped against his cheek.

"A pendant? Is this mine?" He asked of no one in particular, examining the dark swirls and gold rim. Staggering to his feet, the young man began to walk, seeing nothing he recognized.

This is a garden...but not one I know.

Where am I?

There was a loud clattering from behind him, and he heard a shrill intake of air. The young man whirled to face a girl, whose pointed black animal ears were laid low, and left eye glowed with some kind of golden power. She wore a fur lined vest and warm leggings under shorts, and the stranger could see a bit of a bushy tail peeking out, puffed to several times its normal size.

"Who are you?!" The girl demanded. "How did you get in here?!"

He was rendered speechless. A half animal girl with eyes that glowed?! What kind of place had he landed himself into? The young man raised his hands, taking a step towards the girl in his haste to assert himself as a non-threat.

He quickly realized his mistake when her eye flared even brighter than it had before.

"N-no, wait!" He cried. "I mean you no harm!"

The girl only curled her fingers into claws, and with a fearsome roar, lunged at him.

        "You have...no memories at all?"

Once the young man had managed to convince the girl that he was in fact, harmless, the two of them sat on a bench near an inner wall. He rubbed the shoulder where she'd bitten him, nodding in response to her question. She was leaned forward towards him, eager to hear his story, as full of holes as it was.

"Where I came from, how I got here, my name...it's all gone." He ran a hand through snowy hair, then held up the pendant. "All I have is this."

"A necklace, huh? Hm..." She examined it thoughtfully, rolling it over in her hand. After a moment, she jumped to her feet, which were oddly canine paws.

"Alright, follow me! I don't exactly know how I can help, but I'm sure my friends will."

"You're going to help me?" The young man's brow furrowed. "But you don't know me."

"I can't very well leave you in the garden though, can I?" She asked with a bright grin that he found it difficult to argue with. So he followed her down beautifully decorated hallways, and watched her tail sway cheerfully as she walked.

No matter how you look at it, that's a tail. He thought. She's got ears too.

The young man tentatively reached out a hand. Surely they're just fakes...right?

His fingers closed around her soft fur, admittedly a bit harder than he'd intended. Immediately, she yelped and pulled away, and he regretted his actions in the same instant.

"H-hey!" Her brown cheeks burned as she turned on him. "What are you doing!?"

"It's real?!" He blurted before he could stop himself.