FSE

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Secrets in the Ruins

By Cimmaron Spirit

Commission for F3L4N

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WARNING: This story contains: wolf, feral, macro growth, destruction, post-apocalyptic, mawplay, no-yiff and more. If it's not your interest then off you pop! Otherwise, enjoy!

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"Hey Sara, check this out!" the black wolf said, pointing his nose at a sign on a rusty chain link fence.

A larger white wolf came up behind Felan, glancing up at the metal sign. "You know very well that I can't read it," Sara replied.

"But I can," Felan said, sticking his tongue out. "Warning: Private Property. Trespassers will be prosecuted."

Sara rolled her eyes. Felan may not have been the biggest or strongest canine in the world, but he had a strange ability to be able to read the messy squiggles of the old human language. Felan claimed that his family always knew how to read, something to do with humans doing something to his ancestors' generations ago.

Just another little bit of weirdness in a world gone mad. But it had helped him many times before, being able to avoid dangerous areas and finding places that were safe.

Which was why he was tagging along with Sara right now. She was much bigger and stronger, and more than capable of handling anything that might threaten the both of them physically. But even the strongest wolf in the world couldn't defend herself from everything, especially if they had no idea what it was.

It was more important now than ever before however. It had been many years since multiple bright suns were suddenly created around the world, destroying the massive cities of the humans, killing many of them, before the artificial suns as quickly burnt out. The skies turned grey, the waters turned green, the forests died, the deserts spread, which meant that even the animals that had no hand in the destruction of the world would soon be impacted. Death, disease, illness, mutation and much more would stalk the earth, touching every living thing.

Even far away from the big cities, in the great forests that stretched from the great plains of grass, cropland and pastures to the tall and rigged mountains with their icy, glacier peaks, as far as one could get from the ruins of civilization, where the trees still had leaves and the waters were cleaner, the fallout from the apocalypse still had an impact. If not directly then from what the human's, in their arrogance and self-interested nature, had left behind.

At least Felan, with his ability to read, could help determine how dangerous something was. They had managed to avoid most murderous robots and toxic waste dumps, foraging in old human towns for the preserved meat that didn't taste any good, but kept them alive.

"So, doesn't trespassing usually mean it's dangerous?" Sara asked, still looking at the sign. She couldn't really figure out what the markings meant, so she had to take Felan's word on it.

"Usually, yeah," Felan replied. "But 'prosecute' is an old word meaning, like... being captured by other humans and stuff. None of the places I found with that word have ever bothered me."

"Alright, well if you say so," Sara said, as Felan led the way past the rusty, broken chain link fence into the brown grass covered area beyond.

There were no trees in this area, all of them having been cut down and never replanted by the humans. In its place was a flat, asphalt paved area, though years of rain, ice and stubborn weeds had broken up the hardened tar, and now it was more gravel and grass than pavement. The area was filled with old cars, little more than metal scrap heaps by now: glass windows were broken, rubber tires broken down and deflated, the roofs on some had caved in, birds had made nests in whatever nook and cranny they could find. In time, the metal would completely give way, and all the asphalt would have been grown over, but that would be many, many years into the future.

The two wolves walked past the cars, cautiously approaching a small wooden building which was falling apart, and a broken gate that once kept unwanted visitors from going inside. But without a sign or anything blocking their way, Felan and Sara continued past the guard post, and toward a large cave dug into the side of a short hill.

They followed a rough-hewn path down into the dark man-made cave, until they stopped at a steel and concrete wall with a gear shaped opening in the middle. There was a large steel door, several feet thick, but partially opened by some large mechanical contraption on the ceiling. Just wide enough for someone to get in and out. But around the cave were green and brown vines, which seemed to be coming from the inside of the big metal door.

"What is this place?" Sara wondered out loud.

"It just says '38' on the door," Felan said, confused. "I have no idea what that means though."

Sara shrugged, and pushed herself through the opening and into the dark, rusty, musty and dirty interior. Old chairs, desks, benches and electronic control panels were spread throughout the entrance, but everything still seemed fairly solid and secure, except for the green vines that stretched along everything on the inside, covering and lifting up things that should be on the floor, or crushing light fixtures from the ceiling.

"Well, we might as well see what's in here," Felan said as he squeezed past the partly open door. "Hopefully some food and water and somewhere to sleep."

Sara nodded, and walked through the closest square door. Their claws tap-tapped against the few exposed metal panels and tiles as they explored deeper and deeper into the abandoned structure, overgrown with massive vines and weeds. Occasionally there was the skitter of a giant cockroach here and there, but everything was so eerily silent. There were only a few lights here and there, powered by an unseen source of electricity, but otherwise they relied on their other senses rather than sight.

"Medical Bay," Felan read from a sign over one closed door. "Overseer. Security."

"Do you see one called 'food?'" Sara asked, her stomach growling a bit.

"I dunno, we just got to keep looking."

One thing they did seem to find a lot of was stairs. There were a lot of stairs, going deeper and deeper into the earth, and they kept following them downwards.

"The vines seem even thicker the further we go down," Sara commented.

"Then it must be one really big plant in the bottom, right?" Felan suggested

On the third or fourth floor, Felan looked up at another sign, and his tail excitedly wagged.

"Cafeteria! That's a place that humans used to eat in. There should be something in here."

Luckily for them, the solid metal door was slightly propped open by one of the giant vines, so they were able to sneak into the room. All around was plates, glasses, utensils and empty soda bottles, but also boxes of old packaged food, along with the ever present vines and roots of plant matter.

Felan jumped up on a counter, and knocked over a box to read the side.

"Salisbury Steak. Yep, this is good," he said, before pushing it with a paw toward Sara on the floor. "Should be some kind of meat I think."

The white wolf eagerly picked up the box, ripping into it with her teeth enough to reach the meat inside. It was old and dry, filled with preservatives that gave everything a rather tingly taste, but otherwise she enjoyed the meal.

Felan sorted through the other boxes left on the counter, knocking off some of the ones with good protein for Sara to eat while tearing into a few himself, and ignoring the ones that would be full of unhealthy stuff that would make someone sick.

"Okay, maybe not as good as fresh meat," Sara said, swallowing another hunk of old steak in her mouth. "But at least there is a lot of it."

"Yeah, the old humans were pretty good at keeping food around long after it should have done bad," Felan agreed, as he licked up the last of his own meal, but there were still a lot of boxes of food left just in the cafeteria here. "Didn't help them all in the long run, but it sure is helping us."

After eating their fill, they next searched for a source of water. Luckily for them, there was some dripping water from a roof just down the hall from the cafeteria, from a crack formed by a rather large brown root. The water tasted like it was from a spring from inside the mountain they were under.

"You know, we could almost live here, at least for a while," Sara said, as they continued to explore the rest of the underground bunker. "There is food, water, it's sheltered. Honestly, why would the humans have ever left?

Felan nodded as he followed behind, but a bit close to the white wolf. "It is a bit creepy though. So quiet. And all these plants! Only thing you hear is the few lights and the dripping of the water."

"Oh, are you scared of a little bit of darkness and green plants?" Sara said with a smirk.

"N-no! Just... if this was such a great place, why did the human's leave?" Felan asked.

"Must have been some reason," Sara said, as they went down another floor. "Either way, what does it matter? We have this whole place to ourselves! No mole rats, no mangy mongrels, and no other wolves to bother us. We could live here for a long time I bet!"

Felan still had an uneasy feeling, as if there were secrets. That really bad things had happened here a long time ago. Something tied to the plants most likely.

But if there was something wrong here, Sara would be big and strong enough to fight whatever it might be. She had been strong enough to survive this long, so she should be able to stand against anything.

The lower levels of the massive, sprawling bunker was filled with the living quarters for hundreds of people, with small rooms with two to four beds in each, along with desks, chairs, drawers, personal belongings, toys, clothes and old computer terminals with their green glowing screens. While Felan could read what was on them, his paws were not quite sturdy or manipulative enough to be able to push the letter buttons on the keyboard, much to his annoyance. Maybe he could have found out what happened here had he been able to do that.

And most of the bedrooms were locked up or so filled the vines that it was impossible to climb through, so you couldn't get in. Which was disappointing, because the mattresses on the bed would have been very comfortable to sleep on. The only rooms that were open had actually lost their mattresses, either because someone else had come in or took them, or they had been broken or aged to the point that the metal springs were poking out and the covers were torn to shreds.

"I guess we got to sleep on the floor again," Felan sighed, as they walked past the last room down the hallway to the stairs to the last level of the vault.

"You are spoiled, you know that?" Sara said. "The best we get out in the wild is leaves, twigs and grass under trees or in cold damp caves. And you are complaining because you want a bed in a dry place with lots of food."

"It would just be nice, is all," Felan replied. "Much easier to sleep on."

"Besides, if you get too comfy, you don't pay attention to what is going on around you, and bam!" she barked, making Felan jump. "You've been attacked by a mutant or another wolf, and you are in a disadvantage."

"I thought you just said that you liked this place for being unused by other animals," Felan said.

"Yeah, but you never know. If a bear or mountain lion snuck in here, or a bigger pack of wolves, then we could be in trouble. So we should always be wary of that.

They arrived at the bottom floor, which like all the others was filled the who knew how many vines and roots and plants, with the signs on the wall pointing to places like "Power Generators," "Water Purification," "Maintenance," "Hydroponics," and "Laboratory."

"So what does that mean?" Sara asked after Felan had read out all the names.

"This is just a place with a lot of machines," Felan said. "The Laboratory will be with science stuff that we should be careful of though. Who knows what the humans left behind? Maybe the reason for the giant plants?"

The two wolves carefully explored the area: the generator was actually still running, which explained the few lights, but the sparking electricity seemed to be keeping the plants away, and also kept the wolves from venturing any deeper. The water purification system had clean water dripping from leaking pipes onto some of the roots that had filtered their way into the room, making it an even easier place to get water. The Maintenance section was full of old, broken down and rusty robots and tools to fix machines throughout the giant underground bunker, but now almost totally overcrowded by the vines and weeds

The hydroponics section was rather interesting, because while it had vines like the rest of the bunker, it was filled with special lamps and tables where something other than vines were growing. Everything from grains to potatoes, veggies to fruit, were all growing on different trays on the tables filling the room. They were several times larger than any normal plant should have been.

"Wow, this is crazy," Felan said, resting his front paws on the top of one table and looking over the giant tomatoes, so heavy that the stem was bent over to hold just one giant tomato. "I've never seen anything this size before."

"Too bad we are carnivores," Sara replied. "Maybe they made some of those mutated two headed cows big enough to feed us for months?"

Felan climbed down, glancing at the big yellow coloured barrels that filled the room. They were all rusty and old, and some strange green goo had leaked from some of them onto the floor. In fact, it looked like the vines were trying to find the green chemicals, actively hunting for it for some reason. Avoiding the puddles and stepping over the vines, he walked over, and noticed the labels.

"Warning, experimental chemicals. Use only on plant material. Do not ingest the chemical. Wear protective equipment when using the chemical. Activate with water, so do not wash with plain water. Instead use..."

"Instead use what?" Sara asked.

"I don't know. The label disappeared after that," Felan said. "But we better be careful with this green stuff. It sounds like it might be dangerous. Maybe it explains why the plants are so big?"

Felan turned around to see Sara standing in one of those green puddles herself.

"Hey! What did I just say?" Felan exclaimed.

The white wolf looked down, and immediately pulled her paw away. "I didn't see that! I didn't mean to stand in it!"

Felan groaned, frantically looking around. "We got to find the cleaner. Because who knows that will happen if a non-plant is covered in that chemical stuff. It could be very dangerous!"

Sara was struck by the concern that Felan was showing for her, as he looked over different barrels to see if he could find the rest of the warning label, to figure out what would be needed to clean off Sara's paws. She knew that Felan was wily and smart enough to live on his own, but sometimes being able to read the human's words couldn't help you when you are facing off against the mutated wildlife of the wasteland. But he also seemed concerned for her from a personal standpoint, and not just because Sara was able to face off some of the dangers that he couldn't.

Now that she had pulled away from the puddle, she could actually feel a bit of a tingling on her front paws, slowly working up her legs. She was confused as to what the sensation was, and though it felt fine, relaxing even, Sara was concerned that it could be something really bad, especially with how much Felan was panicking.

"I'll go check the laboratory, you just stay here," Felan said, before scooting out of the room with all the yellow barrels and the giant mutated plants.

"I... I guess I'll wait here," the white wolf replied, backing up to find a place to lay down, getting as far away from the barrels as she could, to avoid stepping in any more of the chemicals.

As she was getting settled down, there was a clanking, groaning, grinding sound, coming from somewhere around her, from the roof.

Sara looked up just in time for the sprinklers on the ceiling to sputter to life.

"Gaah!" Sara exclaimed, as the water drizzled all over her, which was exactly what the label that Felan said you shouldn't do. "Oh, this isn't good. Not good at all..."

She jumped up, and tried to get out of the room, but something felt wrong. Her front paws felt a bit unwieldy all of a sudden, with the tingling sensation of pins and needles one gets after lying down for a long time. She stumbled, tripped on a vine, and crashed into a nearby stack of the yellow barrels. The top one teetered and creaked, before falling down, crashing down right next to Sara and bursting open, the chemical inside spraying out all over Sara, coating her from snout to tail. Soon she looked more green than white, like the big scary mutants above ground.

The tingling sensation was now all over her body, and she could feel herself wobbly and disoriented, barely able to stand up.

She ended up falling down, landing on her stomach into the puddle of the green chemical that had already started this.

"Felan!" she howled, hoping to get the black wolf's attention.

And a second later, Felan ran to the door, freezing in the entryway.

"What happened?" he exclaimed, looking at the mess of broken steel drums, the man-made rain inside the room, and the large wolf in the middle of the room, covered in green goo, shuddering and whimpering.

"Th-the... water just came from the roof, and I was trying to avoid the green stuff, but now... I don't know what's happening to me!"

Sara finally managed to stand up, though she still felt tired and sore all over.

"S-Sara?" Felan stammered, blinking.

"Man, I feel really weird," Sara said.

"Sara?"

"Like every bone in my body was broken, every part of me stretched and twisted.

"Sara!"

The white wolf looked down to Felan, and was confused. "Man, you seem... smaller than usual?"

"No, you are bigger!"

Sara looked up and around, realizing that suddenly she was able to look down at the tables with all the enlarged fruit on them.

"What the... I am bigger!" Sara exclaimed.

And she noticed that the already big tomatoes and bananas and other food was actually starting to look normal sized, then smaller and smaller by the passing minute.

"And I'm growing!"

Indeed, the white wolf was growing larger. She nearly filled the entire doorway now with her front half, her back inching closer and closer to the sprinklers that were activating the chemicals that had soaked into her body.

She was well over double her previous size now, and she was already about half as big as Felan had been. There were no deformities like some of the mutants above ground, who got extra limbs or heads, who grew more muscular or lost their skin or fur. Sara was simply being enlarged over all.

"Hah! I'm like... the biggest wolf ever!" Sara said, admiring her size and stature, even as it continued to be eclipsed by her constant growth, admiring the paws that swoon dwarfed the barrels that had caused this, even rivalling Felan in size.

But as she got bigger and forced to move her paws to keep balance, her claws sliced open other barrels or knocked them over to spill more of the goo on her, which the sprinklers on the roof kept activating, forcing even more size and mass on the already growing Sara.

"Uh, Sara... you better get out of there," Felan said, backing up down the hallway to avoid the growing puddle of growth chemicals, and the growing white wolf.

"I guess so," Sara replied, slightly disappointed. After all, this growth felt great! She was bigger and stronger than ever before! She was most likely the strongest world in the world!

But soon she realized there was a problem. Sara was growing really quickly. So quickly in fact, that the room she was in was starting to get rather small. Her back legs were pushing up against the benches of all the engorged fruit and plants and knocking them over, splattering the ripe veggies against her fur.

Her head was already nearly half the size of Felan, who had backed away a safe distance from Sara's growing body. She tried to push through the small door, but after squeezing and wiggling her shoulders through the door, her midsection became stuck in the doorway. Sara was forced to bend and twist, her upper body stuck halfway down the hall while her powerful tree-trunk thick legs tried to push her through the opening in the door.

"Urfff," she groaned, clawing at the cement floors, her razor-sharp claws cutting through the thick vines that covered the floors and walls. "I'm stuck! I can't get out of here!"

Felan was unsure what to do. As Sara rapidly got larger, he was less and less capable of really helping out. He had no idea what to do to help the increasingly gargantuan white monster.

The walls, made of reinforced concrete and steel framing, and further strengthened over the years by the multitude of vines and plant material began to crack and crumble, though not quite at the speed that was required. Sara was soon forced onto her belly, crushing what remained of the hydroponic lab. But her back half nearly filled up the entire room now, crushing the metal canisters that held the growth formula, smashing the sprinklers on the roof so now it just poured water on her, which only further accelerated the growth.

"Get out of here!" Sara growled to Felan in a deeper voice, frozen in shock as Sara got bigger and bigger. "Get before... before... ahh!"

There was a loud crack and crash, as the doorway that Sara was trapped in finally gave way, widening the door enough for her to try to get out.

But now the hallways were getting too narrow for her. She was forced to crawl on her belly to try to get out, but all that resulted in was collapsing the walls on either side, resulting in her legs now crashing through to the water purification system, busting the tanks and machines that had for so long been keeping the radiation and poison from the water, and now provided more fuel for the chemicals that were making Sara grow larger.

Felan still stood, unblinking, as the mass of white fur rapidly approached him. It wasn't until he was knocked over by Sara's nose that the reality of the situation hit him.

"Sara! What are we..."

"You are going to get out of here," Sara said, as the roof above her began to crack and break, sending chunks of concrete and vines falling around Felan and on her. "I don't think there is much you can do now."

"But I don't want to leave you trapped!" Felan whimpered, ears laying back.

Sara let a smile cross her muzzle. "Oh, I don't think I'll be trapped long," the giant wolf replied, before pushing her expanding paw against Felan, knocking him toward the stairs. "But you might want to get out of here before the whole place comes down!"

Felan instantly realized what Sara was saying, and quickly raced up the stairs for next level up, filled with all the locked or blocked rooms. But even as Felan got into the hallways, the vine covered floor was starting to crack and rumble, with thick strands of white fur poking through. Some of the metal doors that had locked some of the rooms bent or popped out as their frames were bent by the growing wolf below. Felan scrambled over the cracked concrete, avoiding the rebar supports that were supposed to maintain the structures integrity for generations, as well as the ubiquitous vines that started to move and wave as the floor it was attached to began to give way.

The black wolf turned to the corner to the next staircase as the walls all along the hallway gave way, each of the bedrooms now filled with a giant Sara: beds and closets were crushed by her expanding mass, and soon leaks and geysers of water filled the hallway, the pipes running from the bottom level up to the kitchen and other places now gushing all over the wolf, which only accelerated her growth that much more.

Felan panted as he went through the next level, also full of dorms and bedrooms. But even just arriving here, he could already feel the floor trembling, the vines shaking, the crash of masonry and concrete crumbling to dust.

There was a muffled explosion down below, and the few lights that had been lit when they first arrived finally quit, casting the whole bunker into darkness.

"Oh no," Felan whimpered, as he tried to grope his way to the next staircase to get up another level. "This is not good."

But he could already feel the floor start to buckle and give way, giving added urgency to his attempts to escape the crumbling bunker.

"Really not good!" Felan yipped as the floor he was standing on suddenly gave way, to be replaced with the inexorably expanding wall of white fur.

He jumped over the hole, and found himself at the base of the next staircase. He ran up the stairs to get to the next floor, and found himself in the cafeteria that Felan and Sara had eaten from just a bit earlier, back when Sara was closer to normal size, and not the better part of three stories tall.

But the glasses and cutlery on the table rattled and shook as the structural integrity of the whole complex began to give way. Felan couldn't stop and rest, though his paws, sore from walking and trying to scramble over the vines and crumbling concrete, desperately wanted attention and a break.

Felan dashed through the cafeteria as the floor now began to give way. Without the bracing supports from below, the rest of the bunker was starting to fall apart, collapsing down onto the white wolf below.

Sara would be fine: if she was able to grow through concrete several feet thick, then she shouldn't have a problem with hundreds of tons of the stuff falling on her giant form.

Felan, on the other hand, wouldn't be so lucky. He scrambled toward where he thought the next set of stairs were, eventually finding the passageway to the next floor.

But Sara was growing even faster now. The destruction was right on the black wolf's heels, making it harder and harder to try to keep ahead of the crumbling ruins.

He got to the next floor, breathing heavily, and tried to get to the next pair of stairs, which should take him to the main entrance...

But instead he ended up in a large, open area. Without the lights, and relying on his night vision, he couldn't make out the sign labeling this new area, but he didn't remember being here before. He ran forward, toward what he thought was the path out...

A steel beam crashed to the ground, landing right next to Felan and making him jump out of the way. Then a section of the walkway from above crashed down, blocking the exit.

"Oh no, I must have taken a wrong turn," Felan whimpered, realizing he was now lost, and worst trapped. Stuck between a never ceasing growth of Sara below him, and the bunker that was rapidly reaching total structural collapse.

Felan ran around, barking in terror at the thought of being caught, just as the floor began to give way, sending him yipping and whimpering as he fell... fell... fell...

Then he suddenly landed on something warm and wet. He opened his eyes, not realizing that he had closed them, but everything was dark. He could still hear the cacophony of destruction outside, only slightly muffled by whatever he was in now. But Felan could still make out the sounds: the crumbling of concrete, the snapping of vines and wires, the creaking and screeching of twisting steel.

The black wolf tried to stand up, but whatever he was standing on was so unstable and slippery that he was forced to lie down. Where he was, he had no idea. He couldn't even begin to comprehend everything, so he just curled himself into a little ball, afraid and terrified of what was to come.

Then, all of a sudden, the sound of falling rubble, stone and steel stopped. There was a stillness, a quiet that descended. Soon all Felan could hear was his pounding heart.

Felan tried to sit up, lifting his ears to try to figure out where he was.

Then the wet, smelly space he was in suddenly shifted forward and down rather quickly, nearly launching Felan airborne, to hit a rough thing above him.

Then it opened up, and Felan caught a glance at the massive white fangs all around him before he landed on the dusty ground, bouncing once, twice, before coming to a skidding stop.

"Felan? Felan! Are you okay?" Sara's voice boomed, before a heavy weight pushed against his side.

The black wolf coughed, shaking his head, then his whole body to get the wetness off himself, and he looked up to see the giant Sara.

She was utterly massive now. Her eye alone was even bigger than Felan was. The normal sized wolf would have been able to crawl in her nostril if he was so inclined.

She had to be the height of those skyscrapers in the ruins of the old human cities, easily able to look into the ruined husk of a building twenty floors up.

Felan stood up. "Did... did you... catch me in your mouth?"

"Maybe," Sara rumbled, laying down on her belly, which sent a sudden gust of wind and dust flying in all directions. "It was about the safest place to keep such a tiny little wolf as yourself."

"Y-you could have eaten me!" Felan exclaimed in shock."

"Oh, please," Sara said with a smirk, her fangs more like the wings of old fighter jets in size. "You wouldn't have been a snack."

Felan whimpered, crouching down low. It was true... Felan wouldn't have been much more than a nibble to the giantess.

But Sara laughed, sticking her tongue out at Felan. "Besides, if I did eat you, how else would I be able to find more of that green stuff that made me grow?"

Felan blinked. "W-what? Y-you want to be... b-b-bigger?"

Sara smirked, before standing up: over 200 feet tall, overlooking even the tallest trees in the forest, with paws the size of houses, and allowing Felan to see that the hill that they had been in had collapsed in on itself, nearly flattening the bunker they had once been in.

"Why? Don't you want to be the partner to the biggest wolf in the world?"

"But you already are!" Felan exclaimed, before pausing, thinking, then the realization hit him. "Wait, you said..."

Sara grinned, pushing out her paw, claws tearing into the ground in front of Felan, and motioned for him to climb up onto the top, which his did, before being lifted up, up, up and up to her shoulder, allowing him to jump off an onto her back, a tiny speck of black in an ocean of white.

"Come on. We got to find a new place to get food and water now."