//------------------------------//
// Safety? 
// Story: A Hunt to Remember 
// by REDMAMBA 
//------------------------------//

	You slowly open your eyes to see a white tile ceiling. After blinking a few times, you raise your head from the pillow. You take a minute to look around your realize that you’re in a hospital bed, and you have your own room, you turn your head to see that you’re gear stacked up in a chair with your rifle propped up next to the chair. 

“Awe, it was all a dream,” you say while lifting your right arm to your forehead. You hear the sound of metal hitting metal, and your right hand appears to be restrained. Looking down at it you can see that you’re handcuffed to the bed.   

You let out a worry some sigh as you realize that it wasn’t a dream, what happened was real. You let your neck go limp as your head falls back onto the fluffy pillow. Staring at the ceiling once again you begin to cry softly. After a few minutes of crying you hear the door knob to your room begin to shake. 

Turning your head, you watch the door open and watch as that same nurse from earlier walks in. She looks up from her clip board and locks her eyes with yours. You sit there and stare at each other for a few seconds before you decide to say something. 

“Uh… hi.”

“Hi,” she says, “It’s good to see that you’re awake.”

“Uh… yeah,” you say with sorrow. 

She walks up to the bed and reviews her clip board; you can’t help but feel sorry for what you did to her.    

“Look about earlier…” you trail off.

She lowers the clip board and looks you in the eyes. 

“I’m… I’m sorry for what I did… I was scared and I thought I was going to die.”

She looks at you for a few more seconds and says, “It’s okay, you’re safe now and that’s all that matters.” 

You sit there in silence once again as she looks at her clip board. 

“Well my names-” you lean over and begin to extend your good hand for a handshake, but the hand cuffs prevent you from doing so. 

You look at the handcuffs, then back to the young nurse. 

“Hehe, I guess I can’t give you a proper introduction,” you lean back into place and just say, “My names Anon, what’s yours?”

“Redheart,” responds the young girl, “Nurse Redheart.”

“Redheart… what a fitting name,” you say with a smile.

“Yes it is,” she says with a smile. 

You quickly give her a once over, she’s covered in white fur, has light pink hair, light blue eyes, and… a tail? And she appears to have hooves instead of feet. Now that you’ve had a second to fully look at one, you realize… she’s kinda cute. 

“I’ll be right back,” she tells you.

She walks out of the room and leaves you alone, after a few minutes she returns with the same male doctor you saw earlier. He has brown fur, teal colored eyes, dark brown hair, and same color tail, a horn coming out of his head and he’s wearing a pair of glasses. 

“My name is Doctor X-Ray, how are you feeling?” he asked.

“I’m doing good doc, but I could do without the handcuffs to be honest,” you say shaking your restrained arm. 

“I’m sorry about that, it was just a precaution, Nurse Redheart here didn’t feel very safe when you grabbed her like that.” 

“I know,” you say with a depressed tone as you lower your head. 

“So son… what is your name?” asked the Doctor. 

“My name is Anonymous, but everyone just calls me Anon,” you say while looking at the doctor. 

“Well Anon, what we did was sew up your arm there, you had eight puncture holes and you lost a fairly good amount of blood, but other than a few minor scratches and bruises here and there on your body,  I’d say you’re pretty healthy.”  

“Thank you,” you say with a smile. 

“But unfortunately…” 

Your smile fades, you don’t like where this is headed. 

“Our hospital protocol doesn’t take assault very lightly, so I have to hand you over to the Royal Guard,” says the doctor, feeling sad for you. 

You look at the Nurse Redheart and say, “I’m sorry.” 

She gives you a light smile and says, “Thank you.”

Your feel your heart settle at the remark, you never intended to hurt her, but you didn’t want to die either. 

“Anyway, I’m going to go and sign you out, the guards are already here to take you to the jailhouse, but I want you to stay off that arm for the next few weeks while it heals, okay?” 

“Okay,” you whisper, you can feel yourself wanting to cry again. 

Both Doctor X-ray and Nurse Redheart, leave the room. You lay there in silence while you await your fate. The last thing you ever expected on this hunt was to be arrested for assault. Then again, you never expected to run into a town full of... oh what was that scientific word… anthropomorphs? All you wanted was that buck, nothing more. 

A couple of minutes pass, that’s when two rather large guards walk in your room. One of them has light grey fur, dark brown eyes and hair, and a pair of wings coming out of his back. The other is dark blue, with white hair, and light blue eyes and a pair of wings, both are clad from head to toe in gold armor, and they each have a shield in their left hand, a spear in the right, and a sword on their belts. You gulp at the site as the two gentlemen enter the room. 

“Alright son, don’t do anything stupid and you’ll be just fine,” says the lighter colored guard.    

“Okay,” you mumble. 

The dark blue guard sets his spear down in a corner and reaches behind him and grabs a set of handcuff keys. He unlocks your hand; releasing it from the restraint, you give your wrist a light rub, before you sit up on the bed, you final have a second top look at your injured arm, you can see that its wrapped in white bandages. 

You look at the grey guard and say, “Can I please have my boots?” 

He takes a second to find your boots, once he finds them he sets them down by your feet. You grab the left boot and slip it on, once it’s laced up nice and tight you do the same with the right. Now that your boots are set, you stand up and walk over to your backpack and clothing that’s sitting in the nearby chair; you glance at your rifle as a thought travels through your head. 

'If I could get a clip in, I can get away.’ 

But you soon dismiss the thought, where would you go, what would you do? You have no idea where you are, or how you got here, what good would running do? 

You look at the light grey guard and say, “I’m going to grab a shirt from my pack, okay?” 

“Okay,” he replied. 

You unclip your bag and reach in side, once you find your shirt you slip it over your head with ease. You clip you pack back up and grab the bloody wool jacket in the chair, you would think that the hospital would throw the filthy thing away, but then again it’s your only heavy jacket. 

You gingerly slip on the battle scared jacket, once you have it on and buttoned you grab your hunters orange vest and slip it on over your wool jacket, now that it’s buttoned you grab your belt and funnel it through the belt loops on your pants. Last but not least you grab your favorite ball cap and slip it on the top of your head, finally you grab your skull cap and slip it over your ball cap. 

You look at the same light guard, point toward you pack and say, “Can I grab my sunglasses?”

“Yes,” replies the guard. 

You unzip the top pocket of your pack and grab your sunglasses, and place them on the top of the brim of your hat; you close the pocket ant turn toward the guards. 

“Okay I’m ready,” you say. 

“Okay turn around please,” says the lighter guard. 

You do as you’re told and turn around. 

“Place your hand behind your back.” 

You place your hands behind your back.

You hear footstep approach you, next thing you feel are a pair of fur covered hands grab your wrists, the guard shuffles your hands and grabs them with one. He reaches over to the dark blue guard, the blue guard hands over the cuffs he took off earlier. The Light grey guard places the cuffs on your wrists and releases your arms. 

You stand there and watch as the dark blue guard grabs you backpack, he slips it over his shoulders, grabs your rifle and slips it over his right shoulder; he finally grabs your pistol and looks at the lighter guard and nods.   

The light grey guard nods in return and grabs you by your right arm. You walk with your head hung low, you don’t look at anyone or anything, you just stare at the tile floor. You and the guards make a quick stop by the front desk, they do a little paper work, but you don’t pay any mind to them, you just want to get this over with. The guards finish up and begin to escort you to the front door, before you walk out the front door you speak up. 

“Could you please put my sunglasses on?”

“Sure,” says the light guard. 

He grabs you sunglasses from the top of your hat and slips them over your eyes. 

“Good?” asks the guard.

“Good,” you say. 

“Alright, let’s go.”

The dark blue guard opens the door and the light grey guard escorts you out. You feel the cold winter air bight at your exposed hands; you kinda wish that you hadn’t forgotten your gloves at home. You just try to ignore the pain and hope that you get to the jail soon. 

Every once and a while you look around, you see more of these anthropomorphic creatures walking the town, except this time, they look more scared than shocked. It’s probably because you’re being escorted through town by two guards. Thankfully your hidden eyes take away some of the pain… only some. 

You just keep your head low and your mouth shut. After a few minutes of walking you finally reach the jail. The town didn’t appear that big so you made it there with relative ease. The guard carrying your gear hands it to another one who's sitting behind a desk. He took it and set it down not far away. Your two original guards escort you to a nearby cell; the light grey guard escorts you in the door and uncuffs you. You step inside while rubbing your wrists yet again. You turn around and see the grey guard close the door with a definitive click.   

The grey guard looks at you and says, “I’m sorry son, but it’s the law.”

“I understand,” you say with sadness. 

The guards leave while you just stand there. After a few seconds you fall to your knees and begin to cry. You grab your head and shake it violently while you curse at everything. 

“WHY, WHY, WHY!?!”

You can’t believe this, everything you know is gone, you were nearly killed by wolves, almost blead to death, and now… here you are… in prison. 

“I JUST WANT TO GO HOME!” 

The guard at the desk just sits there and watches you, he wants to say something, but he just lets you have your moment. Eventually you go and crawl into a corner and cry your eyes out. 

After an hour of endless crying to find the nerve to calm down, you slowly slip off your vest, then your wool jacket. You fold them gently and place them on the floor next to you; you pull off your skull cap and place it on the pile. 

You look around and see a bed; you can easily tell that you’re not going to fit on it. So you remove the mattress and drag it to the nearby wall. You sit down and lean against the wall and stare at the ceiling. What starts out as seconds, turn into minutes… then hours. Next thing you know you’ve fallen asleep.