FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

As the truck powered through the desert at a cruising speed, with dusty winds whipping and fluttering over buffeted metal, Arthur sat numbly in the passenger side staring with dead eyes out the window. Part of him had wanted to scream, to break down into tears, to at least acknowledge and register what the man sitting next to him, the man in control of the vehicle, the man with the gun, had done. But he couldn't. As much as the Labrador tried to will some kind of response out of himself, there was nothing there. He didn't even feel sick, just cold, and empty, and forgotten. It felt like ice cold water was lapping just beneath his skin like an ocean he so sorely missed in this dry, horrible wasteland filled with horrors and nightmares. A dark pit of blackness just emptied into his heart, down into his guts until it went on and on, a bottomless abyss to his logic and feeling. What could he do now that had not yet already been done? What awaited him in the desert's expanse, and what awaited him if he returned fruitless? What about anything and everything? It all seemed so meaningless.

Yet, of course, the world kept turning, the truck kept driving in interminable quiet, the trundle of rocks and dirt beneath its wheels, the clatter of suspension, the growling of an old, haggard engine propelling the rusting car deeper into no man's land.

Nothing was even certain. The Labrador was acting on a hunch, the supposition that somewhere out in the dry region of nothing that something would be awaiting them. But still he felt it, an ever-present need to venture into the wilderness, a pull upon his very soul that seemed so ludicrous to deny. It festered in his heart, only there was nothing to substantiate the feeling. As a doctor, he had always acted on fact and evidence, never believing one nor the other unless it all made sense to the logic in his mind. How could he even trust himself though to be rational when he was hallucinating, half-forgetting his past, now an accessory to murder supposing Cheryl truly was dead? If anything, it should be his mind that had gone in its most absolute form. Yet he remained eerily calm, a storm roiling as much inside him as it did upon the horizon, sweltering until it reached a boiling point. He was acting on the words of other men. What reason did he have to assume he was perfectly fine? Within the past thirty something hours, everything had been thrown into a twisted, unfathomable chaos. There was no exit from it, no right or wrong, no sense of balance or orientation in the world. He felt as if the universe itself was coming to an end and yet he just sat there, silent and composed, as his mind shattered over and over and over again.

He had no idea how Tyson was feeling amidst all of this. After all, it had not been Arthur who had pulled the trigger, but the Rottweiler. It wasn't he who had decided the best solution was to kill, it had been the bigger canine's gun that had been drawn. Between them both, surely it must be Tyson who would be cracking under the tremendous weight of his actions. But if he was, he surely didn't show it. His paws placidly gripped the steering wheel as the truck thundered across the plain, every now and then moving one paw to scratch his nose, to adjust the gear shift, anything that gave him the appearance of normality. In the confines of the cabin, so close to the dog that ought to be able to detect any hints that he might be crumbling under the same inner turmoil Arthur faced, there was nothing to suggest that Tyson had any doubts about their actions. It seemed so impossible to the Labrador that the man be so collected. He had just killed his superior without provocation, turned his back on everything and everyone he had ever known for what appeared to be a long time, all on the mad ramblings of another who had thrown himself into his life just hours ago. Was he acting on some kind of demented love, committing himself to assist Arthur? For what? Yes, he had asked to trust him, to help him, but not for the sake of murder.

It wouldn't be for another hour that Arthur said nothing. He was content to stew in the silence until he could bear it no longer, the itch beneath his skin building until he felt like he may very well go feral inside the truck. He cleared his throat, breaking the quiet between them - as quiet as it could be in the clattered vehicle - and spoke with a strange calmness that still frightened him to his core,

"How much gas do we have?"

Tyson shifted, almost disturbed by the sudden conversation, and he corrected himself into a sitting position having been slouched against his door. Eyes flicked to the gauge and then back to the empty desert, mouth moving slowly and heavy as though words failed to come from his throat fast enough,

"Not enough. Perhaps a few miles more but after that..." He trailed off. In actuality they had been running on empty for quite some time. Whether the gauge was broken or simply inaccurate, Arthur wouldn't know, but he had sensed them coming to the end of their journey for quite some time. Only now, fresh out of fuel and dead in the middle of nowhere, did it occur to him what they would do if they found nothing. If reality prevailed and indeed Grant was just some lunatic who had spent too long on his own, then what would Arthur and Tyson do? There would be no hope in turning back. The whole town believed nothing lay beyond their borders except the acrid wilderness that they had been passing through for the past few hours, so why bother to mount a search attempt? They were, for all intents and purposes, criminals. Fugitives on the run from the law they had already murdered, one of their own turned against them and the other a newcomer who had stirred the pot. They were on their own and left for dead, if they choose to execute themselves by condemning themselves in the desert. Walking back would be out of the question and something in Arthur realised that chances of an oasis or animal life would be fantastically slim. It was indeed a venture to his own death, and it scared him. But he felt as if, in some morbid sense, that he deserved it.

"We need to talk about what happened." He finally declared aloud, not directing his attention to Tyson in fear that seeing the Rottweiler's face might still him back into silence, but spoke to the nothingness ahead of them. He could feel the dog beside him bristle, clearly uncomfortable with having the topic raised, but it was fleeting. Just as he became prepared to lash back, he settled back into his calmness,

"Do we?" he said plainly, "What's there to talk about?" Arthur scoffed. What was there to talk about?! Was he serious? There was plenty to talk about alone, ignoring the blatantly obvious fact Tyson had just killed his superior for the sake of his own faith in the Labrador.

"You're joking, right?"

Tyson didn't take his eyes off the expanse before them. The canine could tell he didn't want to. It would mean acknowledging the uncomfortable blackness of his actions, actually coming forward and telling Arthur why he did what he did, what compelled him, and why, above all else, that mattered more than the life of another, of Cheryl to Arthur. Some part of the Labrador didn't want to know, he couldn't possibly fathom what kind of mind set might overcome someone with the capacity for such blind slaughter. But in good conscience he couldn't leave it be. Even if the rules were skewed in this land, to so bluntly kill another can't have come as easily as it did to the Rottweiler.

"What do you want me to say?" His voice sounded defeated, his words lacking any fight to them. It was clear the bigger male had already made some kind of peace with himself, resigned though it might be, and he wanted to be done with Arthur's anger. The tension sank between them like the prickles of electricity before a storm, eating away under the skin and leaving an uncomfortable itch all over and a dark pit in one's gut. Dark things were looming, unnatural things hiding not just out there but behind the other's eyes and Arthur didn't like it.

"I want you to tell me why you did it."

"She was going to shoot you."

"You could have incapacitated her." He could feel his frustration mounting.

"There wasn't enough time."

"She wasn't going to shoot me!" The words snapped before he had a chance to hold them. Tyson barked back almost immediately, teeth bared and a flash of rage seldom seen,

"She was going to shoot someone!"

Silence returned between them, punctuated by the rumble of a world outside. Arthur didn't know what to say. It felt as if a wall had been erected between the two of them and he just couldn't break through. Part of him didn't want to, it didn't know what he wanted from Tyson. Some sentimental fragment of himself still clung to the idea there was something between them, something real and meaningful, but who was he kidding? Tyson was a man he barely knew and if anything this was just a warning sign, a red flag driving him away from disaster. He cast his eyes back to the barren wasteland he was beginning to feel more at one with, knowing it may very well be the last place he ever inhabited, feeling more alone than he had waking upon that station. It felt like an age ago, a whole lifetime and an eternity tacked on, yet in his mind he figured it couldn't have been more than hours, perhaps even days at most. Time was stretching and contracted like elastic, manipulated beyond his conception, and it bothered him. Completely out of control and isolated, what could he do except survive in conditions where he felt like a virus just waiting to be expunged. The man sitting across from him was no more a stranger than the blackness of the darkening sky that hung above.

A fatal chug from the engine rumbled through the truck. Solemn and dreadful, the cabin rattled as the vehicle careened forward on its lingering momentum before the inevitable seized the motor within and froze its function. Depleted to its death, it was just another victim and another circumstance to Arthur's wake.

"Out of gas," Tyson stated aloud as he sank back in his seat, paws still clutching the wheel as if there was some way to will the truck onwards, "I guess this is the end of the line." Arthur didn't respond. He didn't feel he had to. Tyson offered nothing more as they sat there between them in the wandering quiet, deadened to the sound of a roaring engine, now filled with only the howling winds that whipped across the bleak desert dunes and cracked earth. It was lifeless out here, sat amidst an ocean of acrid land, a blotted living stain in an environment not even fit enough for the hardiest of organisms to grow. Scattered grass sprouted from the fissures in the ground, but they had burned slowly under the harsh day sun and starved in the cold dead of night. Long tendrils of brown plant matter then snatched in the gusts that carried across the empty desert, lifting the very grains and stones with it sending them scuttling further and further across into nowhere. A fitting end to a foolish endeavour. Arthur felt the death in his heart. "There's nothing out here..."

The Labrador looked across to the Rottweiler and wondered what it had all been for. Why had he bothered to drag himself out here, why had he allowed Tyson to come all this way and for what? The expecting faith that it was all for a reason? Yet here they were, as far as they could go into the wilderness, trapped and condemned to a long, gruelling demise as they baked beneath the sun whilst their own bodies consumed what little nutrients they had until they wasted away into skeletons. Buried beneath the sand, nobody would ever find the remains, if remains were to be found, and they would, according to the sick, warped logic of Haven Falls, awaken back upon the platform breathing and alive none the wiser to how they got there.

But still it nagged him. What was out here? What made people just suddenly reappear? Arthur had to know, there was something out here, there had to be...

"No," he muttered, paws scratching at the battered handle, "No, this can't be it..."

Opening the car door spewed him out onto the scorched sands and into the hot air, still warm with whatever residues of sunlight, still uncomfortable against his fur, sticky with stagnant moisture and the promise of fresh thunder. He let the truck door slam with a close as he staggered out beyond the vehicle's reach, standing before it like the brace of a ship as it crashed against the waves, a figurehead against the unknown as he simply looked, not scanning nor searching, just throwing his gaze out into the beyond without knowing truly what he was watching. Nothing would come to save them, only death could take its claim and soon they would be back in the lair of the beast that was this infernal place.

Behind him Tyson followed. Screeches of metal and then heavy boots upon the ground, stones chewed beneath his footpaws as he joined Arthur out in the desert,

"I'm sorry, Arty, really." He didn't look back at the Rottweiler, the voice sounded so distant and dead, so unreachable that it was no longer worth the time to try and claw his way back to it. They were both adrift in a dead sea and Tyson was no longer a sailing ship on the waters but a struggling survivor just like himself. They were both victims of the wilderness, with no options left available. "We should head back..."

There was no way back however. Arthur knew that, and he knew that Tyson understood that too. The way back was a one-way route, guaranteed only on the words that the Labrador had been told. Coldness sapped at his body as he turned around, every step so slow and thick that it was as if the air around him swelled into a mire. His eyes followed the Rottweiler's slung head down to his paws, gingerly holding his handgun between them, fingertips tracing along the finer engravings of the metal, picking over the trigger, the safety, the barrel, weighing the very decision that lay in a single digit's movement.

Tyson glanced up, sober and sorrowful, as one paw clenched around the weapon, finger positioned against the trigger, trembling beneath the urge to just simply pull.

"How do you want to do this?" A traumatic misery hung in his tone. He intended for both of them to die, but there was a clear hesitance. One kills the other, then the last commits suicide. Either that, or they both pull the trigger upon themselves and take their own lives. Regardless of the scenario, the outcome would be the same. They would die, far quicker than if left to the desert, and return to Haven Falls supposing all the rumours and whispers were true, supposing that none of them had gone mad. As Tyson fidgeted with the gun in his grasp, distressed with the object in his hold, it seemed as if he intended to take Arthur's life first to spare him the wilful decision of taking it himself.

"You can't be fucking serious."

Tyson said nothing. Guilt raged behind his eyes, watery and immense, but resolute.

"Tyson, please, don't do this."

"It'll be easier this way," he mumbled, lifting the gun up, aiming for the Labrador, "It'll be kinder."

"Tyson please!" Arthur yelled, his voice scratching as emotions got the better of him, "Please don't, alright, this can't just be it." The Rottweiler didn't move the gun away, his gaze flinched but his aim remained true, "For fuck's sake, please don't kill me."

"You're not going to die. Nobody dies, I told you that."

His heart pounded in his throat, the sound tight in his ears as if nothing else was around them but this single, insular, terrifying instant that would end his life.

"But I will, won't I?" He roared with a gut-wrenching bellow, "Because of course you do, nobody just doesn't 'die'. They die, and then they come back to life sure, but they die. You don't get around that." He took a wary step towards the bigger canine, his eyes feeling as if the very moment of his existence now carried on the bullet residing in its chamber, "That's why you don't want to talk about Cheryl, it's why you don't really want to shoot me, because it's still killing." He swallowed a hard breath, "It's still murder."

"Don't fucking call it that, okay? It's not that!" He scrunched his face up in the conflict of doubt, shook his head, and reoriented the gun's aim as Arthur spoke to him.

"What is it then?" Tyson didn't answer, "Because it sure as hell seems like that to me. No matter how fucked up you make it seem here. It's still dying." There was still no response, some steeled resolve boiling its way over the Rottweiler. "I'm scared, Tyson..."

"It's okay to be afraid," Tyson cooed, the resolve cracking in an instant, holding back tears of his own as he tightened his paw around the handgun, "But it'll be over quickly, you won't even feel it."

"Please... Please don't murder me. I love you..." Arthur turned around and closed his eyes, picturing the dark wilderness beyond and the sight of his body, the spray of blood, as he crumpled to the ground lifeless. Tyson would stand over his body alone in the desert having just murdered his lover in cold blood, only to then turn the gun upon himself and to take his own life. They would lay there together, dead, in the middle of nowhere to decay and bury beneath the earth, forgotten and lost for all eternity. That would be it. As Tyson said, end of the line. "If you loved me in any way, please don't murder me..."

Seconds seemed to tick by. Short and brief. Each one more deafening than the last.

Arthur counted the very heartbeats he had left. Every pulse thundered in his ears as he waited. And waited. And waited.

He listened for the click of metal, the sharp, stunted explosion, waiting for the dark black. Maybe then he would find peace.

"I'm sorry..."

Was that it? A scratch of something from behind. How would he know? Would it be painful? Would it be dark? Would he awaken all over again with a startled breath and a burning in his skull like before?

"So sorry..."

He was so terrified. He could feel his paws trembling as the wet heat sunk under his skin. End of the line.

"I can't do it..."

Relief washed over him like a flood, so heavy that it nearly took the very strength from his body. The numbness was there, but he could feel the very clench of his muscles release. Turning around, staggered steps carrying his weight, he looked back to the Rottweiler with streaked tears down his muzzle and the gun hanging limply by his side. Glumly his eyes dared not to look at Arthur, pinning themselves to the floor and fixing upon the hardened earth.

"Thank you."

Tyson didn't respond. His breathing seemed all too shallow, his posture slumped in defeat, a broken man now at the end of his wits. Unlike Arthur, he saw no possibility other than death. He had already convinced himself that death was the only reset, to return to a life he'd shattered in a single act of murder. But he didn't know how to comfort the man, as he didn't even know the answers himself. If he was at least certain of something, it would come as no relief to the Rottweiler. Even he was working to some mad rantings and an innate sense of something more hiding away from him. It was only his need to know that drove him onwards. Tyson, however, had settled for accepting his circumstances. Now those circumstances dictated that he was a dead man walking, untrustworthy and without purpose.

"We have to go back..." Tyson muttered, fingers still toying with the gun in his hold. Arthur felt the tingle of fear running back down his spine, but it was no longer for himself, but for the man who had nothing else to lose that stood before him, hollowed out and left as a husk. His spirit was dead, his body condemned, and now all that was left was but a bullet away.

"There has to be more out here..." Arthur reasoned, his voice as level as he could muster as he edged towards the Rottweiler, "Grant came out here and found something. He had to have done."

"What if he didn't? What if he just simply went insane and we've been wrong all along? Maybe we're all fucking dead anyway and none of this matters. We're just lost fucking souls, trapped in purgatory." Paw clenched around the gun once more, sealed with a darker spirit than before, Tyson lifted the gun to his own head, "What difference does it make? We die here, we die there, and we're dead already. It's all just some sick game and we lost."

"No! No, please!" He wanted to just surge forwards, to take the gun from Tyson's paw, but it would have been futile. The trigger would be pulled all too swiftly and the Rottweiler's brain matter would paint the dried earth and his blood soak between the cracks. Then truly he would be alone, the man he knew dead and potentially some husk waking up on an abandoned train station. "Please, don't do it."

"Why?" Tyson crowed, muzzle of the gun pressed flush to the side of his temple, digging into the scalp, "What difference does it make? Why do you care so much?"

"You couldn't shoot me," he pointed out, "Tell me why. Before you kill yourself, tell me why you couldn't kill me."

For the thousandth time he could count, impermissible silence hung between them. Fragile, as if held by threads of silk, spun to entangle the ghastly quiet, it threatened to break at any moment. But the longer it held there the worse it felt. It sunk itself into the skin, much like before, and then it burrowed all the deeper until it was plucking at every nerve ending and freezing every cell in its tracks.

Tyson's expression told it all, of shame and of guilt, of an overwhelming remorse that he couldn't just push beyond. It lurked on his gaze like a stalking predator that cowed him. It unsettled Arthur to see him this way, but it wasn't his main concern. His life had just been in the balance of a disturbed soul who now could only deem his own life forfeit.

"Don't ask questions you don't want the answers to..."

"Fuck you, Tyson," Arthur spat, his jaws snapping as anger flared in his system, "Stop being a coward, just answer me."

"Because I fucking love you!" Tyson spat the words as if they were acid on his tongue, but he clung to them. Choked upon them, as if it had taken all his strength to bring them forward bubbling into his throat.

Then they hung there, swimming in the humid, crackling air as they stood silent amidst the tempest. Though actions had already conveyed as much, it was the Rottweiler's first utterance of them, an admission of deeper feelings that had been plaguing every conversation they had had. Each moment they shared together was bristling with the unspoken words underneath, like shrapnel, buried into the skin from their first encounter to the current moment, on the barrel of a gun, staring death square in the eyes and begging for mercy.

"Tyson, please..." He couldn't bear to bring himself to move. His body felt like lead, submerged in heat and so very tired, drifting in some endless sea that willed him to succumb to the lapses of the void. In the middle of nowhere, floating and facing the inky blackness that threatened to consume everything, Arthur found his voice catching in his throat and his eyes pricking with tears, "Please don't do this."

"What choice do we have? Look around you, Arty, there's nowhere else to go but back." Tyson's body sagged, shoulders crumpling under the gravity of his woes and troubles, finger ever twitching just upon the trigger that for all the Labrador knew would take him away for good, shredded into oblivion and a part of him lost, peeled away by his suicide. "There's nowhere left to go from here..."

A pit swallowed in his gut, a lump snagged in his throat, he couldn't bear to bring himself to face the reality of their situation, but something in him refused to yield. Whether it was instinct or suicidal stupidity, he felt he had to go on, with or without the Rottweiler by his side. It was something he just had to do. He had to make up his mind.

"Then stay here," Arthur levelled, "Stay and kill yourself, but that's not on me. I have to go further, I have to know, Tyson... You could come with me, we can go together."

The Rottweiler said nothing, he just softly dropped to his knees and hunched under his own weight. Cradling the gun in his paws, nothing more came from him as he became entranced by the slender metal and terrifying imposition it threatened upon them both. Arthur saw the broken husk of a man condemned to his inability to act, to break free, crushed beneath a mind that had long since given in to the world he was trapped in. Though it hurt him deeply, every step he took like knives running through his skin, Arthur turned around and refused to look back anymore. He couldn't bear to look at Tyson so broken, so empty. The answers lay beyond in the desert, he knew it, he could save him and everyone else from whatever fate had befallen them all,

"If you go out there, there's no way back..." Tyson croaked after the Labrador, as if suddenly aware of his absence. Arthur didn't respond, trudging away with heavy steps as he clambered across the desert landscape until the horizon began to lift him up and over dunes and away from the Rottweiler. "You'll die out there! There won't be any turning back!"

Still Arthur didn't reply, flinching as he heard the male's voice booming ever distant on the wind until it was barely audible,

"Arty!" Fainter and fainter still, "Arthur!"

Until it was gone.

He found himself alone with nothing but his thoughts. Every step an effort, he was staggering across the skin of the earth as the heat grew, the winds whipped through his fur and sand pricked at his eyes. Dark clouds swirled overhead in a flurry of grey and navy, snarling and eating itself up until the sky was nothing but a writhing black that ebbed and glowed with some ethereal power. The sky sunk to the horizon's edge until there was nothing in Arthur's view for miles except where the ground met the air, scorched dirt and burning skies meeting at a thin precipice that seemed too far yet ever closer.

Arthur felt as if his body was drained, all energy had been sapped from him and his mind was frayed. Every moment since he had arrived in this place had tolled upon his traumatised being, physically and mentally chipping away at who he was until all that was left now was the man who fought against the wind, wandering nowhere but forwards in a wilderness that promised nothing. If he listened closely enough, he swore he could hear Tyson from somewhere, all around him yet only ever in his head, his voice just calling him, begging with him, pleading for him to come back, to not leave him alone, but none of it was real. How could it be? How could the whole town, the people, the buildings, the platform, how could any of it be real? It all felt like a dream, and his visions, and...

A gunshot rang out across the desert. Clear as a bell, sharp and succinct.

Arthur stopped in his tracks and swung back around, a glance across his shoulder as he looked back into the interminable darkness. Something inside him snapped, as if he himself had been shot, and tears bled from his eyes.

Openly he wept, doubled over clutching at his stomach, he cried until he could cry no more, each breath ragged and heaving from his gut as he tried to purge every last iota of feeling from his system. He couldn't believe Tyson would ultimately give in like that, to truly commit himself and take his own life. He didn't care what the rules of this place was, it was still death, still killing, still suicide. Arthur screamed as loud as he could to whatever hell could hear him and felt his voice break, the sound of his anguish cutting at his throat, tears hot on his face and stifling under the wet breath of the atmosphere that sunk around him. He curled into a ball on the ground, body tucked as if he were just drifting in the womb of his mother and all of reality was gone, forgotten, it hadn't even existed. He dreamt of the abyss that called to him, clung to him like a tumorous entity, something in the back of his mind that instilled such fear and such lonesomeness. As if it was where he truly belonged, amidst an ocean of darkness, isolated in a waking nightmare with nothing but his thoughts. Haven Falls was just a stepping stone it seemed, an unreality between life and death through which there was only one way to transcend beyond. To die, to truly and completely surrender to it. To die over and over until you stopped coming back, until there was nothing left of yourself to come back to. Grant was an end product, it seemed, and everyone would sooner or later suffer the same fate as they lost themselves to the darkness.

Arthur closed his eyes and imagined drifting in the black, willing himself to succumb to its indeterminable tendrils of cause and effect, as guilt and pain wracked him. It was all over and all he could now was wait until he perished alone. He searched for some stillness and clarity to his thoughts, as silent tears continued to fall.

That was when he felt it. Something inside him lurched, a sensation divorced from the physical but something that burnt in his mind like it was real. His eyes split open as he felt the world turn and warp, the Labrador howling in a burst of sudden, intense pain that was over in an instant. It was a flash of something, but it was connected now, he somehow intrinsically knew, and his eyes focused on thin air just a few feet away.

It was here. It had always been here. It was always where it needed to be, right when Arthur had ever needed it. But what was it? There was nothing to see, he had no idea what it was meant to be but somewhere in the back of his confused brain he knew it was significant. A connection? It felt too unnatural inside of him for that, more that it was broken, jagged and scarred like an old wound reopened. It felt raw to the thought, as much as Tyson's death felt painful to his own heart. A fracture then, but even that felt too neat. It was something that somehow felt it had always been there, from the beginning, something flawed in its design.

A defect.

A glitch.

A bug.

Before his very eyes the skin of the air ripped. Electricity crackled and danced in violently brilliant light as green burst into life, peeling itself apart as it tore a hole from itself. The sight was something wholly indescribable for Arthur, but he couldn't deny the reality as it split open, wrenching wider and wider until he could see through it. Just a pinhole became a window, then a door until it sucked the ground and drew away the earth to reveal nothing but its expanse beneath. In a misshapen, unknown hole, Arthur stared at the world he had always known was there all along.

Beyond this window of fractured light was the expanse of black he had seen, an absence of reality but somehow it felt tangible this time. His visions had rendered him a passenger, but now he felt in control. Covered in dust, clothes ragged, face stained with missing tears, he warily approached the portal to inspect it closer. The abyss sank on further beyond its edges, smothering and consuming the world behind it in a trick of perspective, and Arthur felt as if he could so very easily fall in were he not careful. In fact what scared him more was the incessant temptation to throw himself into this expanse, to lose himself to it and to give up on everything. Surely this must kill him, perhaps this was Hell, awaiting him to surrender himself to its darkness that had been calling out to him from the moment he had arrived.

But there was something more, something was wrong and he felt it in his gut. Questions he didn't know he had, with answers that troubled him. If he went through this portal - for that was what he could only call it - then Haven Falls and everything it stood to be would be over. Why did he know that? Why did he feel that way?

His subconscious seemed to know far more than his waking mind did. It had always felt that way, from the very first moment he had awoken in this place. Up until now, he had always operated on the notion that it was nothing more than unease at the unknown, but what if it wasn't entirely unknown? What if, somehow intrinsically, he knew more than he remembered? He had seen this abyss so many times, and every experience had one common function. And Rosie... he had all but nearly forgotten about her, but someone had called him at the police station, set everything into motion, led him to Grant, and led him out here... It was like he was acting on some unseen force of fate, guiding him along to wherever he needed to be, and here it was, whatever he had been searching for. Grant must have seen this, it could have sent him insane, possibly. Arthur couldn't say for sure.

If he recalled correctly, Grant said something along the lines of seeing 'everything' and the 'writing of those above', whoever they were. Arthur had seen the writing too, but was this truly everything? It was just a black expanse, something he'd seen himself countless times before, and yet he wasn't prepared to count himself as crazy. Reckless, perhaps, but not crazy. So what was he missing? What wasn't he seeing that Grant had? Was it the writing? That seemed to be the only element absent in the equation... Arthur listened to his instincts, if everything he knew was somewhere ingrained into his unconsciousness, then he would have to simply behave by impulse alone.

He cleared his throat, wiped his face with his sleeve, and took a deep, ragged breath,

"Activate operational interface..."

For a moment, nothing happened. Dismay swelled in Arthur's stomach, but it was quashed as quickly as it came when a green blinking dash formed amidst the darkness. It churned the canine's words into form, and mirrored his command.

Activating operational interface.

Accessing mainframe...

Connection established.

Welcome back Admin#01: Dr A. Quintos.

Arthur's heart raced with some ugly combination of excitement and apprehension. It knew him! It actually responded to him. He could finally communicate with whatever entity was behind all of this. He felt as if the air from his lungs was trying to escape from him as something akin to panic or shock gripped at his chest. Here and now, in this brief, frightening moment, he didn't feel crazy at all. It was as if everything was clicking into place, or at the very least the pieces of the puzzle were moving to reveal themselves to him. He calmed himself as best he could, collected his frantic, errant thoughts and considered what to do next. Nothing immediately came to mind, but he hazarded an attempt,

"Where am I?" It took a second, but the words responded.

Query: Where am I?

Response: Admin#01 is currently situated aboard the Terminal, in Chamber ERROR.

Recalibrating internal diagnostics...

Admin#01 is currently situated in Chamber #X1.

Disappointment returned swiftly it seemed. It wasn't an answer that was of any use to him, as it only threw up more questions than answers, but the Terminal? Chamber X1? What were these names, why did they feel familiar to him?

"What is this place?"

Query: What is this place?

Response: This is Platform 0.

He frowned, that couldn't be right.

"The station was platform zero, wasn't it?"

Query: The station was Platform 0, wasn't it?

Error: Unknown query.

It didn't make any sense to him, if the station wasn't platform zero, but the entire town of Haven Falls and everything beyond, what did that mean? Maybe he was approaching the situation from the wrong angle, he decided on a different approach,

"Who am I talking to?"

Query: Who am I talking to?

Response: This is the Terminal Mainframe.

That name again... the Terminal. It had to be something important, especially if this entity he was speaking to was somehow connected to it. He had to know more, learn more, and glean something he could use to pin this all together.

"What is the Terminal?"

System override by Admin#02.

What was this now? Was something going on? Why was the Terminal suddenly not responding to him, and who was this second admin, if he was recognised as the first for whatever reason?

Relay connection establishing...

Incoming input:

Admin#02: Arthur? Is that you? Are you receiving this?

Something about this felt off, but the language had changed, the mannerism, the feeling of the words... He hesitated but caved,

"Yes?"

Admin#01: Yes.

He waited, eyes trained on the blinking dash as he stood in the desert before the chasm into another world.

Admin#02: Thank fuck! We thought we'd lost you!

Systems can't find your imprint on any platform but the test chamber and you were still connected so we've been trying to reach you remotely.

Are you alright?

Why weren't you responding?

Where are you?

Reeko's here too, just so you know...

Those were a lot of questions he didn't know how to answer, and he found himself unable to sum up any courage to submit a response. Who was this new thing he was speaking to, if before he had been talking to the Mainframe? Who was Reeko? The name instilled some kind of dread in him, and once more he found himself hesitating, reluctant to reply and even when he tried concocting an answer in his head, something told him not to, or else everything would end. His only true option was the truth,

"I don't know."

Admin#01: I don't know.

Admin#02: That's understandable, we don't know much from our end either to be fair.

But regardless, our main priority should be pulling you out of wherever you are.

We need to establish an anchor so the system can reach you.

After that we'll work everything out.

The new entity fell silent for a few short minutes, and Arthur stood there afraid. He didn't know truly what was going on. Was this what drove Grant to insanity? This indeed was beginning to feel like 'everything', all the answers flooding at once, none of them matching any of the questions the Labrador had neatly, leaving gaps in his knowledge that his logic and resolution slipped between. It wasn't enough to collate everything together into something comprehensible, it was just fear and disorder. New words emerged from the inky black, green scrolling before his eyes.

I'm sending a blank data packet to you.

Once you connect with it, it should begin a download that the system can trace.

Like following a trail of breadcrumbs. :)

Beneath the writing, to the lower right, an icon had appeared that resembled something like a folder, two-dimensional and contained within a box.

All you need to do is accept the incoming packet.

I've prioritised it as a system update.

Whoever or whatever this thing was, it was right. The writing offered him his choice, flashing before his eyes.

System Patch #0-8796-02 incoming.

Authorise download and installation: Y/N?

All other dialogue seemed to close, leaving behind only this option, that single notification and its two responses. What Arthur could only describe as buttons emerged from the darkness, but they were different from the writing. Malformed and misshapen, as it carved from rock with nothing but a broken hammer. The letters 'Y' and 'N' were on each respectively, as if scratched into the very surface of the black masses as these buttons extruded from the darkness. It was Arthur's input, his ultimate means of connecting physically to the abyss and finding some kind of answer he had been searching for all this time. Yet still deep down he felt he shouldn't, that there were greater things at stake than just his own need to solve the unsolvable mystery.

He breathed slowly, warily reached out one arm, paw outstretched, and pushed. The blackness felt like nothing but a mild tingle to his fingers, and weightless as he pressed his response.

Download and installation authorised.

Feedback connection established.

Tracing connection...

Arthur had accepted, but immediately he regretted his decision. His moral dilemma still preyed on his mind but as he attempted to pull his paw away, he found that from the surface of the blackness now protruded a bright tentacle of light. Glowing white as if burning hot, it fed itself into Arthur's palm and refused to yield as he pulled his arm away. It tried pulling him back, feeding it back into the abyss, and fight or flight kicked in for the Labrador. His heels dug into the dusty ground as he fought for purchase, heaving with all he could to scramble away, and for a short while he succeeded. He staggered a yard or so backwards, his other arm clasped at his wrist to try and wrench himself free, but the tendril was deep into his body somehow, and still he drew him back towards the tear in reality.

He lost his footing in the battle, and collapsed to his backside, legs dragging in the dirt as he fought as hard as he could to not be dragged into the portal. He screamed, perhaps for no one in particular, begged for it to stop, pleaded for help, knowing that nobody could come to rescue him. Within seconds he was back to the fracture's edge, his paw threatening to sink into the blackness, until he felt the skin touch, and an icy coldness seeped into him. He was dying, he could feel it, he was sure of it, and he wailed aloud, not wanting to go just yet, desperation surging in him for one last time. His mind burnt within millions of flashing lights, information suddenly cascading into him and overloading every nerve he possibly had as it unlocked every foggy door that had existed in his brain. He became aware, possibly for the first time in a long time, of all he needed to know, and it was terrifying what he remembered and realised. He was going to die.

Arms wrapped around his chest, gripping him like a vice, as strong muscles pulled him back. The connection between him and the void was broken as both him and his saviour were sent flying back, recoiled upon an invisible impact of a severed link, and together they plummeted into the dry earth with a jarring, cracking thud.

Intense, acute pain throbbed in his skull as Arthur came to, vision blurred as he clambered back to his footpaws, still very much alive he was relieved to feel. But as the pain died down and his thoughts returned to a coherent state, he felt the swell of dread reclaim his gut. He had to fix this somehow, his plan hadn't worked, he'd only jeopardised everything he had tried so hard to build. There was some time, maybe, but he would have to be careful...

Who had saved him though? Someone had pulled him away, maybe just in time...

He turned on the spot, whistling round to face the equally agonised form of Tyson. Elation burst inside of the Labrador, relief and love all blooming into one brilliant sensation that he wished he'd never have had to feel but was so glad he could. He didn't even think as he flung himself at the Rottweiler, embracing him tightly, sobbing into his neck,

"You didn't kill yourself!" He cried, "You came back for me." There was a soft, weak chuckle, as the deep voice of the bigger male thrummed through them both,

"Yeah, well... I love you. I couldn't leave you behind..."

"Oh fuck, I love you too." Arthur kissed him, hard and deeply, as if it were the last kiss they were ever going to share, and he refused to break away until breath forced him to. He was scrubbing the grief from his system and replacing it with happiness that he thought had had lost, not believing everything was okay finally.

"What..." The Rottweiler seemed confused, dumbfounded, as he pulled them both apart from one another and looked over his shoulder, "What was that thing?"

Arthur looked to, and the window was gone. The interface had closed the moment the download had been completed, and undoubtedly the Terminal now had a stable connection to him. All that remained now was the stagnant, humid air that hung above the desert, only the weather had cleared and the skies were empty, the void of pale blue greeting a dull horizon far beyond.

"It's complicated," Arthur began, but what could he truly tell the Rottweiler that he knew without freaking him out? He didn't have the time to put all the pieces together for him now, there were more pressing matters. "We need to go back to the station. If it's the entry point, it'll also be the exit point. I..." he stopped himself as the words stuck in his throat. He knew what he wanted to say but it would give too much away to the Rottweiler, it would crack his reality and make the situation worse. Right now, he needed Tyson on his side more than ever. "We just need to go back to Haven Falls. Please..."

Slowly, implacably, Tyson nodded, and from his side he drew out his gun, cocking the trigger.

"It's the only way..." he said solemnly, "If it's what you want, I mean this time around..."

"Actually, I think that won't be necessary..." Arthur placed his paw against the handgun and pushed it down in the bigger dog's grip, and he held his other paw and closed his eyes, finding that inner stillness in him that had brought up the void in the first place. Everything was connected now, and he was back in control. He urged his thoughts into reality, and processed them to action.

Around them in a whirling blur of bloated air and dust, a gust of electricity kicked in, spitting and hissing right in Arthur's ears, but he wasn't afraid this time. He kept his eyes closed and held tightly onto Tyson's paws as they travelled, or did he move the world instead? He was still a little sketchy on the true details, but when he opened his eyes they were both standing where they needed to be.

Before them stood the formerly weathered building of the station known to the residents of Haven Falls as Platform Zero. It no longer looked dilapidated, it seemed renewed with life, all of its glass panes no longer dusty, any that were cracked now magically mended, and any damage that had once pocked its face was repaired. It stood upon its verge overlooking the town below as some kind of monument, a beacon of transit, and Arthur and Tyson were nothing but small figures beneath its boasting silhouette. A commotion drummed about it, however, a crowd seemed to be mingling at its base, as if the station itself were back in use and thriving with business. Most faces Arthur didn't recognise, but some seemed to look familiar, people he may have seen. It was only when a certain female Doberman caught his eye did he realise that all these people were the townsfolk, drawn to the renovated station like moths to a flame.

However this female Doberman had also caught sight of them both. Rage flashed across her face, softened only slightly with confusion, but resolutely set with a vendetta. Cheryl stormed over, in an instant drawing her weapon, approaching them both with it raised,

"What the hell is going on?!" She demanded with a stern bellow, "You fucking shot me, your superior, and now all this crazy shit is happening? And you," she pointed the gun at Arthur, but for once he felt no fear. He had control of the situation, at least for now. "You're to blame for all this. Everything was peaceful until you showed up. What have you done?"

"I've done nothing," he replied calmly, stepping away from Tyson, approaching the wild Doberman, "Yet, but I'm going to fix this, I promise. You're all going to be saved. I hope..."

"Cheryl, what's going on?" Tyson asked, venturing his own response, "What's everyone doing here?"

"Shut the fuck up!" Cheryl seemed unable to dissipate her anger, her paws trembled. She was scared, understandably. Though she might have been an officer of the law, she was still like everyone else, very much mortal and very much afraid of the unknown that had hung over this town like a shadow.

Arthur decided to deescalate the problem as best he could, once more stilling his mind, eyes closed, and he willed away her firearm. When he opened them again, her paws were empty, clasped around the invisible space that had once held the gun. The shock of that fact alone seemed to break whatever control Cheryl had left on the situation and she went quiet, dumbstruck in an unfathomable sense that seemed to rupture her to her core. Arthur felt sorry and sympathetic for her, knowing her own partner had shot her dead, now faced with unnatural events, and knowing what he knew now, he wished there was some way he could explain it all to her. But like with Tyson, there wasn't time, there was nothing left to do but pick up the pieces and see what could be salvaged.

"I'm sorry," he breathed, sincere as he could be, as Cheryl's arms collapsed and sagged to her sides. Tyson was as equally astounded at what had happened, but he tried again,

"Cheryl, what's going on? What's wrong?"

"There's a train..." she whispered, "At the station, it was there when I woke up, but none of the doors will open and nobody's driving it. We don't know what it means..."

"It's for me," Arthur said slowly, "It's here to take me back..."

A paw clamped on his arm and drew him away, the Rottweiler pulling Arthur off to the side, glancing fearfully at the station before down at the Labrador,

"Look, this is all..." he searched for the words, "I mean, one minute we're in the middle of nowhere, now we're here, what the fuck? How? And this train, what do you mean it's for you?" Arthur sighed, still fighting with how much he should tell the canine, but he couldn't know the full extent until he was out of the system. But looking in Tyson's eyes made him weak, it made him feel vulnerable and connected on a level he had never anticipated. It had been so long since he had felt anything like what he felt for the dog, and it hurt him to have to do all of this. It was never meant to be like this, he hadn't known fully what he was doing, and this is what happened...

"It's all relative, it's just..." He just couldn't bring himself to tell the truth, not just yet. "I can't, not right now. But I will, I promise..." A pregnant pause hung between them as Tyson weighed up the response. It wasn't enough, it wasn't anything really except a plea for complicit trust. Like so many times before, he was asking everything of Tyson in return for nothing but that alone.

"Okay..."

It was something, at the very least the Rottweiler cared for him enough, but there was something in the back of his tone that carried discomfort. Arthur knew he would have to tell him something eventually, but that was another problem he was staving off until he had dealt with the more pressing concern.

He moved past the Doberman, past the throng of the crowd, and made his way into the building and onto the platform. Little had changed, only everything looked newer, with a shiny, glossy finish. True to her word, a train now rested at the platform awaiting departure. Its engine thrummed with a steady beat as it waited idly, through the windows nothing but empty carriages inside. It was a modern train, its main engine block a pristine metal shell of silver, cut with art deco grooves and vents that streamed a sickly black smoke. Its cabin was high up, but locked off to anybody from the outside, and if Arthur peered there was indeed nobody commanding the vehicle. Its carriages were perhaps a little more old-fashioned, remodelled for newer rails but furbished from wood, single panes for its windows, rows of seats connected as singular benches rather than separate chairs.

Arthur approached the first carriage nearest to him, and stopped only when the door swung open of its own accord, as if blown by a ghostly wind in the silent air. It beckoned to him, urged him inside, as it promised to carry him off into the distance along the rail until he slipped off the horizon's edge. But in reality it wasn't a rail, it didn't disappear upon the horizon, it was just a physical manifestation of a function, an interface to interact and operate with. It wouldn't actually be going anywhere, just the entity that was himself, an avatar, would be brought away from this place and back...

A paw placed itself on his shoulder, tightly squeezing. He turned to look at Tyson, he stood behind him, like a lover about to bid farewell to the most important thing in all their life. It was quite dramatic, Arthur had to agree, and he found himself heartbroken as he looked up into the Rottweiler's eyes once more, meeting his soul and begging for forgiveness.

"I don't want you to go. What if you don't come back?" Tyson hid tears, steeled his voice as best he could.

"I have to... Or else all this, you included, will be over. Please, you have to let me go."

"You mean everything to me, please... please just tell me you're coming back. At least do that..."

Arthur couldn't answer him honestly, and it killed him more than ever that he couldn't. There was no way he could lie to him.

"I promise I will come back..." The words hurt on his tongue, that felt sharp in his gut, but he forced himself to say them as the Rottweiler squeezed them both together so close. He found Arthur's lips and kissed him, trembling in some deep, resolute fear that he was losing his partner, and he lingered in some fighting effort to hold on to the Labrador.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

But Arthur stepped away, reluctantly, brokenly, and pushed himself onto the carriage. The door swung shut behind him, and he turned to look back out at the window at Tyson. From the front of the train came a gurgled hiss as its engine came to life, building its strength as it lugged its load behind it. Arthur walked back down the train as it moved, keeping Tyson in his sights, even as the train picked up speed. He broke out into a jog, then a run, nearly a sprint, as he battled against the movement, the Rottweiler too moving to the furthest edge of the platform, the pair fighting to stay together. Inevitably however Tyson ran out of platform and Arthur out of train, and through the back of the last carriage, out on its railed balcony, he bellowed back to the lone Rottweiler standing on the station's edge,

"I'll come back to you, I promise!"

His words might have been whipped to the wind, lost into the desert silence, but the town drew away, growing to nothing but a faint speck on the horizon until it was nothing more. Arthur felt a deep sadness succumb him, as he went back inside the carriage and selected a seat at random to slump into. His head pressed against the pane of the window, watching the vacant wilderness race them by in a whirling rush, and numbly Arthur watched as the world melted away into black. It chewed and swallowed the desert, fast approaching the train, until it was practically upon the railway itself. He closed his eyes, found his inner stillness, and left himself to drift.

V/ drive subroutines disengaged.

Withdrawing from Terminal.

Admin#01 logging out.

Deactivating Chamber #X1.

An eternity passed, a lifetime and more, until he opened his eyes and was met with nothing but the inky darkness. He was submerged, liquid ensconced him, and though he could see nothing he felt faintly tendrils trailing away from him. Glued to his scalp, his arms, legs, all over him, and he found that he struggled to breathe, suddenly hyperaware of his situation as he lashed out, realising that the blackness was not infinite, but met a solid wall that surrounded him.

He screamed as the light erupted and collapsed in its fantastical majesty.