FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Nanuk! Be careful out there!" the boy's mother called. Well... boy might be an understatement. Nanuk was an adult by what we might consider. A tall, lanky young man, green eyes and long white hair. Not uncommon in his little home village. Many of the residents had all manner of strange hair colors from green to purple to blue.

"I will be. I'll be back before long. I promise," he called back to his mother.

"I already told your uncle you'll be there in a bit! Don't dally in that forest now!"

"Yes ma'am," he responded, laughing slightly. He looked up and saw the sun starting to set. He had some time. He took the obvious path down the road leading from his family's vardo, bringing with him a small lantern housing a few fireflies. The path to the other village was long but simple, a few curves through the mountains and a pass through the woods and he would be home. Well, his home away from home.

The coast cities were always verdant with fun people and things to do that made his home on the middle plains look boring. He didn't mind the simplicity and near silence of his home territories but... sometimes ya just wanna be around people, ya know?

Every step Nanuk took on the path made his feet feel numb. Him and his people didn't often wear shoes, they felt this made them more in touch with the earth and more fertile and other stuff. Superstitious things. Nanuk never had an issue with it though. He felt it was very freeing.

Before long he took off into a full sprint, rushing down the road and seeing the large overgrown roses that lined the road. Some of the older families of the regions grew the roses because they thought it made the sky stay blue since all the red would be consumed by the roses. Nanuk always loved how they looked. He took one of them for himself and placed it in his hair. No real reason other than being pretty.

The trail was interrupted by dense forestry, amazingly green and beautiful but immensely sacred to the people who lived around it. The forest wasn't too big, about half a city's length, but many were asked not to walk through it at night as strange things happened. Nobody really believed it or even listened to the warnings. Only the elders and the children.

But Nanuk was no child! He had gone through these woods thousands of times.... Okay maybe only like three times. But he was good at it!

_ We don't want you here... _

Nanuk froze for a moment, looking around him to see where that voice was coming from. He saw nothing and felt nothing, the wind briefly rustling the grass.

"I... woah. Been cooped up in the vardo too much. Getting a little stir crazy." He continued into the lands, uncaring of the overall feel before soon he was completely consumed by it, well into the deep of it. The whole feeling of the woods was... different now. Upon setting foot in, he felt his stomach churn, his skin crawl, his eyes strained to comprehend the world that seemed to morph around him. The roots moved, the leaves greyed, the trees groaned and the sunlight that peeked into the woods flickered.

"What... where..." Nanuk began to speak before almost instantly all of the light that the woods held faded away, disappearing and leaving the forest pitch black. It was so dark that even if he closed his eyes, there would literally be no difference. He heard hissing, things crawling around, something running by his leg quickly.

We don't want you here...

He rattled his lantern and the fireflies awoke, glowing a faded green that showed the immediate area around him.

He regretted his decision.

The woods... were alive. Pulsating. The roots were veins crawling from the tips of the trees to the roots, every second they pulsed, like a heart. Bulging with some odd liquid that Nanuk had never seen before. The sound of these odd protuberances pulsing to life rhythmically made him feel sick. He turned his head away and held his hand over his mouth before locking eyes with...

"Aghhh!" He screamed. And the tree screamed back. At least... part of it did before the others did. Nanuk didn't want to look but he couldn't stop himself. There was a face carved into the side of the tree... No... It was part of the tree! As if grown naturally. It breathed. It moved. No eyes and yet it looked at Nanuk as if in waiting. He held up his lantern and saw the whole tree was made of these living faces!

Nanuk nearly dropped his lantern as the faces all screamed in some strange language, something he'd never heard before but still understood.

"He's back! He's here! He's back! He's here!"

They just kept repeating it over and over before soon the surrounding trees began chanting the same thing, crying into the night. Nanuk took his lantern and ran back the way he came, sprinting towards the first exit he could find! Any exit! Something to get him out of here.

The faster he ran, the louder the trees screamed, the brief lighting the lantern showing Nanuk just how grotesque some were. The younger trees seemed to have more freedom, arms and hands moving if only slightly away from the trees they were fused to. The bigger and older trees featured bigger faces, arms and hands buried into the ground, some even having hair which did the exact same thing. Their faces struggled to move, as if years of age had forced them to harden and solidify into a single melancholic expression.

Nanuk kept running further and further into the forest, never finding anything that looked like an exit. Just more and more grass and morphed trees and moving beasts.

Wait what?! Beasts?! What else was in here?!

There was a hiss in the distance, something else running in the forest beside him, holding a lantern all his own and staring at Nanuk the entire time, wide and white glowing eyes never blinking, never looking away. The poor boy felt his heart nearly leap out of his chest before he tripped over one of the roots of the trees, earning its agonizing scream before he tumbled down some hill and crashed to the bottom of it, his lantern shattering upon landing on the ground next to him. The fireflies slowly flew off into the forest air, bright like mini suns before one by one they began to disappear.

It was as if the shadows itself were alive and blocking out the little light of the delicate bugs. They didn't die or cry or make any noise. They just... vanished. All save one which Nanuk grabbed and held it in his hand. This poor firefly was the only source of light in the whole forest now, calmly resting in Nanuk's shaking hands. His breath was quick, his nerves racked.

We don't want you here...

He screamed before biting his own tongue to keep himself quiet. He backed away and felt his back press against some stone. He heard some things moving in the distance. Things moving closer. He closed his hands tightly, hiding the fireflies light and held his breath. The forest was loud. Or maybe it was his survival instincts kicking in. Whatever it was, he could hear everything. The trees speaking to each other. Speaking to something else. A monster that prowled about the lands, slithering through the trees. Its footsteps were almost like heartbeats and Nanuk could hear every single one. Or maybe that was just his own heartbeat.

In fact... its footsteps matched his heartbeat perfectly.

He felt the breath of something tickling his ear but he remained still, holding the firefly close to his chest. Whatever tickled his ear was now in front of him. He could feel its presence move just a hair's breadth away. It sounded like it was laughing. It grabbed his hands and he nearly screamed before it simply opened his hands, allowing the firefly to escape his tight grip and slowly fly off into the night air... but not before briefly showing the face of Nanuk's strange onlooker. It was...

It was him. It was a spitting image of him! Same eyes, same hair, same face, same everything. But something was off about those eyes. They were as green as his own but something about them was... less. Uncanny. Almost freakish. Like it mocked his own with how perfect it looked but how off it felt. Nanuk let out a breath and the fireflies light finally vanished like the ones before it. Even without the light, the boy could tell he still held the imitations eyes, never blinking even for a second. He couldn't see it but he knew it was there. Staring at him. He felt the imitation close his hands and then breathe. The breath was cold. That was all he could describe it as. Very cold.

_We don't want you here... _

Nanuk almost spoke before the forest hissed in response, the woods briefly igniting a deep and bloody red, commanding him to silence. His imitation simply smiled and held up its own hand, opening it and showing a firefly of its own, this one now giving a pale red luminescent color. It flew into the air, floating between the both of them before it flew higher and waited in place. For a brief moment Nanuk could smell something oddly pleasant. A stark contrast to the disgust of the world around him. It was like something had been freshly baked. It made him nearly vomit, the thought of something cooking here and smelling good! What was it?!

His imitation slowly stood him up and shoved him forward, the firefly flying in front of him faster than any Nanuk had seen before. And he certainly didn't waste any time following it, trailing after the glowing red light for as long as he possibly could and never looking back, his footsteps causing small screams in the greater forest, some of the trees even laughing, cackling like mad at his manic sprint. Some of the trees moved as if wishing to trip him again but he managed to evade them, keeping his wits about him just enough to learn from his last fall and watch his step. Before long he saw a bright light far at the end of the path he ran, making him pick up the pace and race to the edges of this horrific forest, finally breaking through the spider web that marked the exit and continuing to run until -

"Nanuk?" His uncle called before the young man crashed into him and sent them both to the ground. Both of them were hurt but the moment Nanuk realized who he rammed into, he hugged him tightly and never let go. The older gentleman was at a loss for words and simply hugged his nephew.

"I was so... scared...." Nanuk began to weep.

"What? What of?"

"The... The forest... I saw..."

"Oh Nanuk, come on now. That stuffs not real. It's just an old myth. Some old tale to keep kids from wandering into the..." Nanuk's uncle could feel the hug get tighter and hear his nephew cry harder, clearly not buying whatever he was saying. He didn't dare break the hug and instead returned it. "It's okay. It's alright. Whatever you saw is... it's gone now. Nothing to worry about." Nanuk sighed and looked at his uncle, looking into his eyes and touching his face. Feeling his small beard and ears, making the man laugh. His Uncle had grown a beard. He didn't have that last week.

"I just... yeah. I guess you're right."

"There we go. Dry your tears, little man. Hey, did your mom make any of those cookies?" Nanuk gave a small laugh.

"Come on, you know she's really aller-"

"Aha! I knew it!" Uncle Ren shouted as he saw a small basket of freshly made cookies resting in the wagon he had brought for his meeting with Nanuk. He knew the boy would be tired after the trek through the woods so he always brought his wagon to carry him home. He smelled the baked goodies and sighed happily, quickly snatching one up and eating it. Nanuk was beyond confused. He looked at the cookies with a furrowed brow and thought back on if he had grabbed any. He didn't remember but for some reason his mind was almost... it was almost making him remember.

"I uh... I guess Ma wanted to surprise ya."

"Ha ha, come on now. She always has you bring me some kind of sweets!"

No she didn't.

"R-right," he mumbled.

"Mm! You're probably tired. Hop on in the cart and I'll take you home." Nanuk did as asked and hopped on board, facing the forest in the distance. He held the basket of goodies and decided to try one. It was really good. He had finished chewing and was going to eat another before he saw something in the distance, right at the entrance of the forest.

He saw himself again. His creepy imitation. Just standing there, holding Nanuk's lantern and smiling back at him. He held a small red flower in his hand, placing it in his hair but never breaking eye contact with Nanuk. He flicked the lantern a bit and for a brief moment the fireflies glowed red before they changed to a pale green light, the imitation bowing before turning away and walking back into the forest.