FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

My head ached as if a hydraulic press slammed into my skull, but to my surprise, none of my bones seemed to be broken at first. I tried to stare through the haze coagulating in my vision. An empty drip echoed in the space around me. The smell and eventual taste of blood permeated my senses, telling my brain that I had cut my lip or something to that degree. I then realized I was lying on my back, completely paralyzed from sleep. I forced my brain to wake up, but I had no need to since Redd decided to wake me up instead.

"Isaac, wake up!" She clasped my shoulders, brought me into a sitting position, and shook me awake, adrenaline pumping though my system to shock my body into an instinctual response. I grabbed her hand and pushed her away from me while I yelped from the excitement. A strip of tape fell from my chest onto my lap. She stumbled back and caught her balance on a rail.

For the longest time, I took in the environment around me. The rail sloped into a glossy wooden doorway and supported by concrete stairs. Huge cylindrical tanks next to the railing appeared to disappear into the ceiling. Pipes from the tanks scattered and converged along the walls. A stack of boxes formed a makeshift pyramid in the other corner of the wall I laid my head on. Tazu and Usala were still fast asleep, and it almost sent a chill down my tail upon seeing how they had been taped around their torsos.

I shot a look of confusion and terror at Redd.

"Where the hell are we?" I said flatly.

"I don't know!" Redd said. "Probably some basement."

"I hope it's not that creepy guy from the park."

"I'm sure it isn't. That reminds me, did we ever get back from the park?"

"I don't know."

I had the faintest idea how long we had slept and what happened the night before. All I remembered was lying on the ground outside of someone's house. Then a very important observation smacked me in the face.

"We were taped. How did you get out of your bindings?"

"This girl's got a few tricks." She raised her hands and unsheathed her claws, white daggers glued onto her scarlet hands.

"Aren't you going to release Tazu and Usala?"

Redd turned slightly giddy at this request.

"I don't know. They look kinda cute together."

"Redd!" I groaned.

"All right, all right."

She rubbed her hands and steadied the claw points, so she wouldn't maim either of the two lovebirds. The tape easily gave way and sliced apart as smoothly as margarine. Redd placed her right hand on the ground, and gently placed the paw pads on Tazu's ear. Tazu shuddered awake, then jolted out of sluggishness from seeing Usala's sleeping face right in front of his. He turned on his back, only to have Redd glower over him like a child.

"Rise and shine, sleepy fox. Ms. Holter was just dying to sleep with you."

"Ah, shut up, Schafer. You're lucky I'm not using my coll-"

Tazu reached for where his spiked collar should be, and only felt the matted white fur of the crook of his neck.

"Where the fuck is my collar?!"

He picked himself up and snarled at Redd as he spoke with such an acidic hiss. She backed against the wall next to the stack of boxes, ears drooping and tail between her legs.

"You better tell me where you hid it."

"I don't know where it is!"

Tazu groaned and kicked the wall with the heel of his boots. Usala woke with a start as she scrambled on the floor, more writhing than twitching.

"Is it morning?" she asked Redd, who was still seemingly dazed from Tazu's sudden vent.

"I don't know," I told her. Come to think of it, I had no idea what time it could be. The last time I could recall was the middle of the night. Without question, whatever that guy forced us to drink certainly confused my brain. There were no windows leading to the outside. No sunlight, no moonlight. No fresh air to keep our minds sane for any longer than an hour. Now I'm not surprised Tazu snapped like he did. The air was growing musty with each added breath as if we were suffocating, yet we could still breathe normally. Perhaps the confines of the room made it seem isolated from the rest of the world. Isolated, like an underground laboratory and we were the test subjects.

"Bet that Richard guy put us in here," Tazu said. "He seemed adamant about putting us in more danger than necessary."

He was most likely right. Richard gave us that bizarre drink, and we passed out in his own yard. If it was someone else from our world who put us in this basement, Richard would have poisoned them too. There must be a reason he wanted us here, but what?

"He might've nabbed your collar, too," Redd said, pointing at his neck.

"If you would mind," Tazu said, "I'm already planning on getting it back. In fact, why are we wasting our time here? Let's just leave through the door!"

"It's locked," Redd responded. "There's no escape."

I sensed some of the tension brewing and I decided to look on the bright side.

"At least we have a bathroom." I pointed to a door next to the railing.

"How do you know it's a bathroom?" Redd asked. "It's locked too."

"I don't know, there must be a bathroom somewhere!"

"I'm not even sure those creatures are capable of excretion," Usala added.

She could be right, but the image of those people using a toilet was not an image I needed nor wanted in my head.

"May I remind you," Tazu shouted in my face, "we are stuck in some room, possibly on a planet thousands of light years, or hell, maybe not even the same universe as our home, and you're worried about using the goddamn bathroom?"

Tazu's eyes grew wide as his brow furrowed and his breathing heaved.

"Y-yes?" I squeaked out, unsure if I should have told the truth since lying is useless at this point. Having a friend that got in trouble for wearing a collar to graduation and watching you get battered with beer bottles now rightly yell at you for having fucked up priorities, it stung. My hands shivered and my breathing quivered, prompting Redd to stand a little closer to me.

"Tazu, Isaac needs his space."

She stood with her hands on her hips, with the slightest traces of her teeth peaking out from under her lip. Her comment made Tazu groan, probably from frustration.

"It's pointless to argue. Isaac, just a reminder, you're not helping us out of here any more than Usala. Understand?"

"Well, what am I supposed to do?" I asked, exasperated. There was little I could do to help other than increase morale. I paced around the room, if only to clear my mind. I thought about past arguments we had, and how those were resolved.

***

It was about four years ago, the summer before we entered high school as freshmen. Tazu and I were camping with our parents to "build character" after the Martins found Tazu sporting a T-shirt with the logo of the newest underground black metal act, The Sidewalk Stompers, emblazoned in blood red on the front. Mr. Martin asked my dad at his work for this trip, so that the children could bond outside of school. That weekend, I saw a pissed off arctic fox, pre-collar, a murky lake, and my dad dressed in cargo shorts and his "special boating hat".

The second day we were there, Tazu was fishing off of the boat dock because his father forced him to enjoy nature. I walked up to him on the dock and plopped myself, legs hanging off the edge, next to him. He didn't bother to acknowledge me. He continued to fish aimlessly for a solid ten minutes before speaking up.

"I hate my stupid dad for making me come here." Tazu grumbled out the words and tightened his grip on the rod. "He wants me to die out here."

I swung my legs around, hands anchored to the boards. Brushing the hair out of my eyes, I looked at his face. Brows slanted, eyes focused, mouth sneered, but there was something else about him. His neck tensed up, the bump on it racing up and down as if he was choking on something. He had been putting on a facade.

Throughout my time knowing him, I always thought of him as this permanent grump that occasionally spoke something positive. Whenever something good happened, he either didn't care or didn't see how good it actually was. Looking at him at that moment on the dock made me realize he didn't want to be negative all the time, so I spoke up.

"I don't think he wants you to die. I think he wants you to open up."

"There's nothing to open up about."

"Yes, there is. I can see it in your neck."

Tazu slammed the rod down on the deck, and covered his neck with crossed arms.

"I don't need you to tell me what I need to do!"

His words echoed off the lake and repeated his demand, and with each repeat, I felt myself growing smaller. I wanted to leave him alone, but he needed a friend to be there to help. I was the only friend out there, so I resumed sitting next to him. I pointed to the rod and looked at his face for confirmation. He lightly nodded and shrugged. I picked it up, and the line cast out from us towards the fish. When I had gotten a nibble and the miniature buoy bobbed under the surface, I yanked the catch closer and reeled it in. The fish fought my grip and it released itself from the lure.

"Aw. Fishing is hard," I stated. I stood up to leave in frustration, when Tazu grabbed my pants and pulled me back down to sit by him.

"Let me show you," he offered. He showed me how to properly reel in a fish by alternating between yanking the line and letting the fish pull away. Soon, we had caught a two pound fish that I named Thomas and that Tazu threw back into the lake.

"Bye, Thomas." I waved goodbye.

"Bye, Tom," he paraphrased.

I gazed at Tazu as his usually deadpan expression stretched into a grin. We came back to the campsite, where our dads sat drinking soda and grilling some of the fish they had caught.

"Do you think one of those is Thomas?" Tazu whispered.

"I hope not."

"Me too. He seemed nice."

"You seemed nice too."

Tazu just closed his eyes and sighed. He walked up to his dad, who seemed to hesitate upon seeing his own son, and then bared his teeth in a smile after his son apologized for his behavior on the trip.

***

Now, with Tazu steaming from being honest with him, I remembered something important. He was never really mad at someone, just frustrated, so I backed away from him to give him the space he needs. The air around us morphed into something more relaxed, and even Usala's humming didn't set him off. Tazu stooped on the concrete stairs was one of the most peaceful moments I've ever seen him be a part of. The moment regretfully lasted only a few minutes, before the doorknob clicked, and Richard's stern face appeared in the doorframe.

"There's Richard!" Usala rallied.

He immediately closed the door on Tazu about to maim him. We waited for him to appear again. Relaxation gave way to tension in the next few moments. Tazu and Redd unsheathed their claws and stood in attack formation, arms and legs preparing to exert their energies like a professional sprinter. My arms did not tense up in anticipation, but in stricken fear; they froze as the blood inside them ran cold and empty. In the split second before all hell tried to break loose, the scorched ring of my jacket sleeve reminded me of a sickly black shadow of handcuffs, and with the black and grey stripes of my entire attire, I found a better word for our current condition: not a laboratory, but a prison.

Richard was our warden, and he knew how to keep us in check.

When the door opened again, before any of us had a chance to rush out, an ear-splitting shriek consumed us, mechanical in nature. I hobbled over, nauseous and close to breaking my teeth and letting my fangs break through the gums. The sensation of blood spilling out of my mouth would have been a better use of my time than listening to the agonizingly high-pitched scream. I soon fell to my knees, trying desperately to drown out the painful discordance with my own yelling and pleading for mercy. It continued for a full minute, and for a brief, wondrous moment, it halted its eardrum-stabbing whine. I nearly cried out of sheer joy, but the tears had a new purpose when the sounds rang out even louder than before!

I pulled myself into a fetal position while staring at Redd, Tazu, and Usala, all mimicking me. I managed to look up during the second pause. Richard and his two cronies towered over us in the doorway. The mystery man on his right had been blowing through a small whistle, smaller than my own nose. The mystery woman seemed to force a smile as if she was more disinterested than enjoying our agony. The whistle screeched louder than before, eventually muffling itself through the shut door, then a click added insult to injury.

We were locked in with three potential killers.

"Is everyone okay?" Redd asked, gritting through her teeth.

"I'm gonna kill that guy," Tazu muttered.

"That means yes," Usala said, after letting go of her ears.

"May I say something?" I spoke up. Redd nodded. "We need to get out of here before they kill us."