FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

A fire was crackling in the corner of a dimly lit room, its radiant warmth doing its best to fight back the winter chill. The light from the fire was cast upon the walls of the wooden cottage, illuminating framed paintings hung upon the walls, the sparse furniture around the room, and the shag pile rug a few feet from the fireplace. A loud snore broke the silence, coming from a squishy recliner pulled up in front of the fire. A young man, no older than 25, was sleeping soundly as snow piled up upon the windows. His slightly unshaven face was covered in auburn stubble, and his hair had all fallen onto one side. He was still wearing his work clothes, albeit in a state of partial undress; white top, black tie, untucked and loosened, as well as grey pants and a matching jacket hanging off the back of the recliner. Silence returned to the room, disturbed only by the soft crackling of the fireplace.

A gentle breeze managed to worm its way through the cracks of the window overlooking the room and blew across the sleeping figure, causing him to shiver slightly and wake up. He grumbled softly and glanced at his watch, before rolling over and sitting up, rubbing at his face where he had been laying on it. His ears pricked as he heard the soft ding of received messages on his phone, and to his dismay, despite having left his engineering job for the weekend five hours ago, the emails were already starting to pile up. He sighed and stood up, stretching luxuriously, before letting his arms fall to the ground and muttering to himself, "God, Sam, you really need to find yourself a better line of work."

He continued grumbling to himself as he walked barefoot to the kitchen, looking for a drink, when a soft (but steadily growing) noise outside caught his attention. He grabbed a snow jacket hanging by the door and rushed outside as a massive fireball hurtled overhead with a deafening roar, before passing quickly beyond the trees. A few seconds later came a loud crash as the meteor impacted the forest floor, sending debris and startled birds flying. He stared in its general direction for a moment, before shaking himself out of his stupor and rushing back to the door; that was a goddamn meteor that just landed, and he was gunna check it out for himself! He hurriedly put on his hiking boots and grabbed his phone and his GPS, the former to get pics, and the latter to make sure he didn't get lost in the miles of forest surrounding his cabin. After getting his bearings and noting the coordinates of the cabin on his phone, he struck off in the direction the meteor.

The bridge of the Gladius was in utter shambles. The front of the room had caved in, revealing the dark, wintery forest outside, while electronics sparked where they had burst from the walls. The lights above flickered dimly, but other than that, main power seemed to be offline. A collective groan was heard as most of the crew picked themselves up off the ground after their rough landing, quickly busying in making sure everyone was relatively unharmed. Feo clambered unsteadily back up and slumped in her chair, holding her head with a hand while she surveyed the destruction, "Status report, any injuries?" she asked, tapping at the arms of her chair in an attempt to bring up her displays. A mumbled negative was all she got in reply as her crew started inspecting the damage.

Feo growled a little in frustration, before flicking her wrist, causing a small display to start hovering just in front of her. She began to start tapping away at it, examining just how badly her ship had been damaged, when Raalic limped in, blood drooling from a gash in his leg, but otherwise unharmed. Feo glanced back at him, before her eyes widened when she saw his injury, "Oh my gosh, Raalic, are you okay?" she asked worriedly, rushing over to him. She stumbled a little as she made her way over, causing him to lurch forward to catch her in case she fell.

"Ahm fine, Feo, it's just ah scratch, ahm more worried about you!"

Feo rolled her eyes, "I just knocked my head a little hard is all."

Raalic raised a bushy eyebrow at her statement, "Ah yeh sure? Do you want me to run a-"

Feo glared at him, "Raalic. I'm fine. See the doc, she should be making her rounds any moment now. Once you're patched up, try to get main power back up and running, I'd like to be able to signal home for a pickup. In the meantime, I'm gunna do some recon. We crashed in a fairly isolated part of this continent, but I'd feel better setting up motion trackers, just in case. I'll be back soon."

Sam had been trudging through the light snow for at least an hour by now, and the darkness of the Canadian winter had only seemed to grow. He huffed softly and leaned against a tree for a moment, glancing at his phone, then the GPS. That meteor should have landed close to here, right? The guys back at work wouldn't believe what he found!

A soft noise to his right caught his attention, and he turned to see another black figure creeping through the snow. Sam blinked in surprise; there weren't supposed to be many people up this way, but sure, the more the merrier! He was about to call out to them when he noticed something odd. Maybe it was just a trick of the light, but it looked like the person had large fox ears on top of their head! But what Sam was absolutely sure about, was that was definitely a rifle they were carrying, so the last thing he should do would be calling out to them. The figure stopped and crouched by a tree, before pulling something out of the pack they were carrying, then attaching it to the tree next to them. Sam peered closer at them from his hidden vantage point; they were smaller than him, by at least a foot, maybe more. They were wearing long black pants with a flared cuff at the end of each leg, and behind them swished a long, fluffy brown tail. They also seemed to be wearing an armoured vest of some kind with a high collar, with several pouches across its breast. They had a long, almost skin tight (‘or would that be fur-tight?’ he thought with a chuckle) black shirt on underneath, likely to protect from the elements.

The snapping of a branch dragged his attention from this bizarre sight. The fox creature didn't seem to hear it though, and continued on their way.

Sam scanned the surrounding forest, and was just about to brush it off as a bird moving around when he saw it. Another humanoid form crouched in a tree not too far from him. At first glance, it looked like just another person, but their silhouette was too lumpy in all the wrong places for it to be human. Then it raised something to its shoulder and his breath caught in his throat; it was going to shoot that other one!

He glanced between the two of them nervously, unsure of what he should do. Then the fox-figure walked through a moonbeam, giving him a perfect look at her face. Brown fur speckled with white snow and ears tipped with burgundy-red, as well as a pair of short horns hiding among the tufts of her mane-like hair. He felt a lurch in his chest; somehow, he knew this person! The figure in the tree moved slightly, like they were sighting down their barrel, and Sam knew what he had to do.

"Look out!" he howled at the fox.

Feo sighed as she set up the final motion sensor, “This should hopefully give us warning if someone is approaching…” she thought to herself. She lifted her rifle again and continued trudging through the snow. Gosh, this place was bringing back memories of home, of the forests outside her childhood house... Of course, it was far colder than this planet was, and there was only one moon in the sky above instead of three, but if she closed her eyes, she could just imagine-

A loud shout caught her attention and made her whirl around, startled. Then she saw it, in the trees. She dived for the ground as a bolt of glowing green plasma sizzled through the air she had just recently vacated. She scrambled back up and managed to slip behind the tree next to her as more shots rained down upon her.

She growled and raised her rifle, peering cautiously around the tree to relocate her assailant. She spotted him high in a branch; he appeared to have turned his head and was talking rapidly into a communicator. She flung herself out from behind the tree and raised her rifle, while the shadowy figure turned back to face her. Two bolts of plasma were fired simultaneously, one green, the other purple, both travelling in opposite directions.

The purple bolt soared through the air and buried itself in the assassin's neck, instantly killing him and sending his smoking corpse tumbling to the ground.

The green bolt narrowly missed colliding with the purple one, and impacted Feo square in the right shoulder, knocking her backwards onto the snow, her vision now filled with stars, sky, and black trees. As her vision started to fade, her thoughts turned to home; a home that now lay in ruins. They were of family, loved ones lost, and ultimately, of her people.

The soft crunching of someone approaching was heard, but it seemed so distant now that it was meaningless. She heard something indistinct being spoken and the blurry face of someone above her. But she was too far gone, her vision kept fading, until everything vanished into inky blackness.