FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

She had felt it coming for the past week, her skin growing taught against her belly and shoulder blades and the thickness of her thighs. The moon had been unveiling herself in increments. Dropping one garment at a time into the churning ocean to reveal herself. Merle looked up at the sky with a veneration that made her throat burn.

Some would say that some months were better than others, and Merle could agree to an extent. There were certainly times when she felt more in control of herself. More aware of the things around her, and less likely to lash out as a result. She could think of many nights, tucked into the thick humid undergrowth of the Appalachian mountainside. That was where she'd truly been on the brink. Soaked to the bone with rain, stomach panging with hunger, and the feral instincts she'd been unable to bargain with driving her forward.

On those nights she would succumb to nothing but violence, even after her hunger was satiated. She had once wrenched the head off a massive buck. The thick fur between her fingers had been matted and clotted with blood, and it had swept rough brushstrokes of dark maroon across the antlers as she'd gripped and twisted, leaving the body to stand in stupid confusion for one long twitching moment before toppling to the ground.

Now, in the present, she stood at a flimsy wooden table in a tiny New York City apartment, clutching a bottle of cheap beer in one hand and gripping the front of her graphic tee in the other. Her fingers sat just above her breasts, the fabric twisting at a sudden jerk of her wrist. She'd thought she'd have more time, but there were worse places to be. She'd switched in an alley once, only half covered in shadows. Her clothes had been nothing but a pile of shreds when she'd come back the next morning.

Yeah, compared to all that, late afternoon in an empty apartment was truly nothing.

At around five and a half feet, Merle was not a scrawny creature by any stretch. Even now she filled the modest kitchen with her form. She had thick thighs and a decent tummy, with strong upper arms that showed off impressive muscle when flexed. One of her favorite things to do was challenge tough guys down at the bars to chin up competitions. With her big green eyes and curly brown hair, it was easy to lull them into humoring her. They'd take one look at her, particularly at her waistline, and figure they were all but guaranteed a win. As if.

The lamps flickered down on the street. Merle could hear the sickly buzzing of their bulbs stuttering to life, even from here. She looked down to her arm and saw goosebumps that shuddered, coming to peaks. She watched with a certain detachment, as if daring the process to continue. It complied, and she blinked to find thick black hairs appearing in speckled pinpricks across her skin, then springing upward in little bursts of growth

"Fuck," she hissed to herself, slamming down the beer and scrambling to tug her shirt over her head. The tinted bottle fizzed in indignation, foam bubbling over and tumbling down the sides. A familiar nausea started in her sternum, spreading outward up and down. Merle stopped for a moment to swallow hard, letting the taste of salt pass across the top of her mouth before feeling her stomach settle just enough to tolerate. She took a deep breath, and tugged her shirt over her head in one quick movement, before tossing it unceremoniously across the room.

The apartment itself was nothing special, and since it was not hers she felt no particular attachment to it. A one bedroom, with the tiny kitchen spilling into the combined space of the living room - or the rec room as her mother would have called it.

Bout to be a wreck room, she thought to herself with a smirk. God that was horrible.

Another wave of nausea made its way up her body, and she looked down her bare stomach to see gray fur sprouting in dark patches along the line of her waist, peeking over the band of her torn skinny jeans. She hurried to tug them off, cringing at the itch of new hair prickling out between her fingers and the undersides of her breasts. She hissed when her foot caught in one of the holes of her jeans, tipping her backwards into the table and knocking her bare hip against the wood.

She fumbled with the fabric, her fingers growing longer in the dim light of the kitchen and making it difficult to untangle her foot. Merle gave a snarl of exasperation, and as her fingernails arched outward into long, wicked black claws, she sliced at the fabric. It fell to tatters in a few quick swipes, and another low growl of annoyance tumbled up from deep in her chest. These jeans were not going to be salvageable.

Merle had no time to continue surveying the damage. Her eyes were shifting in her head, sinking in as the center of her face began to warp and stretch outward. She opened her mouth, the mid-length muzzle splitting wide to reveal the glint of her growing canines. She could feel her teeth growing, and it was a pressure that somehow extended away from her. An itch, as if she'd bitten into something rubbery that was determined to form a vacuum with the enamel and tug her teeth away.

This was the awkward stage, and the most dangerous. Her legs and arms were lengthening, and her feet and hands were struggling to keep pace. There was a crackling of bones and the snapping of tendons and muscle as they split and realigned themselves properly. She hunched, but it did nothing to stop the upward growth of her midsection, adding a full foot to Merle's height. She could feel the wet, hot, jarring pain of her organs rearranging inside of her. Her stomach expanded rapidly to hold everything it needed to - the feast her instincts would soon demand of her.

Merle coughed, and her stout muzzle was speckled with blood. It dripped from her exposed fangs and coated her tongue. It painted dark raindrops on the white tiles of the kitchen, and she reached out a foot to smear it away. The bones had extended, her ankles reaching up to merge with her lower leg to become a sharp, jutting hock that added another half a foot to her height. The same black claws that had grown out from her fingers were now jutting dangerously from the padded toes of her feet, and they clicked and skittered as she stepped from leg to leg, adjusting to the changes.

Her eyes were slowly adjusting to the new position and sensitivity. Her ears were pulling back, and she whined at the momentary lack of her senses. The tips of her ears reached upward, expanding and hollowing, the hole stretching to accommodate the new form. The need to hear all things. To hunt and to hide. To stalk and to avoid. Fur sprouted from the newly exposed skin inside her ears. It was a stark light gray compared to the dark blacks and grays of the rest of her fur. The patches had connected across her body and were now lengthening to cover her entirely in waves around her neck and chest and upper arms.

Finally her muzzle had finished growing, and she breathed deep through her new nose, black and wet and twitching. Her tongue flashed out, running over the fur on the sides of her nose and lips, picking up the blood spatter. The black ring of black lips pulled back, and she panted as she finished the change.

Merle could feel the bones and skin of her tail growing from the start of her change, but the nub had fully lengthened now, and fur was tumbling outward in waves of gray and white and black. A banner and a flag for Merle. Communication's finest tool.

She leaned her body over in a great arch, pressing her palms into the cool floor to brace herself before giving a mighty shake. It rippled her body from side to side, sending fur flying in every direction. The muscles of her upper arms and thighs tightened as they strained to keep her from going tumbling across the smooth flooring.

Her fur bristled, lifting between her shoulder blades and following the sharp path of her jutting spine to her rear hackles. She shifted from side to side, letting the ache of pulled skin and overextended muscle run its course. After a moment she settled, letting herself fall to the side, her new massive form barely fitting in the limited space of the kitchen floor. Blood smeared beneath her, and she tasted it, metallic on her tongue.

"Fuck," she grumbled again, this time rough and low, almost like a moan. She was stuck like this now until the sun came up, whether she wanted it or not. Her mind gathered itself up, and she felt the instinct urging her to hunt, to kill, to rip and tear. She needed to fill her stomach. Her eyes drifted to the couch against the wall, and the body that was currently sinking into the filthy fabric.

Merle had come here earlier with this creep, already expecting what was going to happen. That hadn't made it any less repulsive when he'd locked the door and immediately turned to shove his hand down her pants. She'd broken it in an instant. Shattered it, more precisely. He'd screamed so loud someone had come to check, and she'd had to put on her sweetest face and let them know her boyfriend had fallen and sprained his wrist. Aren't men silly sometimes with how dramatic they can be?

The noise problem hadn't been much of an issue after she'd torn out his throat. Now he was a bloody mess on the couch, soaking the matted gray fabric to turn it a wet black. She pushed herself up, giving another shake of her head for good measure, and padded over to the corpse. It hadn't been more than an hour, and he was still warm for the most part. His core wouldn't truly be cold until tomorrow morning, and his organs were still sealed into the moist heat of his body.

Her lips pulled back, the dark maroon and black of her gums appearing in the dim light. Her muzzle wrinkled, and a feral snarl came from deep inside of her. She leaned in, scenting the body, trying to decide where to begin. It was not the fresh meat her body craved, but it was good enough. Good enough for now.

Merle feasted.