FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

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My ears were being flooded by a high-pitched tone; the kind of noise that just randomly starts without any conceivable reason and refuses to stop; at least not until you've shaken your head into oblivion to try and get rid of it, leaving you dizzy and frustrated at your ears for not working properly. The sound was starting to become annoying, so I tried doing exactly that; yet instead of the sound disappearing, it just intensified. By now it was aggravating my eardrums to no end, prompting me to glance around in frustration to try and find the source of the irritating noise. However, upon looking around, I soon realised that the noise was much less concerning than what I could see.

Or, if you were looking for a more accurate description, what I couldn't see.

I seemed to be floating in a pitch black void, the stark absence of light or colour making itself readily apparent to me. No matter which direction I faced, I couldn't see anything. Or, rather, there wasn't anything to see. Various emotions surged to the forefront of my mind: shock, worry, what the hell did I do to deserve this?, and so forth. I was beginning to worry if I would be left here in this deathly abyss to wither away and die, or maybe just to survive in deathly boredom as some form of twisted punishment from the gods; but whatever was the controller of this domain soon made it apparent to me that I wouldn't get out of here that easily.

The ear-wrenching, brain-searing whine was being continually increased to an incomprehensible amplitude; having overtaken what I had assumed would be the universal volume limit at least ten seconds back. However, what the ever-increasing volume did do was enable me to pinpoint the direction in which it was coming from: somewhere to my left. Upon turning to face that way, I saw a pinprick of pure, white light. It was slowly getting larger and brighter, expanding in symphony with the sound which was just about starting to shatter my sanity into a trillion, tiny little pieces.

'Oh man', I thought. 'I'm not ready to die yet!' I mentally begged, making swimming motions with my body to try and get away, but to no avail. I was just starting to wish my barely functioning eardrums a good time in whatever dimension they went to for their afterlife; but as suddenly as I gained consciousness in this strange place, the sound and the light stopped and the air became disturbingly still.

Due to there being no shadows or '3D-ness', I had no idea how close the thing was to me. For all I knew, it could have been either a hundred metres away or staring into my soul from a mere foot in front of me. After a few minutes of staring at the light, I became fed up with the silence and decided to talk. I'm still not sure to this day whether doing so was a good idea or not.

"Where is this place, and what's happening to me? I swear if you try to do something horrible to me, I am definitely going to beat the shit out of you."

I liked to think that, at the time, I was being a brave hero who was standing up against a much more mighty and powerful foe. However, to anyone who heard me, my voice would have probably sounded very similar to that of a very, very scared five year old. I still like to imagine that the second statement wasn't the case; I can dream too, you know.

As I said before, I wasn't sure that I should have spoken up against the glowing orb; because as soon as I finished the sentence I heard an almost inaudible chant of "Your wish has been granted", and then I was plunging face-first into the overwhelming darkness below.

* * * *

I woke up bleary-eyed, wondering what had just happened to me. I could clearly remember (sort of) what had happened last night, before I fell asleep. Through the hazy curtain of sleep deprivation, I could see myself pack away the dreaded homework I had done late that night, strip off my clothes and put on my nightwear, and then collapse in exhaustion onto my bed. My head slumped onto the pillow, and soon I was fast into the clutches of a dreamless (until the whole creepy black void and light thingy happened) sleep. I was a sixteen year old boy who was deathly tired because he had stayed up way too late playing computer games, and then even later trying to complete the cursed homework which he had somehow managed to completely forget about, even though it was due in the next day.

This morning, I didn't feel any different to before: No black magic, no extra limbs, no super powers. I was still just a very tired teenager, whose head wasn't resting on a pillow. I frowned in annoyance at myself for having somehow flung the pillow off from my bed. I had recently started to become good at not doing that, but apparently this was the international 'screw me over' day and the whole world, even the inanimate objects, seemed to be taking part in it. I searched around with my arm to try and reclaim the runaway bedding; but something didn't feel right...

And I still couldn't find that annoying pillow.

After flailing around without any form of success, I reluctantly decided to open my eyes and actually look for it. I probably wouldn't be able to get back to sleep, but oh well. I can't sleep without something to rest my head on anyway, so it was a lose-lose situation. I slowly opened my eyes as I was adjusting to the sunlight flowing in through the windows... wait a second. I thought I had closed my curtains before I went to bed; and that window is a completely different shape to mine.

My face drained of blood at the revelation; I wasn't in my room anymore. As I looked around, that point became almost too apparent. The room was large, with a few large windows lining one of the walls, facing outside. On the opposite side of the room was one of those glass doors in a metal frame that you found in fancy business places and such. The walls were a pristine white colour, disturbingly similar to that of a hospital. The room, however, was nothing compared to what was actually inside it with me.

Along the walls were basic hospital beds; most empty, and all without pillows (they should really get a bigger budget); but a few of them had what seemed to be animals in them. My eyes still weren't functioning properly, but once I blinked a few times, I had another look at the few creatures who were in here with me. As soon as I realised what they were, I almost went into shock.

They were pokémon.

* * * *

A few minutes later, I deemed myself sufficiently calm enough to re-open my eyes and think without myself putting on a massive show which would have most likely drawn a lot of unwanted attention. So far it seemed as if I was in a pokémon centre, in the place where they most likely kept the injured pokémon; not humans or trainers or whatever. Wait. That must mean...

I took a hesitant glance at one of my hands; only to realise that it was no longer a hand, but a paw. I tried to keep myself from shouting out in both excitement and horror, lest someone think I'm going crazy. I had turned into a pokémon, well done me. I suppose that was what the light thingy meant by 'your wish has been granted'. Ever since Mystery Dungeon, I've had dreams about turning into a pokémon quite frequently. Unfortunately for me, playing the game also ruined the surprise a bit. However, what it didn't do was calm down the raging torrent of questions flowing through my mind. How did I get here? What happened? Why am I a pokémon? Am I really going to have to save the world?

I shoved all the questions into the back of my brain and forced myself to have a calm mind. Unfortunately, it seems that whatever pokémon I was couldn't use that move, so ten seconds later I gave up trying to placate the storm in my head and just dove back in. I might as well make the most of this while I can, because you have to admit being a pokémon sounds cool; and you never know, I might be on a time limit or something, so I can't waste time worrying about what I look like or anything else.

Actually, speaking of what I looked like, I decided to examine myself and figure out what pokémon I had turned into. I was currently lying on my side, enabling me to see all four of my animal-like legs. They were like those of a canine, with no arms or hands to be seen. I grimly noticed the lack of opposable thumbs, and concluded that I would definitely miss them; especially since it meant that I would have to do any form of carrying or gripping with my mouth, something which I was not looking forward to doing.

I pushed myself up into a sitting position and turned around to look at what was presumably going to be my tail. And indeed, there was a long, fluffy protrusion coming out from my backside. My whole body was covered in ash-grey fur; with an exception being that the fur on my paws, belly and face was black. Using this information, I managed to identify myself as a poochyena, the pre-volution of one of my favourite pokémon, mightyena.

However, I swore that something about me that shouldn't be missing was indeed missing. I mentally checked off the different parts of my body. Tail, check. Legs, check. Head, check. I racked my brain for answers as to why I felt so different, and eventually it struck me as to what had changed.

...I took a creeping glance down to my groin to see that where there once would have been my manhood, it was now replaced by the parts of the opposite gender. I struggled to keep myself calm. Turning into a pokémon was one thing, but becoming a female as well? I made it my top priority to confront the light that I had met in my sleep and give it a good beating; but rational thought told me that I should at least find out where I was before I went storming off to find my pranker. Well, that last sentence... actually, maybe the whole paragraph, was how I wished things had gone. But unfortunately, my brain doesn't work like that, so the story in fact continued like this...

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