FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"Could this day get an worse?" runs through the mind of Grace McAdams, a young women just fed up with her day. Her twenty first birthday was the night before, and she overdid it with her first time drinking. She woke up three hours late for work at Victoria's Secret, rushed to work, clocked in, and spent half her time trying not to pass out. After lunch, she lost her battle and fell asleep. At about three, her boss shook her out of her slumber, about six or seven upset people in line at the counter. She tried to explain, but her mouth failed to work somehow, and she was fired on the spot. Later that night, at dinner with her boyfriend Dale, she told him about her recent unemployment, he dumped her, telling her that he was only seeing her to "Brag about how I bagged a chick who worked with thongs." Grace stomped out of the restaurant, leaving Dale with punch to the gut and the bill. Since Dale was her ride, and she didn't have the money for a cab ride home, she decided to walk home (like she had a choice). It was a safe neighbourhood, and she only needed to walk through the park to get home.

And so we return to Grace's walk of shame, as she would call it. She decided to walk through the patch of forest off the path. Most times this would be unsafe, but the park was a safe place. Muggers and the like didn't hang around that area. Although it was pretty thick brush for a park, there were no dangerous animals and not to hard to get lost. Besides, if Grace got to see a family of racoons or skunks, then at least her day would end on a lighter note. Grace loved animals. She grew up in the country and loved to watch the animals; the cows feeding their calves; the foxes stocking mice; the wolf's howl in the night as she fell asleep. Even in school, she would take care of the class pet instead of going out to play. Every halloween, she would go as some sort of animal; some that people knew, like the year she went as a bat; others with more rare critters, like the eye-eye lemur. In fact, when her parents moved to Ottawa so she could get into a good middle school, where most people her age would moan about moving from their friends, Grace moaned about the lack of nature in the city. In middle and high school, although some people did know a little about her, she was mostly known as 'that weird girl who just sketches animals all day.' In fact, Grace was only working at Victoria's Secret to help pay her way through veterinary school. It's not like many people can really enjoy a first job where you spend half your time shooing away fifteen year-old boys fogging up the display windows staring at the mannicans.

No one was really sure why she liked animals so much. Her parents say because they both come from long lines of nature buffs. Alot of her teachers believed she was shy around people, but that wasn't true; Grace liked people, but outside her family members, she liked animals better. Grace herself could sum it up in a few words: "The worst an animal can to you is just kill you. A human can do far worse." And if you think really hard about it, humans are like that. Some would say it's proof that humans are evil, but not Grace (nor I, for that matter). She figured if humans were that evil, then no one would make a fuss about it. It would be like breathing, not something that you care to think about or even need to think about, it's just there. No, the way Grace saw humans was as the spoiled brats of nature; humans think they are unstoppable because they are the only creatures to start making tools and stuff. If the field of play was even, Grace believed that if nature had let a few other animals to go alongside people, or better yet, if humans just had not popped up in the first place, then things might be better. Not crime-free like some sort of Disney movie, but at least without worry of people with fingers on the button that could end us all.

"And maybe," Grace ran through her mind, as this was something she liked to think about most of the time, "just maybe I could just live my life with anyone picking on me." Unfortunately for Grace, she was one of many people who was picked on for no good reason. Boys jeered about what kind of animal her dad must have 'shacked up' with to create her, well girls made even more lewd remarks about her tomboyish apprence. You couldn't see it now, under her heavy hoodie and baggy jeans, but Grace, despite the girly name, isn't the most feminine-looking women around. Although she has some shape to her form, it is over-looked by most people in, besides the women in her family, trying to lift her spirits. And it isn't helped by her modesty in dress. The most revealing outfit she has is a dark green one piece bathing suit. Most of the time, the most attractive feature she shows her face. It is arguably the most feminine part of her body (besides the obvious): full lips; soft cheeks; dainty nose; some-what subtle chin and ears; two large, pretty, bright green eyes that gave away the mind and soul of the owner; and all topped with flowing locks of oily yet beautiful light brown hair.

But Grace is too busy worrying about her cash problems to focus on her body. How is she going to pay for school? Or her rent? Just the day before she was worried about what to buy her mom for her birthday in a few weeks; now she is worried how is going to pay for food. Eventually, all of her anger; anger at this day, anger at her bad luck; anger at the universe, has just built up to that point where it can't be contained, so she screams at the top of her lungs, fists in the air, face to the sky as if to tell off to the universe itself, " I HATE MY LIFE! I HATE MY EX! I HATE THOSE GIRLS FROM HIGH SCHOOL! I HATE THIS WHOLE WORLD!!!! IF ANYONE IS OUT THERE, GET OFF YOUR ASS AND DO SOMTHING!!!!!" She scared off some local wildlife, but as for someone who could answer her loud request, Grace got nothing. "I thought so." she remarks, knowning life just can't be that easy.

But what Grace does not know is that someone did hear her: fate. Although we mortals may pick alot of our paths in life, fate exists to give us a push in the right direction, or, in Grace's case, a trip. Sometimes fate gives us something that when it happens is bad, but when we look back on it, it's actually a turning point. Like when running into someone and having your textbooks and paper all over the floor leads to you locking eyes with your soulmate. For Grace, this trip is going to lead to this and more, for her life is about to get a second chance, but she doesn't know that yet.

It all begins when, right in the seconds between her starting to fall face-first and her hitting the ground, Grace get's the ancient feeling of something is not right in the back of her mind. The feeling that humans get when they sense that somthing isn't right, like if they are being tricked.

The next feeling she feels is soreness. At first, she thinks that's from hitting the ground, but soon she feels that she is sore all over. Her clothes felt tight on her body, like if she was whereing clothes made for a doll. Her hoodie is straining to stay together and her bra is feeling more like a corset. What were once baggy jeans are now almost skin-tight and the seat of her pants felt oddly crowded..... And her sneakers that fit like a glove when she bought them a week ago feel like they're crushing her poor feet without mercy.

Grace slowly pulls herself up and braces herself agianst a tree. "That was a hell of a fall." Grace says to herself. She looks around to regain her bearings, but something is wrong with the woods. There is no sign of the city; no sounds of cars and workers; no skyscrapers in the distance; nothing but the woods in early summer. "I must have wondered way off_._" reasons Grace, although her commen sense tells her otherwise. This is the woods, not just some trees in the park, but how?

Her train of thought is soon derailed by some round object flying right past her face and hitting the tree with a small splat. She investigates it. It's bright blue. It's paint. As in paintball. "How did I end up on a paintball course?" Grace wonders, "Wait, that means there are people nearby!" Grace turns to the direction the paintball came from. Just as Grace predicted, there is a group of guys armed with paintball guns and masks. Only, the masks don't look right. Grace has played paintball a number of times, and knows something is up with the mask. The face is streached forward, almost like a gas mask. One player raises his hand in the air, as if to say 'hold your fire.'

"He must be their leader or something." Grace notes to herself. She calls out to the group "Hey, could you help? I somehow ended up here, so could you help he get back home?" The paintball leader turns to his 'squad.' They all nodd in agreement. The group holster their 'weapons' and start stepping closer.

"Sure," says the leader, in a deep, masculine voice, slightly muffled by his mask. "where do you live?"

"Ottawa. I'll point out the way." answers Grace.

She can't help but notice how odder and odder these people are getting as they get nearer. Their gloves seem to have alot of padding on the fingers and palms, but not much elsewhere. And their eyes look funny too. They're strange colors. The group stops right in front of her, their leader standing about half a foot away. As they take off their masks, Grace receives the shock of her life!

The group pull off their masks to show that they aren't even human! They are animals, only they were like people. They walk, talk, and act like people, but they weren't. One word rings in Grace's mind: anthropomorphic. She heard it in english class once; it means 'human characteristics on somthing non-human.' And if this isn't anthropomorphic in any sence of the word, nothing is. Soon, everything just went black....

...

When Grace woke up, she was lying down on a sofa. At first, she thought that she was wakeing up in her aparment, and that what happened before was just a dream. That she was still employed, had a boyfriend and was no where near those things in the woods.

But then, Grace saw that the aparment wasn't her's. The colour was different, the coffee table was different, even, although she didn't now why she even noticed this, it even smelled different.

"Hey you." said a familer voice. She looked up and saw the team leader from the woods! She quickly sucker punched him in the face, causing the creature yelp. She could see that the creature was a dalmatian. Or, at least, a dalmatian-man thing. All she could tell was that she punched a dog and a man in the face at the same time, so she changed gears real quick.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry!" she told him frantically.

The creature rubbed his muzzle and answered "It's alright. I'm a rough and tumble type of guy. Name's Dax by the way."

"I'm Grace. Listen, I know this sounds crazy, but I am not in the right place." she stuttered. "I mean, there aren't any humans here and-"

Dax interupted her "Hu-mans?" He walked up picked up her wallet, which he found in her pocket. He pulled out Grace's driver's license, which had her photo. "Like this? I thought it was some sort of movie prop or something. I mean, you don't even look like this."

"What are you talking about? I just got that two weeks ago-" Grace explained, before noticing her hands. Only, they weren't her hands. They had four fingers and a thumb, but now they had claws! In between every finger was webbed skin and the underside had padding, like a paw. And the whole thing was covered by short brown fur.

Grace ran over to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. She felt her face with a clawed hand to see if the face she was looking at was hers. Round ears on top of her head. Short muzzle. Wet nose. Long whiskers. Sharp canine teeth. She was an otter!

Grace was about to scream, when a thought it her, "You know, I've always wanted to be an otter." She looked at her face and added "Not that bad actually." She stripped down to see what the rest of her looked. And she was stacked! Her breasts were now D-cups, she had that hourglass figure that men seemed to love so much, and even (something she always kind of wanted) a nice round butt, topped with a nice, thick rudder-like tail that was great for swimming.

"If only I could send a photo to Dale now," she gloated, which was something she hardly ever did, "Both of his boys would turn blue." She rubbed a hand over her new fur. It was smooth and kind of oily. She touched the hair on her head, which was now raven black with a bright green streak, was soft and silky. She walked out of the bathroom with some pride, but found Dax was covering his eyes. "Why are you doing that?" asked Grace.

Dax blushed and answered "I just met you. I just feels wrong to see you naked so soon."

"It's alright." giggled Grace, she had never seen a guy act so nice around a naked girl before. Well, without sex being involved anyway. "You can look."

He moved his hand away from his eyes and told her "Wow, you look like a super model."

"Is that a bone in your pocket dog boy, or are you just happy to see me?" asked Grace, pointing to the bulge in his pants. Dax walked up, crimson faced and handed Grace a white bathrobe. She put it on, but the hole in the back was made for Dax's skinny dalmation tail, not her thick otter tail, so she just had it hang under the bottom of the robe. He grabbed a blanket and a pillow and put it on the couch.

"Sorry if it's not much," said Dax. "I wasn't planning on a guest."

"It's alright." responded Grace with a yawn. "Good night."

"Good night." Dax told her as he walked into his bedroom. Grace dropped down onto the couch, and as she drifted away, she thought "I could get used to this...."