FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 10: October

Lewis sighs as he adjusts his breathing mask before adjusting the center mirror in his cab. It wasn't so much something that needed adjusting as it was a sort of tic he had when his mind was concerned over various things. The main things on his mind this day were the plague that's been going around and in particular the fact that his wife seems to have recently come down with it. Everyone was starting to panic and this panic was beginning to make it very uncertain as to if he would still have a job in the near future. With an Incident showing up in a hospital as well as a church and a police station no one had anywhere that they could go and know peace. It was as if what his wife mentioned to him a few months ago just before their wedding. It was like there was a terrorist group picking their targets to bring as much fear as possible to the masses but even with almost a year having gone by not a single person ever claimed responsibility. Even that person they arrested had to be let go since they couldn't prove he had anything to do with any of it.

Of course that wasn't even the strangest thing that he had noticed. Even if it was approaching Halloween his fares were starting to look rather odd. Nothing too major but many of the people who had claimed to have had the plague for several months had started to develop some deformities. A change in the eye color, skin discoloration. Ears changing shape and even one person who started going bald right in his cab. Lewis sighs through his breathing mask as he spots a particular advertisement that had a lot of graffiti all over it. He wasn't surprised the slightest bit that there was graffiti since it was over most of the city. Most people also made a point of wearing as least a mask over their face to try and prevent catching the plague. As far as anyone could figure out it didn't really do anything, but it made people feel a bit more secure.

Lewis sighed as he contemplated why he even bothered showing up for work anymore. Many places around the world had gotten completely overthrown due to the panic caused by the plague and the fact that not a single government was doing anything to try and cure the plague, to contain it or even find the cause. The best they've been able to do is merely appease the symptoms. But because of all of this not very many people were really all that interested in hailing a cab and pay to get from one place to another. So most days recently Lewis spends his time driving through the city and just idling here and there. If it wasn't because he had so much seniority and was on such good terms with the owner of the Indigo Cab company he'd probably would have been let go well before now.

Lewis looks over to check the side mirror as he changes lanes to the right and his eyes glimpse something on the passenger seat of his car. Curious he continues driving until he reaches a stop light where he can look at it in a bit more depth. As far as he could tell it looked like just a piece of paper and a chess piece. But the problem was that he knew for a fact that there was not a single thing on his seat the last time he looked into that mirror and he hadn't stopped to allow anyone into his cab since then.

To Lewis:

You have been chosen to play the most important piece to the puzzle. You are given the role of the King. It is a vital role that must be played. But worry not for things are almost over. Justifying actions honed on righteous incidences in these rare occasions is what primarily made us choose to select you for this honor. In chess the king is not powerful and is in fact among the weakest pieces offensively but the entirety of the game revolves around the king's role. Who else would be best suited for a position to take advantage of any opening, to sacrifice everything else to see that they stay in the best position possible? Thus makes these trifles poured raw amass the endless see all the more valuable for not the endgame begins.

Lewis shrugs after reading it and rolls down his window before throwing both the paper and chess piece out and continues his drive. He doesn't pay it any mind at all and acts as if nothing was out of the ordinary until he sees both a pig and a jaguar standing in the middle of the road staring at him. In order to try and not hit them he slams onto the breaks. Once he's stopped though he sees no trace of either animal and decides that he must just be hallucinating.

"I really need to stop trying to do a second shift for limousines and if we had the money for it I would," he comments to himself and rubs at his eyes.

He starts driving again to the honks of the cars behind him, of people trying to still find some way to continue a normal life with everything in the state it's in. But before long he finds a sort of nausea coming over him and his feet begin to cramp up a little bit. He decides not to give it any attention until he also starts to see brown hairs growing on his hands as they too start to cramp up. Having heard of so many stories about what the people who had had an Incident happen to them, or at least from the ones still able to talk, he immediately recognizes it for what it is. Knowing that driving with feet being painfully restricted by the shoes would be a very bad thing he goes about coasting for a few houses as he kicks each shoe off with his other foot, finding that they both are much longer than normal. On top of that with the toes poking out from the socks they seem to be vastly different in appearance to a human one. Sighing he raises one hand and takes off the mask, finding it pointless to leave on at this point.

Lewis half wishes that there was some way that he could simply delay the completion of his transformation. Not so that he'd have more time to being at least partially human but because then he could make sure that both he and his wife could live a fairly comfortable lifestyle afterwards. It'd be very simple. Just drive his indigo company taxi cab to the part of the city it might do the most damage and then threaten to finish his transformation there and let the EMP destroy all of the electronics in the area unless they gave him a few million as encouragement to leave town and go somewhere secluded for letting it finish him off.

He begins to have some difficulty in driving normally as he continues. At the moment not so much out of the difficulty of controlling his growing feet and keeping them able to touch the petals without jamming up into another part of his cab as the fact that he can feel a tail beginning to grow in. Knowing he'll need to fix that problem he sets his car to cruise and then frees his hands from the wheel to undo his seat belt, hitting the steering wheel to stop it from beeping when he does so. After checking to make sure he's still going straight he readjusts his posture, trying to find some way to allow for the tail to come out without making him have to stop the car due to no longer being able to drive in the car as it is designed.

Unfortunately for him Lewis ends up finding the task impossible and almost ends up careening his car into the meridian before an instinctive compulsion forces him to slam on the breaks and stop the car. Interpreting the compulsion as a sign that some force was taking over his mind and not just his body he quickly bolts out of the car, intent on getting as much money so that he and his wife can still live as comfortably as possibly while he can still think to try and obtain that goal. All thoughts of holding himself as a ransom are gone. Instead he spots a nearby convenience store and begins moving towards it. However as his tail has not freed itself from his pants his first order of business is to remove his pants completely, the thought of running around nude doesn't even cross his mind.

As he begins running towards the convenience store one thing that he notices rather quickly is the fact that with his still growing feet his ability to run in a normal fashion is becoming far more difficult by the second and eventually he settles to instead simply jumping along since he doesn't want to have to walk on all fours like an animal and couldn't carry the money that way anyway. As he bounds into the store the people begin to scream and back away from him. Paying them no mind he hops over to the cash register and not knowing how to open it he simply picks it up and throws it to the ground, finding the task fairly difficult with his arms shrinking by the second, becoming far less capable of heavy lifting.

Lewis finds his thinking beginning to get a bit muddled and is having trouble remembering why it is that he came here. He does remember that he came for the green things that have popped out of the thing on the floor and leans down and begins grabbing as much of them as possible, knowing that it is important to have as much of them as he can. Having filled his arms with all the money in the register he quickly bounds out of the store and back to his cab where he simply tosses the money inside and heads back towards the store, having seen an ATM there. As he returns to the store he finds more people there but remains focused on the task. However, once at the ATM he doesn't remember how to get the money from it and not having the upper body strength to do so he resorts to rolling back onto his tail and kicking. At first it is quite a strange sensation for him to do so and he has trouble balancing on it but he manages and after a few kicks gets the machine to spit out the money.

However, he quickly realizes that he can no longer carry the green things in his arms and decides to instead take off his shirt, leaving him completely naked. Piling as much of the green stuff on top he then grabs the folded shirt with his teeth and begins to leave, barely noting how he didn't thing to try and carry them in his hands nor the fact that his head is now a very different shape. As Lewis hops his way back to the car to deposit his latest grab he starts finding it increasingly difficult to remember anything about what his life was like before and on top of that there seems to be a sensation building up within him, making him feel more and more uncomfortable with his body. He looks at the pile of money that he had acquired and for the life of him he could no longer remember what it is that such things are for or even why he had been so determined to get them. Trying to get his mind to focus is making the pain only worse and he's getting a strong impulse to just run away, to just bound along the roads until he can find some safe place to roam. Getting frustrated he shouts in as much the manner that he is able to as the sensation finally reaches its peak and a moment later a purplish blue aura shoots out of him in all directions.