FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Author's Note:

I'm not going to pretend that the formatting on this is perfect. I'm going to use the little spark of inspiration that I feel right now to upload this. I feel like I should given the state of things. There is of course more to this story that I have already written, but I don't quite feel confident in uploading them yet. I want to, but I need to format them first. I don't even have the whole thing done yet - I'm going to take something of a comic book approach and write as I go. I do have a blueprint for the story of course, but details might get retconned. Ultimately, I feel insecurity about this. About writing this much for my fursona instead of something I could publish under my own name - I don't want to share the fact that I'm furry with my boomer family - But this is a story that I've wanted to tell for a very long time! I feel like I need to. I've waited for about five long years, writing here and there, battling depression and self-doubt. Ultimately, if you read this and enjoy it, please, comment, and give your thoughts on whatever medium you find this on. I need the positive reinforcement! I just don't feel motivated without knowing that someone else enjoys my work.

To contact me and see artwork of a few of the characters, and a map of the setting, please visit https://www.furaffinity.net/user/tesseracttheparia...

1. Decades ago...

Sheol had been green, once. Maris had never seen living plants outside of greenhouses before. But his great grandparents had. And their parents had said to them that the world was greener still.

The world before him was gray and brown.. The colors of stagnation. Not everywhere was like this - not that it bothered him; it was all he knew. That, and hard labor followed by a night of family and rest. As did every inhabitant of Sheol. Life was hard, but simple.

Wake up, eat your rations, work, eat your lunch, work, go to home, rest, sleep. Repeat the next day.

Maris was content with this. He'd never known, or would know anything different. There was a simple honesty about it that you couldn't find anywhere else. Sure, he didn't have a fief of his own, and thus no land, and no title, but he still had a room for him and his family. And he wasn't a nobleman, so he could trust his own family not to murder him for his title.

He did, however, have to worry about his overseers killing him out of either spite or negligence on jobs like this. He was a scrapper - his calling in life was to salvage old buildings down to the foundations to make room for new developments.

Some were easier than others. He'd become familiar enough to recognize each type of building; newer ones, constructed in the past five hundred years were of little challenge. However, as they got older than that, they got increasingly more difficult to tear down. For myriad reasons.

Not only were buildings as old as this one tough as Sheol itself, they also fought back. Not like ghosts attacking him - though he had heard of that. And not in the way of traps. No, nothing so direct. He could just.. Feel it. Especially on this one. How inky the darkness was, how thick and oppressive the air weighed in his lungs.

He was inside it right now, flashlight in hand. He was determining its internal structure. Finding load-bearing girders and walls, and considering the best ways of crippling them, and thus bring them down. This building appeared to be truly ancient - perhaps it was built during or right after the Founding of Sheol.

This was evident in this room in particular. Only the oldest buildings he'd seen featured a Spinal Column. From the outside, this great skyscraper rose high, high into the air - surely touching the great cosmic Barrier that surrounded Sheol.

He could actually look up and see a small sliver of the sky. The sky..

It had once been blue. He pondered on this, looking up at the white sliver visible between the metallic column, the strands of steel fiber, and the inner walls of the building. Similar to how the earth itself had faded from green to gray, the sky was now bereft of promise. No rain fell - indeed, not even a single, wispy cloud floated free near the heavens.

There was only the subtle, oily shimmering of the barrier around the planet. It had been there long before he was born. It was said that The Barrier kept the world safe even still from the Primal Darkness that nearly felled the Precursors - those who gave birth to all life and built Sheol itself.

Legend held that once, all the known universe had been under the rulership of the Precursors. However, one day, something crawled out from between the stars, and like a carrion swarm, began to consume the great cosmic empire.

Every attempt was made to destroy it, but nothing worked. Not even the Gods could harm them. So it was decided that they would find a sanctuary, and found a final city - the city of the afterlife, Sheol.

It was here that everyone lived. It was here that Maris lived, on this shielded sanctuary planet.

It was also said that during the first days, right after the erection of The Barrier, the day sky was dark with the writhing abyssal tendrils of the Darkness. Not an inky ribbon was to be found in these times, however.

There was a scratching sound in the distance. Maris snapped his gaze down, towards the direction - ears perking hard to pick out any noise. There was a long moment of tension - and he could swear he heard barely perceptible movement.

He adjusted his flashlight and stabbed it into the darkness. Nothing except bare, rusty framework and concrete floors. It was almost like daylight where he was standing - a shaft of the sun's glory shining down in a circle around the spinal column.

Finally, the moment passed. Maris took a moment to steady himself, running a hand through his now patchy hair. The same sun that steadied him now had damaged his skin and eyesight in the past. He was told that the imperceptible radiance of the sun had in some way harmed him. As it was, he could still see reasonably well in the darkness, though his left eye constantly had colored spots swimming around its field of view.

That made it difficult to ascertain whether or not he saw shapes moving in the darkness, or if he was simply having a fit of hysterics. He'd grown adept at calming his nerves however - he'd scrapped for years. He walked forward, unfearing. He'd done this thousands of times before. There was nothing in the darkness.

He vanished into the shade of the building once more, seeking out other places where the structure was weakened or vulnerable. Setting explosive charges on the Spine would help, though it was made out of strong alloys. And he needed to weaken other aspects of the structure first, to make it fall towards the desired direction, much like one supposedly felled a tree.

Again, scratching sounded out somewhere in the distance. And, eerily, it had no discernable direction. He spun around, jabbing his flashlight into the darkness in every direction. He was in the center of a four way hallway. Dust settled like a carpet, obscuring the metallic tiles beneath. The walls were like a metallic marble, and the ceiling had stalactites of.. Something. Something silvery, and brittle looking - there were cracks all along them. Oddly, there were no corresponding stalacmites below them.

Briefly distracted, he reached forward, touching one of the structures. He'd never seen anything like it. His furred fingers barely grazed the cracked surface of the powdery stone, and it suddenly shattered and fell to dust.

"By the Unseen.." He murmured, watching the Stalactite crumble into billows of silvery dust.

He was so mesmerised by it that it took him a moment to focus past the falling dust. There was a red orb. He blinked and took a step back.

Deep, guttural growling sounded out, and the light disappeared. A form stepped forth into the feeble beam of his flashlight. It had slimy, gray hide - which looked like something between leather and scales.

Maris at first thought it was a feral dog. Despite the scales and the slime, it had the face of one. Though, upon further inspection, he realized that instead of having eyes in its' sockets, it had.. Holes.

The hound growled and raised its head at him - as if looking at him. He heard it snorting - deep and heavy. But.. it had no nose upon its snout. Only when Maris picked out particles of mucous flying out of its eyeholes did he realize.. Instead of eyes, it had nostrils. Nostrils in the sockets of the skull.

He recoiled and took another step back. The creature raised an ear and put a paw forward- no, not a paw. A claw. A scaled, sinewed claw with curved talons - and stepped towards him. More of it was made visible. More gray flesh.

The head was indeed canine, slime and scales notwithstanding. It even had fur inside its ears. But, the neck and front legs were very bulging with muscles - even overbuilt. The back.. It was riddled with holes. As if something had chewed its way out of the hound's back. There was even dark red blood oozing from them..

The creature advanced once more, and Maris took another step back. His torch shone against the creature's bulk. All over, muscles slid under its hide. There were a few cuts and gouges around the legs too - it had seen its share of fights.

Suddenly, the creature opened its maw wide, bearing a jaw full of jagged teeth and a long, dirty, pointed tongue. A few of those teeth were broken and chipped. It lifted its tongue, but instead of undulating, saliva caked flesh between the jaw bones, it had a single, red, reptilian eye.

Maris stared into that unblinking eye. He could see it focusing on him. His hands began shaking only then. He dropped the flashlight, and the bulb shattered right as the beast closed its mouth with a hungry, guttural growl. He turned and ran - navigating in the darkness purely by instinct.

He bolted, hard. He ran faster than he thought his worn out body could carry him - yet he felt no latent aches or pains. Adrenaline pushed him forward like a wind current - for he heard the rasps and excited, wheezing growls of the beast behind him. He heard its heavy footfalls, and the clicks of its claws against the concrete and metal tiled floor.

Somehow, he remembered in that panic, the way out. Perhaps it was the Unseen Gods - the Builders of Sheol - that guided him in their benevolence. Perhaps it was luck - but he managed to make his way out into the entry hall. He saw his campfire - his comrades would be in small tents within the massive room..

"BEHIND ME! MONSTER!" He screamed, feeling it on his heels. He was suddenly tugged backwards as it managed to snatch up his pant leg, pulling him back. He cried out and kicked, managing to make contact with its snout. It grunted and growled, but stopped pulling him. Then - pain. Searing, piercing pain as it bit into his calf.

He let out a deep scream of pain as the creature tore a chunk out of him, and swallowed. He could hear it swallow. In that moment of freedom, he managed to crawl a few feet forward, hand out to the camp for help.

Then he realized the camp was ransacked. The fire was untouched, but the tents.. They were torn to pieces and tatters. He vaguely saw a few spatters of blood in a few of them. In his haze of pain and adrenaline, in his tunnel vision, it took him a second to process it.

Corpses laid near the fire, near the ruined tents. They were all torn to shreds and devoured. Viscera was everywhere. Surely, one creature alone couldn't do this!

Another lance of pain tore through him as the creature struck again, this time in the thigh, digging deep. He yelled and kicked again, but this time the creature pinned his foot down with its clawed front paw, pinning it to the floor. He screamed his soul - being eaten alive and failing to so much as fight or crawl away.

Suddenly, there was a loud, wet pop behind him, and the creature's' jaws stopped tearing into him and instead, its bulk collapsed on top of him. He mindlessly flailed, though weakened by the blood loss.

"Shit." He heard. The voice was... posh. He looked up. It was a preternaturally thin canine man in an overcoat. He had a large brimmed hat - tilted forwards over one side of his face. His coat had a most curious vermillion tinge to its uniform gray. He put a foot down on one side of the monster's' head, and near-effortlessly pushed the mass of dead flesh off of Maris's back.

He looked Maris over. "They did a number on you. Poor bastard." He crouched down - Maris was surreal. He tried weakly to turn. The gentleman stopped him. "Don't move. And don't look back." That hand - quite redundantly, grabbed him by the snout and pushed his view away.

There was a strange squelching sound, and he couldn't help but shudder as his wounds were suddenly weighed down and enwrapped in something. When the stranger released him, he noticed that that same hand was split in two. As if the man had had it chopped apart between the middle and ring fingers, and then healed after - leaving the hand in halves.

A bit disturbed, he looked back. The stranger was dabbing at his mouth with a silken cloth, and his wounds were wrapped in some kind of shimmering film. It was strong and holding well. "A bit unpleasant, that. Sorry." He continued, standing and offering him a hand - that one not deformed. Maris took it, and stood shakily.

The strange gentleman pulled him to his side, helping him out of the building - past the half eaten corpses of his comrades, and the destroyed remains of several dozen of those creatures. Each one had crossbow bolts through it's head, or had had their heads sliced clean off.

"You.. are in for a hard time.. There's more creatures like that out there - at least, by now. This day is the day they start proliferating. The world is at long last showing symptoms. We're going to need your help to deal with them. Caerys has a plan, you see.."

1. Current Day

Thoughts like air currents, body ephemeral, Tesseract rolled and fell. Realities clung together like polarized magnets, spinning and sparking against one another as they dropped, fighting until they hit the ground.

He fell, and fell, and fell. Rain and glass accompanied him in one reality, and in another, sheets, wires, and sparks of pain - of things being torn out of him.

In either instance, it felt like he fell for time beyond ken. And then, the ground came up to meet him. Twin, shattering pains echoed throughout his body. Not a series of smaller pains, no. In both instances, the pain was the same. Whole-body engulfing.

Death followed. Or.. something like it. Blackness. Two tones in each ear, in both of his ears, in neither of his ears, rung out. One, beeping, steady and mortal. The other was a constant tone, a machine's thrum measured in a similar method.

The first stopped, and the second continued on.

Tesseract blinked, feeling woozy. Memories faded, and one reality asserted itself. This one had a cold tile floor, unlike the concrete that he'd met in the other. He could barely move. He could barely breathe. His throat felt raw, and his body was prickled in a thousand pains. He began to move, trying to assert himself over his limbs.

His right arm moved into his view as he weakly writhed on the floor. It was dark metal.

He recoiled as it seemed like memories hit him like a physical object. A man in a black hazmat suit, with a stylized white gas-mask.. Shaped like a plague doctor's. The sound of saws, of straining restraints, of his blood fountaining across the room, eventually filling it up, drowning them both - him and his assailant.

Just like that, he was back in that dark place, where he'd been changed. He strained against restraints, and found none. His body was a hot iron maiden of agony, every muscle searing nerves through with pain.

He was no longer alive. He was more metal than flesh. On hollow legs filled with strength, he shakily stood and tried to leave his deathbed. The sheets clung to him - caked on blood and worse serving as the adhesive.

He tore it off, and felt new pains greet the old ones. His new limbs hurt. His new bones hurt. His entire body hurt, and hurt, until there was nothing but pain. But he continued, stepping forward, resting his weight on one numb, dumb metal foot after another..

His left hand found a wall, and he used that to steady him as he went on.

He wasn't sure where he was going, or how he found it. But, eventually, in his mindless, agonized, confused wanderings, he found the doctor. The man who had changed him, who had tore him limb from limb and forced new ones into the sockets. The man who had scooped out his eyes with relish, and who had somehow, kept him alive.

He was dead, collapsed in a chair. Tesseract thrust his metal hand forward, and batted his mask away.

There was only a skull there. Naked, old, and covered in something akin to a black tar.

He recoiled and stumbled back, somehow not falling over as he found a door, and pushed it open.

A singing light seared through his eyes - and he felt himself being pulled through to something resembling clarity. The one with the sheets instead of the glass as he fell. He stumbled, and put a hand in front of his eyes.

"By the Dragons.. You're moving? STANDING? Already?"

Tesseract slammed his gaze into the sound to his side. The motion, sudden and sharp, dazed him with pain and swirled his already fogged head with vertigo, making him collapse. The world went woozy, pulling him back into that watery hold of confusion and sleep.

In one eye, he was a man in a hooded, dark brown trenchcoat. In another, he was the black Plague Doctor.

"C'mon. Let's get you hooked back up."

"Nn-no.." He murmurs, panicked. His voice was dry and cracked. He batted at the man as he crouched down. The figure recoiled, and Tesseract scooted back, head swirling.

"Fucker.. Guess you're alive then.. Gods damned, that's gonna be a pre'hy scar.." The voice was.. Violent. Yet not entirely angry. A northern accent, lots of lilts.

The voice.. His voice.. It was nothing like that droning, dead sound. It gave Tesseract pause. His eyes focused, and his mind cleared. Where.. Where was he?

A scent filled the air, slight burning fur.

Tesseract looked around, though his vision swam. Some kind of dark room, medical apparatus lying arrayed around a bed. He was collapsed off of one side, wires and tubes sticking into him. A few of them had come loose, silver blood and clear fluid staining the floor and formerly pristine sheets.

The cleanliness calmed him. This was not a repeat of that dirty, dark room where he'd been experimented on. He groaned, took a breath, and swung his liquid gaze towards the voice. It was a man. His build with lean and of middling height, and he wore a brown-red protection jacket. He looked canine.

Holding a red-glowing finger to his neck, the man looked down at Tesseract with an irritated expression. That frown and furrowed eyebrows softened as Tesseract gazed on. He guessed that, to the stranger, he'd probably look about as good as he felt.

"Mh, right. Delerium brought on by too many 'oles. C'mon. Let's get you back in bed."

Tesseract could only blink and waver, leaning against the bed as he was. Somehow, he was back on the ground. Had he ever gotten back up? He tried to, then. He struggled to get his feet under him, but they felt numb and hollow. Looking down, he tried to focus on them. It was dim, but they were too.. dark. They shimmered too - not his natural fur color of a slightly rusted slate gray.

"Easy now.. Eaaasy.." The man said, approaching him. Carefully, he helped lift Tesseract up, and onto the bed. "Oohf.. Heavy fucker.."

Tesseract groaned as he was lifted, placing his right hand on the bed. He leaned back as he was guided back, resting his head atop the pillow. Dizzyness hit him as he finally took a rest. The stranger put sheets over him with surprising gentleness given his appearance.

"Now.." The stranger began, right as a door to the room slammed open, blasting light into the room. Tesseract winced and twitched, eyes blossoming in sharp pain. He squeezed them shut and shielded his eyes with both arms. He still made out the newcomer's figure - bulky and covered in jagged plates of ballistic armor.

"HVITSERK!" A new voice sounded. It was decidedly gravelly, and sounded older with a similar accent. It sounded worried and a bit furious. It had a strange quality to it, like it was coming through an intercom, though the person was right there.

The stranger sighed. "Aye, Da?"

"What are you doing without a replicant escort? Gods above, look at your neck!" The newcomer - 'Da' approached Hvitserk. "Fuck sake Hvit. You knew what kind of kit the guy had.. And gods know what kind of state the mind the guy's in.. He could have took your head off!" There was a series of hisses and chiding tsks.

"Ffucks sake Da!" Hvitserk said, batting at Da. His father? "I'm fine. 'Sides, the fucker w's on th' floor, screaming! He looked like shite. Is' not like he did this on purpose either.. He batted at me - I don't think he knew had had claws."

Father and son bickered back and forth for a long moment before Tesseract groaned and turned his head away from the light - tears dripping down his cheeks. Both men stopped sharply and returned their attention to him. Their bickering and fussing stirred anxiety in him - drawing him to the present and further awakening him.

"Gnnh.. S-someone... C-close the door.." Tesseract murmured. His throat was dry, scratchy and painful. His voice was utterly unfamiliar to him. It sounded worn out.

"Ah." Hvitserk toned. He walked over and closed the door, returning the room to its dimness. "There? That better?"

Tesseract swallowed painfully, and nodded. With the light gone, he could see again. Hvitserk approached in one side of his bed, in his odd offcolor jacket. His father was on the other. Tesseract examined him. He was wearing replicant armor - standard equipment of the cheap, vat-grown alternative to mercenaries. Many nobles and guilds used them to protect assets where they didn't want to spend the denars on more clever soldiers.

"Mmh." Da toned, looking over Tesseract. "Hvit, get him some water. I'll hook him back up." The men worked, Hvit retrieving a pouch of water from a cabinet while Da went about replacing the various tubes and wires that had come loose. "My name's Lod." He said, distracted as he worked a butterfly needle back into his left arm.

The pain felt.. Distant. Tesseract barely winced. "M-my name's.. Tesseract.." He murmured. That name was familiar. Infamous. He looked around as the monitor was booted back up, making the ever-present beeping tone disappear. He sighed in relief. "Mnh.. Where am I?"

Lod grunted. "My keep. You.. You, sir, are one resilient silverblood. Already up after just three days?" He whistled, an odd sound given that strange radio-like quality of his voice. "You were built sturdy."

Tesseract looked down, finally examining his body as his vision sharpened. A blanket covered his waist, but he could see his upper body and most of his legs. His right arm had been replaced at the shoulder, and his legs were replaced halfway above his knees. But that wasn't it. His rib-tabs were different - they looked skeletal and they emitted a green light. His entire body felt different. He felt at his face. He could feel memories trying to push to the surface. He instinctively fought them.

"How.. How did I get here?" He asked, reaching out with his left hand to take the pouch as Hvit returned with it, before sitting down in a chair next to the bed.. He drained it in a few gulps. The water was lukewarm, but probably the most refreshing thing he'd ever felt.

"You don't remember? You broke into my warehouse. Ate a-half-a crate of hard-tack and fell asleep in some blankets."

Lightning struck, and Tesseract remembered. After he'd escaped the place where he'd been rebuilt, he found himself in cold, raining streets, naked, bleeding, in agony and fear. He somehow found somewhere warm and dry.. Found crates of food. The memories were myopic at best - a series of images and flashes of sensation.

He snapped back to the present, shaking his head and blinking rapidly. "Y-yes.. Yes, I do.. Sort of.. S-sorry about that.. And uhm.." He nodded towards Hvitserk's cauterized neck. "Th-that too.. Didn't. Wasn't.. Thinking straight."

Hvit and Lod both chuckled at his reticence. "Not to worry.." Lod said, resting his hand on Tesseract's right shoulder. The touch felt distant and numb. Tesseract realized that all of his new limbs had a dull sense of touch save for the pads of his hand. ".. I'm sure that you'll pay for all of it. Besides, you weren't lucid. I'm not some shit-hole noble. I mean, especially in your case.. Fucks sake, what happened to you? I've seen botch-jobs before, but you.." He whistled again, half appreciative and half impressed. "You are on a whole new level. You were a fuckin' mess. Half of your innards - more - torn out!"

He took a long, shaky breath. "S-sorry.. C-can't think about it.." He continued. "Just.. Painful."

Lod nodded. "Right. I've seen this before. I'm not gonna make you talk about it." He said, voice reassuring, paternal. "Look, you're in poor shape. We'll do what we can when you're better off. For now, just know that.. You're not the first I've taken into my care like this." He sighed - though the motion wasn't displayed on his body. Indeed, his body-language wasn't synced up with his intonation. "Just.. rest up. We'll get ya workin' on stuff you can do, let you earn your keep till we find a better use for ya."

The Ruler of Sheol looked over his domain. All was not well. Gerant leaned over his holographic tactical map of the known world. Sheol. The planet and the city were as one. Most biospheres were completely withered by the corruption. There were frozen wastelands to the north, petrified, toxic forests to the east and deserts and cracked lands to the south and west. The city itself was in tatters. Over the centuries, he'd watched its slow decay. Sections of the city were offline - highlighted as red. The entire megastructure was a shattered ring. Yet people lived on within it like carrion worms.

And he had taken it upon himself to reunite them.

He remembered a time when most of the world was alive, green.. These past centuries had been harsh. And it would only get worse.

He pulled up the northern section of the city. The twin cancers he had carefully implanted there had taken root. Lodbrok, the crippled ignoble noble was securely embedded within Auster's territory. Their feud was long and bloody, and Gerant intended it to get even more heated before he stepped in. Their mutual annihilation would serve well to create fertile ground for his expansion.

Indeed, he had many such plans in orchestration all around Sheol. In many ways, he was a spider sitting in the center of the web, carefully reading the tugs and vibrations of each string around him, ready to strike out when the time was right.

However, the north stood out most of all because of his secret weapon there. The first successful subject in his project - essential to his plans. The first to survive to the third stage. He was closer than ever to success.

He turned his attention to one of his serfs. "Ready a reclamation force. We move on Auster in a month. I will accompany them personally."

He couldn't help but chew on his lower lip in anticipation of shedding some blood personally.

Tesseract stood in his bathroom, a week after regaining consciousness. It was a modest little room, covered in sterile white tiles and adorned with metal fixtures. He even had a bath.

He thought about Lodbrok, and how he'd seemingly taken him in. In that time, he'd realized that it wasn't uncommon for people to meet him that way. The man had evidently lost most of his family in an assassination attempt long ago, and had taken to adopting anyone off the street that he could. Both as a way of atonement, and as a way to recruit manpower. They weren't exactly soldiers. They didn't outright fight like warring nobles might.

It seemed that AusterCorp had to balance fighting Lodbrok, and pretending he didn't exist so as to avoid drawing the ire of The Hub. The city of Sheol was shaped like a wheel, with a central hub where the elite lived at its center. Most people lived in the Rim, or in the Spokes. But, in the apertures between those megastructures, there was wasteland. Large portions of it. All inhospitable and supposedly full of mad tribals and dangerous wildlife. And worse. Depended on the rumors.

Tesseract thought of all of this as he examined himself in the mirror, redressing his wounds. He was tall, broad shouldered and toned. He had a coat of gray fur that had the most subtle red tint to it, and hair of thick, curly auburn.

He looked canine. He wasn't supposed to be - he was born wrong. It had been a constant source of shame for him for his entire life, until he'd finally left his Enclave.

Living among his kind had been difficult. His early childhood had been full of bullying and loneliness. All because he wasn't born as a baseline Coeurl - feline.

They had a point. He wondered if it still applied.

Most of his body had been.. Replaced. He only had his left arm now. From what he could tell, his new limbs were orders of magnitudes stronger than what his old ones were. He'd accidentally crushed a few cups in his right hand. Even worse, that hands fingers had some kind of retractable blades in them. He'd realized that he'd probably cut Hvitserk with them on accident when he'd tried to help him.

He felt guilty about that. Though Hvit didn't hold it against him. He'd taken great care of him.

It seemed like all of his bones were metal now. Naturally, Coeurl had metallic elements in their bodies, and that extended to their bones. However, this was on another level. Some kind of strange, tough alloy. They claimed that he shouldn't have survived.

Neither he nor they had any clue on the method they'd used to replace or turn his bones into metal. Or if they'd ripped out each bone and replaced it.

Otherwise, he'd been given some cursory reports of what they could find inside him from when they'd been cleaning up his incisions. He no longer had a heartbeat. That.. was disconcerting. His new heart had a constant flow pump. The ECG from before had been reading his heart's speed, and not its beat. His lungs were similar; he could breathe through the gaps in his rib-plates. Though uncomfortable, it would allow him to breathe if something happened to his windpipe.

Right.. His rib-plates. The formerly small metal tabs that had wrapped around his ribs were now bulletproof plates. All Coeurl had biomechanical aspects to their biology like those tabs. They'd often wrap around a silverblood's ribs and shoulders to help secure their pack onto them. His own dendrite pack hadn't been disturbed much. It'd been given a new finish, though. Black and bulletproof.

Every Coeurl had a dendrite pack on their backs. A small metal structure attached to their spines, nestled in between their shoulder blades. Inside lay what made them what they were. Four to eight tentacles, which they could use to interface with electronics. He'd never been very good at it. It only added to his shame.

Luckily, they were all still present. He'd rolled his shoulders and willed them to emerge from their apertures, and all four had worked.

He'd been healing much faster than he should have. They'd chalked it up to either magical healing, or some hidden implant. Whatever it was, it didn't stop the pain. Constant, unerring pain. Shoots of it through his entire body - as if his limbs were pushing roots into his body. To say nothing of his bones, his eyes, his heart and lungs.

There was also the numbness. His limbs themselves didn't quite feel right in most places, as if through heavy cloth. Only his right palm was spared and had seemingly full sensitivity. There were other areas too, of his residual body that he couldn't feel.

He'd taken to popping opiate tablets every few hours like clockwork. It helped - especially at making him feel better. Warmer, more alive.

His brain hadn't been touched much, at least. Though, they'd said that they couldn't be sure what else was under his skin. That made him nervous. What if there was some sort of tracking device, or killswitch?

A word came to him then. A thought. A vision of a sea of oily, black tar, the sounds of gnashing teeth and moans, the feeling of cold, dead flesh.. The smell.

He didn't want to think about that - didn't want to remember what was now clawing into his consciousness. He gave himself a final look-over, all covered in stitches and tightly wrapped bandages. Then, he finished off his whiskey and left the bathroom.

The alcohol helped steady him, helped numb and soften his thoughts. He walked across his small room and put on the bundle of clothes lying atop his dresser. A simple tunic and pair of cargo pants. No shoes. Not that he'd needed them, with his metal feet.

Exiting his room, he was met with a long hallway that stretched in either direction until it hit a bend. He'd quickly realized from the numbers on each door that this used to be some kind of inn or even a hotel. It was quite large - his room's number was 434.

He made his way through the strangely clean hallways, thinking on how the rest of the world - or at least the world that he'd seen - was so dirty and dilapidated by comparison. What was different here? Who kept this clean? He hadn't seen a place so clean since his early childhood.

His mind wandered. Memories emerged. A haunted, abandoned and burnt out former home. His mother's corpse. Her traitorous corpse.

He had to steady himself against a wall as his head spun.

"Woah, lad. Are you alright?" A voice asked from behind. He turned his gaze to it. It was Hvitserk, peeking out from an opened door. The canine's eyes moved towards Tesseract's arm.

He looked.

He had broken some of the drywall with his metal hand. He carefully withdrew his hand, and deposited the clump of wallboard on the floor directly below the hole. His damn claws and unnatural strength had sunk his fingers into the wall and tore some of it loose. "S-sorry.." He muttered, feeling ashamed.

Hvitserk stepped out of the room, wearing his usual attire. "No worries. Not the first time we've taken one like you in. You didn't answer my question. Y'alright?"

Tesseract turned away, brushing his hands clean. "Yeah.. Think so. Just.." He trailed off.

"Well, if y'ever want to talk about it, Da would appreciate it." He walked past Tesseract. "Sides. We need to know if you're liable to go crazy on us or anythin'. Is' happened." He stopped, and playfully winked. 'Fer what it's worth, you seem as sturdy build as anything. Of mind and body."

Tesseract sighed and shook his head, feeling exasperated. Hvitserk had proven to be an interesting caretaker. At least, that's what he thought he was. He'd seen him the most out of any of Lod's 'Sons.' He was brash and offensive, but strangely kind despite the angry fire in his eyes.

"I uhm.." Tesseract started. "Maybe sometime.." He said, slowly, after some consideration. "I'm still confused at why you keep me here.. It's not like I do much of worth yet."

Hvit nodded knowingly. "I know the feeling.. Look, it might seem like we're slightly pushy. But, Da made us understand.. There's more than one way to get by in this world than puttin' down your fellow man. It's what's made us strong." He nodded. "Speaking of.. You look ready for some physical therapy." He said, shrugging. "If'n you need it at all. Guess that you should in the least get used to your uhm.. New body."

Tesseract gave himself another look-over. The fact that he was.. Changed didn't bother him much. As he understood it, to many redbloods it would seem a visceral violation. To him, he merely objected to the methods. Pain crawled up the back of his mind, memories trying to push into his thoughts. Luckily, the fog from the painkillers and whiskey prevented it. He took a deep breath, and nodded. "Alright. Just.. tell me what my limits are."

Hvit took on a mischievous look, approaching Tesseract until they were inches apart. His hand game out to grasp at his, fingers intertwining. "I think.. First, we should try something else."

Tesseract had an inkling. He shivered - the warm excitement accompanying the warm, golden ooze from the drug and alcohol. "I.." Suddenly, Hvit's features took on a new light. He started noticing things, gaining an appreciation for his slim frame and caring eyes. Caring, carnal eyes.

Hvit gave a pensive look. "Unless you don't.. Swing this way?"

Tesseract considered, confused. Then he figured it out. He blinked. "I.. think I do? But I was going to say.. I'm uh.. Afraid I'll hurt you.." He said, looking down at the hand that'd crushed several cups on accident yesterday.

"Any more than you already have?" Hvit teased to Tesseract's chagrin. "No... No, not where you'll be. Come.. Let me know if it's too much.."

Tesseract went with him. Hvit took him, laid him down.. And took the lead, straddling him and then riding him. The sensations were incredible. Holding him after was even better. Afterwards, he'd never felt so satisfied. It was unfortunate that they had to eventually leave, and head to the gymnasium.

End of part 1