No Alarms, No Surprises

You can’t seem to fall asleep. You’ve been laying in bed, flipping yourself over, readjusting your pillow, and shuffling your sheets around for the past six hours, trying your best to will yourself into unconsciousness. It hasn’t been working.

You don't understand how you can be so unbelievably tired and not be able to fall asleep.

You don’t want to be awake.

Settling onto your back, you open your eyes. They don’t need time to adjust to the dark environment of your room; they’ve had plenty of opportunity to get used to the darkness already.

You stare at the blank, barren ceiling of your studio apartment.

The windows muffle the Doppler of tires on asphalt as the denizens of the night roll about their business down on the city streets below.

You lazily let the weight of your head roll your neck to the side, and you catch a good panoramic of your pathetic little apartment. Even in the darkness of the early morning, you can make out the piles of clothes stacked haphazardly on the floor in the corner, the multitude of empty aluminum cans on your shitty IKEA computer desk, and the trash can filled with the split, empty packaging of instant ramen.

What a sad state of affairs. You should probably take better care of your living space.

Who cares? It’s not like you bring other people into your apartment.

Not like anyone would want to, anyways.

It’s obvious you won’t be able to get any meaningful amount of sleep before work, so you might as well get out of bed.

You force yourself up and lazily swing your feet over the side of the bed. The cracked linoleum floor is warm to the touch of your bare feet. They must have turned the heat on.

You don’t really feel like spending any more time on your computer at the moment. You already spend enough time on that damn thing as is.

You look outside your window. It’s snowing. The streets below are covered in a thick, white, fluffy blanket as far as the eye can see. Well, at least as far as a few blocks.

…

Seems like a good night for a walk.

You dig through your pile of dirty clothes before settling on the least shitty pair of jeans and flannel you could find. You slip on your boots and wiggle into a thick hoodie before heading out.

You don’t even check the temperature before opening the door. Hell, you don’t even bring your phone with you.

The world always seems quieter during snowfall. You could swear that the crunch of fresh snow beneath your boots sounds louder than normal tonight. The chill winter air bites at your cheeks and you can feel the cold begin to creep its way under your clothes.

You don’t know where you’re going, but it doesn’t matter. You may not have spent your whole life in this city, but you’ve been here long enough to know your way around.

As you walk down the sidewalk, you don't even take the time to appreciate the sights around you. You don’t care. You've been here for years now, you know what this place looks like. It’s a city like any other, who gives a shit?

You keep your head low and your eyes unfocused towards the ground in front of you, lost in the labyrinth of your mind. You always have so much to think about, but most of it is never of any substance.

You jaywalk across empty intersections and make your way up and down seemingly random sets of concrete steps and stairs that lead to nowhere. Occasionally a car will pass, but you could only tell by the faint sound of its rolling tires; you don’t spend the energy to actually look up and see what kind of car it is.

After a while, you find yourself in front of a huge canal. It runs straight through the city, splitting it in half. They say that your side is the good side, but what they really mean is that your side has less Anthros. “They” being the suburbanites that only visit the city for events and get upset whenever they have to interact with an Anthro, of course.

Whatever.

There’s a huge rail bridge that connects the two sides of the canal. The sidewalk ends in front of the bridge so if you want to cross, you’ll have to take a detour over to 5th street to take the road bridge.

But you heard that you can get a sweet view of the city from up on the apex of the rail bridge…

You slip past the dilapidated chain link fence and onto the railroad tracks. You don’t check for oncoming trains as you cross the threshold.

The bridge bows upwards slightly, giving you a slight workout as you walk uphill.

You reach the highest point of the bridge and look out over the canal. It’s extremely wide, way wider than any canal you’ve ever seen. The bridge is pretty high, too. It has to be at least a few stories high up from the water below.

You walk towards the edge of the bridge and squeeze between the massive steel beams that make up the main structure. You find something resembling a service catwalk and lean up against the guardrail, looking down the canal, towards the heart of the city.

It's quiet. Thick snowflakes float down across your vision. The various skyscrapers and office buildings of downtown stand tall in the distance casting their light upwards into a dark, starless night.

You look towards the water below. You’re so far up that it’s hard to notice any movement from this distance, but if you focus your vision just a little bit, you can see the gleam of city lights dance on the crests of small waves. Looks like the water hasn’t frozen over yet.

…

You wonder how cold it is.

If you fell off of this bridge, would you be able to make it to shore before catching hypothermia? Would you even survive the fall?

You wonder what it would be like to hit the water after falling from this height. You imagine that it would probably be like belly-flopping into a swimming pool, just… a lot more painful.

But at least the impact would knock you unconscious. Maybe.

…At least nobody would have to clean up any mess. Whatever’s living in those waters is probably hungry, and it would be a while before anyone noticed you were gone.

That’s probably the best way to go, all things considered. If you could only sink down into the murky darkness, lost quietly to the world. Nobody watching, nobody to hurt, nobody to clean your body off of the floor or wall or whatever. Nobody to traumatize.

Just a few seconds of falling, and then bam. Done. And then the water carries you away.

You wonder what they would do at work, if you didn’t show up to your shift.

Honestly, they probably wouldn’t even notice for a while. Nobody really checks up on you during your shift, anyways. Hell, you bet some of your coworkers would be pretty happy to hear that you won’t be showing up anymore.

Your family would probably be pretty happy, too. Then they wouldn't have to carry around the burden of having to talk about their failure of a kid anytime someone asks about you.

They wouldn't miss you. They have your brothers and sisters to be proud of. They turned out better than you did. Less failures, more accomplishments.

It wouldn’t be that hard, now that you think about it. Just… hop right over the rail and that’ll be it. Maybe close your eyes on the way down.

All your failures, your mistakes, the regret for the people you’ve hurt, sadness you’ve created would all go away if you…

Just…

“Hey!”

You feel someone grab your arm. It takes a moment for you to realize what just happened, but after shaking yourself out of a daze, you realize that you had one foot on the middle rung of the guard rail and both hands gripping the top rung.

Oh, and someone was holding onto your arm.

You look over and it turns out to be an Anthro. He’s a little on the shorter side, maybe a few inches smaller than you. He’s wearing a hoodie with the hood on over his head, so you can’t make out what kind of Anthro he is, but you can see a pink nose at the end of an off-white furry snout. He’s looking at you with a concerned pair of dark brown eyes. A furless dull-pink tail drags behind him. Maybe some sort of rodent?

“You weren’t going to do what I think you were going to do, were you?” He asks.

You just stare at him for a moment. You want to lie and play it off as a joke, just like you always do. It takes effort to keep up with all the lies you’ve created over the years, but thankfully you’ve gotten good at it. It’s not as hard as it used to be.

You feign a nervous smile. “Oh, wow, this must look pretty bad, huh? Don’t worry, I was just resting my leg on the rails. Legs are killing me after walking up here, you know? Haha…”

That fake laugh wasn't your best, sadly. It sounded extremely forced.

He doesn’t immediately buy it. He doesn’t let go of your arm.

You stare down at his hand, gripping your hoodie. “Can uh, you let go? Please?”

He doesn't break eye contact with you, but he does let go.

“Sorry,” he says. “Do you want to talk?”

…Who the hell is this guy? Coming up here, interrupting your peace and quiet, grabbing onto you like he cares? Fuck this dude. He doesn’t even know you. And if he did, he DEFINITELY wouldn’t be pretending to be this concerned.

“Uh, sorry but I came up here to be alone for a little bit. I don’t really feel like talking,” you say.

“Can I hang out with you, then?”

Wha-? What the hell is wrong with this little dude? Can’t he tell that you’re trying to get him to fuck off? Does he want this spot THAT badly?

…You suppose that it IS a pretty nice spot, considering the view and all. Whatever, he can have it. You’ll go find somewhere else.

“Actually, you can have the spot. I was just leaving…” you say, turning back towards the massive steel beams behind you.

“Wait!” You hear him call from behind you.

You ignore him and grab onto the structure, hoisting yourself in between the beams and over the small gap between the catwalk and the railroad.

But you seemed to have failed to take into account the amount of snow that had accumulated on the bridge and as soon as you place a boot in between the apex of two intersecting beams, you lose your footing and slip.

Your heart skips a beat as you feel the solid ground slip out from beneath your feet, and your lower body begins to drop between the gap, aimed for the freezing waters below.

Your mind goes blank, and just as you are about to begin your descent, you feel two arms hook underneath your shoulders, breaking your fall.

With a grunt and pull, the Anthro drags you out of the gap and back onto the grated walkway of the catwalk. He's definitely a lot stronger than his short stature makes him out to be.

Once you clear the gap, he lets go of you with a huff.

“Be careful!” He exclaims, voiced raised. “You could’ve fallen!”

“Why do you care?” You ask without thinking. “I don’t even know you, dude. I wouldn’t have fallen if you weren’t up here bothering me!”

You don’t know why you feel the need to defend yourself against this random stranger, but you just started responding before thinking it through.

The both of you are sitting on the grated floor of the catwalk. The stranger adjusts his position and settles into place on his butt before addressing you.

“Why do I care? I know why you’re really up here, dude, you’re a terrible liar. You wouldn’t have walked away from this bridge if I wasn’t here to stop you,” He says.

“So what? What, is this like your hobby or something? You go around in the middle of night saving strangers from jumping off bridges?” You respond, condescendingly. “Don’t pretend like you actually give a damn just because keeping people alive gives you a sense of accomplishment or some shit.”

He looks shocked. He can’t seem to find the right response and he stutters a few times before settling on his rebuttal.

“Are you fucking kidding me, dude? Do you want to die THAT fucking badly?” He asks.

“What I want is to be left alone,” you tell him.

He looks at you in silence for a moment before pulling back the hood of his jacket. His features are much more apparent once being revealed to the bare moonlight. He looks like a possum Anthro with a creamy white fur that covers his whole face. The rest of the fur on his head is a dark grey and two large fuzzy circular ears adorn the top of his head, on either side of a messy, greasy mop of fur that runs down the back of his neck, sort of like a mane.

One ear has a big chunk missing from it, and a few little scars and old injuries litter his face.

“No offense, buddy, but I think that being alone is the last thing you need right now,” he says softly.

You feel something well within your chest. It hurts.

“What’s your name, pal?” You ask.

“Sammy. You?” He offers a handpaw. You don’t take it.

“Anon,” you say as you get back up onto your feet. “Listen, Sammy. I don’t need company, alright? Whatever you think you’re doing here isn’t worth it.”

“Fuck you, Anon. You don’t get to tell me what’s worth it and what isn’t,” he says with a scowl, still sitting on the ground.

This little dude sure is feisty. You’re taken aback a little.

“Sure I do, especially when it involves me,” you respond with a frown.

He doesn’t respond immediately, but his expression does loosen up a bit. He looks you up and down as you both stare at each other in silence, the snow still gently falling around the two of you.

Why are you even still talking to this dude? Just walk away. You don’t have to sit here and deal with this bullshit.

…

Ugh, what are you even doing out here? You press a palm to your eyes and attempt to rub the tiredness away. It doesn’t work, all it does is fuck up your vision for a second.

“If you don’t want to talk to me, fine. Then how about some pancakes?” He asks, breaking the silence.

“Pancakes? What?”

“Doesn’t have to be pancakes. Could be anything you want. I was heading to Giorgio’s over on 9th to get some breakfast before I saw you up here and stopped,” he explains. “It’ll be on me, c’mon.”

He gets up and stuffs his handpaws in his hoodie pockets.

You just stare at him for a second, going through at least fifteen different emotions in your head before forming a complete thought.

It HAS been at least 8 hours since you last ate something…

“Anything?” You ask.

“Sure. It’s only breakfast, how much could it be?”

…

“Alright,” you say. “I’ll take you up on that.”