FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Nox's eyes rolled wildly under his eyelids, the zoroark lay in his bunk and dreamed of strange occurrences and surreal places. Ever since he had been drafted for the war, he had these fascinating, trippy dreams. They weren't quite nightmares and definitely better than the war that surrounded him every waking second. They were also his brain's last refuge from the everyday bleakness, the only place where he could do and be himself, but only as long as he was asleep. Currently, he imagined that he was a gigantic being that hopped from cloud to cloud, shaking them violently to make it rain.

His serene, entertaining dream ended abruptly when a shrill sound pierced through his ears and went straight into his brain. The zoroark furrowed his brows, woke up and opened his eyes just a tiny little bit. What was wrong, he asked himself, faintly remembering the blaring noise. Then the realization struck him, and he instinctively jumped up, the trained and drilled soldier in his mind acting automatically. The sound he heard was the sound of the sirens, the pattern indicated that the enemy had infiltrated the base and was ambushing them. The logical part of him was still struggling to wake up when he was already putting on his uniform and running to the door to grab his rifle.

A painfully familiar face stepped next to him, his girlfriend Eos, a beautiful ninetales. She had been drafted at the same time as him, and they had been put into the same squad. The war had left a mark on him and her alike. As long as he didn't look in a mirror, wore his uniform and always took his pain medication, he could live in alleviating ignorance, forget the scars and wounds that covered his body from head to toe, forget his dulled, graying fur. However, every time he saw Eos, he saw the same scars caused by rogue shrapnel, grazing wounds, a stab she received by the hand of an enemy and the eye she was missing, her originally full and fiery fur a grayish, ashen mess, and it made his heart hurt and his soul scream, he just wanted it to be over. She gave him a gaze that was both desperate and terrified, her smile just a grimace she forced onto her face.

Nox grabbed her head and pulled her into a kiss, it was brief and rough, shaky and unsteady, their lips met with too much force and their noses hit each other with an audible bump. The tears in his and her eyes were genuine, just as they always were before, because there was a high chance that this was their last moment together, a single errant shot or a well-placed grenade could end any of them at a moment's notice. He spent just a few more seconds with her, his muzzle idly pressed on hers, him just listening to her nervous breath and her rapidly beating heart. The door to their barrack was thrown open and a sergeant entered, urging them to get going with a very direct and obscene vocabulary. The tone in the military was rough, but Nox had learned not to actively listen to the humiliations and degradation, his body just acted and didn't even bother informing his consciousness about the rude selection of words yet another superior hurled at him.

There was one last thing he had to do before he and Eos could leave. The ninetales had an absolutely staggering amount of beautiful, fluffy tails. Before the war it had been one of the many reasons why he had fallen in love with her, but on the battlefield the bright, orange-tipped tails were just another easy target. He grabbed three pieces of rope and tied them together tightly, confined the flurry of fluff into a single, uncomfortable batch. Eos whimpered, but she knew that it was only for her best. Nox stood up, gave her another kiss on the cheek and whispered his farewell. "I love you for ever and ever, Eos. You will always be the flame that lights my way through this dreary hell." The ninetales reached around his back for his black braided mane and grabbed the bauble at the end of his braid, took her combat knife and scraped another tally mark into it. His hair had originally been a flaming red, but this would've made him an excellent target, so he had been forced to dye or cut it. "I love you, too, Nox. And I swear we will live together until I can't put any more marks onto your bauble."

The sergeant looked at them with a twitching eye, they were the last ones still in the room. "You better get going, lovebirds, or you'll spend the rest of your service separately." Even the mere thought of serving in the same encampment, only mere yards apart but forced to ignore each other, was terrible, and they quickly heeded their superior's command and headed out. They didn't get very far, they didn't even manage to leave the first hallway as they approached the first obstacle on their way. Part of their squad was sitting behind the rubble that used to be the door to the courtyard, shaking and clutching their rifles.

With the protective walls of the barracks gone, the noise and the smell of war enveloped them. The sirens blared in ugly polyphony, the sounds of gunshots filled the air, explosions resounded from near and afar, and the screams of soldiers, angry barks and commands, desperate pleas and shrieks of terror, and the rattling, wheezing sound of death. The building around them crumbled, releasing a dusty, sharp smell that mingled with the stench of gunpowder, forming an inescapable mixture of destruction that permeated Nox's every breath. "Guys, we have to get out of here, but the only free passage to the cafeteria is guarded by a handful of enemy soldiers. I'll count to three and put them under suppressive fire, then you just run!" Henry was the only one in their squad with a machine gun, and he essentially just offered to sacrifice himself to save the others. Before anyone could stop him and come up with a better idea, he had counted to three, peeked out of cover and was firing at the lurking enemies.

Nox pulled up the soldier next to him and started to run, cowering and hasting from cover to cover. They took shots at him, he could feel them whizzing through the air, howling with the call of death. Then he heard a sickening gargle from not too far. The zoroark anxiously turned around to check if someone had lost his life, his heart beat faster, but he realized that it was just one of the enemies who had been hit by Henry's suppressive bursts. He breathed a sigh of relief, there was only one more open area between him and the cafeteria, and his whole squad was still alive. Then he looked over to the previous cover, saw his love and two other soldiers cowering behind a ruined pillar and spotted a little, gray object, an orb of shining metal, lying directly in front of them. His heart stopped and he froze. Eos saw his terrified gaze, looked at the ground and discovered the live grenade. She gave him one last, deeply pained look, her eye flashing with endless agony, then the grenade blew up, ripped her and the two others apart, and thankfully stirred up enough dust and debris to save the zoroark from seeing what was left of their bodies.

Now, every moment with Eos flashed into Nox's head at once, forcing him to relive all the experiences with her, from the very first time he had met her at a school dance to the kiss he had given her just a few minutes ago. Their years together were over, she was gone for good. His heart felt like it was spinning around in his chest, twisting and twisting, trying to break free from its confines, drag him along and make him follow her. Not a single sound escaped his airless lungs, his lips remained locked and firmly pressed together, and only a single tear emerged from his eyes. He remembered their first kiss, how they skipped an entire week to explore the lakes and forests of their home, their first real journey after they finished school, how they made plans for their life together, their first year at university and ultimately the beginning of this wretched war. He screamed and howled inside, but his year of military service, the year he had spent in the war, it had numbed him, and he just stood there without any motion or emotion.

Somehow Henry had managed to survive where the others had not. He ran into the zoroark and pulled him along by force. "Shit, Nox, run! Don't just give up!", he tugged at his arm and dragged him through the now unprotected opening. The enemy grew increasingly confident with their attacks, and two shots barely missed him. Nox groaned softly and pulled himself away from his rescuer, stumbled and stood up in the middle of the rubble. Part of him knew that he was a perfect target, but most of him didn't care anymore. Then his body was shaken with unspeakable force, over and over again, strong enough to make the ash and dust fall from his dirty fur. He only heard the sound of machine gun fire after the first bullets had already penetrated his chest. His bulletproof vest couldn't withstand the tungsten-capped armor-piercing ammunition; the force behind the impact tugged and tore at him like an angry child punishing their doll. He barely even noticed, mentally he was already gone and departed. His physical form held on to life for a few more seconds, then a bullet hit him in the skull and it was over. Blackness engulfed his mind, snuffed his life and removed him from the world forever.

Nox opened his eyes and found himself to be lying inside his old childhood room. He groaned and rubbed his eyes tiredly, he had just had the weirdest of dreams, a nightmare even. He had been drafted to fight in a huge, senseless war, he remembered the various, countless scenes of death and terror in cruel detail. There had also been a woman, a ninetales, Eos had been her name, she had been his girlfriend. It all felt so real, and he was confused for a moment whether he was still dreaming or already awake. He examined the furniture, the colors of the wall, the details of the window and found that nothing had changed from how he remembered it. Yes, this was the real world, this strange, never-ending dream had finally released him from its tormenting grip. He sluggishly pulled back the blanket and crawled out of bed, sleepily stumbled into the small adjacent bathroom and tried to look into the mirror. However, he was apparently too small and saw only the tip of his crimson hair tuft. Of course, this wasn't a dream, this was reality! He was no longer a big, scarred zoroark, he was still a little zorua who needed a stool to look in the mirror.

He returned to his room and picked a book from the shelves. Judging by the warm, yellowish sunlight that fell through the window, it was still early and he had some time to himself until mom would call him for breakfast. He lay on the bed and opened his favorite book, a fable about a brave zoroark saving a beautiful ninetales in distress. He chuckled a little when he realized that it might have been this book that made him imagine this pretty ninetales in his dream. The memories of the violent nightmare faded as he delved deeper into the story of the book. Time passed and Nox just kept reading until he had read the entire book. Only when he finally put it down did he realize that something was wrong. It usually took him three to four hours to finish the fable, and he had definitely missed breakfast by now. Why didn't his mom call him? Then he also noticed that the light falling through the window hadn't changed, it still illuminated the whole room with the warm, gentle light of the morning sun. How could it still be morning? Several hours must have passed!

The zorua got up and warily walked to the window, curiously peeking outside. He saw the tree growing next to their house, the street, the neighbors' houses and the cars parked in the front yards. It looked exactly as it should look, but it still felt strange. He finally found out what was missing, there was no sound, no movement, nothing but an eerily static scenery. No birds chirping, no lawnmowers humming, no cars driving and no children laughing, there wasn't even the slightest wind in the air. The world around him looked as if it was frozen in time. Nox looked around, was he still dreaming, but continuing the dream in another layer? He pinched himself to find out whether he was awake or not, a method he had learned from watching TV. He yelped and immediately felt the pain from his own pinch running through his body. No, this was real. Maybe he should just go downstairs and look where his mom was?

He opened the door, walked through the empty hallway and down the stairs, searching every room for any sign of his mother, or any life at all. He couldn't find her, but he discovered someone else, a small pink creature floating in the air. It hovered over the kitchen counter and gave him a jolly smile. "Hey there, Nox!", it spoke with a gentle, ethereal voice. It had feline characteristics, a long tail with a drop-shaped end, big, blue eyes and a very short, but extraordinarily dense and opalescent fur. It looked fantastic, like a figure from his dreams, and the zorua finally identified it as a mew, the spirit of life and creation. "What are you doing here?", he blurted out in confusion.

The mew floated towards him and gave him a physical hug, he could feel its soft fur and warm body, even its shallow breath on his neck. Nox knew that he was not dreaming anymore, but he also knew that this was not life either, this was too weird and different from what he was used to. Tears filled his eyes and he swallowed hard. "The dream I had, the dream about the war and the ninetales, that was real, wasn't it? I am dead, aren't I?", he whimpered dreadfully. The mew left the embrace, and it too had tears in its eyes. It nodded somberly: "Yes, you are dead. Your physical form has ceased to exist, is reduced to a mere shell of torn flesh on a battlefield." "But, where am I now? What is this place? Why do I look and feel like I'm young again?", the zorua asked with increasing despair. "This is the afterlife."

Nox averted his gaze from the curious being, wanted to ignore it and the increasingly obvious fact that he was dead, but his own mind betrayed him. The house around him, the furniture of his family home, frozen in the honey glow of the never rising morning sun, it all began to vanish, fade out of existence like yet another dream. He panicked, ran around and tried to touch the kitchen counter, the sink, the cupboards, the fridge, hold on to them and prevent them from disappearing, but to no avail. In the end he sat on an empty floor with a picture in his paws. It showed a drawing he remembered from long ago, a picture of him with his parents on a trip to the nearest lake. He made a fist and wadded it up into a small crinkly ball of paper and color, he opened his mouth and swallowed it whole. Everything else was gone, but he would not allow this to leave him too.

Then he began to cry, sobbing and howling, sat there and just let go. The memories he had suppressed so quickly and dismissed as an errant dream came back and flooded his mind with heartless might, making him relive his life in every single cruel detail. His eyes were closed, but he noticed that he could smell the smells and hear the noises as if they were real. Rolled up and cowering on the tiled floor, the last thing still left of his family home, he spent an eternity, and maybe even more, until he finally ran out of tears, ran out of steam, ran out of memories. Nox finally pulled himself together, opened his eyes with a sniffle and looked up, directly into the eyes of the mew. The eyes of the floating creature were just as reddened and teary as his own, it looked like it had experienced the same suffering as he had. Nevertheless, it smiled, it was shaky and unsteady, but a genuine smile. It reached out to him, their paws met, closed around one another, and then it pulled the zorua back onto his feet. "Please, I'd like you to follow me on a walk. There must be so many things and questions that are troubling your mind, and I am here to try to answer them."

Nox looked around and his heart beat faster, he stood on a small tiled floor, but there was nothing around it. They floated on a tiny platform in the air, surrounded by golden clouds, a honey-colored sky, illuminated by the same unceasing, unchanged morning sun that had never left and still filled the world with a surreal glow. An infirm chuckle came from the zorua's lips, he instinctively tucked his tail between his legs. He pointed to the radiant abyss surrounding him and whispered faintly: "I would love to go on a walk with you, but there is nothing to walk on." The mew's face lit up and it laughed with the happiest, most joyous laughter. "This place is not reality, you know, it is determined and shaped by your mind. You can change everything about it, deliberately and subconsciously. Just take a few steps and let your mind fill in the gaps."

The zorua sluggishly stumbled towards the edge of the platform, always afraid he might lose his balance and clumsily drop into the unending abyss. He wondered, was there a bottom somewhere, would he die again when he hit it, or would he just fall forever and ever? Luckily, he didn't have to worry about any of this, because as soon as he approached the edge, new tiles manifested out of seemingly thin air, formed solid ground where none had been. He squeaked in confused surprise and was really hesitant to step on the new tiles. They were made up after all, and maybe he would just fall through them anyway. He touched them with the very tip of his toe and found out that they were real, or at least as real as anything else. Then he put his full weight on them and they still didn't budge, carrying him just like the other tiles.

"Care to go on a walk with me now?", the mew repeated its request, offered him its paw. Nox nodded and accepted its paw, began to walk with newfound determination. Step by step his feet guided him through the golden nothingness, with the path forming in front of his toes and disappearing behind him. Then he asked his first questions, two of infinitely many: "What is this place? Why am I here? And don't tell me it's the afterlife and I'm here because I'm dead, you already told me that. I feel that there must be more to it than an arbitrary word and an obvious fact."

The mew grinned and elaborated in a casual, carefree tone of voice: "You are here because you died with sorrow and worry in your heart. A person who has found peace with themselves during their lifetime will never find this place and will simply vanish after their death, but most people die with at least something that troubles them, in your case the needless, senseless war and the loss of a loved one. Upon death, your physical form ceases and your troubled spirit will escape your former world to enter this place. Some may call it afterlife, some may call it heaven, some may even call it purgatory or hell, but these are just words to describe a concept no one who is still alive truly understands. You have to die to experience this place." "And what do I do here?" "You find solace in yourself. This place is yours and yours alone, you can shape it any way you want, you have complete freedom to express yourself any way you like. In this place you are an omnipotent god.", the mew told him.

They still walked across the endless void, carried only by a few tiles that continuously manifested at Nox's feet. The thought of being a god intrigued him, and he imagined what it would be like to simply create new worlds because he felt like it, creating cities, planets and universes at his whim. Much to his surprise, the cloudy, misty haze around him cleared and offered him a spectacular view of a gigantic, ancient city. There were huge, towering temples, beautiful parks and countless marble dwellings around him, the tiles around his feet had made way for a paved, smooth road of colorful cobbles. The zorua paused and was left in extraordinary astonishment, gawking and ogling at the mesmerizing sights. "Where did this come from?", he asked breathlessly. The mew giggled jollily: "Everything you see here emerged from your mind. This is what you imagined, manifested in your own afterlife." "This is amazing! So I really just have to imagine something and then it will become real?" "Nothing here is real. These imaginations are as fleeting as your thoughts. Some may stick, others will fade away almost immediately." As the floating being spoke, parts of the gigantic city began to blur and disappear and were replaced by new thoughts and ideas. "Don't even try to hold on, it won't help."

They continued their walk through the fantastic city. Nox enjoyed the sight, there was still no life to be found anywhere, but it felt so much better than the ruins of war he had been forced to witness during the last few years of his life. "And what do I do with my new powers? I mean, I can do what I want, but for what purpose?", he asked, "Will this end, or will I just imagine new worlds for all eternity?" "Yes, you will do what you want for all eternity, this is exactly the purpose of this place. It will pull you in and help you forget the last few worries and sorrows that trouble you, and in the end it will help you to forget yourself. People say that time flies when you do what you love, and this expression holds true. In this place you will eventually only do what you love, time will fly by, going faster and faster. Days, months, years, all these words lose their meaning when they blur together, even centuries will feel like seconds, and before you know it, your mind will have dissolved into blissful nothingness. Eventually your mind will cease to exist just like your physical form."

"This sounds amazing. Why would people call this hell?" "Your worries are still there, and you still need to cope with them. The more there are, the more time you will spend coping with them.", the mew's face saddens and it points into the distance. Nox's heart stops beating for a second and his eyes fill with tears. The beautiful city was changing, the shining, white buildings crumbled into smoking, gray rubble and ruins. A scorched smell of dust and sulfur filled the air, the green of the plants withered and trenches formed in the previously so immaculate cityscape, tearing through it like festering wounds. The war had returned and it felt like a crushing weight on his heart and spirit, but fortunately he faced only the destruction, and didn't also have to watch the people and animals fall and die. "No! What is happening?" Nox dropped to his knees and reached into the grass, plucked the flowers before they could be taken away by the rapidly growing circle of gray death and destruction. He sobbed as they withered in his paws and crumbled into dusty ashes.

The zorua collapsed and cried miserably, feeling another surge of dark memories seize his mind and torment him. "Why?", he exclaimed helplessly. The mew stopped floating and sat down next to him, gently stroked his fur and nuzzled him lovingly. "This is just what it is. Your mind still needs time to deal with your past. It will get better each time it happens, and it will be over eventually." Nox grabbed his little friend and hugged it tightly, hugged it like a stuffed animal, cried his tears into its wonderfully soft fur. Whimpering feebly he asked it: "Why are you here? What is your purpose?"

"I am part of you, a fragment of your spirit. I always have been. And at the same time I am an immortal idea, passed on from generation to generation, from person to person. I existed before you, I merged with you at your birth, and I will accompany you until the very end. My purpose? During your life I was a silent observer of your deeds and actions. Now I have become your guide through your own personal afterlife.", it explained gently. "But why are you here?", Nox inquired with more desperation. The mew shrugged: "There is no answer to this question. I simply exist, whether I like it or not. And because there is nothing I can do about it, I just use my existence to help my host, you."

The zorua nodded weakly and clumsily got back on his feet. The scenery had changed once again, civilization had disappeared and they were inside a lush forest. For the first time since his arrival, Nox noticed movement, found life other than him or the mew. It wasn't spectacular, just a few bugs flying and buzzing through the air, but it immediately made this place feel so much more alive, reinvigorated him with new happiness and made him forget about his worries for a moment. "Where are they coming from? Are they also coming from my imagination?" He excitedly pointed at the little creatures, playfully trying to catch them. The mew nodded. "Just like everything else these exist because you want them to exist. In fact, everything here only exists because you want it to exist. Although it seems obvious, it also includes you and me! You are a zorua because your mind dictates it, I am a mew because your mind wants me to be one. Even my voice is a result of your subconsciousness shaping the world around you." "Does this mean that I could forget about you and you'd just disappear?" The mew laughs: "Theoretically yes, but it is a bit more complicated because I am a part of your mind. When you forget me, you probably forget yourself as well and subsequently vanish." "Oh, but I could change your appearance if I wanted to?" "You can try, and it might actually work, but it is usually very difficult to change a part of your own mind just like that. I would recommend you not to actively try it, because it is just a waste of time and effort."

"You said you are immortal and you will be passed on. What do you mean by that?", Nox asked him curiously. How could the mew be part of him and still exist after he wasn't there anymore? "My core is something that has always existed and always will exist. Once your mind ceases to exist, it will take the essence from you, your memories and thoughts, your character and ideas, and slip into a new being that has just been born. While you yourself no longer exist, the memories of you will persist in your old world, and my core with your essence will inspire a new being in a new world." It felt somewhat comforting to know that he wouldn't just be gone. The way it sounded, the things that defined him would actually live on in a new person. A little like reincarnation, but not quite the same.

They wandered further through the dense forest and spotted more and more animals on their way. A wonderful, content feeling spread in Nox and made him feel at home. The zorua's tail wagged exuberantly and the urge to explore gripped him. He had seen so many adventure movies in his past, and it was one of his greatest desires to go exploring in a jungle, just like his film idols. Until now, he hadn't cared what he wore, and only now did he realize that he was wearing a complete jungle explorer outfit including a tropical helmet. In his sudden exploration frenzy, he completely forgot about his companion and simply ran into the undergrowth. So many things happened, he met new people and had the best adventure ever, completely forgetting about time and just living in the moment. However, all this came to an abrupt halt when the entire forest began to burn and turned into a blazing inferno.

In the end, he sat in the middle of burnt trees and ashes, all alone with his mew companion. It felt like waking up from a wonderful dream. "Wha- what happened?", he stammered, his eyes filled with tears of disappointment. The mew hugged him and purred: "You just experienced heaven. You lived your dream and were pulled back out of it by your worries. The dream is over for now, but it will return in a new shape eventually. Do not worry." Nox made fists and angrily punched a burnt trunk, shattering it into countless flakes of blackened wood and ashes. Then he saw the mew jump up and gasp in surprise. "What is it?"

"Usually, each person experiences their own personal afterlife. But sometimes the life threads of different people are so closely interwoven that they meet each other after their death, that they may even share their time with each other until they finally forget themselves.", it exclaimed happily, "These people may have been good friends or lovers in their lives before their death, but they also may have been total strangers who never even saw each other once. They may even have come from two completely different universes, but that doesn't matter. When the life threads match, time and space are irrelevant." "Why are you telling me this?", the zorua asked him confusedly. The mew raised its arm and pointed to something. Nox followed the guidance and spotted a very familiar face.

A young vulpix stood a few yards away, amidst the smoking ashes and flying embers, staring at him with an expression of utter disbelief. With heavy steps they slowly stumbled towards each other, Nox raised his arms, he couldn't wait to finally hold her after all that had happened. "Eos!" "Nox!" She was so beautiful without all those scars and still with both her wonderful hazel eyes, and the zorua finally realized why he didn't experience afterlife as a zoroark, but in a younger version of himself. He was the same age as on their first date years ago, the occasion must've burnt itself into his deepest memory, and apparently into hers as well. "Oh, it feels so wonderful to have you back!" "Nox, I missed you and thought I'd never see you again!" As they stood in the ruins of a once magnificent forest, they shared a kiss and briefly forgot about everything around them. For just a moment, the zorua felt like he was still alive and on his first date with her.

Suddenly a terrifying thought flashed through his mind. He pulled away from her with a distressed cry and left her behind with total confusion. "But how do I know that I'm not just imagining her just like everything else? How do I know that she's real?", he yelled at the mew. This just felt too good to be true. Getting flashbacks of the war was already bad enough, but he didn't want to be teased by a mere apparition of his girlfriend just for her to be torn away at a moments notice. She heard his questions and felt his desperation, felt it resound within her and she too crumbled with a forlorn howl: "Don't tease me like that!"

The mew seemed unfazed by their outburst and smiled: "There is a very simple method to find out whether she's real or just an illusion. Imagine a new world, create and shape." Nox nodded shakily and tried to imagine a new world, a new setting, to change his surroundings once again. A strong wind came up and lifted the gray ashes, veiled everything in a hazy mist, blocked his sight of Eos. The zorua blinked, only a fraction of a second passed, but when he opened his eyes he discovered that the world had changed, but she was still there.

The new environment was a detailed but slightly twisted replica of their home town. Nox stood right next to the cafe where they had met for their first date so long ago. The memories of this place hit him hard, making him succumb to his own overwhelming emotions once again. But this time he was interrupted by a gentle caress, an arm was put around him and he was kissed on the cheek, Eos had embraced him. Even with everything else changed and transformed, she persisted, and she hadn't changed at all. He also noticed that there was a distinct rift in reality, a visible difference in coloration and decoration, a rift that divided the setting around them into two different parts. The mew floating next to them was joined by another figure, an abra. Nox instinctively understood what this abra was doing here, it was the fragment of his girlfriend, her guide through the afterlife.

The abra opened its mouth and spoke to Eos, but Nox couldn't hear it. Instead, he listened again to the mew's words and explanations. "As you can see, she is as real as you are. You share one world, and this also means that you are no longer omnipotent. Especially in the beginning, there will be noticeable differences between the worlds you both imagine, but they will soon merge and blend together. However, since your life threads are as similar as they are, this difference between you two is not a drawback, but a gift. Sharing your worries with each other will make them much easier to overcome, and your stay in this place will be all the more enjoyable."

The mew continued to speak, but its words lost their meaning because Nox didn't care anymore. He only had eyes for Eos, and now he also knew for sure that it was really her. The zorua and the vulpix gave each other another kiss, then they interlocked their paws and entered the cafe. Inside the cafe they met many more people, customers and waiters, who went about their business as usual. The illusion was perfect, at least for now, and they went on their first date for the second time, simply enjoying each other's company as if there was nothing else to worry about.

Their guides, the mew and the abra, waited outside and were only a little afterthought in the minds of their owners. Eventually another surge of sorrow would come, inevitably ruining their comforting, wonderful togetherness and destroying the illusion with uncaring harshness, but for now they did not worry. They had found each other, would rebuild what was broken with combined forces, and would spend the rest of their afterlife together, sharing their love and creativity, until they would ultimately forget themselves and disappear forever.