FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

There's an odd calm about an empty place, that should be full. Almost as if the walls are breathing. Well not 'Almost as if', they are breathing. It's not well known that walls breathe but the few that do know, are not just told but know, hear them. Slow and relaxed, deep and thoughtful. A woman leans against the walls and just, listens, now at this very moment she pushes her back harder than needed to the breaths and tries to keep hers as steady. Its getting harder and harder for her to do this, to keep in time with the walls. Every day it gets harder. But today she does it, she's always been able to do it and today was no different. What worries her is tomorrow, and if not tomorrow then the next day.

i

She leaves the empty place just as the first person of the day walks in, wide eyed and desperate. The walls take one last gulp of air as this person reaches into his jacket, which looks far more like a robe. It is a jacket though, not because it looks like a jacket but because this person, this man, says it is. And what this man says almost always goes, regardless of whether he's right. He walks slowly and calmly forwards, while simultaneously reaching into his jacket and pulling out a small black carbon fiber gun. 'Is she still here', he thinks, 'will I die'. These two thoughts jump in between the more mundane ones. Because no matter how hard this man tried, a small number of pointless thoughts would always echo in the background. 'Do my colleagues respect me', 'is life worth living', 'Did I leave the kettle on'.

i

He already knew the answer to all of these. He kept asking in the hopes that the answers would somehow change, and yes he did leave the kettle on. He stopped in the middle of the large empty stone lobby. The room wasn't actually empty, there were bodies in it. They just weren't as, full as they should be. They were dead, and had been made so very recently. He could tell because the light was still in their eyes, it had only been a few minutes since they died. Then the thought rebonded and amplified. 'THEY HAD ONLY BEEN DEAD FOR A FEW MINUTES'.

i

The man rushed to the nearest body, his free hand reached into his jacket again, pulled out a thin syringe with a neon yellow fluid inside, stuck the needle in the body's neck, injected and heard a heaving breathe in response. It's eyelids fluttered for a few seconds and then it started screaming, the deafening howl causing the mans heart to stop. 'FUCK. FUCK FUCK FUCK' had been his last thought before the warm embrace of darkness wrapped around his view.

i i i

The man lay there dead, technically dying as some little fragments of organic machines still ran, in a desperate and futile attempt to remain alive. But the part that is called him, was now gone, collapsing in on itself again and again and again. So now it stands above a body that was once a man. A thing living because of death. It did not know what to do until a delayed impulse fired through its muddled mind; reaching down to its legs making it run. Through the doors and into a world that was neither ready for its existence or capable of understanding what it would become in the future.

i

While it ran it felt the world turning under its feet. Which started to become paws, transforming ever-so slightly when each one left the ground. It kept running on not two but four legs. It ran past so many things. Some of which it recognized. Like the man who made the word 'husband' dance in the ever changing town of its mind. He was holding a child and staring directly into its eyes, too sleep deprived to do anything but love as the child cried. It ran past another man who made the word 'lover' walk slowly holding hands with the word 'cheater' into its mind which had now grown to a city of thoughts and ideas. But regardless it ran, and would keep running until it managed to catch itself in the knowledge of what it was and what it would do after it stopped.

i i i

Another stands above a body that was once a man. Another had just been promoted.

Another was not very happy about this. It seemed that every time Another got promoted the first part of the new job was to stand over a dead predecessor and the second part was to find out why they had died. Excluding the first two promotions, back then the second part was just to go get a coffee or something. While people wearing robes tried to collect up the scattered dismembered limbs and bodily fluids of whoever came before. Another misses those days, the days when a colleagues torso and head imploding was not an almost weekly experience.

i

But now here Another is above a surprisingly intact, all be it dead colleague. It was her doing, the woman that is becoming. Another called her this because she sold part of herself every time she did this; and there is only so much of a person you can sell, before the shape changes and the eyes merge into something new. Another knew this fact about people all too well. Off in the distance police sirens sounded. Another could here them faintly passing through the walls and took it as a cue to leave. The sound of foot steps echoed around the large stone room filled with dead bodies as Another left for a less mundane assignment. The woman that was becoming would have to wait.