Chapter 2 - Jack

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Forté was lost. He wasn't too surprised, as he had often gotten lost in his large home when he was younger, needing Louis to come and find him. Cherryton was a very large campus, with many buildings and without prior knowledge of what the buildings contained, Forté could barely tell the difference between any of them.

While he wasn't surprised, he was getting worried. It wasn't all too late, but Louis had mentioned that he would be busy all night, so he wouldn't have the time to escort him back to the dorms. Forté gazed out towards the setting sun and figured he had maybe 2 hours before it fully set. However, he would have to be in his dorm before then due to the curfew that the attack had brought in.

Forté looked around nervously, too far away to be able to read the labels on the buildings. As he became more nervous, he wasn't able to hear a figure's light footsteps approaching behind him.

"Hi! Are you lost?" 

The sudden chipper voice startled Forté so much that he ended up tripping over his own feet and landing painfully on his bottom. 

"Oh my god I'm so sorry! I thought you heard me coming!" Forté looked up to see that the voice belonged to a very apologetic looking Golden Labrador Retriever. The dog held out his hand to help Forté up, which the deer gladly accepted. 

"It's alright, I'm fine, really! I wasn't paying enough attention to my surroundings!" Forté tried to reassure the dog. "Are you sure you're okay?" The Lab asked, still rather worried. Upon seeing Forté nod in response, the dog's face visibly lifted. Forté always loved how easy canines were to read. He thought it was unbelievably cute how excitable they were and how their tails would wag with such tenacity.

"Oh! That's a relief! I'm Jack by the way. Anyways, so are you lost? I know the campus like the back of my hand so I'm sure I can take you wherever it is you need to go!" Forté felt rather relieved that he didn't have to approach anybody to ask for help, and upon seeing Jack's innocent smile, he decided it was alright to accept the help.

"Uh, yeah. I'm Forté, its actually my first day so I was just looking for the herbivore dorms. Do you know where that is?" Jack smiled brightly and said, "Sure thing! Follow me!" before speed walking around the corner and towards a couple of large, identical buildings.

"That building right there is the herbivore dorm, the carnivore dorm is the one to the right," Jack informed while pointing towards each building. "Oh, okay. One last thing, can you tell me where the Auditorium is?" Forté asked sheepishly.

"Of course! It's the big building with all the pillars out front near the water fountain. It's back the way we came," Jack told him with a smile. "Oh, well thanks Jack! I should get going to my dorm now," with a final wave to the dog, Forté went to check in.

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Forté was lucky that his two roommates were a part of the baseball team, it gave him a chance to unpack his things before having to introduce himself. He looked around the room and took notice of the fact that there were six beds. I guess most dorms have more than three people, Forté thought to himself.

He saw that two of the beds seemed to be in use, while two others were used to store his roommates things. Despite most of the room's clutter being restricted to the extra beds that were used for storage, Forté still had to watch his step for spare baseball jerseys, baseballs and even a couple bats strewn about on the floor.

His privacy was cut short when two herbivores, clad in baseball uniforms came bustling through the door. Upon noticing their new roommate, a rather small hedgehog stepped forward. "I'm Darren, this is Todd," the hedgehog, Darren, said while pointing to a large, intimidating bull, who waved at Forté.

"You must be the new roommate, Forté right?" the bull, Todd, asked. "Uh yeah, I'm new. I hope neither of you mind, but I just sorta picked one of the empty beds and unpacked my stuff," Forté replied with a nervous smile.

"Yeah that's fine! You can use the last bed for your extra stuff if you want." Darren spoke while pointing to the bed that Forté had left untouched. "Hope you don't mind, but we've had a long day. We're gonna call it a night, we can talk more tomorrow morning though!" It was only now that Forté could see that they had been dragging their feet, letting their tired arms dangle at their sides. "Oh yeah that's fine! I'm pretty tired too," Forté reassured.

With a final goodnight shared between the roommates, they all went to bed.

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Forté lay awake in bed, his roommates having fallen asleep. Despite the comfort of his bed, the deer was beginning to worry for his brother.

If there's a killer on campus, then Louis shouldn't be walking around alone at night! Forté thought to himself, maybe I should go find him... he said he would be practicing in the auditorium, I'll just go meet him there.

Forté quietly left his dorm room, and crept out of the building, grimacing with every creaky floorboard, and started making his way towards the auditorium. As he walked, the cold night's air made a chill run up his spine. His fur wasn't particularly thick, and his loose long-sleeved t-shirt did very little to help him stay warm.

Forté turned the corner to see the fountain, but tripped over a small crack on the pavement. He twisted as he fell and landed painfully on his shoulder. Forté pulled himself to his feet and put a hand to his shoulder. When he pulled his hand forward to look at it, he noticed some small splotches of blood on the palm of his hand.

He continued into the courtyard, but instead of going straight to the auditorium, he stopped by the fountain. Sitting on the edge, he pulled the neck hole of his baggy t-shirt down to expose his shoulder, hoping to clean up the cut before Louis could see it and inevitably overreact.

Forté winced while gingerly touching his shoulder, hissing as more blood slowly seeping from the small wound, dripping onto the side of the fountain.

He soon realized that the small wound would be the least of his worries as he hears a growl coming from behind him...

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