FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Written by brazy "birb" seeker

Inspired by K.A. Applegate's "Animorphs"

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CHAPTER 3

"Wait, wait, wait, hold up. Time out." Mikey looked over at me with a gleam in his eye that was even brighter than usual. I could sense his excitement brewing, at least that's what I hoped it was. I was a little worried about how he would react. We were sitting inside the hideout now, it wasn't much to look at, but it was more homey to both of us than our real homes. It was mostly made of boards and sheet-metal roofing salvaged from fallen down decaying buildings that we found elsewhere in the woods all slapped together. The boards made up walls that we nailed to a group of about five trees which acted as the support pillars. Four of them made up the main 'living' area, and the last one sort of jutted out to make space for an opening we covered with a makeshift door of sheet-metal. The roof was covered by more sheet-metal, of course, and when all said and done it was a mostly all enclosed cozy little space. Not too big, not too small. It even protected us from the rain and snow, sometimes. We also saved up some of our lunch money to buy a little solar light which we strapped to the roof, giving it that extra little homey feel, as well as making it so we didn't have to keep using AA batteries when we stayed out late into the night chatting and playing cards on the crappy table we made.

As for the abandoned buildings and where we got all the stuff? There were a lot of those around here, the forest stretched on for miles and miles and deep within you'd occasionally stumble across an abandoned building, or even a complex of them. Hopefully not literally though, because most of the abandoned buildings were from old mining outposts back when the whole state was basically a big spread out copper mining frenzy, so that stumbling might just end you up at the bottom of a 100 foot mine-shaft. Out there, there is definitely no one to find you if you end up in a pit. Anymore there's not quite as much of that action though, but still a little in the bigger cities. Not that the cities here get very big.

"You're telling me, basically, without all your fancy-schmancy big words, that while I was dicking around in the woods, aliens invaded earth. Am I getting this right? They flew in on the other side of the country like they owned the place, hovered around and pew pew'd their lasers some, and then you saw someone turn into a bird? And now you're going nuts over it?" I held my hand up for a moment, finger raised as if to object, but honestly, that was pretty much everything I knew. In my usual long-winded nature, it took me a good half hour to explain it to him, not sparing any details about my exciting run home or anything. I hadn't told him about the thoughts I've been having though and the hawk, not just yet. The timing just doesn't feel right.

My finger drooped. "Uhm... yeah actually pretty much"

"And it's all real?" Mikey said.

"Eee-yup!" I replied in an overly chipper tone.

"Just checking, are you going insane?" Mikey asked me in a falsely patronizing voice.

"Most likely, but this is definitely all real." I said in response, adding a sarcastic sigh at the end for effect.

"Alright as long as we're on the same page now, can I just say... HOLY SHIT!" Mikey jumped up from one of the wooden benches we had nailed to a tree trunk that he was resting on, letting out a cackle that even I would think of as a little over the top. "AHAHAHAHA! YES! Do you have any idea what this means?! It means... It means..." He began to pace around on the packed dirt floor. "We could do so much, we could explore pieces of this world never seen by human eyes. You know how we find all those abandoned mines and stuff? Imagine what it would be like to do with wings!"

I nodded in agreement quickly, still sitting down on the bench "Yeah! and even more, imagine all the places we could sneak into too, we would never need to pay to get into anywhere again!" Mikey's eyes shined as I said that. See, we both were always good kids on the outside. We would put on the show of good kids for most everything in life, but when the curtains close, we were always wandering around and finding the next place we weren't supposed to be. I'm not sure why we did it, it just didn't feel right always going exactly where we were supposed to go, I mean, where's the fun in following the same path as everyone else?

"Alright," Mikey said, "Where do we get this um... morphing ability?"

I inhaled sharply and looked at him with slightly squinted eyes. "I uhm...well see, I was trying to figure that out, I got really sidetracked with my thoughts and-"

"You have no idea, do you" Mikey cut me off.

I looked at him a little embarrassed "I... I mean... No... But, we can figure it out! We know the final battle took place in California! Somewhere..."

"Huh, Yea that narrows it down a lot, from a whole country to one state larger than life, all the way on the other side of the country no less!" Mikey rolled his eyes "We definitely will need more information"

"Yeah, but... You're down?" I said, cautiously.

"Am I down? Am I down?! Do you have any idea who you're asking? We've been all over half of the state together in just the last year! Hell yes, I'm down!" He sounded thrilled at the idea for a moment, before shifting. "Well... It's just... I mean, California is really far away, and you know with me wanting to go into the Army after high school is over with... and I've been getting traction with my scholarships..."

His voice sorta faded off as he spoke, not wanting to look me in the eye. I knew exactly what he was thinking, and he knew it would break my heart. See, as much as Mikey loved adventure like me, he never really had it front and center. Other things always came first, he had a life to build. For me, adventure was my only escape. I never made friends in high school, but it wasn't anyone else's fault, I just didn't want them. I had the sky to gaze at, the streets to wander, and the forest to walk in for miles. I never thought I wanted or needed friends. I suppose you could call me some sort of a loner, but I don't like the cheesy connotations with it. I was just being me, I never called myself one, I never did it for attention. People would try to befriend me, and I would act kind as always, but I never let anyone get close. I wasn't afraid, I wasn't one of those all dressed-in-black punk rock kids. I would just turn on my Walkman with something peaceful and wander to find the beauty in the world as it is, alone. That was until I met Mikey, who successfully threw that under the bus, or more accurately, away from the speeding car. As much as I hate to admit it, it did change something in me a little bit. So I didn't really know what I would do if he couldn't follow through on this adventure with me. More than likely I'd find a way on my own. I needed to change the topic.

"Look, it's no big deal. We'll start with just doing some research. Your dad, he's got that job in the Army. Maybe we could poke around some, ask some questions?"

"Hmm... maybe, yea. I could ask him when he gets home. But we just can't do anything that puts his job at risk and..." Mikey said, all of a sudden looking worried, like I reminded him of something. His tone turned sour.

"Of course! We're good kids!" I responded chipper, cutting him off.

That made Mikey chuckle some, it was sort of a running joke. Every time we would need to get out of trouble, that was our excuse. Our reputation on paper showed it, in school and all we had an almost perfect record, aside from the occasional day of playing hooky. Everyone does that time to time though growing up, at least in our school. "Yeah, good kids. Good kids with a death-wish"

I looked out one of the gaps in the wood of the hideout, it was starting to get dark. We've been out here talking for hours as usual.

"We'd better be heading home. It's starting to get late."

"Oh sure, so I can head home and you can wander around town alone until midnight." Mikey said with a smirk. I knew he was right, but he knew I was right too. I played the good kid game too, but he was a little more strict with it. I had time to wander. Mikey played hooky without me, which already upset me a little anyways, normally we do it together. It came over me to ask all of a sudden, I never actually questioned him why he ditched school today.

"Wait a minute, why did you even skip school? As you know, I always feel personally attacked when you do that without me" I asked him, trying to play it off as a joke.

"Oh... I Uhm," He paused, as if trying to come up with an excuse, but then looked guilty. "Well... Okay, maybe what I said wasn't entirely true. I didn't know about the Invasion, but..." He started looking really distraught now. I waved him over to sit down and he reluctantly plopped down next to me and slouched. "My mom, she called into the school at around noon... Agh..." He was really struggling with his words now.

"Come on, how bad could it be?" I regretted saying that almost immediately after hearing his response.

"I never told you because it wasn't really important, but my dad, he was stationed in California. Then, He didn't show up after that final battle..." Mikey replied, almost in a monotone voice.

"Oh... shit..." I responded.

Mikey looked down. "Yeah. Definitely an 'Oh shit'..."