Back in the apartment
The flight was long. Richard had gotten plenty of sleep in the meantime. When he woke up, he played some card games using a deck he bought at the airport, with himself and with another passenger. A good drink, first of water, then of beer, got him to relax a bit.
By the time he'd gotten back to Manchester, it was late night in the city – almost 10 PM.
He didn't dare call Phoebe tonight, in case she was asleep. He set his watch right as he looked at the time, and began muttering to himself about the job he'd lost for no good reason.
The alcohol had pretty much worn off by then.
When he got home, he noticed a few foxfolk, and some other zooanthros, in the apartments. The majority was humans, though it wasn't more than half of the tenants. The landlord, John, was still clearly human, but he wasn't so upset by his tenants being zooanthros, and the only person he'd kicked out since Richard had left was a drunkard who didn't pay his rent. "Sono trouble, then," Richard asked to be sure. "No raises in rent or nothing? Anything?" hecorrected himself.
"Jus' make sure ya vacuum more often, and I won't charge ya for 'avin' pets," John joked
"Will do," Richard chuckled. "God, can you believe this mess though?"
"Aye," the landlord said. "Bet anythin' t'is magic, though."
"Why say that?" Richard asked, surprised.
"Me own son burned the dog'oose down durin' the foxcrisis. An' 'e says 'e dunno where th' fire came from other n'is 'ands. 'e didn' even know 'ow."
Richard's jaw dropped. "Are you joshing me?" he asked.
"'course nah. 'e was scared as all 'ell too. D'no what's goin' on, but if that Swedeman was right, an' it's some kinda game..." He shook his head and crossed himself. "Poor lads, poor lasses, goin' through this."
"Was anything else hurt then?" Richard asked.
"Nah, jus'sa dog'oose. Even'a dog got oot okay. Lucky, ah?"
"No kidding," Richard nodded.
As Richard laid in his bed that night, he thought about it. If this really was some kind of outright magic, whether there was a genetic factor or not, who cared? He smiled despite himself.
Yeah, he didn't have a job, but he had a date that he could set up tomorrow, and he was sure there'd be a huge outcry against this. There would probably be plenty of jobs, too – hopefully, anyway.
Maybe he could even start a bit higher. His experience was high enough that he'd be in a good spot above the new jobseeker, at least.
He slowly drifted off. Maybe it'd be okay.
Written by Machaeus on 23 November 2015
The end (for now)