FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I dash across the intersection ignoring the outraged yells of people in cars as they skid to a stop to prevent killing me. I flash a glance at my watch as I clear the street and start speeding past shop after shop, searching for the right one. I notice I only have thirty minutes before I'm too late. I'm making good time. I see myself about a block from me. He looks up from his phone in response to the commotion I'm creating. He sees me and I immediately stop being even slightly subtle. I jump onto the nearest wall and take off at a sprint. The less people see what I look like, the better. The other me takes off into an alleyway, but I'm only feet from him. He jumps from wall to wall, trying to escape to the rooftops. I give him just enough space to allow this.

Wordlessly he leaps to the roof and picks up his pace. I already know the path he's about to take. We rehearse this path every night. I expertly follow him, simultaneously trying out a new trick I learned. After summoning enough energy, I skip forward a couple seconds amd tackle myself, sending us rolling. We stop just before the edge of the rooftop we were on.

"God, we're resilient." I heave.

"The consequences of our powers, I guess." he replies, "How badly did you mess up this time?"

"Wasn't me this time. Or rather, it was the fact I did nothing that was the cause of this.

"You're kidding."

"We're perfectionists!" I exclaim, "What did you expect?"

"To be able to put up a fight."

"Well, nice to meet me, but I have to redo." I thrust my right thumb onto his forehead and concentrate. My body, only hours older than his, makes up the difference. The other me shimmers like a lamp for a few seconds and then the body beneath vanishes and I'm alone and out of breath. I close my eyes tilt my head back.

"302." I gasp between breaths. "302 and I still got it." I stagger to my feet. I felt a little light-headed from the chase, but at least it was done.

I examine my paws. A bit scratched, but nothing too bothersome. I really hope the alternative outcome of this decision is worth it. I walked over to the edge of the building and walk down the wall into an alleyway. Upon reaching the ground, I mull over my options. Upon trying to negotiate, five innocent people died. Brute force is probably the best option at this point. I need to do whatever it takes to stop him, using the abilities I've acquired so far.

I can travel back in time to start over, only I have to kill and replace my past self. Sounds simple enough, until you realize the vicious cycle of fearing your own demise, so you start preparing for it and, as a result, my past selves are becoming slowly harder and harder to kill.

I can alter my personal gravity, effectively allowing me to walk on walls and ceilings with no trouble. I can also flash forwards a couple seconds in time while the rest of the earth continues as normal, allowing me to output short bursts of speed.

My abilities increase with every passing day, and as I grow more powerful, the power consumes me. Others before me have tried to best this disease called a gift by some. All are consumed and killed by the very powers they used to exert their will on the world. I, however, am willing to do whatever it takes to leave a positive mark on the world before I'm consumed.

I focus my energy and visualize my desired outcome. I picture time rewinding, but instead of leaving me stranded, it takes me with it and inserts me into the crowd, making it seem as though I'd been moving with the crowd all along. It works, and when I open my eyes I see that I was inserted into the crowd, blending perfectly. No one around me notices anything out of place, so I don't bother stressing about it.

I finally make it to the store where the robbery will occur in roughly ten minutes. My first visit here ended in multiple deaths, and so my goal now was to prevent that. These rewinds were precious, after all. While the space-time continuum isn't threatened by this at all, too many rewinds around the same timeline can lead to difficulties.

I wait in the electronic store, admiring myself in the reflection of the store's window. My snow leopard body had very few scars from my many scuffles with my past self, but my steely grey eyes give away that I've more memories than I should for my apparent age. And I can tell you, not all of them are pleasant.

I was so caught up in my thoughts that I barely noticed the would-be-robber walk in. It was a rabbit with a broken front tooth and shifty eyes. His right paw was in his pocket, holding something, it looked like. I decided to intervene before the crime could be committed. Walking over to the rabbit, I seized the arm that held the gun, squeezing it hard while hissing, "Don't even think about it."

The rabbit was far more aggressive than I gave the herbivore credit for.

He sneered his own string of swears and yanked his arm free, simultaneously pulling his gun out, focusing it on me and firing. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. I watched the bullet flying from the barrel of the pistol, inching like a snail towards its intended target. I noticed, however, that I was moving at a normal pace. My hyperventilating was rapid as ever and the panicked twitching of my tail was all too quick in comparison to the slow crawl of the bullet.

I realized that I had slowed time. Which was new. I dropped my hands, which had been instinctively brought to the surrender position. After standing in a startled stupor of sorts for what felt like a few seconds, I wasted no time in grabbing the bullet, throwing it on a different course out of the door that was crack open with an end point of a nearby tree. I then seized the gun, careful to not trigger it again. I disassembled the gun entirely, leaving the pieces dangling in midair. After accomplishing this, I felt drained of energy, so I willed time into motion.

Everything leaped back into motion. The gun fell to the ground, its pieces going in all directions upon colliding with the floor. I heard the splintering of wood as the bullet struck the tree outside. I tried my best to hide my own amazement as the rabbit stood in awe, unable to process what just happened. He backed away in fear, and I advanced, using the upper hand I suddenly had.

"You need to rethink your choices." I said, "I've seen the outcome, and it isn't pretty."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You just tried to shoot me. You can probably assume that the outcome of murder wouldn't exactly enhance your wellness of mind or ." I explained condescendingly. The sound of sirens started in the distance. "Someone tripped the alarm. I advise making a run for it."

"I didn't really plan on walking out of here." the rabbit admitted.

"Well now you are." I said sternly, crossing my arms. "I took away the out you had in mind."

The rabbit seemed stunned. I rolled my eyes.

"There's a door in the back. In that alleyway, there's an old fire escape. It looks decrepit, so no one ever climbs it, but it's sturdy as a rock. Climb it, and I'll lead you from there." The rabbit seemed to trust me and took off without another word. I took this time to finally take in my surroundings. I decided that this probably wasn't a mistake worth rewinding for, and, considering I've come after myself yet, that it was a good sign. Everyone in the shop was staring at me like I was a monster, and I had the sneaking suspicion that the only way to preserve my identity would be to shove all the blame to the rabbit. I could hide him for long enough, and with some help I could clear his name, but my own identity seems harder to hide.

I concentrated and use my rewind powers, inserting myself into the timeline in such a fashion that I appeared to be walking through the door as the rabbit stares dumbfounded at nothing. He recognizes me and I wink. Nobody else's memory was so hell-bent on remembering my exchange with the rabbit, so everyone only overreacted to the rabbit that would have opened fire had his gun not fallen apart. The rabbit fled the scene, and I pretended to panic and leave the store. Back on the streets, I casually turned into an alleyway next to the electronic store.

What has my life become? I saw the rabbit scrambling up the ladder. That stray thought was peculiar to me. I never really stopped to think about it. What had my life become? I practically independent to time and space. An anomaly of existence. Even God would probably be confused as to who I am and where I belong. Was I doing the right thing? What have I done? I let this spiral out of control and now I face the consequences. But what consequences? No longer living a normal life? I was fine with that, I thought. I've never lived a very exciting life before this. I was working a minimum wage job at a run-down gas station. Now I'm not concerned about money or even my place in society. To be quite honest I can't remember the last meal I've had, yet I'm not hungry. Is that a symptom? Is it something I should be worried about? A shooting pain blasted its way through my head without warning. I clenched my eyes shut on reflex and held my head. The pain passed as suddenly as it appeared, but as I opened my eyes, I was where I was a second ago.

I was in front a store front in a city I didn't recognize. Cars zoomed past, none any concerned with the world around them except where they needed to go. The drivers of the cars were what disturbed me. Rather, every living thing I saw disturbed me. They walked upright, like I did, but, unlike my home, everyone had the same bodily structure, and their skin and headfur was their only differences outside of gender. They had no fur other than the fur growing atop their heads and above their eyes. These creatures were monsters, I was sure of it. Many of them avoided me, muttering under their breath about "damn fursuiters" and that being the end of it. I looked around and spotted a person staring at me horror with a phone to their face. I knew this wouldn't end well, and so I bolted.

An uneasy feeling followed me like a shadow as I dodged into the alleyway and up the wall seeking refuge on the rooftops. As I hoisted myself onto the roof, I felt surge of vertigo and I shut my eyes to focus on willing away the nausea that followed. I collapsed onto the roof, dizzy and eyes still shut, not wanting to watch the world spin around me. I landed on what felt like...carpet? I opened my eyes and the vertigo immediately was replaced by some sort of anxiety.

I was in an office building even after having scale the wall of a hotel. There was a large desk centered in front of the farthest wall from the door, and it was decorated like an office desk. Even worse, the place was in ruins, it seemed. Somehow, enough dust had accumulated everywhere that I didn't even knock any of it loose by my impact with the floor.

The window I had come through was boarded up, as were the other windows. The door was chain locked closed, and a musty smell of dirt and rusted iron assaulted my nose. From experience I knew that a stench of rust that strong usually equated to congealed blood. My heart began racing at the panic of not knowing what was going on. I stood up, fighting my shaky skeleton's desperate desire to stay on the ground. The floor was covered in trailed of smeared blood. As my heart founded faster still, a gunshot rang in the distance. Startled, I felt my heart skip a beat, and suddenly I was in the middle of an abandoned town in broad daylight. The only sounds were that of the wind and the things being rustled by it.

My breathing turned into panicked gasps. It seemed that small little panic attacks caused these teleportations, so I closed my eyes and focused on relaxing my breathing, trying to slow my heart rate.

"Okay." I whispered through an exhale. "Okay. Everything's fine. I hope."

_ You'll wander endlessly. Alone. You know that, right?_

"What? What do I know?" I asked aloud, turning in circles to face the voice. No one was there.

Now you're hearing voices. Great job, you've gone insane.

"Who's there?!" I yelled.

_ Or am I?_ Silence spanned for a few seconds, then: Now who could that be? Some leopard got lost in the desert? My mind was reeling. There was some throbbing sensation too, I'm sure. I couldn't focus, and it took all of my willpower to force the light-headedness away.

Maybe...talk...him...have...stuff. A thought I knew wasn't mine filtered through my head, unclear as a long distance radio station. The jumpy attributes it had actually left me a bit disoriented. The good news was I knew where it was coming from. There was a run-down bar near the center of the town. As I looked in that direction, I just barely caught a glimpse of an animal slump away from a boarded up window and into the back of the bar. Cautious as ever, I approached the bar. Any information would be welcome at this point. It seemed like the abrupt changes of scenery had subsided, but these voices in my head were knew and agonizing to experience. Were they even mine? This animal, whoever he was, would be the closest thing to an answer I was likely to get.

I reached the bar and tentatively eased the door open, creeping into the main room with the vigilance of a small, helpless child being hunted by an unknown and unwelcome stranger. I sniff the air as quietly as I could. The unmistakable stench of a raccoon reached my nose and I knew that I would probably be dealing with an untrustworthy thief. I might've been stereotyping, but those exist for a reason, and a lone raccoon in the middle of nowhere has less than no reason to be an honest, hardworking member of whatever society he belongs to.

Suddenly, I feel a bit vulnerable. A feeling of someone gazing into my soul gnawed at my sanity, and I felt adrenaline course through my veins as my instincts began to push reason out of my mind. The next thing I knew, the raccoon rushed at me. Out of reflex, I bent time and reappeared behind him. Without thinking I punched in his direction. Space ripped in a straight line towards him. When it reached him, I heard a bloodcurdling scream come from everywhere. I only then noticed that my face was contorted in vicious anger. The muscles in my face were starting to ache from holding such an intense scowl. How much time has passed? I suddenly realized that, in meddling with the balance of time and space, I've become an orphan of existence. I don't belong anywhere, and I don't deserve to live. And so, as I saw the world around me fall apart, I closed my eyes, picturing the beginning.

I pictured the day I first discovered this power. The first mistake I ever decided to redo. I slipped into that timeline, leaving behind the future I had created. I found my past self, killed him, and replaced him. Waiting.

Eventually, I saw myself approaching, a determined look in his eyes. I didn't run. I didn't even think to. I didn't see it going any better if I tried to start over. He seemed almost shocked to see my apathy at seeing myself. His left arm was broken, and his right eye was bruised. He was missing a couple of teeth, and he walked with a limp.

He reached me and simply said, "We made a mistake."

"I know." I replied.

"I need to kill you. Make this right."

I nodded, frowning. "Just one last thing."

"What's that?"

"Forgive me."

"For what?"

"Everything." The other me reached for me, and everything began to glow...