Chapter I - A rude awakening

Xenva found herself lying face down on the ground. It was not the concrete she had expected, but rather a moist muddy and especially dirty surface. She tried to remember what happened a few seconds ago, she was entering the building where her target was supposed to be hiding, and then there was a bright flash.
Running a system check, she not only found out there was neither internal nor external damage to her systems, but the log entry of the blast was several minutes in the past. Apparently she had been lying here for at least that long. The question was, how did she get here?
Xenva sniffed in the air, strange smells entering her nose. Apart from the mud, she smelled... nothing. No, there was another faint smell. A smell of... fertilizer.
She tried to make sense of it all, but her reasonings seemed to run in circles. She was in a city, entering a warehouse, and now she was lying in the mud, several minutes in the future.
Moaning, she tried to get up. Her fur was wet and sticky, and something else seemed to be missing. When she opened her eyes, all she could see was mud. Raising her head barely improved her view, except she could now make out several tree-shaped shadows in the distance.
Since she appeared to be alright, she sat up and tried to become more aware of her surroundings. Switching to Infrared did not help, everything was cold and wet. She stared into the mist, hoping to find a small red patch on the dark blue background. After looking all around her, she switched back to normal vision and activated her Bioscanner. Yet that did not return any signal either.
She was alone, cold and... naked?!
Xenva looked down at her body, which was lacking the armor she had worn only a few minutes ago. Her hips and breasts were covered in the sticky mud, creating a filthy contrast with her white fur.
She breathed in and out a few times, trying to calm herself down. The situation did not seem to pose a threat to her, so she tried to remember what happened again.
Yet all she could remember was the blast after entering the warehouse, and then waking up in the mud. The nearest countryside had been miles away, so there was no logical way she could have been blown out to it. And even if the blast had knocked her out, there would be something in her log!
Gasping, she realized the blast had been a nuclear one. They had used a nuclear warhead to take her out! This could only mean her target had not been inside the warehouse, as it was most unlikely he would sacrifice his own life to destroy her.
This answer left her with another question: If she had been this close to a nuclear blast, why was she here? She was immune to small fire, but the explosion should have incinerated her. She had to be dead.
Trembling, she pulled her legs against her and started to cry.
If this was the afterlife, it could turn out to be even worse than her life had been. She glanced once more at the dreadful scene before the tears clouded her vision. She did not want to be dead. Perhaps this was her punishment for all the murders she had committed? Xenva was not a religious person, mostly because she never had a chance, but also because she knew her creator well.
Xenva was the product of the Terracorp Cyborg section. She had been created as a part assassination, part pleasure cyborg. She hated both parts. She could not, would not decide which part she hated most, but her life had not been good.
Off course, she had little means to compare, for she had been under her master's service for its entirety. She would act like a pleasure droid, and when her master needed someone removed, she would be sent out to do so. The thing was, and this was her second mystery in live, she was a fox, and the world was populated with humans. Exactly why her master though it was a good idea to create her like he had was beyond her. This was probably the reason why she got blown up eventually.
The first mystery in her life was, "if I am alive, do I get an afterlife?"
Xenva's joy that there seemed to be an afterlife for her was dwarfed out by both the fact that it seemed to consist of rain and mud, and also because she was naked and alone.

After several minutes of she was getting fed up with sitting in the mud, and she slowly started to get up. When she found out just how dirty she was, she tried to brush the mud out of her fur. But she only succeeded in moving it from her legs and chest to her paws.
Looking around, she said to herself "Well girl, there's no point in just sitting here and crying. You'd better try to find out if there's some place you can clean up."
She picked a random direction and started walking, trying to avoid any deep patches of mud. Despite her best efforts, she sank to her hips twice during her journey, adding more mud to her already coated fur.
Several hours later, she spotted a small light in the distance. It seemed to flicker a little, as if it was a small fire. Getting closer, the light split into two, and Xenva managed to recognize the outline of a small cottage.
Heading there with renewed hope, she crosses several wire fences, jumping over the last one in anxiety.
When she reached the cottage, it appeared to be a shoddy stone farmhouse. Apparently the word "maintenance" was not known around here.
Xenva however, did not care, as to her the farmhouse promised warmth and shelter. She moved to the door and nearly knocked trough in her hurry to get inside. All she hoped for was that there was room for her.
Her hope was short-lived though, as the door was opened by a fat and smelly shadow. Before she could react, it snorted at her and yelled. "Who do you think you are, walking around naked and waking up honest, hardworking folk like myself! Get off my property!"
"Please sir, I'm lost, can you..."
"I said get out!" The shadow pushed her away from the door, moving to close it.
"Please!"
The door was slammed shut in her face, leaving her in the rain which, true to form, started to increase. Sighing, she turned to leave when she heard a sharp bark from behind the house.
Suddenly a large black dog came running around the corner, snarling at her. Xenva stared to run, despite the fact that she could take it out by so much as looking at it.
Outrunning it easily, she reached a large fence and jumped over it, cutting herself away from the dog. It stood there, barking and scratching at the fence, taunting her.
She just turned around and started walking again, unsure where she would end up.

Another two hours later she found another small hut, yet this one was completely dark. Xenva hoped no-one lived there, so that she might spend the night there, without anyone disturbing her.
Before getting too near it, she sniffed the air for any recent visitors, but the rain had drained away all the smells. The hut did appear even more shoddy than the last one, so she assumed it was abandoned. It would serve her purpose perfectly however. She did not intend to live there, just spend one night. She had to get back to civilization, back to her master. No matter how much she hated him, he was all she had.
Not being able to stand it any more, she ran towards the hut, nearly slammed the door out of its hinges, and entered the relatively dry dwelling.
The interior confirmed her suspicions, it had been abandoned a long time ago. But whomever had left here had abandoned more than his house. There was still a lot of furniture left, most in bad shape.
A shudder came over her as she realized whomever lived here might have died here as well. Fear full of what she might see, she opened the curtain to the bunk, nearly fainting from excitement when it turned out to be empty.
She looked around for something to wash herself with, and found a large tub, slowly being filled with the rain which was seeping trough the roof. Gratefully, she stepped into the water, soaking her completely but also washing the mud out of her fur. After several minutes, she had managed to clear out most of the dirt, and she got out and emptied the bath outside, then putting it back under the hole in the roof to fill it up for the morning.
Looking inside a closet, she found several old blankets. Dry and full of holes as they were, they allowed her to dry up a little. The closet also contained several sets of clothing. Xenva could hardly imagine her luck. She tried out and put aside the best looking set, leaving them on a table for tomorrow.
Xenva smiled to herself. "Well, I've always imagined about an afterlife, but it seems I neglected re-incarnation."
Settling down on a chair, she made stock of the things she had. Opening her left leg, it appeared one of her power-cells was still there. Unfortunately she did not have access to a power-source, so she would have to be careful about energy. Switching to low-power mode, she silently cursed herself for not thinking about it earlier. She would have to find something to eat to regain power. Checking her current power-cell, she found out it was almost empty. The other cell, however, was completely charged, so she would have about 40 hours left before she would shut down, not including sleep.
Neither her right leg nor her stomach contained anything, so she just returned the power-cell in her leg and moved into the bunk.
Thankful for the soft and warm bed, she smiled, almost drifting off immediately.
A grin appear on her face as she started dreaming, a handsome man, a fox like herself, had joined her in the bunk.

"Alright, at this point Xenva does something naughty. Or actually, she enjoys herself a little. This scene has no effect on the rest of the story, so you can skip it if you want."
But if you want to read it, click here.

Sighing happily, she fell asleep, hoping tomorrow would be even better.

Chapter 2: The morning after

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