FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 1.

It was dark and grey in the city of Seattle. But it wasn't really a surprise to the people that lived there; after all, it is Seattle. Hundreds of people were walking through the city, all were unaware the white figure sitting on the edge of a rooftop on one of the small buildings. Johnny sat there, watching. with eyes like a hawk, his green orbs darting from person to person looking at their shopping bags in their arms along with other things. Of course he wasn't just sitting there just for the view, there was only one reason he was sitting there at all.

He was hungry.

'God I hate stealing...but I'd rather do it than die starving,' he thought to himself.

He was searching for someone he could just run bye, grab, and go. Escaping was really no problem; Seattle was full of buildings that were close to each other making it easy to run through alley ways, or climb buildings and jump from rooftop to rooftop.

He spotted a middle aged, dark brown and white fox walking out of a restaurant with a Styrofoam container in her hand. She turned into a street and began walking in the opposite direction of him.

"Bingo."

He jumped up and began sprinting down the edge of the building in her direction, jumping of the edge towards the next building. He ran across it, jumped off the edge and landed with a roll and began sprinting towards her. All that the surrounding people saw was a blur of black and white. As he got closer, he flexed his leg muscles as he prepared to jump. He sprang in the air, doing a forward front flip over the fox with his arms extended; he grabbed the Styrofoam box while in mid-air and landed with a roll. Then he started sprinting towards the nearest alley, turning his head to the side to see the fox's expression for only a brief second. She was standing there, looking at her hand, mouth slightly agape with a shocked expression on her face, trying to figure out what the hell happened to her left overs.

"Heh....dumbass," he muttered.

He made a sharp left into the tight alley and began jogging. He noted the small space in between the buildings and jumped towards the one on the left, pressed one foot against it and pushed himself towards the building to the right. Then he pressed his other foot against that wall and pushed himself farther up. He continued this until he got to the roof of the buildings. He stopped and pulled out his mini map of the city. 'Hmmm....about a 10 minute walk', he thought to himself.

He sighed. "Let's get going then."

As he began walking, occasionally jumping to get to the next roof, he started thinking, 'Damn, two days from now and it'll be my birthday. Sixteen... What the hell am I going to do? I'm getting older each year...and I'm getting nowhere...what the fuck am I gonna do?'

About five minutes later, he approached his hide out. It wasn't much, it was just a small run down wooden shack with a broken door and shattered windows. The wood was rotting and it always smelled like mildew for some reason. Inside were all his personal belongings. Unlike his other hide outs in other cities; he kept his most important items in the Seattle keep safe. Books, which he stole from public libraries, Cd's, and anything else of any value that he had ever found or stolen on the streets. There was a pump in the back for water so he'd never run out. He entered his "home" and set down his dinner.

"Honey, I'm home!" he muttered to himself.

He walked outside towards the pump to take a quick shower before dinner. If there was one thing Johnny couldn't tolerate, it was being dirty. He'd always find a way to get supplies for shaving, taking a shower, and brushing his teeth. There was something great about taking a shower that he couldn't explain. Feeling the water running down his skin just felt amazing. It felt like he was sent to a world where there weren't any problems.

Where being a human wasn't a problem.

After he was done with his shower, he ate dinner (which consisted of a half-eaten burger with nothing else on it) and went to his make-shift bed, which was made out of shredded up blankets and duct tape. He took off everything except for his boxers and folded them neatly and placed them on the floor.

He didn't have much clothing, all he had was a black polo shirt, some grey jeans, a pair of rough, black training gloves with the finger tips cut off, a pair of sneakers and the most important article of clothing...a white zip up hoodie with the sleeves cut off. The hoodie was important because it concealed his identity. He always wore the hood over his head. And even if anyone did get close enough to see his head, all that the hoodie showed was his light green eyes.

He threw himself onto the bed and turned his body so that his back was against it. He pulled out a small white notebook from under the bed and a small pen out from the side of the pages, opened it to a new leaf before beginning writing.

Monday, July 27th, 2010: " Not much happened today. My time to stay here is almost up. Tomorrow I'm going to try and find a way to get to Mercer Island. Ya know...I don't even know why I keep on writing in this stupid journal. Maybe it's because I just want people to know that I existed? I don't know." He drew a deep sigh and looked up to the ceiling. He closed the journal and put it back in its place.

'More and more I find myself asking if it's all worth fighting for...to find a place to call home,' he thought. He drew in one last sigh before he closed his eyes, 'I guess I'll never find out.'

************************

The next morning he woke up due to the fact that the sun was shining directly in his eyes. He got up, stretching and yawned. He grabbed his clothes and began putting them back on, going outside before brushing his teeth. 'Better eat before I leave.'

He left his safe house and began jogging. Seeing how high the sun was, he could tell that it was about seven am. As soon as he came across the first building, he ran up the wall and grabbed the edge of it. He pulled himself up and began jogging back to where he'd stolen the fox's food last night. The morning air was crisp and clean, there was even a small wisp of mist in it making it very relaxing. He was halfway there when he thought he heard a shriek. He stopped, formed a cup with his hand and put it against his ears.

There was someone screaming...but he only got a couple of words out of it.

"...........STOP......PLEASE.....ALONE........HELP!"

Curiosity got the best of him and he began sprinting towards the shouts. As he closed in on the noise the shouts became much clearer.

"Please! Get away from me!"

He raised an eyebrow, "A woman? Better get closer to see what's going on." He muttered to himself.

He finally got to the source of the noise, an alley with a dead end. He crouched as he got closer to the edge, and peered over it to see what was happening. Down below, was a female doe, but she wasn't alone... There were two other figures standing about ten feet away from her. He could instantly tell that they were males.

One was a lion, with a leather jacket, black pants with a chain out of his pocket and wearing commando boots. The leather jacket had some logo on it that he assumed was a symbol for a gang. The other male was a hyena, who was basically wearing the same things. Johnny forced his attention back to the doe whose legs were shaking from fright. He paid close attention to her brown and white face, noticing the absolute fear in her eyes. By the classy business suit she was wearing, he assumed she was a wealthy woman.

"Please," she sobbed, "Leave me alone."

The lion started stepping forward with the hyena following in his shadow. "Sorry sweet cheeks, but we can't just let you go," he smirked.

"Yeah," the hyena spoke, "You gotta pay the toll price to get past us."

"Please!" She cried, "I'll pay you whatever amount of money you want!"

The lion looked at her with a devilish grin, and got closer to her, "Oh sweetie...it's not money that we want."

The doe now looked confused, "Then what do you...oh God...oh God please no!"

She started backing up until her back was against the wall and there was nowhere left to go. Johnny stood up, 'Well...I best not get involved,' his common sense told him.

As he began walking away, he heard the doe start sobbing uncontrollably; softly muttering "Please, no," and "God, why?" Johnny stopped in his place.

'......Don't do it John...don't do it...'

He ignored his subconscious and proceeded towards the edge once more. The two males were only now a couple of feet away from her. The lion stepped up and brought his hand from his pocket to grab the terrified doe. But before he could touch her, Johnny grabbed the edge of the building and kicked himself towards the ground. His sudden appearance shocked both assailants, who just stood there, staring at him.

The hyena stepped forward and spoke, "Who the hell..."

He didn't get to finish. Johnny sprinted towards him, jumped on the wall to his right, ran across it, did spinning jump and delivered a bone shattering kick to the canine's mouth. The hyena yelped in pain as he was brought to the ground by the sudden force. He turned to the lion, only to have his face smashed with a wooden plank. He grunted in pain as he grabbed his face, but he recovered quickly. He flipped towards the lion and grabbed his neck with his ankles, twisting his body and throwing the lion in the opposite direction. As he got back on his feet, he turned towards the doe expecting to see a look of relief. Instead, it had more fear on it than it did before he had appeared.

"Hey what's wro..." but he stopped, the words dying on his lips. Slowly, he lifted his hand towards his face, only to feel that his hood had fallen off. 'Shit...it must've fallen off when I got hit...'

He looked at her face and noticed the expression on it, it looked very familiar...Disgusted.

"Wha...what the hell are you?...You...you freak!"

Johnny stopped in his tracks. 'Freak?' he had just saved her for Christ's sake!

He was stunned at the name only for about three seconds. But that was enough time for someone behind him to strike him in the back. He whip lashed and whirled around to punch whoever had attacked him. Only to have a knife embedded in his right side.

Johnny stood there hunched over slightly, in shock. He felt the blade rip further into his body, shredding everything in its path. He looked up to see the lion with that grin of his, plastered on his face, "That'll teach you not to fuck with me."

He let go of Johnny, who immediately fell to his knees. The lion turned and ran, with his hyena friend soon following suite. The doe stood there, screamed, and then ran around Johnny, being careful not to touch him as if he was a disease. Slowly, Johnny fell to his side. He looked down to see where the knife was embedded.

"Shit...right in the liver." He cursed.

He knew what he had to do first, remove the knife. He grabbed the hilt, and tried as best as he could to remove it quickly. The pain was excruciating, he felt the blade shredding even more of his already torn flesh as he pulled it out.

'I have a med kit back at the safe house...if I could just get up.'

As he tried to get back up, he felt nothing but pure pain erupt from his wound. "Aaaurghhh! Fuck me!!!" He fell back down, only this time, on his back.

As he faced the sky, he heard his subconscious talk. 'Well...ya see what ya get for helping? A knife stuck in your side. Are you happy now? The bitch didn't even say thank you!' Johnny soon felt drops of water land on his face. It had begun raining.

'Oh Seattle...even in the darkest times, you still please me.' Soon his vision began turning black, he slowly felt his life seeping out of his body through the wound.

'Well Johnny?' His subconscious spoke again, 'Was it all worth fighting for?' But he didn't get to answer...he was slipping to fast into unconsciousness. He was too focused on the sky to notice the two dark figures running towards him...

Edit performed on 24/12/2011 as a gift by RuthofPern, at Madfire's request.