Fox in the Center

         This is a draft of what I've been meaning to write. I really want constructive criticism on it. I felt I had to just start typing and get feedback in order for me to stick it through. I'm hoping those who are kind enough to read through my drafts give me good advice as well. I only want to improve from here!


If he closed his eyes and never woke up, would he be dead? Who was it to know if he'd ever open them again, anyway? His last thoughts were really dumb rhetorical questions, but he faded into them anyway, letting his dreamstuff swim around them.

He was under the ocean's cold embrace, so far he couldn't see the light reflecting off the surface. His body sunk like an anchor. With eyes in a daze, he watched the unending darkness that weighed on him like quicksand.

His mask, so a part of him that he felt it loosening–he reached for it as it floated upwards, just out of his grasp. Then his descent slowed, and he hit the bottom of the ocean.

A wave of nausea rolled over him, forcing him to gasp in air. His eyes, which he hadn't known were closed, tore open. He stood alone in a field of white lotus.

Then, souls floated around him. He stared at them in bewilderment. Every being he had ever met floated around him. Suddenly, they transformed into their physical forms. By the thousands, they gathered around him. They smiled.

A little girl, who he barely recognised as one of his favorite humans, Rena, tugged him by the hem of his shirt. "Tomihiko-sama, wake..."

"…up! They're coming..! Please save us," the strange child said.

His eyes opened once again, but with a sense of realness. He was floating mid-air. Below him, a few humans in shiny metal suits were marching towards his shrine. Three small humans huddled in front his offering box.

He willed himself downwards, shocking the small humans. The biggest of the three edged cautiously in his direction.

"Mister Fox God?" It asked.

The human language sounded very different than the last time he heard it. He tilted his head in confusion. Seeing his dilemma, it frantically pointed in the direction of the metal humans and made gestures. It slid its small, fat finger across its throat and made a gag noise.

"Speak more," he said. His magic worked around the barriers, allowing his words to adapt to their language. It sounded like he frightened it and its companions a bit.

"O-Okay, uhm, the Queen's guards are trying to sell us because our parents are too poor to pay taxes, and uhm, I'm Penui, and he's Ukul, and the youngest is Shuya."

It took him a second for his magic to understand her words. When he did, he realised that big humans of metal and small, squishy humans should not fight. It would be unfair.

"Do you want me to stop them?" He asked, with genuine curiosity. "Is this your wish?"

She nodded, just in time with the metal humans' arrival. There were maybe 6. He wondered why they needed so many to suppress such small humans, but he already decided to side with the smalls.

"Who are you? Take off your mask," the front metal human said.

"Tomihiko. I'll take it off, if you're sure," he said in a light laugh. Something about it made it sound threatening.

The black kitsune mask fell to the ground. From behind him sprouted 9 large tails, flailing and ominous. The darkness of them resembled his hair. Rather than reflect light, it seemed to eat it.

He grinned wide, full of mirth. Humans in the past had little ounces of magic power in them, but not one around him had any. He concluded that they evolved stupidly. How were they going to defend against monsters and demons? These idiots.

A ball of black flame shifted an inch above his hand. The metal humans moved into defensive positions, but he could tell their surprise even from under their masks. They must be new to magic.

Like the breath of the universe, the flame rumbled with magnificence. Tomihiko wondered if this much was too much, but he had already flung it at them. Maybe their suits would deflect—

Oh, nope. Burned straight through. Straight through the body, too. Humans were frail, weren't they?

The flame stopped inside its body, and then set its whole being on fire. Tomi scratched his head. The rest of the big humans screamed and cursed at him, and two charged.

"Uhm," he mumbled out loud as he levitated with clouds at his feet, "I don't want to fight. So... cease," he said.

The two were past him, though, and they managed to grab the smallest humam. Tomi felt his soul vibrate.

His task was to protect them. Unfortunately, said the fox inside his head, they were in imminent danger. Flame spirits appeared all around him. They rushed at the two.

"Your magic will kill the children, you—" And they burned.

The small humans fell out of their grasp, landing on the floor. The remnants of its captives was the warmth in the air. Before the last three could escape, the flames rushed at them as well, and they were history.

To the three safe, small humans, underneath the witness of the rising sun, the Deity Era had begun. Little did they know, it was something more profound, more beyond the world as they knew it.

It was the Awakening Era.