FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

the blackness of this particular night seemed to press down hard, advancing almost consciously into the city. It sank past the high roofs of the buildings, swallowing up the dimly lit windows, streetlights, and warm bodies in its campaign to take the space for itself. Honestly, it was more than likely the weather, along with the darkness, that made it seem that way; the snow was picking up steadily, dampening the light a little more with each passing hour and blanketing everything in white. the air was still and quiet. it made for an almost imaginary pressure that sat heavy in your lungs. the cold and the dark pushed the life in the air down against the concrete, squeezing it into the cracks and gutters, and transforming the street into a deafeningly quiet no-mans land. grey and black was all there was, save for the occasional stoic, smothered yellow of the streetlamps and the charging white and cowering red of passing cars.

A single little orange sprite bounced slowly along in the air above the sidewalk towards one of many tired old lamps in front of a massive, crumbling apartment complex. it would have left a thin white tail of smoke to blossom behind it, but it was too dark. it bobbed along, about three feet above the ground, occasionally whipping up another few feet, flairing a little brighter for abit, and whipping down again, forming an amber crescent in the air for a split second. as it neared the lamp at the door to the complex, it revealed itself to be clinging helplessly onto the end of a thin, wrinkled cigarette, clutched tightly between two white-furred canine fingers that were gloved up to the first knuckle.

The solemn arctic fox kept his eyes straight, fixing on the stairs leading to the archway of his building. the focus point made his eyelids a little less heavy. once there, he leaned up against the stone barrier that followed the stairs up to the door and took another drag off of his cigarette. he was wearing a dark grey heavy coat that was zipped and buttoned up the front with a hood over his head, black slacks, and dark brown boots that had long ago started to lean a little more towards black from filth. he finished his cigarette, snuffed the fire out into the stone behind his thigh, and stuck the butt into his back pocket before turning into the building. He didn't look back, he didn't feel a prickle or a chill through his core, he hadn't had the slightest impulse to think he was any less alone than he felt. the night was getting thicker. the lamp outside the doorway flickered a little.

He closed the door to his apartment quietly behind himself and locked it before he peeled out of his jacket, hanging it by the door. he took one step in, paused, and turned back to his coat to dig the mail he had retrieved downstairs out of his breast pocket. he plopped the mail along with his keys and wallet onto the end table next to the front door and turned into his shabby, green/grey apartment, stretching his arms overhead and yawning before sombering towards his bedroom. the address on his mail read; Quetzal Berka, 011 36th Ave. S., Apt. No. 307, New York, NY.

the apartment was just enough, to say the least. It consisted of a decent, big enough livingroom with two windows on either side of the far wall and a patched up blue couch right in the center, facing to the right where the T.V. sat against the wall on a small black stand, the space between the two framed out by a black lounge chair, darkwood coffee table and nice enough persian-ish rug. there was a desk in the far left corner, littered with papers, utensils, trinkets, and a laptop. further along to the near-left corner, the wall opened into a small kitchen that was only separated from the rest of the room by a small island where the devide would've been. there was also a hallway toward the center that led towards the ever-cold bathroom and the slightly cramped bedroom.

Quetzal sat at the foot of the bed and wrenched off his boots and socks. he leaned back onto his paws and flexed his toes, closing his eyes and exhaling as he let his muscles release. he peeled out of his clothes, save for his briefs, and fished a pair of gym shorts and t-shirt out of the dresser next to the bed, pulling them on. he grabbed a towel and a gym bag out of the closet and headed out of his room and to the front door, grabbing his keys before leaving. It was remarkably quiet in the hallway, save for the buzz of fluorescent lights overhead. he walked down the hall to the left, then a right, going a span until he came to the end where he turned to face the only door on wall on the right, just before a dead end in the hallway. he selected a key from his ring, unlocked the door, and stepped in.

the room was an expansive commons area that the residents of that floor had decided to invest in, thanks to the sharp orchestration of a perky border collie girl who worked as a paralegal. it was about sixty feet long, one hundred wide. there were four tall windows going along the shorter wall just to the left of the entrance. to the right where the room opened up, there were a few dining tables and sitting arrangements with vases scattered about for flare, a kitchenette, a bathroom, a bulletin board, an entertainment center with a couch, a bookshelf lined with donated communal books, and a fitness station in the very back where the carpet became vinyl, complete with a pair of weight lifting benches, some free weights, a tall wire-mesh shelf filled with miscellaneous accessories, a water fountain, and a punching bag. Quetzal beelined for the back.

A shiver ran down his body as Quetzal exhaled smoke, trying to get as much as he could out of the crack at the bottom of the window. he had sat in the floor in the corner of the room across from the entrance, piled his stuff next to him, and opened the window just a little, resting his arm on the sill, so he could smoke without the place smelling like it. the perky girl hated it when he did this, but what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. hell, he would've just got bundled up and sat on the fire escape outside his apartment instead, but his legs were surprisingly wobbly from laying in to the sandbag. he didn't feel like walking yet, but he needed some kind of stimulant to stay awake. he rifled through his bag with his left hand, pulling out a water bottle, working the top off with his teeth, and taking a long swig. today was not a good day as far as motivation went. yet, here he was, on the other side of his planned workout. he felt proud. he felt good.

A few things happened all at once. the power failed in the entire block. as far as quetzal could see from his seated position, all of the buildings went completely black, as well as the lights in his own complex. he scrambled for his phone and turned on the flashlight, impulsively shining it into the rest of the room as if the darkness held something that the light didn't. after he felt safe, he sat his phone on the ground, light facing up, and remembered to keep his cigarette outside the window. he rested his arm on the sill once again, when something caught his eye. there were backup lights in the building across from his. they were glowing red over each exit on every floor, making columns of red dots tracing up to the roof. in the column close to quetzal, on the third floor, parallel to his own, he had barely begun to lean his head back against the wall when he saw something.... a silhouette at the window. it startled him a bit. not enough to make him jump, just enough to trigger that cold dread that wells up from your diaphragm into your throat. he sat up onto his knees and opened the window a bit more before he rested his elbows on the sill, peering across at the form. he narrowed his eyes. it was still there. a man, he could all but clearly make out from the red light illuminating one side of his face. he was a jackal, just standing there, hands at his sides underneath that red light. his face.... he was smiling as wide as it looked possible to, his teeth bared and his lips spread tight over his gums. his eyes were wide open, gaze fixed on nothing in particular in quetzals apartment building, perhaps somewhere close to his window.

the light over the jackal blinked off. quetzal had to shake himself out of the trance he was in to notice that all the other lights had.... stayed on. the light where the jackal stood was the only one affected. quetzal flicked his cigarette out into the night and closed the window. all at once, he knew... that face that the jackal had been making would haunt him for awhile, but he didn't want to give his imagination any more ammunition than it had. suddenly, the light on the second floor beneath the already dark room went out. seconds go by. the light on the first floor went out. quetzals gaze followed the succession to the front door across the road. if he had blinked, he might not have seen it, a shadowed form sprinted from the door towards his complex. Quetzal heard glass crash beneath him. he knew it was the front door. the dread in his throat welled up again and transformed into panic. Quetzal fell back from the window, looking left, then right, snatched up his phone and his bag and ran for the door. Mr. smiles, whoever he was, had likely seen him. if he was sprinting this way, he might be able to judge the commons room out, but he'd have a hard time finding the apartment. he sprinted down the hallway with his phone pointed ahead of him as his only light source, awkwardly tugging the strap of the bag up his shoulder and trying to stay calm.

He rounded the corner and froze. a strange, silently colossal pressure assaulted his ears and chest and lungs and all the other sensitive inner places from the dark of the hallway in front of him. his feet wouldn't budge. he couldn't move. he could hardly breathe. he couldn't even turn around and go back to the commons. his will had completely given out on him, his conscious mind screaming behind his wide, dilated eyes.

"Run! Turn around! Do something, you idiot!!! RUN!!!"

A figure.... he casually stepped just into the outer range of the flashlight, barely visible. it was him. his face hadn't moved a bit. still that terrible, haunting smile. eyes wide open. his lip twitched a little. then the phone blinked off. absolute silence. there wasn't even the sound of the hallway or the building, just Quetzal's own breathing so loud in his ears it would have drowned out a lot, if there were anything else to hear.. he swallowed unconsciously and continued breathing heavily, out of control. the panic was forming a lump in his throat now. he felt sick. he wanted to cry. he still couldn't move. he couldn't see. couldn't hear except the sound of his panting. when he heard the sound of the voice, he stopped breathing.

"h-h....help m-me..."

Quetzal gasped for air as he sat upright, the covers of the bed rolling off of his torso. He began hyperventilating out of control, and the the machine next to his bed went crazy. it was mere seconds before a nurse ran in the room; a linsang, female, wearing big feather earrings and wearing creamy blue scrubs.

"Hold it sweetie, ok-ok, calm down. there there. It's all going to be ok, you're safe. your ok." the nurse reassured him as she rubbed his shoulder with one hand, placing a respirator to his mouth with the other, guiding his hand to the air bubble and executing the first clench, showing him how it works. he understood and maintained the function, doing his best to breath in with the the squeeze, exhale with the release. tears began welling up in his eyes and rolling into the fur on his cheeks.

"That's good, shug. in and out. you're alright, just get that breathing steady. I'll bring you some water."

she pressed a couple of buttons on the machine to stop the beeping, wrote something on a clipboard, and exited the room. she came back abit later with what she had promised, along with a small white cap. it had a pill in it.

"Here you go sweetie, some water, and something for your nerves."

"w-what is it?" Quetzal asked, generally nonplussed by the situation.

"Just an anxiety suppressant. help you get some sleep. we'll need to keep an eye on you for abit before you can get goin'."

"What happened?"

At this, the linsang creased her brow and fumed alittle. "they found you out in the hallway of your apartment, yellin' and havin' a fit. you 'bout let in to that poor fella who got to you first, bless his heart, but he got you down and here, and came back once his shift was off, seein' after you. waited for you awhile, to.... he seemed pretty shook up, maybe over something you said or did... but anyways, you were having a good one all the way in here until we had to sedate you, doctor figures-"

She continued to ramble on about what might be wrong with Quetzal, and in the meantime, he remembered that face. that frozen, terrifyingly contorted grin on that jackal.

"who was he? what exactly had happened? what had happened to me!?" Quetzal fixed his gaze on the far wall, those blank, wide eyes staring back at him in his mind, when a new, booming voice sounded itself into the room.

"Hey..."

"Alright sweetie, he's awake now, you can come on in."

A tall, massive rhino with a painfully vulnerable expression stepped into the room in a disheveled EMT uniform. he was at least 6'8 or more, with wide shoulders, a thick neck, and a square jaw, lined with a brown beard that connected into his short brown hair. he had on a black T-shirt underneath an EMT hazard jacket, charchoal pants with suspenders hanging around his waist, and black boots. he must have usually been intimidating, but right now he looked exhausted and terrified.

"This is who found you last night, sugar. He's-" she continued to ramble on, but Quetzal couldn't quit looking at him. this thick stack of a man stared at Quetzal with that manic look, like he had never felt more helpless, and Quetzal returned it. He knew then and there, in that hospital room; he wasn't the only one who had laid eyes on a face that would haunt them. this guy.... he saw it to.