\n I woke up on Friday and rubbed my eyes sorely. I'd stayed up too late the night before, playing with Jake. He liked to have midnight games. He laughed in the face of conventional sleep schedule, or even diet. He opted instead for a diet of energy drinks, candy, and meat. As for sleeping, well, he always said that there was a reason he had an off period. I laughed at his cocky attitude, telling him it'd only go so far. He simply said, that's far enough for me.
\n Last night though, Jake seemed... distant. Like there was something on his mind. Something he was nervous about. I asked him about it, but he brushed it off, citing some made up test. I knew he'd come around eventually and tell me, but I was worried that it might be too late.

\n I didn't want to lose my best friend.

\n I put my glasses on and checked the time. 7:15. Shitfuck. I had to be at school in ten minutes. I ignored a shower, just putting glasses on, grabbing some cleanish clothes, and booking it out the door. While it sounds easy, it was actually just a little hard, because I hadn't done any laundry in a while, so I was pretty much out of options. Wear dirty, smelly, clothes, or go to school naked. Wouldn't that just be so much easier?

\n I found a pair of shorts that worked with my fur color, and then a shirt at random for this old movie series Dad loved, Star Wars. I glanced at my phone quickly, and saw that I still had a few minutes, so I went and put my headfur into a slight and messy spike. I ran upstairs, and saw Mom and Dad in the kitchen, holding a lunch, and my backpack.
\n "Oh thankyouthankyouthankyou!" I said quickly, grabbing it, and walking out the door. I checked my pockets. Shit, no keys. I turned around and saw mom there, with keys, and shoes. I hugged her, and grabbed my stuff, throwing it haphazardly into the car. I was not going to be late for Roberts test. It was our fist major test, and I needed to get a good grade on it so Mom and Dad wouldn't get mad at me.

\n The test was over the Economy Recovery Act of 2015 which was able to finally reduce the spending enough to eliminate the national deficit which at that time was approaching ten trillion dollars. I knew the material well enough.
\n I parked the car and rushed into the building, getting into Roberts' room right as the tarty bell rang. I sighed with a sense of relief. He looked at me, almost a little disappointed that I wasn't late for this. He so wanted the pleasure of being able to give me a failing grade on an assignment. For whatever reason. I sat down in my desk, next to Jake. He gave me a nod.

\n "Close one." He whispered.

\n "I wouldn't have been late if you didn't make me stay up late last night." I growled at him, somewhat playfully.

\n "Hey, those zombies weren't gonna kill themselves." He said with a level of seriousness, and commitment to his jokes that not even the best comics in the world could have. Mr. Roberts coughed.

\n "Should we wait for you, gentlemen?" I blushed deeply in embarrassment. Jake just stared back, with absolute commitment to me.

\n "Could you, that'd be great?" Mr. Roberts' eyes bulged. He clenched his jaw and moved very stiffly over to us. I was pretty scared, I mean, it was an intimidating sight, but Jake just stared right back at him, eye to eye.

\n "Would you like to repeat that?"

\n "No, I'm fine." Jake said.

\n "Alright." He backed up and went to his desk to pick up the test. He handed them out, shoving Jake's and mine in our faces.

\n "Dick." I heard Jake whisper, loud enough so only my acute fox ears could hear.

\n The test wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, it was actually pretty easy. Except for one question, that I swear he never talked about once in class. Jake wasn't so sure though. He was convinced that he'd failed.

\n "Dude, you couldn't have done that bad, not with those notes I gave you."

\n "I dunno man, I just wasn't feeling that text." He said gloomily.

\n 'Yeah, but don't sweat it." I reassured. I went off to English, Jake his off period. We were discussing 1984, which still was a great teaching tool, despite being as old as it was.

\n "I just don't see how you can say that the book has no point in being taught," I countered to Em, a vixen. "I mean look at North Korea, it was only recently they stopped being a totalitarian regime."

\n "You can't use that for every argument." Chase said. He was the only reason I didn't like going into the class.

\n "If it's valid, I will. I mean, they had four leaders, all complete brutes towards the people and they all managed to retain fear and control."

\n "And start a war." Commented James, a human who had a bad case of tourettes.

\n "Yeah..." The pain was still fresh. I sighed a little and backed out of the conversation mentally. It was hard to think about that.

\n About ten years ago, North Korea launched nuclear weapons at Japan and South Korea. My brother had just joined the Marines and was called into action when war was declared. For seven long years the war lasted. So many friends lost, so much pointless death. Donny was captured and executed about a month before the war was won. I found out in school one day, and broke down. I had never cried harder than that, and I went into school one day. Chase had found out and started laughing. I wasn't sure what it was, but that day... something snapped. I pounced on him, and started attacking him, until I was pulled off by a pair of Malamutes. They held me back as I barked ferociously at him. I was not going to let some jackass do that to me. I was suspended for a month, but I wasn't upset at all. I needed the grieving period. Sophie, as young as she was, understood how much pain I was in, and cuddled up to me at nights. I was always happy to have her there, my own little teddy bear. That's when I really started to get along with Sophie. I guess because, I wasn't ever that close to Donny. I wanted to make sure I was always there for Sophie.

\n I went to my locker, and grabbed my books quickly, and went off to Psych, which as usual was interesting and boring at the same time. I dunno, I was expecting a lot more cool stuff. But I did perk up when Mr. Fredrickson said he'd be discussing serial killers in a few weeks, which, I gotta admit, was really cool. He went on talking about Antisocial Personality Disorder. Which was a little scary to think about, because Jake often thought he had it. Mr. Fredrickson said that in order to be diagnosed, you had to exhibit three of seven symptoms. Many people in the class had at least three, but they were normal with being teens, so I really didn't think it was fair to imply that every teen had APD. Cause if that's the case...

\n I went through the rest of classes with the same amount of boredom, off period, lunch, science, and Chinese, they all just were boring. The only interesting class was math because I got to talk with Haley about the party. She'd really been getting closer to me, and hell, I wasn't gonna complain about that.

\n "Alright so I get that this is the equation, but I don't think I did it right." She was sitting next to me, and I could smell the peaches in her hair, and the apricots of her perfume. Her arm brushed against mine, and I knew my fur was tickling her a little when she giggled lightly.

\n "Well did you remember to flip the signs when you divided?" I said, pointing to where I saw the mistake.

\n "Oh! Duh." She smiled her cute little smile, that went above her teeth and showed her gums, with her perfectly straight, white teeth. She erased the mistake and fixed it.

\n "So, how many people are going to be at this party of yours?"

\n "I dunno, a dozen or so, nothing too big."

\n "Cool. Your parents gonna be out?" I said, more for myself. I didn't want to risk being attacked... like at work.

\n "No! No. He doesn't even know I'm having it. Let alone that I even talk to you." She smiled at me, a smile so pure I felt my stomach knot up, and I blushed lightly.

\n "I feel so special," I said with just enough of a tone in my voice to let her know I was joking. She smiled and went back to doing work, so I did the same. It wasn't the most interesting thing, but I was getting close to her, so I thought it was all good. I was so disappointed when class ended, but I hid it with a layer of jokes, and pleasantries about the party. She said goodbye and I was happy as I went off to science.

\n I left school feeling pumped. It was the weekend! Which meant hanging out with Jake, the party and most of all, doing absolutely nothing. I picked Sophie up and she put on some music, a pop star who, I have to admit, was actually pretty good. Not that I'm usually into pop. Normally I like heavy rock, a little bit of metal, just as long as the vocals aren't total shit. If they were, it didn't belong in my car. Sophie was singing along, and I was just kind of grooving along, enjoying being completely random with her. She smiled and giggled a little.

\n I woke up a few hours later, groggy from my afternoon nap I didn't mean to take. I was playing with Jake, and pretty much fell asleep during it all. I looked at my phone, and saw the time. 5:38. Time for dinner then. I sniffed the air, but didn't smell any food-like scent. I walked upstairs and looked around. Huh... that's weird. I couldn't find any. I walked into the kitchen and saw a note that said they were going out to grab something and bring it back. The best part, it was from my favorite food place.

\n It was a place called the Internet Cafe. It was completely brilliant what they did. Everything was named after websites and things like that. The best part, you could get into arguments with the waiters and call them noobs, and everything. If you wanted a cheeseburger, you went right up to the cashier and said "I can haz cheezburger?" It was pretty cool. The tip jar said: "Tips or GTFO," they had a special called "Rule 34" which said that if it exists, we'll deep fry it. Was it healthy? No. Was it the best place to take a family? No. Was it delicious? Hellz yeah. Until they got back, I pretty much started to go onto the web, since I had nothing better to do.

\n Now, I won't say that I had a problem with porn, but I'm not going to lie and say I never looked at it. Or that I didn't look at it a lot. Hell, I loved it, but I was always very careful about it, because if I got caught... it'd be all shades of awkward. One of my favorite sites, hell, my favorite site was sofurry. It was a site that started back when furries were just small group of people, notorious on the internet, particuarly 4chan, for being obesessed with sex. I had loved to read stories from a while ago. Some of my favorite writers' and artists were Untitledwarriors, Wuffieguy, NewFur, Denali, and Dasher Cheetah. All I'm going to say about the porn is: fapfapfapfap.

\n That night, I was sleeping rather peacefully when I heard Sophie scream. I jumped out of bed and booked it upstairs and into her room. Her eyes were wide, her breathing was shallow, and she looked on the verge of tears. I looked at her and she rushed over to me, jumping into my arms. I held her as she sniffled quietly.

\n "Sh... Sh. You're okay. You're okay. What happened?" She whimpered.

\n "I had a nightmare."

\n "What happened?"

\n "I dreamt that..." She sobbed loudly. "That you joined the army. And you died too." I grimaced and squeezed her tighter.

\n "Sh... It's alright. I'm not going anywhere." I consoled. Mom and Dad were behind me in the hallway, looking concerned. I looked over to them and nodded, signifying that I'd take care of her. They looked pleased enough and went back to sleep.

\n Sophie was so shaken she made me stay with her for a while and asked me to do something I thought she'd be too big for. She asked me to read her a bedtime story. I happily obliged, not wanting her to have to be afraid again. She quietly fell asleep as I told her about how Bill the Worm handled moving her to the big apple. I remembered when Donny first told me that, and smiled to myself, before falling asleep myself because of fatigue. I was just happy that I could do something worthwhile for once.

\n I had a great inspiration and felt the quality go back up again in this chapter. Also, I felt like breaking the fourth wall, and thanking everyone for helping me out the story, and commenting. The next chapter is the party. :D So thanks to everyone.