FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The wind was whispering softly against the rugged surface of a cliff, the turbulent air making its way in to a small opening. A leaf from a tree near by releases its grip and falls down, as it falls the wind plays with it, softly carrying it up and down again. Autumn had arrived and this had happened many a time, the ground covered in leaves was ultimately the destination of this one as well.

Just then a whistling wind grabbed it and pushed it in to a cave, it was dark and damp here. Once the wind had let go of the leaf there was no more breeze as it fell towards the ground. Almost no other leaves on the ground it was bound to be alone here. There was something white and soft on the bottom of the cave, something that moved, almost like breathing. It landed on a reach of this weird formation and was bound to stay there, until the reach suddenly exhaled and the leaf flew away and landed further in the cave.

Two eyes opened in the darkness, brilliant yellow eyes with black slits in the middle, beaming across the darkness like searchlights. Then the figure was up, just like that it had sat up, the leaf couldn't it was permanently stuck where it had landed and would never again move.

The figures breathing intensified, and it was looking at it's hands, then legs then touching it self like it couldn't decide if it was real or not. As the figure had started moving there was a faint glimmer of blue light coming from the corner of the cave that was steadily growing brighter.

Light shone to the walls of the cave and illuminated the figure, she was a brilliantly white cat with long coat of hair, her back and tail and head were silver with deep black stripes that seemed to almost shine purple in the light that was coming off of a weird artifact. She looked bewildered, ears back and eyes wide breathing heavily trying to curl up to a tiny ball to hide.

The strange light started to move from the corner, it seemed to have an arm attached to it which now reached toward the cowering cat, illuminating her face in all of its terror. A small figure appeared in the light and spoke to the cat.

"We've given you the gift of life" A quiet but distinct voice said

"Now we give you the gift of thought and speech, use them well" The small shape disappeared and the light turned from blue to a brilliant purple, the cats' expression froze and it only stared at the light, then a hugely bright flash of all of the colors of the universe all at once in different small points of the device.

She fell on the ground with a thump and the arm retracted in to the corner where it had come from the light slowly vanishing.

The wind was once again whispering just outside the cave.

Hours passed, maybe even days the leaf had started turning from golden yellow to brown, drying up and becoming very brittle. Outside, it had been raining on and off, there weren't many leaves on the trees anymore, and not many of it's kind had ended up in the little cave it now resided.

The cat once more opened its eyes, but now there was something more behind them, they were no longer like two searchlights in the dark, they were intelligent. Slowly she started looking at her surroundings not moving a muscle. As she became more aware, she swiftly sat up and once again looked at her arms then her legs and then touched herself as to just make sure she was real, to anyone watching this would have felt like a Déjà vu though there was no fear in her eyes, just curiosity

"Who am I?" These were the first works spoken by the cat, as she grasped the ground to stand. The only light coming in to the cave was from the opening, she turned to face that way and started walking, the leaf was left in the darkness alone.

Coming to the opening of the cave the cat stopped and looked around, there was nothing but forest for as far as she could see, and behind her was just a giant cliff. Almost all the trees were naked, the ground was cluttered with leaves, twigs and small bushes, there were no signs of any life, no one like her anywhere. She took a deep breath and stepped out of the cave, by instinct she was walking upright and balancing herself with her long and plush tail, almost as if she'd always been walking, always been.

"Where am I?" This was the second sentence from the cat, also a question, there were no answers, there was no one around to hear them either. There wasn't much that she could do, but to start walking straight ahead from the cave entrance and to the woods hoping to find some one or something that could tell her more about who she was and where she was.

The crisp autumn air welt good on her nose, the sun had just started to rise to reveal the vast forest she was about to walk in to, mostly made of evergreens, of course the cat did not know they were called that, she simply saw trees with different kinds of things on them, some had only branches, some yellow leaves and others green spikes. The terrain was rough, mountain like, all nothing but down hill to what seemed like a large valley.

She couldn't explain it, but something drove her to walk down to that valley and follow it, her tail softly swaying behind her, balancing her every step she made her way down. She touched every new tree to see how they felt, some had smooth skin that flaked off and was white in color, others had rough outer shells that would some times leave a sticky substance on her fingers. She wondered if there was a name for these formations, they were all so very different from each other, even the ones that looked the same all had different arrangement of growths coming from them.

"A Tree" The words formed from her mouth, it was as if some one was speaking in her head to give her the knowledge

Nearing the bottom, she spotted something new, something flowing and almost blue

"Water!" she yelled in excitement and smiled, and started running toward the small river, it wasn't very large just a few tens of meters across, but it was flowing very fast. Getting to the bank she immediately put her hands in to it, just to feel the sensation

It was cold, but the feeling made her smile, she cupped her hands in to the water and brought it to her face and drank it.

It is hard to explain the sensation some one has when she firsts tastes something, it was a euphoric moment, it was the first time she was conscious about tasting anything, first time something touched her tongue and she understood it.

she made a sound that was partly a very deep sigh and a mixture of a purr. that feeling in her once again gave her directions, it told her that she should follow the river downstream. Clueless as to why she was doing this, she decided not to question it.

As she walked more words started to appear to her, concepts such as river, lake, forest, leaves and branches were now becoming clear in her mind. The longer she was aware, the more she understood about the world around her, she now knew why the trees were all different, why some had flaking bark and others did not.

After what seemed only like a few moments of walking, the forest seemed to thin out on her left side, not very noticeably but enough for her to be able to tell the difference, she decided to see why the sudden change and started walking toward the thinning part.

The terrain changed from rough hill to almost smooth forest floor, there was an unnatural element to it, almost like it had been sculpted to be that way. She decided to follow this smoother part of the ground to see where it would take her, looking around her she could tell there was a small difference in the age of the trees here as well, the other parts of the forest were nearly ingrown and old, these trees were massive, but did not seem quite as old.

The smooth area narrowed down to what almost seemed like a stream on the forest floor and turned toward the river again going over it, but there was nothing where the river was. Something was poking through the thick layer of ground here and she reached to touch it. It was hard but almost flakey, it seemed like rock but wasn't, something had been here to go over the river.

"Concrete" She said out loud as the word came to her, that's what this was. she could see that just a small distance further there was a fallen tree she could use to cross the river. She had already made a decision to follow this odd river that went on ground, but now even more she was convinced it would lead her somewhere.

She crossed the fast-moving river over a massive fallen pine tree and made her way on to the other side of the river where she had discovered the concrete, and sure enough there were more on this side. What ever had been there had been swept away long ago, so long that the concrete had been covered by at least half a meter of ground.

She made her way further and noticed more areas in the woods that were thinner and newer, she took that as a sign that she was headed the right direction and continued, until she was stopped by another river. but this one still had something going over it, a think walkway, made entirely of a material she had not seen before, it was brown, flakey like a tree but much sharper and coarser.

This was metal, but it was rusted, she again found the words in her mind, she took a very soft step on to the metallic surface, it was hard under her paws, the metal was in a form of a grid and the rust poked in to her pads. Slowly and softly she walked over it, all the while holding on to one of the surviving sides of the structure.

it creaked and groaned under the new weight it had not seen in a long time, it could give out at any moment, the steel and iron it was made from long ago worn out. but it held, for this final passenger, as she had crossed it gave in to the years and collapsed in to the flowing river underneath. As it hit the water it made a very loud noise, splashing in the water and hitting the rocks at the bottom. Suddenly animals flew out of all the trees nearby in reaction to the noise, a sound resembling hundreds of wing strikes flooded her ears as she watched the animals fly up in the air and disappear.

A single feather fell down on her and she caught it, she stroked the feather in her hands and marveled it's color, it was a sheer black, almost like her own stripes but much darker. She didn't simply want to get rid of it, it was beautiful, so she poked it in to her fur, right on the top of her head, near her ear.

The ground river continued up over a small hill, as she followed it, the woods reduced dramatically. There were many large open spaces where no trees grew, just some very long grass and yellow looking long hay. in the midst of it all there was some sort of artificial structure, it was made of many small rocks and stood taller than some trees. the sides of it were full of vines and some trees had poked in through holes in the sides.

"Building, this, this is a building" she whispered "I must get in, there must be a door" She continued and walked to front. There was an opening where doors had once stood, they had rotted away a long time ago and the inside had been exposed to the elements for what seemed like a long time. The floors were covered in soil and leaves, the paint on the walls was chipping off and full of cracks. Whatever this building used to be it had not been used, in fact it had not seen people in years.

The cat wondered in to the building, finding room after room of ruined furniture, broken chairs and crumbling walls, there seemed to be nothing that would explain any of this in here. Then she discovered a steel door that still stood, she tried to open it but it would not move. The years had nearly merged it with it's hinges, but she was not about to give up so easily. The cat found the biggest piece of wood and slammed it against the door, a loud bang echoed in the rooms of the building, again and again until finally, a crashing sound. The door had opened, sort of, the door and the hinges both laid on the floor of a stairwell now uncovered.

She looked very pleased with her self and continued in to the basement. It was very dark, but her eyes adjusted very fast to the lack of light. This space was very different from the once she had encountered prior, there was no soil, no leaves or vegetation anywhere to be seen, the floor was somewhat moist and the air smelled musky but it was a much more preserved than the others. The room was full of books, stacked next to each other on shelves, most of the books seemed to have had sustained considerable damage, and as she picked them up, they fell apart. There was one book on a table that was in near perfect condition, it was completely wrapped in what seemed like see through skin. Plastic it was plastic, she picked it up only to find a completely laminated paper underneath it.

The paper read:

"Something horrible has happened, we are leaving the school maybe forever. I've wrapped this book in plastic so that if someone in the future finds it, they may read about our scientific achievements and understand who we were as a people" It was written in Norwegian, the cat of course did not know this as she was unknowingly reading it with out even a second thought.

She put the note back down on the table and looked at the book, the books cover was "The Human Achievement" and it was dated 2024, the books cover had some sort of creature with four arms and four legs in a circle.

"Human" She whispered as she opened the book. She barely had enough time to read through the first page as the book seemed to start glowing in he hands. Suddenly knowledge was floating off of the book, she could see the people making the discoveries, understanding the scientific basics, mathematics and biology were becoming clear to her. The information flow suddenly turned in to a river and then in to a massive tidal wave, she dropped the book but it did nothing.

"No, No stop!" She screamed, closed her eyes and covered her ears crouching down.

"Too much, I can't take it!" She yelled and collapsed on the ground unconscious.

The room was dark and quiet as it had been for an unknown length of time.

Hours passed, and it was getting dark when the cat finally woke up, it was not a relaxed wakeup either, she flew her eyes open and jumped up on her feet.

"Sia!" She said in almost with a frantic tone.

"My name, I'm Sia" She was visibly shaken from what had happened. This was also the first time she realized she was naked, or as naked as a cat can ever really be, but she understood modesty, and many other concepts that had been completely foreign to her.

She took the book she had read, it was on the floor upside down still on it's first page. No matter if the knowledge she had acquired had come from her head, or from the book she still felt like that book should be preserved so she picked it up and placed it on the table.

*There must be something in this building, clothes, bag anything* She thought to her self as she looked around the room. There was a locker on the wall the door was where she had come in, maybe the locker of the person who worked in this room, maybe still with something to wear.

The door of the locker opened, but not willingly, Sia had to force it open with a fair bit of strength. Inside was an old plastic hanger, the clothing had fallen off and was laying at the bottom of the locker in a pile that did not smell pleasant.

The pile consisted of a pile of mildewed mess all merged together, it smelled awful. There was nothing in this room that would have sufficed, she decided to go back and check if there was anything more around the building that might hold something she would need. Everything seemed so much clearer to her now, she knew and understood what she was looking at, the world was not so much a mystery to her anymore. She picked the book off of the table and went back out

As she walked around the building in to the tall grass, she noticed another building, this one was much smaller but much more intact with a large hatch on it. It was a bomb shelter, build much after the original building from the looks of it. The door looked much different and the concrete sides were not as badly affected by time as the main building it self had been. while the door was closed it wasn't locked and opened surprisingly easily, a quiet nearly silent suction sound could be heard as new air entered the shelter.

*If it was sealed, I might find something from here* She thought to her self and took her first step in. The sun was going down in the horizon, but she wasn't too concerned, her eyes could see in near complete darkness, what she had noticed was that as it got darker the colors got more muted, so instead of getting darker, it got less colorful.

The first step in the bomb shelter revealed that the concrete under her paw was dry and clean, the air smelled old and stale but not musky. It was not a very long distance to the bottom of the shelter, it was clear the this had been a pre-constructed shelter that had been dug in to place, everything around her seemed to have had never been touched.

Reaching the bottom, she saw rows of beds on one side of the room and on the other side was a counter and several tables for sitting and perhaps studying and eating? This didn't look like a traditional bomb shelter, it seemed to have had been constructed for longer periods. While most of the surfaces look new, the beds and their linens had been destroyed over the years, even in this type of environment the bacteria had eaten them to a point where they were close to nonexistent.

She noticed in the far back wall a row of lockers, maybe this time she had better luck in finding something. These lockers were made of a material that more closely resembled plastics than metal and were in a near to new shape. they opened with no problems, each of them had the exact same contents, a vacuum bagged shirt, jacket and pants, one pair of shoes and socks and a hat.

It was dark enough now, that she couldn't tell what colors they were, however that was the least of her worries. The shirt was a T-shirt made for an average human, the pants were polyester sweatpants and the jacket was not actually a jacket but a heavy hoodie with a zipper that could be pulled up to close it. The socks she found would fit her paws but she decided against wearing them since the shoes would definitely not work, and the socks would only get consistently wet and make her grip worse.

The cabinets were full of bowls and other utensils, further searching uncovered some bags of powdered foods.

"Mashed potatos" she muttered the text from the label of the package

Maybe there was some hope of making food here and figuring out where she had come from, what she was and more importantly, why she was. There seemed to be no humans around, and so far she had only encountered birds, what had happened?