FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

1 - Onward

The police car rocked in the traffic. Its engine hummed beneath Nym's feet. He sat with his hands cuffed behind his back, a seatbelt strapped across his waist. The car wasn't a normal transportation vehicle. He and Helix had been stuck in a "special cargo" unit. One half was seats and the other was an empty strip. Across from them a walrus in a wheel chair with a bloodied nose sat, studying them. His thick hands were folded across his lap. Beady, moist eyes flicked from Nym to Helix. The officer driving was a different hound from the night before.

Nym licked his lips, listening to the sound of traffic hissing outside the windows. He rubbed his paws together, trying to gather his thoughts. The moment he contacted a coherent figment in his head it was scattered by a painful headache. The only consistent thought was "oooh everything was blurry yesterday because no one bothered to get my damn glasses". He squinted at the walrus' wheels, glistening in the morning sunlight.

Next to him, Helix shifted. The officer's eyes flicked up to glance at him, judged he wasn't a threat, and went back to driving. A second officer, a vixen with a greying muzzle, was engrossed in her cellphone seemingly.

"So..." Nym said, trying to break the silence.

The vixen shot him a look.

"Hey, sugar, wasn't talking to you." He grinned. "Didn't realise there was a no-talk rule."

"Not in this region, but get rowdy and that's a whole different story." She said. She had some accent Nym couldn't decipher.

"Fair enough."

Helix turned to look at him. Miss Ed... whatever, Nym couldn't bother remembering, had patched the side of his face up. A strip of cloth covered him from eyebrow to corner of his jaw. The fur at the basin of his cheek was speckled with dried ointment. If anything it made him seem even more intimidating.

"Are you ever quiet?"

Nym paused.

"There I was." He said.

"That was maybe three seconds."

"You didn't say I had to be quiet for a while. Just that I should be 'quiet'. If you wanted more you should have chosen your diction a bit more carefully."

"Don't you have a hangover?"

"No."

Truth was, Nym's head felt like it was splitting in half. And that those two pieces were each splitting in half. Nym shifted in his seat, fighting the parched dry mouth and upset stomach. As far as anyone who looked at his face was concerned, he was simply tired. Just like he always was.

"Partners in crime?"

Nym and Helix turned towards the walrus. His voice was oceanic, obviously, a low baritone that felt like it could reverberate the entire van. As if in response, the van jerked heavily to the right. The vixen shouted at the hound in frustration.

"Shitty drivers. What do you want me to do about it?"

"Drive better. You're a goddamn police officer."

"Holding yourself well in front of the inmates I see."

"Like they care."

Nym chose to tune them out. He returned to the walrus. "No, we met just last night."

The walrus nodded. He sighed deeply, the thick skin on his chest rising and falling. "You seemed quite, fitting, it would seem."

Helix shrugged. "Couldn't be more different."

"As it goes."

Nym studied the walrus' features more closely. His face sagged with wrinkles and age. His whiskers sloped down dramatically, their grey bases ending in snowy why tips. His tusks were chipped and one was broken in half. His head was bald, as was common amongst his species, but otherwise he seemed like a dignified animal.

"Why are you here?"

The walrus grinned. "What do you assume?"

"You seem kind of snooty and rich." Nym thought for a second. "Pimp?"

The walrus shook his large head. The rolls at his neck moved along with him, some glistening with dried flecks of blood.

"Thief?"

"Of sorts."

"Gang leader?"

"No."

("oh god if you swerve ONE MORE TIME!")

Helix shifted forwards. The small movement shut Nym right up. Helix's long, spotted tail flicked casually. "You stole goods and resold them, right?"

"Yes. As vanilla as that. Amazing what you get away with when you don't have legs." The walrus nodded solemnly to himself.

The vixen intruded, "and by doing that you disrupted the economy of that market. Cost them money. They have to pay their workers, too, you know."

"And I have to feed my family." He grinned. "Well, that and one other thing."

The vixen opened her mouth, but instead of words out came the screech of a tire. Several tires. She gritted her teeth, ready to say something else. Her body was launched forwards, tumbling into the bar that separated her from the inmates. Nym slid into Helix from the force of the impact, yelping loudly. His tail slapped against the side of the van with a dull series of thuds. Helix grunted in response. The walrus' wheelchair was latched in place.

Which would have been just fine if it wasn't for the shrapnel that tore from the front of the car, breaking his nose yet again. He howled in pain, the sound ripping from inside his gut.

Nym felt his vision blur and then bleed red.

Too much seemed to happen at once. He felt heavy paws grasp his shoulders, followed by an indistinct yell of betrayal. The van's back door had popped open from the impact. Nym found himself shoved out, his hands still tightly bound behind his back. His tail was beginning to throb painfully at the base. The striped shorts he wore sagged uncomfortably. Despite the sounds and yells of those around them, coupled with a low moan from the vixen and the indistinct guttural sounds of an engine giving out, Nym was still most annoyed about not being able to see properly.

"My glasses..."

"You'll get glass in you if you don't move, Nym." Helix hissed into his head. His soft fur brushed against Nym's sensitive whiskers. Another shove and Nym stepped out onto the street. Cars surrounded them. The street was wet from something. Nym's toes rejected it instantly.

"My--just move please." Helix gave him another shove and he stumbled forwards.

Nym's world was still spinning. He was jealous of Helix for being composed, but only briefly before his head started spinning in the other direction.

"Wow, my mind..."

"Yeah you get used to it." Helix said. "Now, run."

His tail swatted Nym's back, sending him off into a run forwards. They sprinted through the streets, through an alleyway, across another street, and on and on for what felt like forever. Nym had the crushing feeling someone was chasing them. Even when they were well into the park decorated generously with trees and sloping hills.

Even when Nym crumbled, his legs giving out, face first into the soft grass in the cool shade, he felt like someone was waving a stick and chasing him. His body trembled violently. "Is it over is it over?" he muttered into the grass. A lady bug crept on to his nose.

"Hey, it's over now."

Helix's voice was distant. The loud clicking that followed was even further so. Nym closed his eyes.

"Hey, Nym."

"Mm."

"Move."

Nym rolled to his side, his tail crushed uncomfortably below him.

"Don't go to sleep."

"Why? I'm tired."

"Oh you will be."

He felt a large paw on his shoulder, pressing on him not unkindly. He felt the other paw on his arms, undoing the cuffs. A key pressed into the slot and the sweet tingle of release skittered across his wrists. Nym stretched his digits, the very fur on them trembling.

"Get up." Helix pushed him up by the shoulder.

Nym rubbed his eyes, still greatly distracted. The distant orange light of the sun half-risen shrouded the park, casting its warm glow over it. Street lamps had begun to flicker off. Somewhere a child laughed happily. The park was a different reality than the one Nym had ran away from.

Ran away...

The car accident, the most like dead vixen and very, very angry walrus. Nym's heart dropped to his knees.

"Holy... Did we just run away from the cops?"

"Yes."

Nym turned to look at Helix. Helix leaned against the tree, his gaze set on him.

"And you're OK with that?"

Helix shrugged. "We got away. Besides, they're more worried about getting medical attention to the cops."

"And the walrus?"

"That guy smelled like bad news. I'll let someone else deal with him."

"But he was just... he was so well spoken."

Helix scrunched his eyebrows together. The fur rippled, spots coming together. "And that's all it takes to gain your approval?"

"No. I just figured he was a high-class criminal."

"Sitting with the likes of us?"

Nym sighed. "Point taken."

Helix lowered himself and sat cross legged, a grimace creeping across his face. Other than the occasional look of pain or reaction, Helix didn't offer much in terms of facial communication. Even his tail remained stoically casual. Now it lay limply across the grass. The muscles across his back still stood out under his drab prison uniform.

"So... Why'd you take me out?"

"Want me to put you back?" Helix countered.

"Well, no."

"Then?"

"I was just wondering."

"You just this, you just that. You're saying you're 'just' now?"

"What? No."

Helix let a smile out. Nym couldn't help but smile back. So the big cat was more than just that. Nym crept closer.

"What do we do now?"

"We?"

A sense of dread flowered in his chest. Nym's tail bristled. "I mean, look, it might actually be better if we don't stick together. Since we're both wanted. Two trails are easier to track than one. So I get it if you want to part ways here. I'll say my thank-you's and Adieus and we'll be off. But, I'm willing to make you an offer. We can stick together, be a duo, partners in crime."

Helix raised a paw.

"I was only kidding, Nym."

"About...?"

"We got out together, better keep going together. Pack mentality and all that crap."

Nym sat back on his hind legs. He squinted at Helix, at his neck. The fur was triangular stripes there, unlike the spots that covered the rest of his body. Helix's curved, white-fluffed ears twisted towards him.

"You want to keep looking like convicts in an old movie or do you want something else to dress in?"

"My apartment isn't too far from here. This is Golden Meadow right?"

"I think so."

Nym stood up, his thighs still quivering. "Then let's go get something to dress and maybe eat. Then I guess we have to run."

"Wouldn't it be expected that we'd turn towards one of our homes?"

"Oh."

"For someone so smart you don't think a lot."

"Why'd you think I'm in this?" Nym pinched his striped shirt. He fluttered it slightly, revealing his white underbelly. If Helix noticed, he didn't care.

"Come on, I have friends we can meet up with." Helix said, standing up. His shadow flung over, laying in front of Nym like a gift. Helix waved a paw, beckoning him. "Come on."

Nym stood up, and on they went.