A Bird in the Ocean

It's difficult but he manages to find a small clearing just far enough away. The man lands and folds his wings inside of his jacket. He starts making his way into town, keeping his head on a swivel. This forest seems much more difficult to traverse. Large thick bushes and half grown trees sit in the way as well as tall grass and weeds. If it wasn't daylight he definitely wouldn't be able to see with this much overgrowth.

He tries to avoid walking through any bushes and steps around the half grown trees, getting slightly annoyed at all the obstacles in the way.

Despite his attempts he still ends up walking through some leaves and twigs that try to snag on his clothing. He unsnags all of the leaves and twigs with annoyed groaning, "Fucking twigs."

He reaches the edge of the town by some large backyards that lead up to somewhat run down houses. He gets out of the forest as the wind changes and he can pick up the scent of food from in town. He sniffs the air and starts walking towards the scent with a curious look.

He steps out onto a small road. But ahead he sees one of the citizens. But they are far from normal. They look like a standing cat. Their two hind legs are plantigrade and are dressed in pants and shoes as they walk to their mailbox. Between its pants and shirt is a long simple tail with well brushed fur. Their front legs however are more human like arms covered in fur. Their cat-like face looks down at their mail as they shift through it.

Cole raises an eyebrow and notes their appearance as he continues attempting to follow the scent with a curious expression. As he walks, the cat looks up from their mail and notices Cole. The citizen's eyes widen on seeing him and they stare as if seeing a ghost. Cole glances at the cat and feels slightly offended as he continues walking.

Heading closer to the smell he can see traffic cones that block off a section of downtown. Here the buildings are much stronger and mostly made of bricks. The streets and sidewalks are covered with more of the animal-like people. Not a single human is in sight except for himself. Lining the sidewalks are small stores and shops with various tables set out with foods for sale. A few workers along the ends of the sidewalk are using brooms to brush away fallen leaves from the partially trimmed trees.

The man sighs to himself, "Great, the timeline restarted." he continues walking, not bothering to keep his head down. A few people glance at him and give long stares. The more he walks he picks up on clues in the area. With the banners hanging on the black light posts, it seems they are holding a festival. Suddenly there's a large heavy hand on his shoulder.

The man flinches at the feeling of the hand and glances behind him, "Can I help you?"

Standing behind the man is one of the animal-like people, a large black bear with white and orange markings on his face and a smile just as large as his paws. The bear-like guy speaks in a loud enthusiastic voice, "Hey there man! Enjoying the festivities?"

The man sighs in relief as he shrugs, "I just got here..."

The bear takes his hand off of the man's shoulder and holds it out for a handshake, "Well welcome." But soon the bear furrows his brow slightly while somewhat inspecting the man's face.

The man fully turns around to shake his hand and picks to ignore the constant stares, "Thank you."

The bear gives a strong handshake before putting his hands into his white slacks, "I'm Wendell. I take it you're not from here?"

The man puts his hands in his jacket as well, "Nice to meet you Wendell, I'm Cole and yeah I'm not from here."

Wendell tilts his head some, "So where are you from exactly? Your hybrid seems... unique?"

Cole stares for a couple seconds, "Don't remember entirely, and I'll let you guess my hybrid." Cole folds his arms with a smug smile.

Wendell squints at Cole as he taps his chin, "...Hmm... You don't have fur or feathers. You also don't have any scales." he looks at the top of Cole's head, "Yet you also have hair?" He takes a moment to think.

Cole continues waiting while holding his smug smile.

Wendell answers, "A hybrid of a hairless rat nonferal and a lemur nonferal, meaning you must be from Madagascar!" He smiles as if expecting to be right.

Cole shakes his head and snickers, "Nope, not even close."

"Darn it. Ok if I tell you my hybrid will you tell me yours?" Wendell gives a large smile again, now showing that he has one gold tooth.

Cole nods while still smugly smiling, "Sure."

"I'm an American black bear and a saint bernard. And you are?" Wendell gestures to Cole.

Cole grins as he answers, "Human."

Wendell still holds his smile, "Is that like a uh... like a type of penguin nonferal?"

Cole stares as his grin slowly fades, "You...you aren't the sharpest crayon in the box are you?"

Wendell blinks some as he stares in thought but Cole waits for the realization to hit.

Wendell's smile slowly fades before quickly looking around. He grabs Cole by the arm and attempts to drag him towards an alley. As Cole is dragged he looks concerned but decides to not fight it out of curiosity.

Wendell moves Cole to stand on the other side of a dumpster as he puts his hands on his shoulders with a more serious tone, "You're a human? Like an actual real life human?"

Cole nods with a raised eyebrow, "Yes? Is that a big deal?"

"YOU'RE THE ONLY HUMAN." Wendell jumps slightly on realizing he yelled as he suddenly lowers his voice to a hushed tone, "No one's ever seen a human before. We're all just nonferals. If other people found out they could trap you for experiments or hunt you for a trophy. There's no telling what people would do."

Cole raises an eyebrow, "I can defend myself, that's not really a concern I have."

Wendell shakes his head, "I don't think you get it. If you die, there goes the last and only human ever. Your history, your knowledge, your habits, your mannerisms, your dialects, your styles, your dreams, and hell even your taste in food is all LOST FOREVER. And no one can recover all of that." Wendell is seeming rather passionate about this topic.

Cole is staring at him with slight concern, "You... seem awfully interested in humans."

"Interested? It's an entire view of life that no one has ever SEEN! If anything I'm obsessed," Wendell pauses, "...Ok well that sounded creepy, I don't mean it in a creepy way. Like I'M not one of those people that want to use your skin for their rug."

Cole blinks several times, "Use my skin for huh... and you know what as long as you aren't gonna hover around me I couldn't care less."

Cole starts to walk but Wendell moves in his way with his arm out, "Hold up man. I can't just let you wander around and get yourself killed. This place is dangerous as it is with or without self defense."

Cole sighs, "So what do you want me to do? Stay in hiding forever?"

Wendell shakes his head, "No. Just while I get to know everything I can about you. Well not you. That sounds weird. More about you and your culture so it's not lost forever."

Cole looks even more concerned, "Uhuh... and I could easily get you to move out of my way."

Wendell huffs, "I can't just let you leave. I won't be moved so easily."

Cole groans, "I have my ways, now if you'll excuse me I have places to be." He tries to move past Wendell again.

Wendell still moves in the way, "I'm not about to throw away the one and only time I find something like this."

Cole groans and exhales heavily, "Well you're starting to annoy me so I might not even tell you anything." Cole's eyes flicker pink for a brief moment.

Wendell grumbles, "This is more important than what you want. This is about so much more than you."

Cole folds his arms, "Uhuh, so important that you're deciding to keep me captive in an alleyway."

"Wellll... not captive, that wording doesn't make it sound good at all, but no you can't leave."

Cole then cups his hands around his mouth and starts to scream for help.

A few people walking by the alley pause as they hear the yelling. Wendell's eyes widen as he quickly tries to put his hands over Cole's mouth.

Cole smiles at Wendell and folds his arms.

Wendell yells out to the people who are looking into the alley, "He's just messing around!"

Cole glares at Wendell then looks to his side to see the alleyway leading to another area.

Wendell takes his hands off of Cole's mouth as he explains to the bystanders, "I was making a joke that he couldn't grab people's attention that quickly and- well man did he prove me wrong!"

Cole suddenly starts sprinting out of the alleyway and behind the buildings in a effort to get away from Wendell. Wendell however is caught off guard as Cole gets out of sight just around the corner. Cole sees several alleys connecting to behind the businesses and leading further into the town. He hears Wendell yell, "-HEY WAIT. I'M NOT DONE TALKING TO YOU YET!!!"

Cole continues sprinting, hoping that Wendell can't catch up to him.

Sure enough Cole soon finds himself in another part of town that's not participating in the festival and he can no longer hear the yelling.

Cole sighs in relief and starts looking around for any important buildings as he mutters, "Let's see if I can gather any information on this town."