FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The echo squad was sent to Gerald's house shortly after the discovery of his dead body. Around two hours prior, a SWAT team member had come back to his home for a routine check-up, but upon coming in, he noticed something was out of the ordinary. Upstairs on the second floor, he saw a body, severely burnt, dismembered, disfigured, and completely covered in blood. The surrounding room was completely destroyed. His laptops were broken into about fifteen pieces, the table was split in half, and there were over ten massive holes in the walls. The most disgusting detail was that Eugene's eyes were still open, which witnessed what he was forced to painfully endure.

After having sent his body to a coroner's office, the autopsy revealed the death was caused by extensive trauma to the head. This revelation was very tough to conclude to, for the reason that many other injuries - such as the severe burns, internal bleeding, and massive loss of blood - would have all been equally plausible explanations. However, after investigators analyzed the crime scene carefully, they were able to pinpoint the exact locations and times of the events, thanks to the freshness of the blood spilled. They linked his head wound with one of the holes in the wall, meaning he was thrown horizontally into it, killing him upon impact. They hypothesized that it was the first possible mortal wound he had received, thus making it the official cause of his death.

Following an extensive search, the team before Echo had found a car, which they were later able to link to an Indian family in a reservation north of Minnesota. The family had reported it stolen the day before and also reported the death of a neighbor, who had fallen out of its car window at a high speed. Since the suspects were assumed to have taken a route through Angle Inlet, it made perfect sense to blame the incident on their suspects.

Once the body was removed, the Echo squad was permitted to move in and inspect the place for any suspicious findings. Markus and Frank - another high-ranked officer in the squad - scavenged through the rubble of the attack, looking for anything they could have used as a clue. The laptops seemed to be smashed beyond repair; however, just to be certain, they sent it back to headquarters in case they could have found a use for it. The shredded paper on the ground seemed to have come from the printer, giving it no significant importance, but after clearing most of it, they retrieved his work schedule from the floor. He was a self-employed graphic artist, meaning he would have needed to keep track of his work and tasks to complete on his own. Frank looked through it for a brief moment before expressing his opinion.

"It's not much of a log book. He barely does anything according to this; two or three workloads daily and he has this huge mansion."

"Did you check yesterday and today's entry?", Marcus asked. "Maybe there's something informative there."

Frank scrolled through the pages of the logbook, until he finally made it to yesterday's entry. "Well, that's strange."

"What?"

"He crossed out two jobs he was supposed to do last night, and rescheduled them for today."

"So?"

Frank looked at him with an indifferent smile. "Well, he crossed out two things which he was supposed to do at the time the dragon and his friend were here. Do you really think they did nothing while they were here? Gerald must have done something."

Markus thought about Frank's notion for a few seconds. "But, if he did help them with their escape, why would he tip off the authorities of their location a few hours later?"

"So he could gain their trust. He probably showed them he was their friend, and invited them for the night. However, he must have thought that he'd trap both Matt and Eric." He looked down where Gerald's body once laid, with the blood stains on the wooden floor still present. "Bad mistake, I suppose."

"Well, we caught one of them", Markus stated in reply.

"Yeah, but that proved to be useless, huh?"

Suddenly, a door slammed shut on the first floor of the house, and a man came running up to the second.

"Hey guys, we need some of you to come and check this out. We found where the dragon kid was hiding all night."

"Oh yeah?", Markus questioned, interested. "Where would that be?"

"In a house about two blocks from here. It's empty now, but we need a few people of your squad to come and help us check the place out."

"Alright, no problem." He then raised his voice, demonstrating the amount of control he had over everyone. "Okay, listen up! Six of you are coming with me; we're going to check this new place out. The rest of you stay here."

...

The new house was small and fairly old-looking, but for a location where a dragon had supposedly been located, it was very neat and tidy. An aroma of pancakes filled the air, which came from the batter-stained pan in the sink, and the empty box of pancake mix in the nearby garbage can. The table had a glass atop of it, previously containing orange juice, and two of the chairs were pulled out of its correct positions. It seemed like the owners of the house had cooked up a breakfast for two, which was a very normal setting in Marcus's eyes.

"Alright, I'll bite", he said, in light of the above. "How did you get the search warrant for this house?"

The man who had driven Markus and six other squad members out of the murder house - Dave, a top member of the Bravo squad - explained. "Well, one of our search teams questioned the surrounding locals to see if they saw or heard anything unusual which could have been linked to the case, and sure enough, people from around this area said they had either been woken up or startled by a loud thud at around 1 o'clock this morning, followed by screams around a half hour later. One of them said he thought it came from this house, so we got the warrant pretty easily."

"And...?"

Dave did not seem to catch Markus's drift. "...oh! Right. We did not find many traces of him. No signs of a struggle and no signs of brute force anywhere - only the scream showed us something happened here. Although, we can prove he was here."

"And how is that?"

Dave led him outside into the back yard, and pointing at a ladder which was unfolded, standing up against the roof. "See for yourself."

Hesitant at first, Markus climbed up the ladder and made his way to the house's summit. Indeed, there was something - a large, four foot dent could be seen into the roof, which was followed by scratches and broken shingles as it came down to the edge. It seemed something had landed onto it, and uncontrollably slid down, before falling helplessly. Markus looked down, and as he predicted, there was a large print in the grass below, near the flowerbed installed against the fence. He came down from the ladder and looked at Dave.

"I guess this is our guy, alright. How do you think he fell?"

"We're not quite sure. There was some wind last night, but probably not enough to cause him to veer out of control like this. However, the depth of the dent in the roof's shingles was not very deep, meaning he was not flying very high. He could have somehow hit into one of the surrounding trees, but that's also unlikely since he would have slid onto the roof, and the dent is almost straight down. To be quite honest, I don't know what else to tell you."

"Well, it's no matter I suppose. Is there anything inside the house linking him to here?"

"No. That's why we needed your help. We searched the house everywhere for any signs of damage or anything unusual; nothing. We need to dust the place for prints."

Markus let out a sigh of displeasure. He was not enthusiastic when it came to dusting for prints, but if he had to do it, he would do it. "Alright then, let's get at it. Who owns this place, anyways?"

"Oh, right. The house is registered to an individual named Diane Jones. No one else lives with her."

"And where is she now?"

"We aren't sure. Her car's gone, and we think she left around two hours ago."

...

"Diane?!"

Eric looked towards the woman who came through the curtains in front of him; the exact same one who drove him to his current destination. He was shocked - why was she there? Did something happen? Did she need him? He wanted an answer, and he wanted it fast.

"Hi...", Diane said, awkwardly, refraining to use his name in public.

"Diane, what are you doing here? I thought you went back home?"

She walked over to his seat. "No, I bought a ticket and came here on--" Suddenly, the seat belt light flickered on at the front of the row, issuing the final warning for passengers to take their seats. She turned around to look at it, before directing her attention to Eric, who was still in awe of the situation. "My seat is in the C section at the back. I'll explain later when we can get up." She then left him, in favor of her seat at the back of the plane.

His mind did not process the situation very well. He knew she could not come along with him for the trip. The moment he would walk out of the plane, he would be surrounded with people. He could not afford to have her around in such dangerous condition, and frankly, she would only slow him down. He would have constantly been running and he did not know if she would be able to keep up. There was something about her - something he saw in her the minute she decided to drive him to the airport. He could not tell what that thing was, and he knew it would not turn out well for him.

The plane started its engines, and taxied to the runway which they were going to take off from. It got into position, began to accelerate, and soon, they were able to pull up and into the sky, which came with increased air pressure. Eric had never been very fond with air pressure; he would swallow, chew gum, and force yawns, but nothing seemed to help. However, he realized he did not feel any discomfort in his ears that time at all. "Of course", he thought. "Why would a dragon be prone to air pressure? It would constantly feel it in the sky" This was, in his mind, yet another advantage, of being a dragon.

Around five minutes later, he noticed people relaxing a bit more, meaning the plane was stabilizing. Surely enough, the seat belt warning turned off, causing Eric immediately and impatiently taking his off, while heading towards the back of the plane. Upon crossing the curtains separating the two compartments, he noticed she had already gotten up, walking towards the bathroom at the end. He followed her trail, and analyzed the lock status; vacant. "Why isn't she locking the door?", he asked himself. He went inside, and saw her at the end of the small, six foot room. He approached her, but suddenly, she reached out to shut the door behind him, while pulling him to her face, and kissing him.

She wrapped her hands around his face, pulling him closer towards her, and passionately continued to lock lips with Eric. The former had never been so confused in his entire life. He let her do what she was doing for a few moments, before pushing her aside, ready to demand some answers.

"What the hell was that?" His eyes were wide open, trying to let everything sink in.

"Shut up", she replied, in a relaxed and stern voice. She brought him back to her lips and tried to kiss him once more, but Eric firmly pushed her aside once again.

"Would you quit it?! Why did you get on this plane? I need to go to New York alone, not with you."

"Eric...", she said, in yet another voice of desperation. "I've never been so attracted to someone in my entire life. You completely blew me away when you shifted out of your dragon form at my house. And the way you began to talk to me, to try and calm me down... I don't know. It just made me completely fall in love with you."

As much as this was shocking to Eric, he began to realize something; this was the only reason she helped him out. This was the only reason she let him inside her house, and did not call the cops. This, in his view, was absurd. "Diane, I really can't do this. It's much too dangerous."

"Don't say that, Eric. I'm in great shape and you know it. I can do anything you need, so don't try to convince me I can't help you."

He quickly grew irritated. "No! Look, you haven't been what I've been through. You wouldn't be able to run from everything and everyone you know. You say that you'll be able to do everything needed to do, but it's very easier said than done. I said the same thing you said to Matt, and I highly regret saying it, because I now hate running like this. It sucks, and..." His mind flashed back to his conversation with Matt, remembering his exact words. "I don't want anyone to go through the same thing, including you."

There was a moment of silence - the exact same moment of silence Eric and Matt had. It was intense, and Diane's face gradually began to drift away. Her eyes watered as tears began to run down her gentle face. Guilt soon empowered Eric as she started to cry.

"Oh, please don't cry. I didn't mean it like that."

"No, it's... it's not you", she said, struggling to keep her voice from cracking and additional tears from falling. She wiped some of them away. "I... I used to have a fiancé three years ago. He said he loved me with all of his heart, and would shower me with gifts. One day, he finally pulled out the little blue box and got down on one knee." She laughed beneath her cries. "I quickly said yes, leading us to think we were going to be the perfect couple. But then, around five months before our wedding, he broke up with me before revealing he was a lion TFR. I loved him too much to even care about such a thing! But, he left me anyways, with the reason being I would not be able to tolerate a TFR, and 'the things which came along with it'." She cried once again, but Eric held her in his arms and tried to assure her everything was going to be fine. However, she was not done, and she showed this by gently moving away from his arms, stepping back once more. She sniffled and wiped more tears away. "I was depressed for about three months, I lost my job, and I sold my house for the one I have now. I grew so lonely. I found a new job, but always had to work there in order to sustain myself. No one was ever really interested in me, and I simply felt wrecked. But when I saw you..." She let out a smile, while pointing her head toward the tiled floor. "You reminded me so much of him. You were a TFR, you were nice and charming, but you were running away. That's what I needed in my life; to run away. So, I bought a ticket after going to the bathroom and I followed you straight into the plane." She looked back up towards the emotionless TFR looking her straight in the eyes. "Eric... I love you so much, but..." She paused. She had completely stopped crying, and looked away once more. "I don't want to be selfish and put my life into your hands. If you don't want me with you, that's fine. I'll just take the next flight back to Fargo and continue with my life."

Another brief moment of silence ensued. Deep down, he did like her, but he did not want to drag her into his troubled life. It would be too much for the both of them to handle, and he knew she would regret it. Yet, for some odd reason unknown to him, he completed contradicted his thoughts with his next move.

"Oh, fuck it." He advanced towards Diane, before she even had the chance to look up. He grabbed her face and pulled it towards his, the same way she did to him. He had no idea what he was doing, and he knew it was terribly wrong given the circumstances, yet he did not stop. He kissed her slowly, but sped up once Diane caught on, who wrapped her arms around his neck once again. Eric played with her blond hair as they locked intensely and intimately onto each other. They continued this for just under half a minute, before realizing it was not enough. Eric pushed her against the wall of the bathroom they were in and began to caress her neck. She seemed to adore this as she arched her head backwards, her lips rolling into a smile. Finally, Diane decided to take his shirt off, clearly wanting to go further; however, about halfway through, she let out a muffled sigh of content.

"Oh... Eric..."

Suddenly, they both stopped as they heard a gasp from the other side of the stall door. Eric presumed he had been there for a while, but that did not matter as he began to yell, running towards the left compartment of the plane.

"Holy shit! It's him! It's the dragon from on the news!!"