Fur the Discovery Episode 1 : New life brings new people

Blarmington was a great city. It was big, attractive, and full of young people, students from the neighboring cities that wanted to attend the GBUC, the Great Blarmington Universal College. On this nice and sweet day of September, by the fountain of the school in front of the Reception Building, was standing a fur. He was a black-short-semi-shiny furred lab that looked like he was waiting someone. He was wearing a red plain T-shirt with blue jeans and skater shoes, was quite tall, 1m80, not very fat, 60kg, and even quite muscular, but looked like a scared little puppy, ashamed of his behavior. He didn't looked impressive, but lost : his short messy hair, upon his head and between his ears, was the color of his fur ; his dark brown eyes were sparkling, either of excitement or fear, or even both of them at the same time, and his muzzle was obviously shaking, making his little beard moving forward and backward.. He had a baggage in front of him, black as well, that he was holding. All around him was excitement: all the new GBUC students were arriving on this day, and were either meeting or find old High School friends. But, even with all this noise and agitation, he was, or looked still, holding his baggage near the fountain and in front of the school Reception Building's door. Actually, if you looked closely, you could see his muzzle wasn't the only thing shaking: all his body was, and his white and cleaned claws were stuck in his suit case. It was fear that he was feeling: a deep fear, the one that don't allow you any movement.
Finally, after a while, he heard someone coming to see him and the fear stopped controlling his body, allowing him to turn. The new fur was a 2m tall and beef muscled tiger. He was wearing a skinny beige T-shirt with the sleeves torn by the shoulders, so tight it looked like it was sticking his short and stripped orange fur, with khaki shorts and used sport shoes. He looked friendly. His fur wasn't longer were his hair should have been, between his pointy ears. His green eyes looked like he was scanning the soul of the dog to know everything about him, and it maybe was because of his size and musculature, or the big fangs and claws he had, but around him was the aura of respect and intimidation. But, even with all of this, he still looked friendly, like something in this smiling face that was making Sparky confident again. He was the one who started the conversation, with a very gleeful tone on his deep voice:
-"Hi there!”
-"Hum... Hello..." answered the lab, a bit hesitating after all.
-"How are you? My name is Vardens and I am really happy to meet you!" continued Vardens.
-"Wow! I... My name is Sparky... You seem so..." hesitated Sparky.
-"Happy? I know, everybody tells me that... So, where are you from?" asked the tiger.
-"I come from Barksin..." started the dog.
-"Oh, really? I've never been there, how is it like?”
-"It is... Hum...Old-fashioned... And..." answered Sparky, trying to be the nicest possible for the town he always hated.
-"Sounds fun!" He smiled. "I come from Fralden. It is a small town in the middle of nothing, but people are very nice there..." Vardens looked at his watch. "Wow! It is late! We should go to meet our roommates. It was nice to meet you! See you at the canteen, at noon, OK?”
Sparky didn't have time to answer that the tiger was already gone. He definitely had a lot of energy, but the lab still found him nice. He was happy to already have a friend. Now that he was alone again, he made an effort, to go walk to the doorway. Inside, it was exactly how he imagined it: an entrance full of people, with a receptionist on this side. The building wasn’t very big, it was just the entrance of the College, but it was full of people, so full it seems like it was going to explode. Sparky, by pushing and “digging” into the crowd, managed to reach the doors behind.
Behind the door was a big garden, with even more people than outside and in the Reception. He vaguely saw Vardens rushing to a building, with a big 5-B written on it. He looked at the plan to know where to go. There were 20 buildings: Building 1-A, 1-B, 2-A, 2-B…etc. The dorms were from Building 5-A to Building 7-B, and his room was in Building 6-A, on the right of Building 5-B, number 145. He looked around him. Actually, there weren’t 20 buildings, but an enormous circle-shaped building, that was 3 floors high. The only separation was a black thick line apparently painted on the building, like the names of the buildings, painted in white. He stopped one second and turned around: the buildings were going from the Building 0, the entrance that had only the ground floor, to the Building 10-B. Two transparent bridges, one per floor over the ground floor, were going from Building 10-B to Building 1-A, hitched to three metallic bars, one from each of the three Building 1-A, 0 and 10-B. When he was finished, he started his walk to the Building 6-A. Even on the grass, the asphalt paths looked like they were complicated geometrical figures, but it was easy to know which one to take, because on each crossing or when the path was divided in two, the buildings each road were going to was written on the asphalt, and, because it was gigantic, there were bench everywhere and picnic tables too. Sparky knew this year would be awesome, because this College was.
He took ten minutes, but he made it: he was in front of the Building 6-A. He stared at people the crowd going in, like to trying to recognize a friend. He was sort of freaked out: he was going to have a roommate. He was going to share living place with another man. What if he was ugly and annoying, or worst, what if he was very cute but straight? What if he was homophobic? In each case, he would have to deal with it, but he still prayed all the gods of this damn world to have a cool roommate, and he walked in. Inside were rooms’ doors with numbers, bathrooms, and other stuffs as broom closets. People were rushing everywhere, and he had to push even harder than at the Reception. He was squished, pushing and pushed when he eventually saw a staircase. It was explain on the paper that the rooms under a hundred were in the ground floor, the ones between one and two hundred were on the first floor…etc. He was going to dig through to this way when he heard his named on the hubbub around. He turned, searching for the one that called him. He didn’t know this voice, but it seems at the same time. Because he didn’t found the one that called, he dug through to the staircase. Here there were less people, and he could see the moving ocean of heads: here was a crocodile; there was a lion, and, some smaller ones like mice. It was more than diversity, it seemed like all the species of the world where here at the same time: he even saw a kangaroo! It was a big changing for him that came from a dog city, without any other species than Labrador, German shepherds and beagles! He climbed up the stairs, took a deep breath and “dived” again into the crowd. He was happy to be tall, because even there, he had difficulties to read the doors’ numbers, so it was certainly hell for the small animals like otters and mice. He was searching his door when he found a lost otter. He had glasses, a strange shirt, blue and bright orange, with brown pants. He was obviously lost here in the crowd, searching for his door. Sparky stopped, crouched and asked him simply:
-“Hey, lil’ otter. What’s the matter?”
-“Hum… Hi, big… Dog. I’m lost! My door is number 187, but I...I can’t find it with all these people…” answered the otter, half crying.
-“I…hum… I could help you if you want to…”proposed the lab.
-“Really?” He dried his tears.”That would be ni…nice.”
-“No problem… Don’t worry, we will find your door!” finished nicely the dark dog.
Then, he took the otter on his shoulders and started to push harder, he otter telling him where to go. When he found the door, another otter was here, apparently waiting for someone. When he saw the otter on Sparky’s shoulders, he smiled:
-“Finally! I thought you weren’t going to come!”
-“You should thank this big guy, he is the one who helped me” answered the other, pointing the lab.
-“Well, thanks…” started the otter in front of him.
-“Sparky. My name is Sparky.”
-“Ok, then, thanks Sparky. My name is James, and the otter on your shoulders is Olren. He is a long time friend of mine.”
-“Yeah! Thanks, Sparky!” said Olren, loudly and happily.
-Well, I gotta go, but it was nice to meet you…” concluded Sparky.
Then, he put back Olren on the floor and the two otter entered the room. Sparky, that now knew the approximate place were his room was. He dug in, pushing everybody, excited to meet his roommate, and curious too. He got there in five long minutes. In front of the door, he was freaked out. He was wondering who he would be with. And, while he was searching his key in his pocket, the door opened…

TO BE CONTINUED