FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"If anyone can hear this message, please reply," the message requested, broadcasting across the city. It was sent up into the night sky, accompanied by hundreds of other messages and became lost among them. Any hope of any message being heard was lost when a large fireball broke through the smoke and fell toward the city.

The fireball crashed on the outskirts of the city and its flames quickly died. Dozens more flaming missiles fell from the sky and continued to pelt the planet's surface. The city was hit by several of them, turning pockets of the city into infernos. The firey storm was complete with the constant gunfire that flashed throughout the city, like lightning in a distant storm.

"Can anyone hear me?" again the message asked. The fires and gunfire reflected off the windows of the tall building but behind one of those windows stood a lone soldier.

She remained gazing out over the city, hearing nothing but the scrambled messages answering her back. Static consumed her radio, and a bright glare caught her attention. One of the fireballs that filled the sky was headed in her direction.

Stepping back slowly, her eyes went wide and she was unable to look away from the flaming hunk of metal that was heading for her. It filled her vision until she instinctively jumped back from the window.

The windows shattered, and the walls collapsed under the impact, falling down on the soldier who was thrown into one of them. The entire building shuttered, and flames were rising from where hit was hit.

Coughing, the soldier pushed a piece of the wall off of herself and she tried to sat up. The fireball destroyed the levels above her, but she lacked the strength to move. She looked out over the city, her muskrat eyes reflecting the fires that threatened to consume them all. Losing her will to survive, the muskrat lost consciousness.

Something was being dragged across a metal surface, the sound standing out against the dancing flames. Painfully the muskrat opened her eyes, the wind blowing the smoke from the room through the shattered windows. She noticed that the room above had practically fallen on top of her.

The sound crashed into the metal, startling the muskrat to fully waken. Her heard spun and it was difficult to clear her vision but she instinctively grabbed her sidearm, which thankfully was still attached to her hip. She stood woozily as the sound persisted with several heavy impacts. It looked like it was coming from one of the ruined vents.

"Who-who's in there?" questioned the muskrat, finding it difficult to speak with her injuries. The sound ceased after he question, disabling her ability to find the source.

"You're not one of them?" asked a higher-pitched voice.

"Come on out," demanded the muskrat. She was starting to focus a little better.

Watching carefully the muskrat stepped back from the broken vent as a small figure crawled out of it. It was a mere child, a youngling squirrel who looked hardly older than a seven-year-old pup. She was battered but didn't look to be seriously injured, or infected.

"How'd you get in there?" asked the muskrat. She lowered her weapons once she knew that the youngling wasn't infected.

"I was in there hiding," answered the squirrel cub. "They were everywhere! I crawled in the vent and they stopped following me but then there was this loud crash and the whole thing shook!"

"You're not hurt, are--"

A shriek pierced through the roar of the raging flames, drawing both the cub's and the soldier's attention. Among the ruined entrance of the office, there was an opossum trying to break in. Botanical vines were among its fur, an obvious sign of its infection. The vines were wrapping around one of possum's arms, one that had several lacerations that would have normally made the arm inoperable.

"He found me," screamed the squirrel, backing away from the creature. She was unknowingly backing toward the open window however.

Noticing the danger the squirrel was putting herself in, the muskrat grabbed her by the arm and threw her in the corner before turning back to the possum with her sidearm raised. Tapping the trigger repeatedly, a few shots missed but enough hit to cause the possum to drop to the ground, leaving the infection squirming around the body trying to force it to move. The muskrat grabbed the squirrel and they both ran for the exit of the building as more infection forms started to hunt them, attracted by the gunfire.

The flashes from her gunshots contributed to the lightning storm that raged around the city. The soldier and survivor cub were lost among the city. The gunfire storm and raining fire slowed only a little by the time the sun started to rise. The infection had spread all over the planet from the burning ships that crashed into the ground by now and the planet's invasion had left every inhabitant fighting for survival.

"What's your name?" asked the muskrat. She was still with the squirrel, and they were both now resting in the ruins of the city's school.

"Hannah Rhodes," answered the squirrel. At first she had tried to run for it but surviving the morning with the muskrat, she's learned to stay with her now.

"I'm Veteran Zoey Nunez," said the muskrat. One of the wounds that she sustained from escaping had blood leak into her eye and she was forced to keep it closed. They were hidden on the lower floors of the school, and ignorant to the sun that was rising. "Where are you from, Hannah?"

"Ab Amor," answered the squirrel, her voice heavy with exhaustion. "We were flying to another city to meet my grandparents but we landed in the capital instead."

"All flights were grounded after news of the invasion coming," mentioned Veteran Nunez. The squirrel didn't respond, and they remained huddled at the bottom of the building that had been destroyed by one of the fireballs.

"We were waiting at the airport, and everyone started to look out the windows," said Hannah, while she stared at the ground. "I couldn't see at first but then I saw in the sky what looked like a battle scene in a movie! Every one was looking up at the sky; I could see other people across the airport looking out the windows. Even the workers stopped to watch. I remember hearing everyone screaming about the ships they could see fighting something. I couldn't see anything but the fires because the sky was blue, but everyone was saying that we were losing. No one told me anything until my mother told me not to worry. It seemed to last forever."

The muskrat remembered hearing the news, the entire planet's forces were ordered to mobilize. An invasion force was on its way. She saw the battle overhead, she watched for over an hour while it red and orange streaks cut through the morning sky.

"Then it all happened so fast," continued the squirrel. She didn't look up from the ground once. "A massive fireball fell from the sky with a lot of smoke following it. There were jets that flew overhead and shot it, but nothing seemed to help because it kept falling. It was going to hit near the airport and people started running everywhere. The workers ran inside the buildings but I remember watching the fireball hit the ground. An airplane was tried to take off but a wall of air hit it and caused to crash; then the windows got hit and everything exploded. The ground shook so hard I was knocked to the ground like everyone else but when I stood up, I saw the fire over the airport and all the planes were destroyed. There was screaming in the distance, but I stopped paying attention when I found my mother on the ground next to me. She was bleeding a lot, and wouldn't wake up. My father screamed at her but she wouldn't wake up!"

The squirrel started to cry and she buried her head in arms. The muskrat let her weep and merely stared at the glowing embers that remained in parts of the collapsed ruins around them.

"That's when I first saw them." The squirrel started again, speaking through her sobs. "They looked like horrible statues with moss on them. My father had picked me up and ran for to get on a public vehicle. We didn't make it on because it was so full and it took off without us, so my father carried me down the road and away from those things. After that I only remember we were running toward the city.

"There were others with us they started to run in a bunch of different directions once more fireballs started to fall from the sky. One landed near us, and that's when that opossum got attacked by one of those things. He was in front of us so we tried to turn back the other way to run but my father couldn't go that fast carrying me. The opossum that I saw get attacked somehow got back up shot something at my father before jumping on him. I fell, and tried to help my father but he screamed at me to run. 'Run Hannah,' he yelled at me over and over again when these things started to cut through his fur."

The squirrel stopped, almost starting to sob again but she covered her ears instead. She didn't resume her story this time and remained silent.

"Get some sleep, Hannah," Veteran Nunez said after it was clear she wasn't going to continue. "There's a military base outside the city not far from here. We'll head there and try to find a way off the planet. One way or another, I promise to get you somewhere safe."

The squirrel didn't respond other than by leaning slightly against the muskrat. Zoey knew the horrors of the invasion through what happened to her squadron, and when her commander ordered them to retreat moments before he was killed by decapitation. She hasn't seen anyone from her squad since, but she never really realized how much more terrible to lose your family in front of your eyes. For all she knew, her family was already dead too. How helpless were they when all they could do was run?

The only sleep she had gotten since the invasion a day ago was the times she's been unconscious. The muskrat found it easy to doze off next to the squirrel but her sleep was undisturbed by dreams again, making the passing of time difficult to notice.

Hours later, they emerged from the ruined school and noticed it was already midday. They noticed that the fireballs from the sky have diminished somewhat, and the fires at the city were lower than what they were the night before.

Over a day passed of struggling for survival before they reach the military base, but what they found was of no help to them. The base was in ruins, and what remained had signs of overgrowth that they both were cautious of because no natural vegetation could have grown that fast. Venturing forward they spent the day there, but they avoided the unnatural vegetation growth. There they found a broadcast origination from a mount several dozen kilometers away, giving them a new destination. Taking one of the vehicles that had minimal growth on it, they started to drive away from the city and toward the given coordinates from the broadcast.

The destroyed roads and numerous infected soldiers and citizens slowed their progress tremendously and took what would have been a half a day drive to lasting over four days. At the fourth day, they were nearing the base of the mountain when the vehicle started to act strange.

Driving across a field of ash, the vehicle started swerved suddenly. Control was taken from Veteran Nunez and it forced a stop in near the edge of the field and the forest beyond.

"Why'd you stop?" asked Hannah, looking up at the muskrat. She now wore oversized military clothes and had a pistol of her own strapped to her side, courtesies of the ruined base.

"I didn't," answered Zoey. She revved the engine of the vehicle but the vehicle refused to move. "It's working fine but it's not going. Let me check the engine."

She went to open the vehicle door but it refused to move. She put more force on it, and the door jolted open. Where the door opened, vines that were attempting to hold the door shut snapped in half. The muskrat's eyes went wide at the sight.

"Hannah! Get out--" she screamed, turning toward the squirrel but was frozen in place by shock. The squirrel looked back at her, ignorant to the danger behind her.

From the woods came a dozen infected soldiers, heading straight for them. The nearest few charged at the vehicle and jumped on top of it, the force knocking the vehicle on its side. They both screamed as the vehicle came to a rest, upside down.

Lying halfway through the shattered glass, Veteran Nunez saw one of the infections on the vehicle looking down at her. She rolled out of the vehicle just as the creature jumped for her. She immediately fired at the creature and it fell to the ground, struggling with the wounds.

"Hannah!" she screamed again, being cut off by another infection while more crawled over the vehicle.

"Zoey," the squirrel's voice shouted back. She could be seen crawling to the edge of the shattered window but was blocked from view when more infections cut the two of them off from each other.

One of the infected soldiers had a weapon and fired at the muskrat, hitting her in the chest. Her armor took the brunt of the attack but the force knocked her on the ground and broke one of her ribs. She struggled up to her knee and tried to fire back but no matter how many she gunned down, it was enough.

"Run Hannah!" she screamed, firing more trying to gain the attention of all the infections before turning to run for the woods.

Running required tremendous effort, but she had to with the infected soldiers chasing her. She doesn't know how long she ran for but it mustn't have been for more than twenty minutes before she finally lost the last soldier and was completely exhausted.

Using the nearby trees for support, Veteran Nunez spent an hour trying to return to the field of ashes where she left Hannah. When she arrived, there was no sign of the squirrel. Only the overturned vehicle and two dead infections remained. Checking inside the vehicle, she saw blood and more signs of the vehicle itself being infected.

"Damn it, Hannah,"cursed the muskrat. Nearly a week they spent together trying to survive and now this. It was overwhelming for the muskrat, and tears started to leak from her eyes. Desperately she searched for any clue of what might have happened to the squirrel, or where she might have gone but nothing came up.

The horizon had the top of the mountain in which they were so close to reaching. Left with no choice, the wounded muskrat headed for the horizon, cursing the alien parasite that had destroyed her planet.