Turn around

You whip around and hold your phone out, but catch only a glimpse of some big and dark, with splashes of white on it, before something swats the phone out of your hand, sending it flying into the bushes. You stumble back, blinking in the sudden darkness. Thick blackberry vines grab your ankles, thorns digging into your skin, and you fall backward, arms windmilling wildly, a surprised yelp escaping you as something grabs your wrist and jerks you upright.

As your eyes adjust, you find yourself staring up at a tall horse with broad shoulders, wearing a black leather jacket, no shirt, and black jeans. His mane is white in the front, where his forelock hangs down over one side of his face, and black as it spills down past his shoulders. His face is mostly white, except for a black patch over one eye. That eye is brown, the other a pale blue. The white goes down his throat and onto his chest, and you follow it down over hard abs to where it disappears beneath his waistband.

Your gaze jumps to the hand holding your wrist, to the thick, blunt nails on each of the fingers, and the white patch on the back of the hand that wraps around the muscular wrist and disappears into the sleeve of the jacket. Your jaw drops, your mouth gaping open as you look back up at the horse.

The corner of his mouth draws up in a crooked smile. "Keep standing there with your mouth open, and I may take it as an invitation," he says, his free hand reaching down to suggestively rub the zipper of his jeans.

You close your mouth with a snap and swallow hard. "Who-- What-- How--?" you stammer, unable to form a single coherent thought.

"My name is Zayne," he says with a deep, throaty chuckle. "As for what, I'm a GEHAH -- a Genetically-Engineered Human/Animal Hybrid. Some of us prefer to be called Furs or Furries. And as for how, I have only a basic knowledge of the science, but according to my grandfather, they were created in a laboratory to be soldiers to fight in a war the humans started. After the war ended, the humans turned on them and tried to destroy them. Some of them hid, some of them fought back. I was born in hiding and grew up in the bombed-out ruins of an old human city. Now, many of us are looking for a new place to live. And I guess this is the alternate universe they picked."