FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I woke up one night... For... No particular reason... I had a bad dream but as soon as I opened my eyes I can't remember what it was about. I look around as I lay in bed and I feel that Nikki is next to me. Asleep... As I look down, I noticed she has her arm clenched around my stomach... I move closer to her and place my hand on her cheek... So warm... So soft... And while I was staring at her, there was this ecstasy I felt myself floating away in. My whole body feels tingly and sensitive and it just doesn't stop. And at some point, it feels as if I'm being hit with a sledgehammer... I can't feel anything... I can't think... I don't know where I am, or... Who I am... It takes me a while to remember...

Sometimes at night, when I look at Nikki, I'm always wondering how she can be asleep so peacefully. She tells me that she has sleepless nights sometimes as well, just like I do, but I barely notice it. I only remember one night where Nikki woke up, sweating, panting and crying her eyes out... I was there for her that night, like she's always there for me whenever I'm having one. Nikki experienced things too when she was young, but she never told me until now. She asked me if I wanted to come along to her parents a while ago, to "set things right" and to "close down a chapter of her life." I didn't know what she meant with that, but I went with her nonetheless. I didn't understand how or why she could've given it a rest. Nikki told her story to me and now I understand, but I didn't at the time. But sadly, I can't give the past a rest... Not just yet...

Earlier today, Nikki and I had a serious conversation. She told me everything about her that night, the truth about her youth, the things she's been through when she was young.. It wasn't pretty, but Nikki was so strong when she told me about it. She didn't shed a tear and didn't stutter like she usually does whenever she's nervous... There was no emotion in her voice when she talked about it... And it kinda scared me at first... It's not like her to act so emotionless... But still... Nikki can be a bit of a philosopher sometimes, especially during our serious talks. She told me that people with prejudices are afraid of the unknown and would rather avoid them. Nikki's right on that, but what she seems to forget is that everyone has prejudices about everyone and everything. We can't help it. We were born that way and it's in our blood. I said that to her and Nikki then said to me that everyone has a story to tell, no matter how inconsiderable and unimportant others make him or her appear to be... And for that very same reason, most stories are left unspoken... Pieces of the puzzle that has been deliberately left out because of the prejudices... And that is the exact same reason why Nikki never told me or anyone else about it... All of a sudden, everything made sense to what happened with Nikki and me when we had our difficult periods. She hit the nail on the head... I had no idea how to reply... I didn't have an answer to that... And I kept on thinking about the conversation we had... It kept me busy throughout the night... And I never told anyone... At least, not the whole story... What really happened, and what made me turn into the person I am today... So... Maybe it's time to finally tell everything... And maybe I can finally let the past be the past... Every journey begins with a step. And tonight, I've taken the first step...

My name is Ceylan Saida Tahani Al-Naijir Ibn La'Akhlaq... I'm a tigress, thirty four years old and experienced things in my youth most people don't even experience in their entire lifetime. But I can honestly say that it would've been a waste of my life if I didn't do the things I want to do now. It's because I believe that life is measured in achievements and experiences. And... Not in years alone. After all, what's the point of our existence if we don't do the things we like to do and spend time with our loved ones? Work ourselves to death and worry about every day that follows? Heh... No... Not for me... Looking back now, makes me realize I'm glad to have experienced the good and the bad. It only made me appreciate life more then I already did...

When I looked at my night-stand, I saw the locket my parents once gave me a long time ago and a diary containing my life-story, and every day from my youth was written down. I got hold of the diary and flipped through its pages... It's written in Urdu. The only language I knew back then. The hard cover of the small book was covered in fairy stickers that my mother gave me a long time ago. The pages on the inside are also littered with those stickers, as every page was written in messy handwriting with a small drawing every now and then. I flipped through these pages many times and always knew I would encounter that date... Memories always came back... Memories I tried to forget for so long... But nonetheless, I kept on flipping the pages... Then I found the date that marked the end of my childhood...

"Fourteenth of May, 1994..."

It wasn't a strange thing to hear gunshots at night. I already got used to that ever since I was little. This time, however, was different... I didn't realize what was going on at that time, but that very same night marked the end of my childhood...

A couple of months before that, TV's and radio's broadcasted that the poor and oppressed from Salahadihn united with the rebel militia's and took on the government. It all started innocently... Peaceful demonstrations turned into violence... Violence turned into bloodshed... And yet, they always came back... But it happened hundreds of miles away from Pandura, the small village where I grew up... We didn't have to worry about it...

But as the months passed by, it escalated from bad to worse... It was no longer a peaceful demonstration. No longer a violent bloodshed... No longer a conflict... It turned into a violent civil war... And they were coming for us... And at some point, it wasn't on the TV anymore. It was on the streets outside. You could see it through you r own windows. The government fell, and with it, everyone who stayed loyal to it... By the time the International MNAF Peace Keeping Forces tried to evacuate the big metropolis cities, it was already too late... We didn't hear anything after that... They were coming for us. And that's when we knew that we had to flee. But we just didn't know where to go... They called it "justice"... My mother called it "total anarchy"...

My father went out with my little brother Sanjay to a Red Cross distribution point one day to get supplies, but they never came home. The day that we were evacuated by soldiers, you could see in the eyes of people that fear got the better of them. They were terrified, just like my mother was... She insisted that we wouldn't leave until my father and my little brother Sanjay returned. But I think she already knew that they weren't coming back this time. And at some point, she had to make a difficult decision. So we left our home, and went along with a group of refugees escorted by the army to safer grounds. We traveled for a few days until we reached a Green Zone... I didn't know what a Green Zone was, and my mother explained to me that it was a safe place, meaning that the soldiers would protect us at a refugee camp and provide us with shelter, where we received food and water. During the two weeks we stayed there, you could feel the tension and the fear... You could see it on the faces of everyone who stayed there...

One night, while I was on a stretcher in a tent, I overheard my mother talking to strange people I didn't know. I remember how the meaning of words began to change in that conversation... How unfamiliar words like "siege" and "genocide" became terrifying, while things like "Peace Keeping Forces" and "protection" lost their power. I heard being "different" became dangerous. But even now, I still don't understand it, why they hated us so much. It was like they were watching us... To find an opportunity to butcher us... Waiting for the right moment to strike... As if they planned it all along... The conversation quickly changed the subject. About the rumors who were spreading out that someone important who had a large influence on them was killed in the first firefight that occurred once we were in the Green Zone... The rumors already circulated and struck fear in people. And it's like a virus... It spreads out and infects others who get in touch with it... My mother always told me that we'd be safe. But her eyes told me that she was terrified...

On the night of the fourteenth of May, 1994, I was asleep on a stretcher. I woke up all of a sudden by an ear deafening noise... And heard another one... And another one... It kept on going throughout the night and I saw large flashes of light through the tent canvas, shortly being followed by a very loud explosion. I could see fire and smoke in the distance through the thin tent canvas while I saw the shadows of people with guns were running around and shouting... I saw how the MNAF soldiers tried to hold their ground, but they got run over by the masses... I was absolutely terrified... And the people who were coming for us weren't soldiers... In just a fraction of a second, I knew what would happen... I saw the devastation when we were being evacuated... I took cover underneath my blankets, clenching it, as if that would be the only thing that could prevent me from harm. Then not long after that, my mother ran back in the tent... And I could see it in her eyes... Maybe she was even more terrified than I was... The moment she got in, she quickly closed the tent behind her...

'<Quickly, Ceylan...!! Hide...!!>'

'<M-Mom...?>'

'<Hide...!!>'

I got under my stretcher as quickly as I could. I saw shadows going inside other tents, forcing people out of them and eventually, they reached ours... I heard how my mom was pleading and begging to them, but it got interrupted. They responded to her pleas by hitting her to the ground. I saw my mother's face covered in blood, dripping on the floor canvas. And then she looked at me... A fraction of a moment to stare in her eyes... As if she wanted to say goodbye... As if she knew what would happen... She got picked up shortly after that and got violently carried away outside... I could hear her crying and yelling while she kept on begging... And just like that, she disappeared out of my life... And when I realized that, I started to cry... A little whimper... A small tear... And all of a sudden, I saw a black posture of a face, down on his knees, turning a flashlight on and shined right in my face. In that short moment, I could see the look in his eyes... A soulless figure whose eyes were only filled with hate... I never felt so terrified in my entire life when I saw those eyes... I couldn't move... I couldn't do anything...

He reached his hand out to me, dragged me from under the stretcher by my hair and looked at me for a short moment... Then he threw me on my stretcher and started to pull my pajama pants down while I struggled to get free. I wanted to get away from him... In the sudden burst of panic I felt, I scratched his face with my claws. At some point, he tried to force my head down, but I managed to bite his arm... He yelled in pain as he rolled on the ground, while I quickly got up and ran away outside... The moment I stood outside, I could literally see hundreds of people running and fighting... People were on the ground, screaming in pain while others were on the ground not moving at all as they were covered in blood... I yelled for my mother but I never got an answer... Large masses were coming in from left and right... No matter which direction you'd run to, it was inevitable for you to get caught up with... All of a sudden, I felt that I was being picked up and noticed that I was hanging upside down, thrown over a shoulder... It happened so fast that I wasn't realizing what was going on... The muddy boots below me moved fast, making a sway motion every time they touched down which made me nauseous. .. When I looked up, I saw a couple of more soldiers and civilians running behind us... And then all of a sudden... I heard a whiz... And a sound that I'll never forget... A fleshy snap, like you're squishing pasta with Bologna sauce... The soldier who was carrying me fell down hard and dropped me as I hit my head on the hard surface, causing me to feel disoriented and dizzy for a moment...

'Shit!! Sneijder is geraakt!!'

'Haal hem naar binnen!! Schiet op!!'

'Hospik!!'

'Neem haar mee!!'

I didn't understand a word of what they were saying... One of the soldiers ran towards me, quickly picked me and ran as fast as he could to a building not too far away where the others were hiding... The soldier who got shot in his leg was treated by a medic who tried his best to stop the bleeding...

'Waar blijft die klote versterking?!! Osiriaanse troepen hadden hier al moeten zijn!!'

'De 44e pantser divisie is onderweg, ze stuiten op hevig verzet 4 kilometer ten oosten van hier!'

'Kut!!'

'Sergeant, ze zitten overal!! We kunnen ze niet tegenhouden!!'

'Doe wat je kunt om ze tegen te houden!! We gaan weer naar buiten! Zodra we buiten zijn, ren naar de betonnen afzettingen! Geef de terugtrekkende troepen dekking! De Groot, blijf hier bij Sneijder!'

'Ja sergeant!'

The soldier who talked the most turned to us, the civilians... He was scared shitless, like we were... He told us in broken Urdu to move to the far end of the building... So we did... We already heard the explosions as the soldiers ran outside... The guzzling engine of a truck was heard and people yelled to open fire... The rattling of a machine gun echoed throughout the corridors and was bone-chilling to hear... We didn't hear anything from the soldiers after that... I saw the oncoming masses closing in on us from outside... And there was no one who could safe us... Most of the people hiding there ran outside in panic... And most of them probably didn't even make it out alive... They entered the building and trashed the place in search of people as I heard them yelling for us to come out... I crawled behind a fallen desk in a dark corner so that they wouldn't see me... Some people weren't hiding, knowing that they were trapped inside and that they couldn't escape... Moments later, a small group of armed men came in... One of them said that it's a waste of ammo... So they took out their machetes... And I witnessed everything... A young girl got hit on the back of her head and when she tried to crawl away, one of them got on top of her and placed the sharp blade against her neck while the tears were going down her face... What happened next was so gruesome... Bone chilling... The blades went through them like a knife slicing butter... But I stayed... Hiding in a dark corner where they wouldn't see me... I kept hiding... Closed my eyes so that I didn't have to watch it... But I heard it... And I didn't know what was worse... The people who were butchered with a machete were screaming out loud... To this day, it's still bone chilling to remember their screams... And then all of a sudden... It was silent... A dead eerie silence... And I waited for them to leave... Or at least, I thought that they left... After what felt to me as an eternity, I had the courage to breathe again... I wanted to get out of there... So I got up while thinking it was safe to do so... But the moment I got up, I noticed it was the biggest mistake of my life... There he was, raiding the bodies of the people he murdered... He turned his head and looked straight in my eyes... The man gets out his machete as he walked towards me... I couldn't move... I couldn't do anything... He grabbed me by my arm and violently pulled me over and I fell down on my stomach... When I wanted to crawl away from him, I received a tremendous blow on the back of my head... The man stood in front of me and rolled me over with his boot... I remember seeing the shiny tip of the sharp blade twinkling in the poorly illuminated room... And then all of a sudden... Someone jumped on him from the back... There was a fight going on as they moved away from me... My vision became weaker by the second... Sounds faded off... Then the last thing I remember was a pistol shot... And then everything turned black...

I have no idea how long I've been unconscious... But when I opened my eyes again, there was nothing but silence... I was still in the same building... Windows were shattered, debris lying everywhere... I felt disoriented... Nauseous... Dizzy... I managed to get up with a lot of pain and effort... It took a long time before I was recovered from the disorientation and nauseous feeling... I felt the unbearable pain on the back of my head and took a few deep breaths as I stumbled towards the door and continued into the dark hallway, trying to find a way outside...

It was quiet... Very quiet... I heard my own footsteps echoing and had the feeling I could be attacked again at any moment... But it never happened... I was afraid to be alone like that... The dizzy and nauseas feeling became worse by the second... And then all of a sudden, I saw a shadow moving quickly passed a window from the corners of my eyes... '<H-Hello...? A-Anyone t-there...?' No response... That same, dead eerie silence... So I kept stumbling forward... And then all of a sudden, I tripped and fell down... I tripped over a dead body... It took me a while before I realized that I was staring at three dead bodies in the hallway... The soldier who carried me... The soldier who took care of him... And the man who attacked me... I didn't know what happened... I guess some questions are never meant to be answered... I looked at them for a moment, waiting for a sign of life... But they never got up... I could swear the man who attacked me was grinning at me... His bloodstained machete was right next to him, as if he could reach out to it any minute... One of the soldier's throat was slit and was bathing in his own pool of blood... Maybe I was about to end up like that... When I looked at him again, I thought I could see his grin was getting bigger... So I tried to stumble as quickly as I could my way out of the building, just to get away from him...

Our tent wasn't far away... I was hoping my mother would be waiting in there for me... But when I got inside, there was no one... I saw the diary that my grandmother once gave me a long time ago on the ground. Ever since the day she gave that to me, I wrote down what happened every day. But I had no idea what to write in it that night... So I took it with me along with the locket my parents gave me. I was all set to leave. All I had to do was to find my mother so we could get away from here as quickly as we could...

Once I got outside the tent, it was very quiet... I heard the wind breezing over the pile of dead bodies, like a ghost, whispering out the names of those who died... I felt how I was shivering and shaking as I was looking at all those dead people scattered throughout the camp... I had a lot of pain with walking...

I didn't know what to do. I was just walking around aimlessly outside while the shaking only got worse... I didn't know why I was shaking. Perhaps it was caused by the cold. I didn't know. But the shaking only got worse... And then all of a sudden, I was struck with fear again... I didn't know why I became so afraid all of a sudden. I could hear things that weren't there... I know it was all in my head, but the longer it lasted, the more real it became to me... And I started seeing things in poorly illuminated camp... It felt like I was being stared at by hundreds of people, and while my mind told me to move on, I stopped and looked around... It felt like the air was getting thick and that I couldn't breathe... The things I started seeing were terrifying, but... I didn't know what I was seeing. As if the shadows had a life of their own... They moved from corner to corner and whispered at each other in the dark... But despite being terrified, I stayed. I didn't run away from it. I just had to find my mother so that we could get away from here together... It didn't take long for me to find her. She was down on her stomach and had her eyes closed... So I gently shook her. For hours, I tried... But no matter how hard I tried that night, she never woke up. Then I got down on my knees and held her, crying quietly while no one could hear me...

Then the next thing I heard were the sounds of caterpillar tracks... When I opened my eyes, I was blinded by a bright flash of light, and saw a tank driving in the distance while other vehicles were passing by, shining their way through the darkness with bright lights. But they were all passing by. I looked at all the vehicles passing by and noticed a lot of black postures walking in my direction. When I faced them, I noticed they all had guns. The terrified feeling came back once more, but I felt so weak... While my mind told me to stay put and pretend to be dead, I didn't. Fear got the better of me and I had t o get away from them. Either by crawling or... I didn't know. I couldn't think. All I could think off was that I had to get away somehow... So I crawled away from them but I didn't make it far. When I looked up, I heard some yelling in a language I didn't understand and saw two black postures running towards me... When they kneeled next to me, I could see that they were staring at me with wide eyes... And then one of them quickly recovered and turned its head away...

'Captain Davis!! There's a child here!'

I didn't understand what he was yelling... But because I didn't understand him, the terrified feeling only got worse...

'S-Sparaht mjilnoradachi d-dé... N-Noia... N-Noia p-pasitiayo...'

'What's she saying?'

´I don't know, call Ryan up front.'

'Ryaaan!!'

'It's a fucking massacre out here...'

One of the soldiers looked down on me and he seemed to be a little disturbed... while the other one looked around... Of course, I was still terrified... And the tears came back... The soldier caressed my hair and whispered something I didn't understand. Then not long after that, three more ran towards us and one of them was a woman... The woman and one of the soldiers that arrived kneeled next to me, while the woman was gently feeling all over my body... The soldier who caressed my hair looked surprised at his hand and saw blood on his glove. I didn't know where that blood came from... I felt a piercing pain on the back of my head and it only got worse from that point on... I started to cry because of the pain... 'Ssssh... Que muawhira mashdem...' the soldier that just arrived whispered. I looked at him with wide eyes... I understood what he said... He told me I was safe now... But he wasn't a feline... I had no idea what he was. But he was a young guy, with glasses...

'Ya musdemdja nazee shukaran...?' he whispered again...

'C-Ceylan...'

'Ceylan, Saraghti bah anahr da jusudi. Vericere alderashma lachomwuahira eshder barach tsu mi da hirachya...'

I kept staring at him with wide eyes while I nodded slowly...

'What'd you say to her?' the woman asked him.

'I told her she's safe now and that you're gonna check up on her.'

'The APC's are on their way. They'll be here in ten mikes.'

'Get JTOC on the line.'

'Yes sir.'

The soldier who was the closest to one of the large trucks handed what seemed like an old telephone horn to the soldier who walked towards it. From the looks of it, he had bad reception considering he banged the horn a few times on the radio in frustration. He flipped a switch on the radio started and talking... I had no idea what they were saying despite hearing the entire conversation...

'Broadsword two one actual, this is Sabre six-four, be advised. Green Zone has been compromised. Request to initiate a search and rescue, over.'

'Sabre six-four, uh, roger that. Do everything you can to get those people out of there.'

'Goliath, Goliath, Sabre six-four, do you copy?'

'Sabre six-four here. Go ahead.'

'Sabre six-four, JTOC requests you assist Dagger three-zero in engaging hostile forces two clicks north from the overpass. You are authorized to use deadly force, hostiles expendable. How copy, over?'

'Solid copy, Goliath, we're on it. Out.'

'Garuda five-zero-niner, unload half of your chalk at the Green Zone and proceed to designated area.'

'Garuda five-zero-niner, wilco. We're Oscar-Mike. Out.'

'Gear up. We got a long night ahead of us.'

While the woman kept feeling all over my body, the soldier who was talking on the radio violently pushed the radio back to the soldier who gave it to him, and walked away to a large group of soldiers up ahead while the others were following him. A couple of moments later, a large helicopter landed in the distance, and I could see a lot of soldiers coming out. The soldier who talked on the radio went inside the helicopter, along with the large group of other soldiers and once they were all inside, the helicopter took off again. Only the woman stayed with me. I heard someone was talking to her in her ear-piece, and she said something back in a language I didn't understand... Then she carefully picked me up. But it hurt when she did...

'O-Ow...! Ow...!!'

'Sssh, I know it hurts, sweetie... It'sokay.... Sssh...'

I clenched my hands on her back... I felt how warm she was... Her sweet comforting voice, whispering things I didn't understand... And while she was walking, I could see the other soldiers were covering up the bodies, scattered throughout the camp... Hundreds of bodies... I saw how a blanket was placed over my mother's body... And at that point... I couldn't hold myself anymore... I cried myself to sleep in the woman's arms that night...

When I opened my eyes again, I noticed I was wrapped up in thick warm blankets on a stretcher... I noticed my ankle had a bandage wrapped around it and felt with my hand that my head had stitches. It was itching, so I started to scratch. When I noticed my fingers were covered in blood and that it started to hurt again, I stopped. There was this small light that illuminated the tent, and there were separate compartments inside of it. When I looked up, I noticed shadows moving on the tent canvas and heard that woman's voice and some other voice from a male I didn't recognized... So I listened, even though I had no idea what they were saying...

'How you holding up...? Argento said you had a bit of a hard time...' the male said.

'I don't know how much longer I can take this...'

'Yeah...'

'And this girl... She's probably not even older than six... Boshard and Remara told me she was clinging on to her mother's body when they found her... And... When I saw her... I just... Heh... She reminds me of my own little girl...'

'I know...'

It stayed silent for a moment as I could see one of the shadows was reaching something out to the other. They looked like small sticks and they placed it in their mouths. The other one lighted it up and gave a quick nod to thank the other shadow. 'So how's she doing at the moment?'

'She's been hit on the back of her head... Seriously, it was a gaping wound... So I stitched her up... And... Her ankle is bruised but other the n that, she'll live... It's just so sad to see...'

'I know...'

'Heh... It's actually kinda funny, Jason...'

'What do you mean?'

'Well... Back home, I tell people what I do for a living and they think "well, now that figures." But over here, it's a big, big mystery... So... I guess I've changed some...'

'Heh...'

'Sometimes I wonder if I've changed so much my little daughter is ever going to recognize me, whenever it is that I get back to her... And how I'll ever be able to tell her or my parents about days like today...'

'I wouldn't know, Alice... Only time will tell...'

'Yeah... I guess so...'

I couldn't sleep anymore after I woke up. Throughout the night, I kept looking around, and listened to the woman and the man talking. Those words didn't mean anything to me at the time. They were just words. And every now and then, I fell asleep once more from exhaustion...

When I opened my eyes again, I saw that woman sitting on my stretcher and felt how she gently caressed my hair. I looked at her with wide eyes as the scared feeling slowly came back, but all she did was smiling weakly at me... I couldn't see it in the darkness, when I first saw her, but now that there was light, I could see that she's a leopard. A beautiful leopard... Heh... My mother used to tell me stories about angels. And the way she told me about it sounded as if angels are the most beautiful beings that you can ever witness. Maybe she was an angel... The woman took my hand and gently placed it in the palm of her hand... My little paw in her big paw... Then she folds her hand, and held on to my little paw while she scratched the fur on the back of my hand... She looks at me for a long time, while I just stared back at her... And then all of sudden... The scared feeling went away... Just like that... 'I'm Alice...' the woman said with a weak smile.

'Ahl... Ahleeshe...?'

'Alice...'

I didn't know what she meant. But after she pointed to herself, I realized that Alice was her name. I had a lot of difficulty to pronounce her name though...

'Ahllese... Aaahlyseh...'

'Yes...' she said with a weak smile...

'Ahllesi...? Aaleeceh...'

'What's your name...?'

I didn't get it at first, but she kept asking the same thing. Then she pointed back to herself again, and told her name once more. When she pointed back at me, I knew she wanted to know my name...

'Ceylan...'

Alice helped me to sit up right. And once I sat up right on the stretcher, she looked at me again as she placed her hand on my cheek. It felt so surreal... Yesterday, I was with my mother and now... I'm all alone with people I didn't know. Alone with people who looked so different from all the other felines... Alone with people I didn't understand what they were saying... The terrified feeling was gone for just a couple of moments. But as soon as I realized I was all alone, I couldn't help to shed a tear. It was just so surreal... When Alice noticed I started crying again, I could see how she was looking at me... Her grip on my hand tightened... And when I opened my eyes and looked at her face, I could see she had trouble to hold back her tears as well. She wasn't crying, but I didn't know why she would be crying in the first place... She's a soldier after all, so maybe she lost someone too... But when she reached her other hand out to me, I hesitated at first. I touched her upper arms... She was muscled... And beautiful... Sweet and caring... Something in her eyes felt familiar... And when I clenched my little fingers on her upper arms, everything felt so familiar... Her warm soft fur... Her gentle strokes over my forehead... Her strong shoulders supporting my chin... Her gentle whispers... For a second there, I thought it really was her... But then I realized she wasn't my mother...

In just two weeks, my whole life had turned upside down and everything I ever had was forever lost. But right now, when I think about it, I guess it's just war... It's all part of it... No one is to blame... It's just the way things are...