Horizon

Chapter 22

           

"Horizon, huh?" I muttered under my breath.

            Talon said that when I left the room, that I would have to leave the old me behind. I couldn't tell, however, what that fully entailed. If I left the room, then I'd have to turn into a completely new person, hence the new name.

            "I guess we'll see who this new person is," I sighed.

            I took one last look at Al's body before I grabbed the handle to the door. Al was the last human that I had trusted. With him dead, there wasn't a single thing that I owed the human race. My priority was now focused on preserving the anthros in the colony.

            I opened the door, and took a few steps, only to find that Talon had been waiting for me just a couple a feet away. Closing the door behind me, Talon placed himself next to me, and led me down the hallway.

            "Took ya long enough," Talon grumbled as we started walking. "I was beginning to think that you weren't going to come out."

            I didn't reply. I still kept a distrust of Talon. He did, after all, force me to come back to the colony...and he cut my face up with his claw. There was no way I could trust him, but it wasn't like I could just try to leave again.

            "Don't worry, Hank," Talon said quietly. "I know you still may not trust me, but I promise you can. In fact, I wanted to show you a couple of things that we've been working on for a while. Why don't you meet me in my room in about ten minutes? That should give you plenty of time to get some food in your belly beforehand."

            "Thank you, sir," I replied promptly.

            Talon nodded, and then rushed past me down the hallway. I, on the other hand, slowly made my way into the cafeteria, which was hustling and bustling.

            I decided to hop into the line that was handing out what looked like delicious burgers. That was the busiest line, however. As I waited, I took some time to look at all the other anthros that were around me. There must have been almost a hundred just in the cafeteria. It still amazed me how many anthros there could be in one small area.

            Then suddenly, my ears pipped when I heard my name being whispered.

            "His name's Hank," I heard someone say from behind me. "From what I hear he worked his way to the top in just about a day. He's a serious badass."

            I turned around, to see a couple of anthros with their heads leaned towards each other, like they were speaking privately. To my left stood a tall lanky snow leopard, which was obviously male, judging by the tone of his voice. The other was a female rabbit.

            "Thanks for the compliment," I said with a chuckle aimed at the both of them.

            "You're him, right?" the snow leopard asked. "You're Hank?"

            "I think I'm supposed to go by Horizon, now," I answered. "But yeah, I'm him. Now, do the snow leopard and the rabbit have names?"

            "Hare," replied the rabbit.

            "Uh...Hair?" I asked.

            "No, I'm a hare...not a rabbit," the female replied. "My name is Avery."

            Avery looked just about as rough and tough as a cute little bunny rabbit could get. She had a long white stripe running down her spine; while the rest of her fur looked light brown...almost tan. She had extremely long ears, which twitched at just about anything, too. She was almost as tall as me, and that wasn't including the ears.