The limo sped through the black tunnel, navigating its routes with near surgical precision. Every degree invested in each turn was calculated, from the fuel consumption to the tire wear, from the amount of force stressing the suspension system to the possible inertia affecting the cabin; all delivered at the fastest optimal speed. Each minute decision made during the drive had been predetermined and imprinted onto selected, specialist drivers trained to navigate the tunnel and nowhere else. Every factor was considered, pondered, and poured over with a scientific conglomerate’s worth of resources to ensure the quickest and safest journey to maximize the comfort of every type of passenger. A cowardly mouse would be just as comfortable during the ride as a hardened rhino, with no exceptions for everything in between and beyond.

Those passengers, this time, were two average-sized equine siblings, dressed in standard-issue uniforms. They were mustangs; the eldest being a mare, the youngest a stallion. The latter sat with his cheeks pressed against the tinted window, staring at the flashes of light reflecting off the passing walls from the limo’s headlights. Patches of white sported across his brown hide. His hair, same-coloured as his skin, draped down to the side of his head, parted between his eyes. His snout rested on his palm as his other hand rested on his lap. He took long, deep breaths, blowing cold fogs onto the fortified glass.

The mare sat opposite the stallion right in the middle of the seats, cross-legged as she scrolled through her phone. Her hide was the exact contrast against the stallion, down to the colour of her patches and her hair, which she tied behind her ears akin to the shape of her tail. The dim glow from her screen illuminated her face, pulling sharp, angled shadows across her snout. Her hands had a lax grip on her device as if she didn’t care if it was in her fingers or dropped onto the carpet floor.

“Ajei, look at this,” her expression remained still and vacant as her eyes glazed past the contents at an uninterested pace.

The stallion kept his eyes straight outside the window, gazing into the stale, dark sight, “What?”

“There’s this new guy in the rankings.”

A silence trailed between the two for a moment.

“Who is it?”

“Some first-year wild boar,” the mare’s voice was monotonous as if she’s reciting off some newspaper, or in this case, her phone, “He took the new number ten spot.”

The stallion responded with no more than an unenthusiastic, “Oh.”

The two horses returned to their respective businesses, leaving no more than the mutual respect for one another’s privacy.

The low rumble of the limo’s engine snuck its way into the soundscape, worming its way into the mustangs’ ears as it took sly refuge in their heads. They served as an underlying, soothing anthem that calmed the two down even more than the two already were. It made the long drive a tad bit more bearable than it would’ve been. That too was a factor considered within the architecture of the drive. In a way, it was flavoured silence; a different genre of quiet that brought with it a tinge that, though minuscule, could last for many distances ahead, mostly enough for the entire trip through the tunnel.

The moment lingered on for a few minutes.

The stallion sighed, painting a new layer of mist onto the limo window.

“Hey, Sis.”

There were a few seconds of silence in between before the mare gave a response.

“Hm?”

“Why so soon, Sis?”

“Whad’dya mean?”

“Why are we returning this early?”

“Whad’dya mean?”

The stallion glanced towards the mare, “We finished our curriculum, right?”

The mare kept her head down, eyes glued to her phone, “Mhm.”

“It’s months until the finals, right?”

“Mhm.”

“So why are we coming back here?”

The mare didn’t answer as she continued scrolling down the screen on her phone.

After a minute, she snapped out a half-hearted, “Got bored.”

The stallion glanced towards the mare, “All of a sudden?”

“Mhm.”

“A decision out of a whim?”

“Mhm.”

“You just picked to go back today, out of all the other days you ‘got bored’?”

“Mhm.”

“Not messages from friends telling you to see them or-”

“You want me to tell you about my heat cycle while we’re at it?”

“No,” the stallion looked back towards the window, “That is all.”

The limo returned once more, this time taking centre stage of the soundscape instead of fronting for the silence.

The speeding walls had become a static image for the stallion. No longer was it a stationary wall moving past his line of sight but rather, a collection of blurry, grey streaks that never seemed to focus in his eyes.

“Hey, Sis.”

This time the mare answered instantly, “Hm?”

“What will you do when you get back?”

The mare didn’t respond for a while.

After a full minute, “Whatever, I guess.”

“Are you gonna revise until the finals come?”

“Probably,” the mare’s grip on her phone further loosened as she sank lower into her seat, her feet practically hoisted perpendicular to her body.

“You should, though.”

“I never fail.”

“You barely pass, every time,” the stallion turned towards the mare, “You would’ve been kicked out if it weren’t for your co-curriculum credit.”

“Co-what-credit?”

“Your track and field,” the stallion tilted his head, “Your club? You don’t remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” the mare’s voice remained unchanged, “That.”

“I’ve never seen you practise ever since we left.”

“I’ll catch up,” the mare responded with no hesitation.

The stallion pressed on, “You flaked out on half our study sessions to go to the gym. You’ve done nothing but boxing for the better half of-”

The mare dropped her phone to her lap, shooting a gaze towards the stallion from her seat that shut him off in an instant.

“Kickboxing,” she corrected the stallion.

“Whatever,” he continued without a hitch, “You’ve been doing that for the better half of last month.”

The mare returned to her phone, “What’s it to you?”

The stallion laid it plain and simple, “You’re gonna fail.”

“What’s it to you?”

“We share the same surname.”

“So?”

The stallion sank back to his seat, pointing his snout back towards the window, “Change it if you fail.”

“Don’t wanna,” the mare lazily grazed her thumb across her phone’s screen, “You do it.”

“I’m not the one failing the family name doing boxing all-”

A burst of energy suddenly surged into the mare. Her back shot straight, bouncing her off her seat as she slammed her hooves to the limo floor.

Without turning his head, the stallion corrected himself, “Right, whatever. I’m not the one failing the family name doing whatever all day.”

The mare didn’t respond to the stallion. Her back was hunched over her phone, clutching it with a grip so tight it was as if her life depended on it. Her eyes widened like a split oyster, her eyelids pried from beneath her skin. Her pupils glued onto her screen, shooting across it as she soaked in every bit of information from the page she was reading from. Her thumb trembled as she scrolled down, her breathing growing frenzied and erratic the longer she stared at the screen.

It was to the point where her behaviour threw off the stallion. Bothered by her silence, he turned towards the mare where his attention was caught in its entirety. It grabbed him out of his posture, pushing him off his seat.

“Sis?”

A grin began splitting across the mare’s snout as her excitement hunched her back, planting her snout mere inches from her phone.

“Si-Sis?”

The mare snapped her neck towards the stallion, her teeth showing from beneath her smile.

“Ajei.”

The stallion swallowed, “Y-Yes?”

“This mixed wolf. Black. Name’s Shiro.”

There was a pause from the stallion as he stared at the mare’s still-grinning face, surprise spilling across his expression.

“Wh-What about hi-”

“What’s his deal,” the mare cut him off.

“Hi-His deal? Uh, he’s a transfer-”

The mare raised an eyebrow, “A transfer?”

“Yes, a-a trans-”

“We never had a transfer before.”

“Yes- Well, no, not until now,” the stallion squinted, “You didn’t know?”

“No.”

“How?”

The mare shrugged, “Whad’dya mean ‘how’?”

“You didn’t check the forums?”

“Why should I?”

“How else would you catch up with the Academy’s news?”

“Why should I?”

The stallion was slightly appalled, “Shiro was the biggest topic in the Academy.”

“I didn’t know.”

“More than half the students hate him.”

“I don’t care.”

“He got in trouble with that Doberman Do-”

“That,” the mare cut the stallion off, pointing a finger towards him, “I know now.”

The mare exchanged gazes with the stallion as she retracted her finger, locking eyes for a long while with her smile still stretched across her snout. The stallion merely stared back, the muscles beneath his face strained from the uncertainty of what expression to put on.

After a moment, the mare sunk back into her seat. Her elation remained ever-present, manifesting from her posture down to the way she pulled her phone close to her face.

The stallion too returned to his seat, though his eyes remained on the mare, intrigue boiling in his chest.

“Hey, Sis?”

The mare glanced up to meet the stallion, “Hm?”

“Why are we going back?”

The mare put her phone down to her lap, “I told you, we-”

“Why, Sis,” the stallion repeated, “Tell me.”

The mare didn’t respond.

“Out of all the places to go,” the stallion pointed out of the window, “Why the Academy?”

The mustangs stared at one another in silence, the hum of the limo taking over the soundscape for a brief while.

The mare sighed, bringing the phone back up to her face again.

“Why’d you come along?”

The stallion tilted his head, “Why would I come with you?”

“Mhm.”

“Well, you’re my sister,” the stallion pointed to himself, “I have-”

“You don’t have to. You didn’t follow me when I went to the gym,” the mare shut the stallion off, “You can go anywhere else, but you followed me here. Back to the Academy.”

The stallion tried to retaliate, “I-”

“You’re like this, Ajei, ever since we’re foals. You always kept things from me,” the mare snorted, sliding her phone into her skirt’s pocket, “You know I’ll just get them back.”

The stallion had his mouth open from shock for a full second before any words came out.

“No,” he pointed towards the mare, “Not this time-”

“You thought I knew about this,” the mare got up from her seat, hoisting her palms on the ceiling, “Didn’t you?”

The stallion lowered his finger, “I-”

“You wanted to see it too,” she began to move towards the stallion, her hooves stepping closer, inch by inch, “Right?”

The stallion shrunk his back to the corner of his seat, “No-”

“You wanted to see it all by yourself,” the mare leaned in towards the stallion, staring him down.

“That’s-”

“But you didn’t know I was gonna come by my own choice,” the mare slammed her arms around the stallion, locking him in his place as she blocked him from all possible angles for escape, “And the timing made you think I knew about this all along.”

The stallion couldn’t say anything, only able to keep his mouth open.

“You’re smart, Ajei. You’re good at calculating and memorizing. You know things and keep up with them better than anyone else,” the mare licked her lips, “But too bad.”

The stallion looked up to the mare for a while, his mouth ajar.

Then he looked down, his expression switching from surprise to displeasure.

“Shit.”

The mare’s smile split further, turning into that of a smug face, “We share blood, Ajei. Never forget that.”

The stallion sighed, “I know, I know-”

“If you did you wouldn’t do this-”

“Because you keep ruining things for me,” the stallion retorted, “You can’t just sit and watch. You always have to join in and mess it all up.”

“And you should know this better than anyone else.”

The stallion turned his head back towards the window, “Promise me you’ll stay out of this…”

The mare gave nothing but a sly grin as a response, prompting another sigh from the stallion.

With a snicker, the mare fished her phone out from her pocket, “You know I said I didn’t know why I’m going back…”

She flashed the device towards the stallion, catching his focus. It was a page from the Academy forums. From the described analytics, it had been the most popular post on the site for a straight week, with a level of engagement the stallion hadn’t seen for a long time. It only consisted of a caption reading New #3? and a blurry photo beneath it, with the pixels obscuring more than they’re showing. Small, identifiable shapes could be made from within, however.

The stallion could recognize the background. It was the backdrop of the infirmary during the night. As pixelated as the photo was, he could still discern the sterilized, minimalist design of the room, with high ceilings and walls as blank as a clean sheet of paper. The stallion could see the rows of beds, each illuminated by the pale, grey moonlight shining from the windows hanging above them. The image seemed tilted and dragged from afar as if it was taken from an unauthorized angle. The stallion could tell the focus was pointed towards a particular bed in the infirmary. It was the only one hidden behind a curtain. The contours behind the curtain held curves hinting towards the presence of a body. The stallion followed the lines towards the foot of the bed where it stuck out beyond the curtain.

A pair of feet could be seen, nails filed and brown-furred.

Two figures stood before the bed, away from the light and obscured within the shadows. One of them was considerably larger than the other. The stallion could tell it belonged to a large species. He deduced that it was a bear, judging from its fur and the shape of its head. It was rushing away, ducking out of the frame but not fast enough to evade capture from the photo.

The other figure was a wolf, standing back-faced to the image. The stallion did not doubt it. The shape of its folded ears and bent tail told him all he needed to know. It was the only still, clear figure within the image aside from the background. It stood in a slackened posture, letting his back hunch as its head hung low. Its hands were relaxed, fingers dangling off his palms with loosened joints. Its feet wore no shoes, exposing its size in all the glory of its oversized abnormality, its claws laying dormant from its relaxed toes.

Something was wrong with the wolf.

Tears ran across its clothes as if it’s been whipped by a storm of razor blades. Creases ran deep through the fabric in places where the stallion could assume the wolf’s physical body should be. There was a cavernous crater where the wolf’s shoulder should be, yet there its arm remained as if it was hanging off a strong thread tied to its neck. Almost every inch of its fur was wet and glistening, tainted with some substance that bordered on being both fluid and viscous.

The wolf was black, head to toe, clothes to fur. It was like staring at a shadow so dark that it stood out amongst the shade to be a solid object. If it weren’t for the faint glimmers of moonlight bouncing off its silhouette the stallion would’ve thought it was just a negative cut out from the image itself.

Upon closer inspection, however, the stallion saw something.

A soft glow, coming from the wolf’s obscured face looking away from the image.

A pale, crimson pupil, staring down at the bed before it with absolute impassivity.

The stallion looked up from the phone to meet the mare, only to see a grin wider than any other he had seen her make.

“…but now I know why I’m staying.”