FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Ow, what was that?!" Tasha exclaimed, hopping on one foot in her bright yellow bikini, which sharply contrasted her white and black fur as she looked down for what she'd stubbed her toe on. Rin laughed at the tigress hopping around like that, and looked down at the strange black box partly embedded in the sand. "It must have been uncovered by the tide," said Rin, the vixen kneeling down to look at the box. It was small, not much bigger than Tasha's footpaw, and the black of its smooth glossy surface was very black indeed, reflecting no light at all. There were no seams or hinges, but it was a perfect cube with sharp edges and corners, clearly not a product of nature. Its sides appeared perfectly smooth, and showed no sign of wear or aging, to spite it apparently having been buried in the sand for quite a long time. Just looking at it made Rin feel like it was something alien and wrong.

Tasha knelt down and prodded the strange box with her paw. To both their surprise the panel facing Tasha suddenly slid open, with a piercing shriek that made them both cover their ears. As echoes of the strange sound faded up and down the beach, the two girls lowered their paws and stared down at the box. An odd glow was emitting from the side opened toward Tasha, tinting her fur with a color Rin had never seen. Only Tasha glimpsed what was inside the box, and her eyes went wide with intense fascination. Rin thought she could see stars reflected in Tasha's eyes as her pupils dilated, forming strange letters and deformed shapes, turning and swirling in strange patterns no sane fur would ever have imagined.

Suddenly a strangely powerful wave crashed against the beach, running up and soaking the two girls to the knees. Rin and Tasha quickly stood up so as not to be knocked over by the rushing water, and when it had reseeded, the strange black box was gone. "Well that was weird," said Rin, shaking her head to clear her mind of the images as she turned to Tasha, ready to continue their walk down the beach. Tasha blinked frantically, her eyes once again adjusting to natural sunlight as the stars slowly faded from them. "What happened? Where is it?" She finally asked, looking all around where she stood and kneeling down to dig at the wet sand with her paws. It took Rin several tries to get her to stop, but Tasha slowly returned to her normal self, giving up on trying to find the strange black box, and allowing the two girls to continue their relaxing walk down the beach.

That night there was a terrible storm. The wind howled and the sound of crashing waves against the rocks near the seaside resort where Rin and Tasha were staying kept the two girls up late into the night. Tasha looked often out the window, and Rin once or twice caught a flash of lightning out of the corner of her eye, that seemed to take on a very strange color. The storm had completely passed by morning, and the two girls slept in late, getting dressed and venturing out of their hotel room in search of food only just before noon. As they sat outside at the resort restaurant for brunch, the two of them could see just how destructive the storm the night before had been.

Crews that had been hard at work since early morning were still picking up debris, and there were small boats and even a rather large ship all up and down the beach, that seemed to have run aground during the night. It was hard to tell at such a distance to where Rin and Tasha sat, but it appeared to them that some of the boats had been damaged, warped and torn open in peculiar ways as the perturbed ocean forced them onto land. All around them on the beach were dead sea creatures that had been washed up with them. Most of these had been cleaned up by now, but a few still remained and we're being dragged away by the workers. Rin couldn't identify exactly what sort of creatures they were, but it disquieted her stomach to look at them and so she decided instead to focus on her food. Tasha however seemed strangely transfixed, and more than once suggested they go back down to the beach, and Rin had to remind her multiple times that due to current conditions the beaches had been closed.

Since there was not much else to do at the resort, Rin and Tasha set out for home a bit early, moving their things from their room out to Tasha's red convertible and checking out at the front desk before heading home. "Do storms like last night happen a lot?" Rin had asked the otter at the front desk when turning in their keys. The old otter had shaken his head slowly and ominously, looking far off into his memory. "Only once, years ago," he had said, "That was a bad time, a bad time for all of us." He would say no more on the subject, which just gave Rin more motivation to head home as soon as possible.

Rin ended up having to drive after the first couple of hours, as Tasha ran two red lights, and quite nearly ran the car off the road and hit a tree. This wasn't at all like Tasha, and though she said everything was fine and seemed to be in quite high spirits, she kept getting distracted, and mentioning things that didn't make sense. They were both a bit sleep deprived, and Rin knew all too well how loopy Tasha got when she was tired, so she figured all would be well when the both got home for some real rest, resolving to take responsibility for driving the rest of the way herself. Rin was unfortunately not the best driver to spite Tasha's teaching. She still grinded a few gears and misjudged how much brake and throttle were needed, but eventually did manage to get them home to their cozy third floor apartment, in a new building across from the old library. Rin found driving very stressful, and figured Tasha could use a nap too, so after getting their luggage inside, the two girls curled up together in their bed for some much needed rest.

Rin woke up a short time later to Tasha thrashing about, seemingly having a very strange dream. Her body squirmed and twitched in a way Rin had never seen before in the six years they'd been together, and she snarled and gasped as if she was fighting something or being chased. When Rin finally managed to wake her up, Tasha seemed back to her old self, and said she didn't remember what she'd dreamt . Although she had enjoyed their stay at the resort, Tasha said she was very glad to be back home with Rin, and although they continued to spend the next few hours in bed together, that was the end of their nap.

After showering together, Rin got started on dinner, while Tasha decided to take some time to work on her art. Tasha always had a number of commissions in her queue, and could never seem to quite catch up. Rin on the other paw worked part time at a coffee shop down the street, and had made sure to leave her schedule open for this vacation, though she would have to be back at work again in the morning. Things more or less went back to normal that night, the two girls eating dinner together and then curling up on the sofa to watch a movie before heading off to bed for a proper sleep.

Around midnight Rin woke up as she sometimes did, feeling the need to use the bathroom, but found that Tasha was curiously not beside her. The vixen looked around in the darkness and found Tasha out on the balcony, staring up at the moon. It was strange for Rin to see her like that, the tigress' naked body seeming to glow as the tips of her fur reflected the pale moonlight. The moon was nearly full and hung low in the sky, turning from a white to a burnt orange down toward the horizon. Rin brought Tasha out a blanket to cover her, and stood a moment looking out with her at the moon. "It's pretty," Rin said, looking out at the hovering celestial orb, "You're pretty," said Tasha with a smile, turning to look down at the smaller vixen. Rin smiled and nuzzled Tasha's shoulder. "Do you ever think about what's up there?" Tasha asked, looking out at the moon again. Rin shrugged. "Not really I guess, probably not much but a bunch of rocks and moon dust." Tasha shook her head. "Not just there, further, deeper, beyond the moon, out past the stars, outside this little reality that we think we understand." Rin blinked confusedly and yawned. "Well I guess that's why you're the artist," she said, "how about coming back to bed. Tasha looked out a moment longer and then slowly nodded, the two of them stepping back inside together.

In the morning Rin woke up late, and was in a panic trying to get ready and make it to work on time. She ran a brush through her long black headfur while taking a bite of a toaster waffle, and trying to remember where she left her ID badge. Tasha leaned against the kitchen wall naked, holding the badge up in her paw. "Oh, there it is!" Rin exclaimed, reaching up to snatch it out of Tasha's paw. "What'll ya give me for it?" The tigress teased, lifting the badge up out of reach of Rin's grasping paws. "Oh please not now, I'm gonna be late!" she begged. "Oh fine," Tasha said, rolling her eyes and letting Rin have it, "but you owe me later." "Only if you get your commissions done before I get home," Rin reminded her, pinning on her badge as she hurried out the door. The coffee shop was busy as ever, and Rin barely had a minute to think as she filled order after order, struggling to keep up with the neverending line. It wasn't until half past noon that she got off, letting the afternoon shift take over as she tiredly trudged along back home.

Tasha was still there when Rin arrived back home, but seemed busy working on her art, so Rin decided she may as well take a shower. The hot steaming water felt good running through her fur as she turned and rubbed her paws up and down her body. Rin wiped some water from her face and glanced over to reach for the shampoo, when she felt something strange rub against her leg. She looked down, and what she saw made her scream and jump half way out of the shower with fear. Reaching up at her from the drain was a slimy black tentacle-like appendage, which quickly withdrew back into the drain as soon as she began to scream. Rin quickly shut off the shower and scurried back into the corner of the bathroom, staring intently at the drain for a long while, until she was sure there was nothing there. Was she just imagining things? She couldn't be sure, but resolved to call a plumber to check just in case.

Rin wrapped a towel around herself and stepped out of the bathroom, quickly going to her phone to call about the drain. After hanging up she went to find Tasha in the second bedroom, which she had converted to her art workspace. "Hey, did you take a shower this morning?" Rin asked, slowly opening the door. "Yeah why?" Asked Tasha, who was at her desk as usual, busily scribbling away. Rin stepped into the room and looked over Tasha's shoulder. "Just something weird about the drain," Rin said, with a sigh "I called a plumber to come and look at it." On Tasha's art tablet screen was a picture of an otter, running away from a group of strange frog-like fish people. Their eyes were bulbous and extended on stalks from the sides of their narrow heads, and they had two rows of long sharp teeth, extending from large open mouths. Their heads had fins and their necks had gills, while their limbs all seemed elongated and webbed at the joints. They were currently only outlines, but Tasha was coloring the first one in, all black and glistening with a grotesque slimy texture. "You'd better get dressed then," Tasha said with a smile, "unless you want the plumber to see you like that. You know I don't mind showing you off but.." "Yeah I got it," Rin interrupted, holding up her paw, "but what is that you're drawing?" "Just a commission," said Tasha with a shrug, "customers ask for really weird things sometimes." "Well at least it isn't porn this time," Rin said with a laugh, turning to go back to the bedroom and find some clothes.

After Rin got dressed she sat down on the sofa and turned on the news. It seemed the storm had moved up the coast and caused trouble in several towns along the way. No deaths had been confirmed as of yet, but there were several furs missing, and a lot of damage had been done. The news camera showed more boats that had run aground, but strangely absent were the strange dead sea creatures Rin and Tasha had seen on the beach that first day. The news went on to explain that although the storm appeared quite unexpectedly, fair weather should continue throughout the remainder of the week.

Something about the news report made Rin uneasy, and she jumped in surprise when there was a sudden knock at the front door. "I got it," she called to Tasha, as she got up to greet the plumber. At the door however when Rin opened it, was a wolf in a police uniform. "Sorry to disturb you Miss, but have you seen or heard anything unusual since last night?" Rin shook her head and blinked confused, as the officer explained that two deaths had been reported since this morning in the building, but that the causes had not yet been determined. Rin told the officer she had not seen or heard anything, but that she had been at work all morning. The police officer thanked her, and cautioned her to be careful and be sure to keep her door locked, before moving on to the next apartment.

Rin made a mental note to ask Tasha, but the plumber arrived soon after, a young looking brown rabbit, who bounded right in and happily got to work. Rin sat down and watched TV a while while she waited for him to finish, and when he did slowly step out of the bathroom shaking his head, Rin knew there was something wrong. "I've never seen a mess like that," he said, peeling off his rubber gloves covered in black goo, "It looks like the plumbing in there is over fifty years old." Rin blinked and shook her head. "No that can't be right, this building is only two years old." "Well I can fix it," the rabbit said with a sigh, "but it's gonna take a couple of days."

Rin nodded and went to tell Tasha, who was in the middle of working on another very strange piece. This one was a picture of the night sky, with a strange sort of hole in the center, ringed with tattered strands of rainbow color. In the center of the hole was a strange alien landscape, with rippling purple hills and plants that looked as if they'd grown upside down, with the tops buried in the soil and their roots exposed. In the middle of it all was a strange creature, if it could even be called that. It was a shapeless blob, covered in eyes and mouths, with grasping black tentacles reaching out in every direction. Tasha was staring at her screen intently, trembling as she changed the positions of the tentacles, erasing and redrawing, making the eyes and the mouths open, close, and then open again. "Tasha what are you doing?" asked Rin, making Tasha gasp and jump back in surprise. "Rin! Wow you startled me!" said Tasha, sliding her chair back from her desk. "Sorry!" said Rin, folding her ears down, "I didn't mean to interrupt but, what was that you were drawing?" "Huh? Oh, just starting on another commission piece," Tasha said, setting down her pen, "but maybe I could use a break." Rin looked back down at the tablet and saw that the screen was blank.

"What did the plumber say?" asked Tasha as she got up from her chair. "He.. says it's going to take a few days," Rin said, still staring at the blank canvas. "We might have to use the showers at the gym for a while." "Well I think I'm about ready for some lunch," said Tasha, taking Rin by the paw and leading her out and down the hallway. "We're just going out to lunch," Tasha said, poking her head into the bathroom and glancing over at the rabbit who had already pulled up several tiles and was bending over and reaching down beneath the floor. "Can I get you anything?" Tasha asked with a smile, "Maybe a sandwich? Some pizza? A slutty little vixen?" "Tasha!" Rin snapped, punching the tigress in the shoulder. The rabbit looked up and blinked in surprise. "Uhh, no I think I'll be ok, I brought a lunch with me," he said slowly. Tasha giggled and gave a shrug. "Well just let me know, she's available if you happen to change your mind!" Tasha added as she let Rin drag her from the room and out the door.

"You're terrible!" Rin huffed, as the two of them made their way out the door and down the stairs. "What? How long has it been since you were with a male?" Tasha asked, smiling. "A while," Rin said with a blush. "You know how much I enjoy sharing you," said Tasha, "especially if I get to watch." Rin narrowed her eyes and glared up at the tigress. "Anything for you, Mistress," she said, spitting the last word at her. "Always and forever?" Tasha asked with a smirk. "Always and forever," said Rin with a shy smile, leaning in and nuzzling her shoulder. Tasha giggled and gently placed her paw on Rin's rear and gave it a firm squeeze they walked.

Lunch went by at a restaurant just a few blocks away without incident, and once the girls finished they decided to go for a stroll around the park. It was a lovely neighborhood based around the old library. The park had been there the whole time, and some of the trees were older than the town. There was an old fountain in the center of the park, with the central part made of copper turned green with time, surrounded by a marble basin. Rin and Tasha sat down on the ledge surrounding the fountain, relaxing a while and looking out over the leaves turning golden on the trees in the cool fall air. "It won't be long now until the stars are right," said Tasha with a smile. "Huh?" said Rin, looking up at her confused. "It's a lovely day," said Tasha, turning to look back at the vixen. "Tasha, have you noticed you've been acting a bit.. weird?" Rin asked, taking the tigress' paws in hers. "No, I don't think so," said Tasha, tilting her head curiously, "but I could if you want me to." Rin rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Not like that," she said with a sigh, "like, some of the stuff you've been saying, and the stuff you've been drawing, and standing outside last night by yourself staring at the moon, it's all just, weird," said Rin. "I guess I just enjoyed our little vacation," said Tasha, looking back up at the sky, "maybe we should go to the beach more often." "Any excuse to get me in a swimsuit?" Rin teased. "Exactly," Said Tasha with a smile, standing Rin up and giving her a hug before turning and heading off toward home.

When the two girls arrived back at their apartment, they found the door slightly ajar. "That's strange," said Rin, "I'm sure I locked it." "Maybe the plumber had to go out and get something," Tasha suggested, as she pushed the door open and stepped inside. Nothing immediately seemed out of place except that the TV was on with the volume up very loud, so Tasha went to the bathroom to check on the plumber as Rin searched for the remote. A moment later Rin heard Tasha scream, and ran to the bathroom to see what was wrong. The inside of the room was completely covered in black sludge, as if it had exploded from the drain. Rin looked into the shower and gasped when she saw the plumber. He too was covered in black, his eyes wide open and his head turned around backward where his body lay crumpled and twisted on the floor. Rin grabbed Tasha and pulled her out of the bathroom to sit her on the sofa. "What?! What's happening?!" Tasha shouted, slowly rocking back and forth. "Just don't think about it," Rin told her, "I'm going to call the police." Rin sat at Tasha's side, holding her paw as she pulled out her phone, dialing the emergency services number and asking that someone be sent over right away.

As Rin hung up the phone, she saw that Tasha seemed to have calmed down, and was now staring blankly at the TV screen. On the screen, a news report was playing, stating that a series of unexplained deaths had been reported throughout the area, and that anyone with information should report it to the police immediately. Video clips on the screen showed bodies being wheeled away on stretchers and loaded into ambulances, dripping with the same black sludge. Meanwhile a map was displayed next to the videos, showing the locations of the occurrences, which all seemed to be centered right around their apartment building. Rin switched off the TV and led Tasha outside to wait for the police. Tasha's demeanor had become erratic, silent and placid one minute, and hysterical the next. Rin did her best to comfort her, and was very glad when a police car finally pulled up, followed closely by an ambulance. "Sorry it took us so long Miss, we've been overrun with calls since this morning," said the wolf Rin recognized as the same officer who had stopped by earlier to check on her.

Rin kept hold of Tasha's paw as she told the officer everything, including the tentacle in the drain. To Rin's surprise the officer seemed to ignore most of it. "We're getting a lot of strange reports today Miss," he told her. "It's best for now not to worry about these things. Water is being shut down in a four block radius from here while the city investigates the problem. You'll want to find yourself someplace else to stay until this all gets sorted out." The officer wouldn't even allow Rin and Tasha back inside to get their things, so with a heavy sigh, Rin set out leading Tasha down the sidewalk, toward a nice hotel she sometimes recommended to friends when they came to visit.

Tasha seemed to have recovered a bit by the time they got checked in and found their way up the elevator to their room on the fourteenth floor. She seemed quite pleased with the view of the park out the window, though Rin was still concerned with more practical matters. "If we're stuck here we better go pick up some clothes," she said, stepping up beside Tasha looking out the window. "Or we could just stay here naked," Tasha offered, definitely seeming in better spirits. Rin rolled her eyes and shook her head. "One of us still has to go to work," she said, frowning. "I bet you'd get better tips!" Tasha said with a giggle. "Oh come on, I know you like shopping," said Rin, nudging Tasha's shoulder. "Well that's true, ok fine," she said, and set out with Rin from the hotel room, back down the long elevator ride and then for a short walk to a nearby mall.

The two girls did quite a bit more shopping than they'd intended, and ended up having dinner at the mall, staying nearly until closing time. As they walked back to the hotel, their paws heavy with shopping bags, they laughed and talked together, almost as if this was any other normal day. Back at the hotel however Tasha seemed to slip back into depression, and stood for a long while just looking out the window, as Rin stood next to her in silence holding her paw. Eventually Rin was able to coax Tasha into bed, and the two of them snuggled up for some much needed sleep.

Rin awoke a few hours later to find Tasha again missing. Expecting to find her back at the window she got up, but couldn't find Tasha anywhere. Rin reached for her phone, and opened up her map app to see where Tasha was. Much to her surprise, Rin found that Tasha was no longer in the hotel, and seemed to be outside, walking toward the park. Hurriedly Rin got dressed, and took the elevator down to the lobby to follow after Tasha. She found the tigress easily enough once she arrived at the park. Tasha had neglected to put on any clothes, and was now dancing naked around the fountain in the moonlight, moving strangely in a way Rin had never seen her dance before. "Come dance with me!" Tasha called when she noticed Rin standing by staring. "What are you doing!?" Rin called back, but Tasha only laughed and continued dancing. Rin stepped up to stop her, but ended up carried away as Tasha wrapped her arms around the smaller vixen, holding her close while she continued dancing. Rin couldn't help but laugh as Tasha enthusiastically spun them around. "This would be more fun without those clothes," she said, and began undressing the vixen, as the two of them danced carelessly together around the fountain.

They came to a stop quite a while later, when the moon had passed behind a cloud. "Why?" Rin asked, panting from exhaustion as the two of them sat down again on the ledge encircling the fountain. "I don't know," said Tasha panting with her, "I just felt I needed to, after all this, it just felt right." Rin smiled and turned around, straddling the tigress' hips. "You're impossible sometimes," she said, and began kissing her, their two naked bodies pressed close together before the fountain. Quite a long while later, after they were both more than satisfied, Rin gathered up her clothes, and the two girls headed slowly back to the hotel, where they immediately collapsed together for some much needed sleep.

In the morning Rin once again had to hurry off to work. She didn't have her proper uniform, but there would be a spare one she could borrow, and the explanation of getting kicked out from her apartment would most likely be more than sufficient to keep her from getting into any trouble. Tasha insisted she would be fine on her own, though Rin of course had her doubts. The tigress didn't have any of her art equipment, and instead told Rin she planned to visit the old library, which she had seldom done while the two of them had lived together. Insisting the tigress message her later to confirm that she was ok, Rin set off for work, and not a moment too soon, as she had farther than usual to walk coming from the hotel.

Work for Rin was even busier than normal. The coffee shop was just outside the area that had the water shut off, but several other establishments weren't so lucky and had to be temporarily closed down. This meant that the lines were even longer, as baristas hurried to provide coffees as quickly as they could to the overwhelming number of customers. It was two hours past noon before Rin was finally able to leave, the lines having calmed down enough that at least not as many customers were angrily shouting. Rin noticed that Tasha had not sent her a message, at which she was slightly concerned, but not too surprised, as Tasha often forgot about such things when she got caught up in something. It seemed to take her forever for Rin to get back to the hotel, but tired as she was, when she made her way up the elevator and scanned her key card to open the door, she was still shocked by what she saw.

Tasha had indeed been to the library. There were several very old books set out in a circle on the floor, each laid open for her to read. Tasha was seated in the middle of the circle, busily flipping from one book to the next, turning the pages faster than she could possibly read. What disturbed Rin even more were the marks all over the walls. Tasha had a pen in her paws, and there were strange drawings, symbols and letters, scrawled like cave paintings everywhere. As Rin watched, Tasha got up from the circle and began to draw another one, scratching with the pen at the wall until it left one mark, then another, writing something in letters Rin didn't understand.

"This is it!" Tasha said, when she finished writing and turned around to notice Rin. "This is the reason, this is what they want!" Rin blinked and shook her head in shock. "Tasha, what did you do?!" she snapped. Tasha picked up one of the books and flipped through several pages, and then held it up to Rin. "Here, don't you see?" she asked frantically, "It's all right here!" The page was an illustration, a triangle within a circle, and a familiar mass of eyes and mouths at the center, reaching out with slimy tentacles. "Tasha you're scaring me," Rin whimpered, slowly pushing the book away. Tasha set the book down and took Rin's paws in hers. "This, this is important," she said, her paws trembling. "You have to understand, this is what I have to do!" she exclaimed. "Tasha, what are you talking about," Rin asked, shaking her head. Tasha pointed from one marking on the walls to the next, trying to explain to Rin about an alignment, and something about things beyond the stars, things from outside, that for some reason desperately needed help, her help.

No matter how Rin tried she couldn't understand, and it seemed impossible for her to get Tasha to calm down. Eventually Tasha started to get angry, and Rin grew so frightened she called the emergency service number. By the time the ambulance arrived, Tasha had destroyed two pillows, broken a window, and was cutting strange symbols into the carpet with a shard of glass. They had to sedate her to take her away, and Rin rode with Tasha in the ambulance to the hospital. When the ambulance finally got there, the place seemed strangely silent. The deaths it seemed had stopped when the city shut off the water, and nothing else out of the ordinary was going on in the emergency room, just the usual treatments for the odd injury or allergic reaction.

Tasha was quickly taken to a room, where she was securely strapped to a bed for her own protection. A doctor came in to examine her, but there was evidently nothing physically wrong, so he had her transferred instead to psychiatric care, where her mental state could be more thoroughly evaluated. Tasha seemed confused as the drugs wore off. She didn't seem to know exactly where she was or why she was strapped down. She made few objections though, continuing her nonsensical explanations about making the proper preparations for the things beyond the stars. "The work must continue, the work must continue," she kept saying, even as she drifted in and out of consciousness.

The doctor explained to Rin that these things sometimes happen, especially after a traumatic episode such as discovering a dead body. Rin had to assure him several times that she herself was alright, but was very concerned for Tasha who had never acted like this before. The doctor also said that Tasha had to be kept under isolated observation, before any medicine could be prescribed which might help her situation. At first Rin refused adamantly to leave Tasha's side, but the doctor explained how important it was to observe Tasha alone if she was to get better. Finally Rin assented and turned back to Tasha before leaving. "Hey, the doctor says I have to leave ok?" said Rin softly. "No," said Tasha furrowing her brow, "I have to leave." Rin shook her head and sighed. "No, you have to stay, you're at the hospital." Tasha shook her head back at Rin. "No, I have to leave, and I need you to come with me." "Tasha, you're sick," Rin said, trying not to cry, "the doctors will help you. I can visit you tomorrow." "Please!" Tasha begged, tugging at her restraints "Please Rin, please come with me, promise you'll come with me!" As she grew frantic the doctor quickly sedated her again, and once again she slowly started to relax. "Please! always and forever?" the tigress whispered softly. "I can't," Rin said, giving the tigress' paw a last squeeze to say goodbye as she fell unconscious.

Rin held her paw over her mouth and started crying the moment she stepped out of the room, and to spite the doctor's reassurance that she'd done the right thing getting the tigress help, she wished more than anything she could be taking Tasha home with her. Rin stumbled sadly down the hall and out the hospital door, out into the bright yellow light of the afternoon sun. She cried all the way back to the hotel, where she did her best to dry her eyes before stepping into the lobby where anyone would see her. She notified the front desk about the damage to the room, and asked to be moved to a different one. The raccoon behind the counter felt sorry for her at how clearly distraught she was, and happily offered to transfer her to another room just down the hall. As Rin went up to the damaged room and started to collect her and Tasha's things, she hesitated at the strange old books carefully laid out on the floor. She didn't dare read them after what little she had seen, but it seemed from the titles that each book was in a different language, none of which she was even vaguely familiar with. What Tasha could have learned from these books perplexed Rin, and since she had nothing else to do, she decided to return them to the library as soon as she had moved everything to her new room.

Rin carefully closed each of the old books, and packed them into some of the shopping bags she and Tasha had used the night before, in order to carry them back to the library. How Tasha had managed to get so many heavy old books up to the room by herself Rin really didn't know, as she struggled with their weight and had to take multiple breaks while hauling them back to the library herself. Rin sighed with relief when she finally stepped through the front door of the strange old building, and was glad to see a librarian seated at the checkout counter. "May I help you?" the old squirrel asked, looking the young vixen with the shopping bags up and down suspiciously. "Yes," said Rin, wobbling over to him with the heavy bags, "I just came here to return these books." She set the bags down and lifted one out with her paws, holding it up to the squirrel. He looked surprised as he raised his paws and took a step back as if afraid to touch it. "Where did you get this?" he asked slowly. "My mate borrowed them earlier," Rin said, confused by the squirrel's reaction. "Put that down, come with me!" The squirrel nearly shouted, causing Rin to drop the book on the counter with a thud.

The old squirrel led Rin to the back of the library, where he pushed some large dust covered boxes aside to use an old rusty key to unlock an old door, which looked like it had gone unused for quite some time. He flipped a light switch as the door swung open, and a dim set of bare hanging light bulbs flickered on as he started the descent down a set of old creaky wooden stairs to the basement. Rin nervously followed close behind, something about the room making her uneasy. As she walked, she noticed she and the squirrel leaving footprints in a heavy layer of dust on the old wooden floor, that appeared otherwise undisturbed, and must have collected over a very long period of time. Looking around the basement of the library, Rin could see rows upon rows of shelves, and strange paintings hanging on the walls. Most of the artworks were covered by sheets, but the ones that weren't depicted things Rin could not even describe, except that a few bore a disturbing resemblance to the things Tasha had been drawing. Eventually the squirrel came to a stop, and pointed up at the shelf in front of him without saying a word. Rin looked where the squirrel was pointing, and saw a gap between the books which was very curiously free of dust.

"What are all of these books?" Rin asked, glancing then from one shelf to the next. "Forbidden," the librarian whispered slowly, as if the books could hear him, "these books, should not be read." "What do you mean forbidden?" Rin demanded, as the squirrel slowly turned to walk back up the steps, "they're just weird old books!" He paused and slowly turned back to her. "That which is seen, cannot be unseen. That which is learned, cannot be unlearned. There are secrets in our world that should remain secret. Things too terrible for a mind to contain. Just a glimpse into the true nature of what lies beyond is enough to drive most to madness." The old squirrel hesitated a moment and the dim lights flickered and seemed to grow darker for a moment before returning to their full brightness. "Books like these are windows, pieces of a puzzle that must never be solved" he whispered, and then turned around again and continued slowly back up the stairs, with Rin following even closer behind him. Once the light switch was shut off and the old door was once again locked, Rin returned to the counter with the old squirrel, to find that her bags were empty, and the book on the counter was gone. The squirrel did not seem at all surprised, but looked around for a moment after sitting back down, as if listening to something that Rin couldn't hear. "Will that be all Miss?" he asked eventually. Rin didn't know what to say, but shook her head, and quickly exited the library.

Outside it was getting dark. Rin stopped by a pizza stand for a bite to eat, and then made her way back to the hotel, where she immediately collapsed on the bed. She could have used a shower, but she was still afraid to after everything that had happened. She wished again she had Tasha with her, as she hugged a pillow tight and drifted off to sleep alone. That night Rin's dreams were strange, and she didn't sleep well, soon waking herself up tossing and turning, and nearly falling out of bed. She looked around for Tasha before remembering she wasn't there, then got up to use the bathroom before trying to sleep again. As she opened the bathroom door just for an instant she thought she saw a flash of light from somewhere out the window. She stepped up to the glass and looked around, and thought she could just make out a white figure moving back and forth between the trees down in the park. Rin rubbed her eyes and tried to look harder, barely able to see something moving down there. The more she watched the more tired she felt, as if mesmerized by the motion of the figure moving, spinning, and dancing around the fountain. Rin felt herself growing lighter, and the park seemed to grow closer as she stood staring out the window. She could almost see Tasha's face as she danced naked around the fountain, her body outlined by the white light of the moon reflecting off the tips of her fur.

Rin woke up with the sun streaming in the window, rubbing her eyes and yawning tiredly. Her dreams had been strange without Tasha beside her, but she was allowed to visit her today, if only for a few minutes. Rin felt herself becoming unduly excited, hoping against all reason that Tasha would be back to her normal self. She got herself ready, even putting on an unusually revealing black lace underwear set Tasha picked out for her, and set out quickly for the hospital. The walk seemed to take forever, she was so excited to see Tasha again. After the day they'd had yesterday she desperately hoped everything would be alright. When she arrived at the hospital she discovered this was not to be however. Outside of Tasha's room was a black stallion hospital security guard standing watch. Behind him Rin could see there was crime scene tape across the doorway, and splinters of wood scattered about the floor. "Tasha! Tasha!" Rin screamed, running toward the room. The security guard caught her and held her back. "Where? Where is she!?" Rin demanded, beating her paws at the stallion's arms. "She's escaped," the stallion said, turning around so Rin could see in through the open door but keeping a tight hold on her. The room had been practically destroyed. The floor had strange round dents in it, and the bed was broken nearly in half. Splinters of what used to be the door were scattered all around, and everything from the drawers and cabinets seemed to have been rummaged through and lay strewn about everywhere, along with what remained of the hospital equipment.

Two of the nurses who worked the night shift are dead, and the doctor is in intensive care, the horse said, slowly letting Rin go as she relaxed. Rin slowly shook her head. "Tasha wouldn't do that, she couldn't," Rin said in disbelief. "I don't think you understand," the stallion said, pointing to the broken door. "She didn't break out, someone her out." Rin blinked in surprise. The door looked like it had in fact been smashed inward, and the pieces of it mostly lay on the inside of the room. "But.. how?" Rin asked, unable to believe what she was seeing. The stallion sighed and shook his head. "Nobody saw anything, the security cameras didn't show anybody come in or go out, there was a big commotion in the middle of the night and by the time I got here, she was gone." Rin looked again at the smashed and torn bed where she had left Tasha the day before. Rin tried checking the locator on her phone but it came up blank, as if Tasha's phone had been turned off or broken. If anything had happened to Tasha she would never be able to forgive herself. The security guard escorted her to a police officer who took down her statement, promising they would be doing everything they could to find out what happened, but Rin had very little hope in that. When they were finished with her Rin walked out of the hospital, and aimlessly off down the sidewalk.

Rin didn't know where she was going until she ended up in front of Tasha's apartment building. It was still Tasha's apartment to Rin, she just lived there as something like Tasha's beloved pet. It was a strange relationship to be sure, but Rin wanted it back with every fiber of her being. It looked like the place was still closed down, but nobody was around, so Rin decided to try going up to the apartment on the off chance that Tasha might have been there. To Rin's surprise when she got up to the third floor, she found a bunny standing outside of the door to the apartment. He wore blue jeans and a long black coat and flat cap over his brown fur, and for a moment Rin thought he looked quite like the plummer. "You live here?" he asked, nodding to Rin as she stopped at the top of the stairs. "Yes, well, I used to," Rin said, looking the rabbit over curiously. "You may remember my cousin then, Ricky," he said, taking a step toward her. Rin backed away and the rabbit stopped, holding up his gloved paws as he quickly looked her over. "I'm not gonna hurt you, I just wanted to ask you what happened" he said softly, lowering his paws and taking a step back. Rin sighed and slowly nodded, stepping back up the stairs and unlocking the apartment door.

Inside the apartment was just as Rin had left it. Somewhat of a mess as it ever was, with Tasha's things all over the place. She led the rabbit to the bathroom, which was still partly taken apart and covered in hardened black sludge. The body of the plumber was thankfully missing, leaving a vague outline where it had been that made Rin shudder. The rabbit stepped into the room, and knelt down to examine the strange substance. "What did you say your name was?" Rin asked, unsure of having a stranger in her home. "Jasper," the rabbit said, "but you can call me Jay, it saves time." "Well, Jay," Rin said, "I really do wish I had more to tell you, my mate and I came back from lunch and he was just.. dead." "Nothing is ever quite that simple," said Jay, taking out a vial of white powder and sprinkling a small portion over the sludge. Rin watched as it turned blue, and the sludge beneath it seemed to squirm unnaturally. "Interesting," the rabbit said, slowly putting the vial away.

"So, why did you call my cousin in the first place?" Jay asked, standing back up and turning around to face Rin. "There was something weird, in the shower, a sort of black thing reaching up at me from the drain," Jay nodded. "Do you have a shovel?" he asked, turning and stepping back out through the door. "A shovel? No." said Rin chasing after him. Jay quickly went down stairs, and started walking the perimeter of the building. "What are you doing?" Rin asked, hurrying along behind him. "There," he said, pointing to a tuft of new grass growing next to the building. Rin knelt down and looked at the grass as the rabbit dug it up with his gloved paws. At first it just looked like ordinary grass, but as Rin looked closer, she noticed a few blades of it had taken on a strange purple color, and seemed to have a sheen to them as if they were made of glass.

"So, it's happening again," he said, dropping the grass and standing back up to look around suspiciously. "What? What is?" Rin asked, standing and looking around with him, but seeing nothing. "Your mate, where is he?" The rabbit asked. "She, was in the hospital, until last night. Someone broke into her room last night and now she's missing." "Something," Jay corrected her, "not someone." Rin tilted her head confused. "I have to go," he said, "if I don't do something soon things around here are about to get a whole lot worse." With that he set off toward the front of the building, stepped onto the sidewalk and walked over to a nearby bus stop. Rin huffed and followed close behind him. "Wait! Do you know what's happening here?" she demanded. "Yes," said Jay, "but it would take too long to explain." A bus slowly pulled up, but Rin blocked him from getting on. "Listen to me, my mate is missing, I left her at that hospital, it's my fault, If you know what happened to her then I need you to help me get her back."

The door to the bus opened and Jay shook his head and tried to walk around her, but Rin moved in front of him and held her arms out. "No!" she snapped, "you can't leave me like this." Jay sighed and shook his head as the door closed and the bus drove off. "Look, this is not a good idea," he said, "you're already upset, and if you find anything of her, it's probably not going to make you feel any better." Rin trembled and shook her head, lowering her paws to her sides. "No, I can't just give up on her, I have to do something, please, let me help you." Jay sat down with a sigh to wait for the next bus. "What's your name?" Jay asked after a long pause. "Rin" said Rin, "nice to meet you." "I've seen this all before you know, Rin" he said solemnly, "enough times to know that you're not gonna like how this story ends. I can't stop you from following me, but you can't help me. Just stay out of my way and try not to get yourself killed." "I can help you more than you think," said Rin with a smirk. "Really?" asked Jay sarcastically, "how so?" "Oh, I know a few secrets, a little forbidden knowledge, and," Rin smiled and pulled a key out of her pocket, "I have a car."

"Where did you say we were going?" asked Rin as they got into Tasha's red convertible. "To the city archives," said Jay, "I need to find an old map." Gears grinded and the engine sputtered as Rin pulled the car lurching out of the parking garage and out onto the street. "I thought you said you could drive," siad Jay, tightly gripping the door handle. "I said I had a car," said Rin, "not that I could drive." The ride soon smoothed out a little and Rin started out for downtown, though she had no idea what good a map would do. "Just what exactly is going on?" Rin asked as she drove. "How well do you know your history?" asked Jay, slowly deciding that Rin's driving probably wasn't going to get him killed. "You mean like before the founding?" Rin asked. "Long before," Jay said with a nod. "Not so well I guess, nobody does really, at least as far as I know," said Rin, "There are theories I guess, about the old world and the machine wars, but I never really got into all of that." "What about before that?" Jay asked. Rin thought for a moment. "It's all just a mystery isn't it? There are no records from before the founding, just old mostly useless junk some furs collect. "This planet is old," Jay said, leaning back in his seat, "very old. Things have lived here almost since the beginning, and not all of them came here by chance."

Rin blinked her eyes confused by this, but tried to keep her attention focused on the road. "So what, you're saying whatever things are doing this are from another planet? Like aliens?" Jay sighed and shook his head. "It's not quite as simple as that," he said. "There are places beyond planets, beyond stars and galaxies, beyond time and space as we know them, and there are beings out there, powerful in ways we can't even understand. Reality means something to you and me, but it means something else to them. I don't know what they are, and I don't want to know. The things in your shower, the things that killed my cousin and took your mate, they are just pawns in some great game we aren't meant to understand. Whatever it is those things are doing, the best thing we can do is stay out of their way." Rin barely avoided drifting off the side of the road. She felt confused, she felt sick, she didn't know how to feel.

"You aren't just making this up are you? How do you know all of this?" she asked, not sure she really wanted to know the answer. "My grandfather, Aziriah," said Jay, "He knew some of the old names, and he could call things down from the sky during certain times of the year in certain phases of the moon. He didn't mean any harm, but one day the things just turned out wrong. They took him, destroyed the town I grew up in, killed nearly everyone I knew, and then did the same in the next two towns over before they suddenly stopped and went away. I learned a thing or two from my grandfather before they took him, and after what they did, I swore I'd stop them any time I could." Rin shook her head in disbelief. "So, you think you can really stop whatever is going on here?" she asked. Jay sighed again and shook his head "Well stop might be too strong a word. I could sooner stop this car with my bare paws. I've learned over the years that I can sort of give things a little nudge, maybe just enough to avert a total disaster." "Maybe?" Rin repeated. "Well sometimes I guess it doesn't really matter to them and they just let it happen, but other times, they nudge back." Rin gulped, but decided not to think about that, as they pulled up to the town hall and into an open parking space. They used the directory to find the archives, located in the basement, where an old badger was waiting behind a desk covered in old papers.

"Well hello, what can I do for the two of you? " he asked, seeming quite pleased to see anyone at all. "We're looking for a map," said Jay, "a very old map." The badger scratched his chin a moment considering the request. "Well I've got maps dating back ten, maybe fifteen years on the computer," he offered. Jay shook his head. "We need much older than that, as old as you have." The badger scratched his chin again, then turned around and started to rummage through some of the papers. "Here!" he said, picking up a large rolled up sheet of wrinkled paper before turning around, "here, this should be the oldest map we have." Jay carefully helped to unroll the map on the badger's desk and started looking it over.

"What are you two looking for, if you don't mind me asking?" the badger inquired, looking over the map excitedly. Rin shrugged, having no idea. "Just what I expected," said Jay, pointing at a spot on the map with his gloved paw. Rin and the badger looked down at where he was pointing. It was the library, still there back when most of the area was just vacant land. Right across from the library though, was a cemetery. "That's right where my apartment is," Rin said confused. Jay nodded. "It seems that someone buried there wasn't what they seemed." "But, what does that mean?" Rin asked. "It doesn't matter now," said Jay, rolling up the map and placing it back in the badger's paws, "it's asleep again now, but someone woke it up to have a little chat." "Woke it up?" Rin repeated, shaking her head, "who would do that?" "At first I thought it was you," Jay said raising his paw, "meaning no offense, but now I think it was obviously your mate." Rin blinked and stared at him blankly. "No way, Tasha doesn't know anything about crazy space monsters and.." Jay coughed, interrupting her, and nodded toward the badger. "Right, we should go!" Rin said, wrapping her arms around Jay's and turning toward the door. "Thanks for stopping by!" the badger called after them as he unrolled the map again and looked down at it confused.

"So why would Tasha do that?" Rin asked as the two of them got back outside, "she wouldn't know anything about that kind of stuff." "There must be something you can remember," said Jay, "was she acting strangely at all?" Rin sighed and nodded, "Well yeah, definitely, that was why she ended up in the hospital, in the psych ward. She started acting kinda weird right after our vacation." Jay placed his paws on Rin's shoulders, surprising her. "Think, did anything happen on your vacation?" he asked her forcefully. "Well," Rin said nervously, "there was a storm while we were at the beach, that was when she started acting weird, and the day before that was this box we found buried in the sand. It was black, like, so black it was hard to look at, and it had this really strange light inside of it." Rin tilted her head, trying to remember the strange colorful glow as it reflected in Tasha's eyes. Suddenly Jay slapped her across the muzzle, and Rin blinked in surprise. "Hey!" she snapped at him. "Stop, don't think about it!" Jay snapped back, shaking her by the shoulders. "You can't just hit me like that!" Rin shouted, pulling herself free of his paws. "You cannot understand how dangerous what you saw is!" Jay shouted at her. "Fine then tell me!" she shouted back, balling her paws up into fists. Jay took a deep breath and stepped back. "There are many references to an artifact like the one you describe. It's something not of this world. A small perfectly black cube. Across the ages cults have formed around it, temples have been built to it, and everywhere it has been, destruction has followed. The last reported sighting of the cube was when it was placed on a ship and sailed far out into the ocean, where the ship sank with all crew. That this thing has been called up from the deep now is a terrible sign. I have to stop what is coming, or at least try." Rin huffed and shook her head.

"But I don't understand!" Rin exclaimed in frustration, "What is it, and what did it do to Tasha?!" Jay sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "I'm sorry Rin, I'm truly sorry. The knowledge contained within the black cube is like poison to a sane mind. Once someone has seen it's secrets it starts tearing their mind apart. I'm afraid the Tasha you knew is gone." Rin slowly started to shake her head. "No. No! No!" she began shouting as her voice rose, "You don't know her, she will be ok, she has to!" Jay wrapped his arms around Rin as she struggled frantically and started crying. "I'm sorry," Jay said again, "There is nothing you can do for her now. You should really just go home, and let me do what has to be done." Rin looked up at him and pulled away again. "No, that's it isn't it, you want to kill her, you want to kill Tasha!?" Jay closed his eyes and sighed. "No!" Rin cried, "You can't! I won't let you!" "It isn't Tasha," Jay said softly, "not anymore." "Now you listen to me," said Rin, "I'm going with you, and you're going to promise not to hurt her. If that's really the only way to help her, then I'll do it." "You're not cut out for this Rin," said Jay shaking his head. "No!" Rin shouted back at him, "I have to do this, you don't understand. I know she would want me to do this for her, because I.. I would want her to do this for me." Rin hung her head in her paws and cried again. "Alright," Jay said at last, "I promise, I will help you find her." Rin looked up, wiping the tears from her eyes and nodded. "But how? How are we going to find her?" Rin asked. "That's usually the easy part," said Jay, "we just watch the news."

Rin drove with Jay back to the hotel, stopping to pick up fast food along the way, and when they got there, sat down on the sofa with him to watch the news on TV. Unfortunately there was not much to see. Most of the news was mundane, though there were a number of unexplained disappearances that Jay found somewhat disturbing. "This is how it begins," said Jay solemnly, "a few who know the signs wander off and form a cult, others are simply sacrificed or worse," he said, making Rin shiver. Still there were no clues about Tasha, as the two of them watched through the afternoon and on into the evening. "It's getting late," Rin said, checking her phone for the time, "can I take you back to wherever it is you're staying?" Jay laughed and shook his head. "I'm not staying anywhere, but if you'd like me to leave I'll go," he said and started standing up. "No no, it's ok, please, I don't think I want to be alone right now anyway." Rin said, as Jay sat back down with her on the sofa.

Rin stretched her arms and yawned. "I think maybe it is time for me to get some sleep though," she said. She got up and walked over to the bed, stripping down to her underwear and slipping underneath the blanket. "Coming?" she asked Jay who was still sitting on the sofa. "I think I'll stay up a while longer," he said, "I'll just sleep right here whenever I get tired. Rin blinked in confusion. "But I'd really like your company," she said with a smile, "I would feel so much better." Jay sighed and got up from the sofa, then walked over to the bed and laid down next to Rin, on top of the blanket and still fully clothed. "Don't you even want to undress?" Rin asked, looking him over. Reluctantly, Jay kicked off his boots and slipped off his jacket, revealing a black long sleeved shirt beneath. When he lay back down this way Rin nudged him with a little giggle. Jay sighed. "What would Tasha say about this?" he asked her as he started taking off his gloves and then slipped off his shirt. "Oh she'd love this," Rin said, "we have a very, complicated, relationship. She loves to whore me out to just about anyone who.." Rin stopped with a gasp, and looked up as Jay slipped out of his shirt. The right arm and upper half of his torso were completely burned. Much of his fur was missing and his flesh was covered with scars.

"Oh wow, what happened?" Rin asked, looking up at Jay in shock. "This is dangerous work," he said, pulling off his pants and sliding under the blanket, hiding his scarred body from view. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize," she said. "It's alright," Jay answered, turning over and getting comfortable, "I don't really have time for much else in this line of work." "So this really is your job then?" Rin asked, turning to look him in the eyes. "Such as it is," said Jay with a shrug, "With most of my family gone I inherited a good bit of money, at least it was, though things have been a bit tight lately. I'd expected that I'd likely be killed long before now." "And no time for girls either?" Rin asked softly, "Does everything still work?" "I thought you wanted to go to sleep," said Jay. "Well, I wanted to go to bed," said Rin smiling, "but if you really want to just go to sleep don't let me stop you. "Ok, goodnight Rin," Jay said, nodding and turning himself over, laying on his side with his back toward Rin. Rin huffed, afraid she might be losing her touch, but she was tired too and so closed her eyes and soon drifted off to sleep.

Rin and Jay stayed in most of the next two days watching the news. There wasn't much of interest being reported. A few more disappearances, an increase of hospitalizations for mental disorders, reports of strange weather like thunder on a clear day and strange hot sulfurous rain without any clouds. Then late in the evening on the second day, there was a story that caught Jay's attention. Three trespassers had been apprehended on top of a hill well outside of town, which was owned by a local farmer. They were reportedly performing some kind of ritual, which the police dismissed as crazy, but they apparently had been successful at stopping the trespassers before they could finish whatever they were attempting. "That's it, we'll go there tomorrow," Jay said, watching the report. "Hang on, if they got arrested for trespassing how are we going to go there?" "Simple," Jay said, "we ask permission, we're not half-crazed cultists after all. That seemed good enough for Rin, and so the two of them curled up together in bed and slept until morning.

The next day Rin looked up the address where the news report had been, and drove with Jay in Tasha's car out to the house of the farmer that owned the land. The old skunk and his wife had far too much to say about the incident, but were all too happy to show Jay and Rin around, provided they promise not to touch anything. The four of them hiked out through the field and up onto the hill, where a strange slab of black stone was set in a large clearing in the trees. Rin sensed there was something off about the slab. It looked strange, unnatural, and it definitely wasn't made of any sort of stone that could be found nearby. She sensed the others could feel it too, as all except Jay kept their distance from the stone. Jay examined it more closely, and knelt down to the ground, looking over a number of large round marks that led deeper into the forest. As they were looking around strange noises began echoing from across the nearby hills. The sky was partly cloudy, but the clouds seemed to grow denser in places, greatly blocking out the light from the sun. It felt almost like an eclipse to Rin as the midday sky darkened, and she felt quite unsettled by the moaning and rumbling sounds among the hills.

Suddenly, flashes of purple lightning struck down from the sky to points on top of several other nearby hills all at once, bringing with them a massive crack and wailing sound, not like thunder, but like rocks bursting and grinding, and the sound of a thousand voices screaming in pain. "This isn't right," said Jay, quickly glancing around. The skunk and his wife didn't seem at all bothered, and seemed to be standing idle by the stone, staring up at the sky. "We have to go, now!" he shouted, taking Rin by the paw as he started running back down the hill. The sounds of the hills grew steadily louder, and as the darkness in the clouds started to shift and swirl a powerful wind began to blow. Rin could sense that something was coming, but all she could do was try to keep up, as she hurried with Jay back down the hill. At times she felt she could hear footsteps behind her, huge and pounding, that seemed to shake the ground beneath her footpaws. When she glanced back over her shoulder however, there was nothing there that she could see. "Hurry!" shouted Jay, desperately urging her to run faster, though it was all Rin could do to keep tripping.

At last they finally reached the car, and both of them quickly jumped inside. "Drive!" shouted Jay, as he opened up the convertible top. Rin panicked and tried twice to start the car, taking it in and out of gear with her footpaws fumbling with the pedals. As the car sat stalled, the gate they had run through to enter the field exploded, with splinters of wood and pieces of twisted metal flying in all directions and getting caught up in the howling wind. There was still nothing there that Rin could see, but she feared it all the same, and with one more try finally managed to get the car started. She sped off down the driveway as something roared behind her, it's voice deep and shrill, coarse and dissonant, and terrible beyond description. She folded her ears down and drove as fast as she could. Jay turned around and stood up in his seat, pulling a glass bottle filled with green liquid from a pocket of his coat. He held the bottle aloft for a moment, watching the ground carefully, and then threw the bottle over the back of the car.

The bottle burst in the air just behind the back bumper, and a shower of fire erupted from it, knocking Jay back against the windshield. Something howled in pain and anger, as for a brief moment, through the rearview mirror, Rin saw the form of a horrific thing, burning. It's six or eight legs were gigantic, with multiple rounded toes extended down from the leg without any feet. It had no body as far as Rin could tell, only a point at which all its legs met. From on top of this point several small mouths extended on stalks, howling and gnashing at the air as the huge thing slowed it's running, now doused in flames. "I'm sorry," said Jay, sitting back down, "this was a mistake." "I'm just glad you stopped it," said Rin, looking back to make sure the burning creature was no longer behind them. "I didn't stop it," Jay said, "I only slowed it down." Rin gulped, but kept driving, and only after putting substantial distance between the car and the farm reduced her speed to something resembling the allowed speed limit.

When they arrived back at the hotel Rin walked in a daze along with Jay through the lobby to the elevator, and then back to the room. It was early evening and neither of them had eaten anything all day so Jay ordered room service as Rin sat silently with her arms hugging her knees on the sofa. On the television the news report said a series of fires had been started. Fire crews had managed to put most of them out, but the police said the fires were clearly started intentionally, and that they had no leads as to who might have started the fires or why. Rin sat staring at the screen and barely moved until their food arrived. When a knock came at the door from room service she jumped nearly halfway to the ceiling, and Jay had to urge her to calm down. He set the food out on the coffee table in front of the sofa, but Rin still refused to touch it for a long while. "This isn't going to get any easier you know," Jay said, taking a bottle of water and placing it in Rin's paw. She nodded slowly and took a drink, seeming to finally notice the food in front of her. "What are we going to do?" she asked, shaking her head as she picked up a sandwich from the table. "Things are worse than I thought," said Jay, "but this doesn't change anything, we still need to find your mate."

Rin shuddered at the thought. She missed Tasha more than anything, but this was getting so far out of control. She refused to imagine what those things might have done to her. "That is, unless you don't want to go on. I wouldn't blame you," said Jay. Rin quickly shook her head. "No. I have to do this, no matter what happens." Jay nodded and pointed at the TV. "It'll be worse tomorrow," he said, "we need a way to find her before it's too late." "I thought you said that would be easy," said Rin, looking up at the rabbit confused. "It should have been," he said with a sigh. "I've been trying to work something out," he added, turning toward Rin, "why her? There are secret societies, cults, and all manner of scholars who delve into this sort of stuff, but there must have been something about Tasha, something different." Rin sighed and shook her head. "No nothing, she was, she is, just an artist." Jay pondered this over for a moment. "That makes sense," he said after a brief pause, "Maybe she could see the things they wanted her to see, imagine them in her mind more clearly than most, and be inspired by them to do, whatever it is they want." Rin sighed again and then yawned tiredly. "We'll try again tomorrow," said Jay, "let's get some sleep.

Jay helped the exhausted vixen to get up and walk over to the bed, where he then started to help undressing her. As his gloved paws moved over her body, Rin turned and looked into Jay's eyes. His eyes were as green as hers, she hadn't looked at them so closely before, but as she leaned in close to him she found that they were quite beautiful. It surprised her then when her lips pressed to his, but he didn't seem to mind, and Rin started helping Jay to remove his clothing before both of them moved together onto the bed, and much later fell asleep in each other's arms.

Some time later, while it was still dark outside, Rin woke up to the sound of her phone vibrating in the pocket of her shorts on the floor. She carefully moved over the sleeping rabbit, and reached into her pocket, tapping the button to silence the phone. As she pulled it out she saw there was a message notification. This was quite curious so late at night, so she decided to go ahead and check it, and was extremely shocked when she tapped on it and read Tasha's name. The message was blank, but reflexively Rin checked the location, and on the map she saw the symbol was coming from right down the hall. Rin gulped and stood up straight holding the phone, staring down intently at the dot on the map, trying to think of some explanation. Maybe Tasha had left her phone in the old room when she'd made a mess of the place, and it had somehow been turned back on? Rin had a sinking feeling in her stomach. She had to know.

Not bothering to dress she slowly walked to the door to the hallway and opened it. Out in the hall the lights were on, and as she looked down toward her previous room, she thought that the door just might be open. Rin propped her own door open with a small trash can from the room, and stepped into the hall, creeping slowly along toward the other room. Sure enough the door was wide open. It had been pulled from its hinges and was now leaning against the inside wall. The inside of the room was completely dark, and though the damage had been fully repaired, Rin could feel a slight breeze. "Hello?" She said softly, but there was no answer as she stepped ever so slowly into the dark room. The only light was from the windows, one of which was broken with shards of glass scattered over the carpet. As Rin got closer to look out the window a dark shape slowly began to move. "Tasha, is that you?" Rin whispered to the figure crouching in the window. "Hello Rin," a purring voice said, "I've been looking for you." Rin cried out in disbelief, and hurried carefully through the broken glass, giving the tigress a big hug. "Tasha! Tasha I missed you so much! Are you ok?" Rin asked, but Tasha only laughed. To Rin her voice sounded strange, as if distorted by distance, and echoed in a way that made her sound far away. "How did you get up here?" Rin asked, taking a step back to look around. They were on the fourteenth floor, and the window had clearly been broken from the outside as the interior of the room nearby was covered in glass. "I've been busy Rin," Tasha said, "There is so much I wish I could tell you." As Rin examined Tasha closer she could see the clothes she wore were torn, and she had a number of cuts and patches of dried blood in her fur. Most notably she was crouching in a broken window, and her paws were bleeding where the broken glass cut into them. "Tasha you're hurt, come down from there!" Rin pleaded, but Tasha shook her head.

"Nothing hurts anymore," said Tasha, "I can't stay long, I just wanted to see you once more like this, before it happens." "Tasha I'm sorry, I'm sorry I left you, please, please stay!" Rin begged, but Tasha only smiled. "I have to go Rin, it's almost time. I've seen so much now, they've shown me the way, the way for both of us. I want you to promise, promise you'll come with me." Rin shook her head and started to cry. "Tasha please, I don't understand, just come inside, stay here with me." "Always and forever," Tasha said, and with that, leaned back and let go of the window frame. Rin screamed as Tasha fell, leaping forward and reaching for her out of the broken window, but as she looked down toward the street far below, she saw that Tasha was gone. Rin's scream must have awoken Jay, because a moment later he was there, wearing only his jacket, with a strange device held in his paw. "What is it? What happened?" he asked, but all Rin could do was kneel on the floor and cry.

Jay helped Rin back to their room, and wrapped her in a towel while he cleaned the cuts on her paws and arms from the pieces of broken glass. She decided not to tell Jay about what had happened. How could she? She wasn't sure herself if it had been real, as it seemed to her a lot more like a dream. Rin didn't sleep the rest of the night. She lay in bed with her eyes open, fighting the urge to rush to the door at the slightest sound. The warm feeling of Jay's body next to her was some comfort, but even so she wished she was with Tasha.

In the morning it was clear that things were getting worse. Jay woke early and turned on the television, where a news reporter was talking about the fires, which were now raging out of control throughout the city. There were apparently mobs out in the streets, looting and setting fire to buildings with not nearly enough police to slow them down. Authorities were urging everyone to stay in their homes, or at least that was what the last report said before the power went out. "We should get out now, while we still can," said Jay, as he got up and flipped the light switch a few times with no result. "But we can't!" Rin insisted, "I thought you came here to fix this." "It was a long shot to even try," said Jay, shaking his head, "I do what I can, but it often isn't enough." "We have to do more then," said Rin, getting up and putting on her clothes, "there must be something?" Jay sighed and shook his head, but suddenly there was a thump against the door. The argument stopped and they both looked toward the door and the thumping sound came again, louder this time. "Say behind me!" Jay shouted, as something crashed into the door again, bursting it open.

Furs came pouring through the doorway into the room, screaming and reaching out frantically toward Jay. Rin saw the strange device from the night before again in his paw, more clearly now in the morning sun. It was silver, and had a large spherical protrusion in front of a short handle, and coils of wire wrapped around a cylinder leading up to a narrow point. He aimed it at the first of the furs, a tall black stallion and there was a loud crack, like a tree splitting in half, accompanied by a flash of blue light, which coursed through the horde of furs and out into the hallway. In an instant the furs struck by the blast were blown back, and crumpled to the floor where they remained, no longer moving or making a sound. Rin felt dizzy and fell to her knees, but Jay quickly helped her once again to stand. "Come on, we have to get out of here," he said, taking Rin by the paw and leading her through the broken door and down the hall. "You.. you killed them," Rin stammered, as they stepped through the row of corpses left down the hallway. Jay shook his head and kept walking "They were already dead," he said, and Rin looked down to see the marks of disease and decay on many of the bodies, and began to notice the scent of death about them.

Since the power was out, Jay and Rin made their way to the stairs, and carefully descended from one floor to the next, hearing a commotion beyond the doors to the stairwell on several of the lower floors. Fortunately the darkened lobby was empty when they finally made it to the ground floor, and the two of them rushed outside to a scene that made even Jay start to look sick. There were corpses and pieces of corpses strewn all about, and far off could be heard the sound of gunfire and screams.

As Rin and Jay looked around dazed by the sight, an unearthly rumbling roar like a thousand drowning screams echoed from somewhere nearby. The two of them looked in the direction of the horrific sound, and saw several panicked furs running around the corner of a building a block away and turning in their direction. It was clear these furs were not crazed like those in the hallway, but were obviously terrified of the thing that emerged from between the buildings right behind them. It was like a huge rolling writhing mass of giant red worms, in the midst of which were something like eyes as the thing tumbled and dragged it's gigantic bulk larger than a bus along the gore slick street with unnaturally swiftness. "Run!" shouted Jay, and Rin followed after him as they joined the furs running from the massive thing. Rin could hear the wet squelches of the thing as it's body tumbled along the pavement behind her, and started hearing brief screams of the other running furs behind her as it caught up with them, though she refused to look back.

As if out of nowhere, another thing appeared in front of them. This one had less bulk, but was larger still, with six long limbs furred in shaggy white strands, and a head on each end of it's tubular body, each of which had no features apart from a giant mouth of sharp teeth. Rin screamed, and Jay dragged her quickly down an alley, as the second unnatural beast rushed forward, and the two monstrosities collided in a horrific battle of screaming fury. Jay didn't stop when they made it to the other side of the building. None of the other furs who had been running with them had made it, so the two of them continued together down the next empty street toward the outskirts of town. Rin couldn't say how long this went on. She and Jay ran and ran, but no matter which way they turned, it seemed the streets were filled with otherworldly nightmare creatures, or else hordes of the living dead. More than once Rin was certain they would be caught and either ripped apart or devoured, but somehow they always seemed to slip away, and kept running down one street and up the next.

Rin was surprised when it started getting dark. It couldn't have been past noon, and at first she thought a cloud had passed across the sun, but when she looked up she saw that there was a strange dark spot where the sun should be. She had not recalled that there was an eclipse today, since with everything that had been going on it seemed to hardly matter, but this was like no eclipse she had ever seen. There was something foreboding about it, as the blue sky darkened and turned an unnatural red. Rin stopped running to stare up at the sky, and Jay quickly ran back to her, shouting at her to keep moving. Rin found she could barely hear him however, as if his voice was coming from somewhere far away. The sound she could hear came from the sky. It was like a strange sort of music. The deep pounding of throbbing drums in strange rhythms apart from any natural order, and the thin notes of flutes, echoing in dissonant harmonies.

Rin looked down to find herself at the entrance to the park, though she couldn't remember walking there. Jay was nowhere to be seen, but she felt something drawing her in, and so timidly she started to make her way down the stone path to the fountain. Unlike the rest of the city the park seemed calm, almost peaceful. Not a leaf on a tree was rustling in the wind, and the red light of the sky seemed to grow brighter with every step.

When she reached the fountain, Rin found it missing, leaving only an empty basin encircled by the stone ledge, which now was marked with strange sigils, glowing with purple light that seemed to spill out and spread onto the stone path surrounding it. Not until she was very close to the basin did Rin notice the outline of white tigress standing in the center of it. "Tasha!" Rin called out, and Tasha slowly turned to look at her. Rin trembled as she noticed that Tasha wasn't all there. The outline of her white fur shone brilliant white, but Rin could see right through her body, which swirled like smoke across her outline, leaving a faint echo of her behind as she moved. Her eyes burned like stars, and in the center of her forehead was carved a strange symbol that seemed to slowly change and whisper softly into Rin's mind, words that she didn't understand. "Hello Rin," said Tasha with a crackling voice and a smile, along with a swish of her smoky tail as the vixen took a step closer. Tasha was naked now Rin could see, and though she wanted nothing more to leap over the ledge into the fountain basin and embrace her, everything about the tigress made her hesitate.

"What happened to you?" Rin asked nervously, as she looked over her mate. Tasha stepped up to the ledge and shook her head, causing her flesh to waft and ripple. "I couldn't begin to tell you," she said, "but I can't wait to show you. It's almost time now." "Tasha, time for what?" Rin asked, squirming in place. "Time to go of course," said Tasha, slowly turning around. "Go where!?" Rin called after her, as with a gesture of Tasha's paw a monstrous mass appeared in the center of the basin, a column of flesh and bone, which shrieked in agony from a dozen mouths as it was slowly ripped open. "See for yourself," said Tasha, as teeth erupted from the gaping hole in the mass of flesh, widening into a gaping maw which began to breathe. Rin gagged at the horrible stench, but couldn't bring herself to look away, as a gap appeared within the terrible gigantic maw. It was not just a hole in the thing itself, but a gap in the space between its teeth. It was dark at first, completely, utterly, terribly dark, but as Rin stared into that darkness she thought that she could start to see stars. Looking longer she realized they were not stars at all, as they began to flicker and dance, and moved in unnatural ways, turning and changing and swirling in the abyss. Then slowly the stars gathered and fell away in clusters, leaving an empty space between them. The space began to fill with formless things, terrible things the likes of which Rin had been chased by down the streets, only far more vast and horrifying. There were places too, gardens of horrible and gruesome plants, maddening spires and towers of fractured glass. All the while the sounds of drums and flutes grew louder, as if calling to Rin from within the maw.

"What is it?" Rin gasped after the briefest moment looking into the horrific maw. "Far away," said Tasha, turning back to her, "The shadow path to the black vaults, and the dreamscape beyond, to the throne of the elder gods. The ancient dark and terrible gods, the hungry, churning, mindless gods. Older than time, transcending all logic and reason. They are the gateway and they hold the infinite keys, and I have pledged myself to them." "Tasha no!" Rin cried, shaking her head. "Please Tasha, please don't do this, I want to go home!" Tasha laughed, an unsettling piercing laugh. "Our new home is waiting for us Rin. Come with me now, and I will show you." The figures at her side had vanished, and Tasha stood alone now as she held her paw out to Rin before the maw.

"Rin, get away from her!" a voice suddenly shouted, as Jay ran down the path holding his strange weapon. His arm was bloody and his coat was torn, and there was a horde of frantic screaming furs running close behind him. He turned and let off another blast of blue crackling energy that coursed through the pursuing furs, and caused them to fall to the ground and lay still. He then grabbed Rin by the arm, throwing her roughly aside as he pointed the device at Tasha. "Jay wait, don't!" Rin cried, but Jay fired the weapon, launching a powerful blue energy blast that knocked him to the ground and coursed through Tasha and around the maw. The monstrous thing screamed in pain, and the image between it's jaws twisted and distorted. The ground rumbled briefly, and the sky grew light again, sunbeams showing down into the basin, making the awful thing that had been summoned there slowly start to melt away.

"Tasha!" Rin cried, jumping up and hurrying to the ledge. Tasha was still standing there, though in the sunlight all but the faintest outline of her body was gone. "I thought he killed you!" said Rin, wiping tears from her eyes. Tasha smiled softly and slowly shook her head. "I can't die Rin, I'm not really alive anymore," she said. Tasha looked back to the melting maw and then back to Rin. "We have to hurry," she said, holding out her paw, "we don't have much time." "No Rin!" Jay shouted, running up to the vixen and grabbing her by the shoulders, turning her to look at him. "It isn't her anymore," he said, "your friend, your mate is gone." Tasha growled like grinding stone, and the symbol on her forehead began to spark. "Please Rin!" Tasha cried, her footpaws lifting from the bloody floor of the basin as she started being drawn back into the maw. "Don't you see? I did all of this for you! Life here is so short, this was the only way for us, always and forever." Rin turned once more and looked up, to see Tasha lifted into the air, being drawn back into a twisting mass of horrible monstrosities with her paw outstretched. "I can't!" cried Rin shaking her head, "I can't lose you again!" Rin leapt forward over the ledge, catching Tasha's outstretched paw. "No, wait!" shouted Jay, but it was too late. When Rin's paw touched Tasha's she let out a sharp gasp. For a moment her fur glowed brightly white, and then in an instant, she was gone.

The town never fully recovered from what would later be referred to as "The Incident." Not many records were kept, and few furs who saw much of the ordeal were still sane enough to talk about it with any coherency. Jay stuck around for a while for the cleanup, seeing to it that all the bodies that could be found were cremated, explaining the cause of the madness and hallucinations as some form of unusual disease. The last anyone in town saw of the rabbit he was driving out of town in a red convertible, which a few of the furs in town had noted, began conspicuously showing in news reports at sites of other strange occurrences. Apart from a few strange purple plants, things in the town did end up going pretty much back to normal in the following months, except for strange sightings around the old fountain in the park at night. The reports were investigated at first, but in time largely started being ignored, as they never seemed to turn up anything. Still, every once in a while on a night with a full moon, someone strolling through the park will say they saw a pair of ghosts dancing naked in the moonlight, around the fountain.