FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chris and Emily were escorted down a white corridor. Along the wall were symbols that appeared periodically every once and a while. The chip in his brain was able to ship the symbols into recognizable letters and numbers. It was then that he realized that they were they were room numbers. Well, in their case, more like cell numbers. The F-57 drones blared their ugly noises, prompting them to stop and look towards a cell that was juxtaposed to them. Without any other option, they both stepped inside cautiously.

They were surprised to find out that the cell wasn't as bad as they thought it would be. It was bland to say the least. There were two large shelves that protruded from the walls at opposite ends of the large room, that was about hip-height. They also had some type of weird sheets covering them. Chris could only assume that they were beds. In the middle was a weird box that stood upright. It didn't appear to have any openings.

As they were taking in their surroundings, the F-57 drones exited the room. As soon as the drones were clear of the room, a blue, thin light covered the doorway, sealing the two humans in.

They both turned around and let out silent gasps. Emily ran to the doorway and paused before the light. She whimpered, then let out a cry of frustration as she banged her fist on the light. Her frustration grew worse as she found out that the light instantly repelled her fist. She banged on it, screaming.

"Hey, hey hey!", Chris shouted as he ran up to Emily and grabbed her by the shoulders.

"Get off me!", Emily shrieked. Tears poured down her eyes as she squirmed in Chris' grasp. She kicked and punched, sobbing. They ended up on the floor. Chris couldn't do anything but hug her, trying his best to console her. Emily clung on for dear life as she cried into his shoulder.

Chris hugged her tightly and patted her back. He stayed there, until she was calm and silent.

"I don't want to be here. I don't want to compete", Emily whimpered. Her face still buried in his shoulder.

"I don't want to either, but we have to if we have any chance of surviving", Chris replied.

Emily pulled back abruptly, her face was full of anger. "And how do you know that we will survive, huh?

Chris sighed, closing his eyes. After a brief moment of contemplating, he opened his eyes and stared at Emily. "I don't know if we will survive, but we have to try."

"Why? We are outmatched. We won't stand a chance against those...those aliens who are probably more advanced than humanity can ever hope to achieve", Emily retorted.

"Well, if you won't do it for yourself, do it for your family and your friends. Do it for the people you love. Call me crazy but I want to fight, even though I'm not much of a fighter. I would rather go back to my desolate life of a college student than be dead on a spaceship, millions of miles away from home. If I'm going to die, I want to die on Earth."

"What do you mean desolate? Do you have any family?", Emily questioned.

Chris sighed and looked away.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to strike a nerve", Emily apologized.

"No it's fine...I do have family, but I rarely talk to them. I mean, I don't know. They love me and all, but I went to college on my own; I had to face the world by myself. I tried to make friends, but I only made like 1. So I just stopped trying to be social. I figured I would make friends once I actually started my career", Chris explained.

Emily was silent as she stared at Chris.

"The strange thing is, I don't feel sad that I don't miss them. Maybe I'm just used to being by myself, I don't know. Sometimes I think the world won't notice if I die or not...I probably deserve that though", Chris whispered.

Chris was taken by surprised when Emily raised her hand to his cheek. They gazed into each other's eyes. Now that everything was starting to settle in, Chris was able to notice more details about Emily like her blond hair, small nose, and green eyes.

"Chris, you don't deserve to die alone. That's probably the worst death a person can suffer", Emily said.After realizing how intimate the gesture was, she removed her hand.

"...thanks, I guess", Chris grinned.

"Well you know what? Now you have 2 friends", Emily smirked, as she sat down with her legs crossed.

Chris' smile grew wider as he followed suit and sat across from Emily.

"Regardless of what happens tomorrow, I at least want to have the comfort of making a new friend. Perhaps that wouldn't make the whole abducted-by-aliens thing seem so scary. So, tell more about yourself", Emily voiced.

"Shouldn't we be resting for the first round tomorrow?", Chris chuckled. That question surprised him. He should've be scared and nervous of what was to come yet, he felt calm at the moment just talking to Emily. Maybe it was the fact that he was in contact with another human being and not surrounded by foreign aliens from distant worlds.

"We have 11 hours. I'm pretty sure we can both spare 1"

Chris had a genuine smile across his features. Nobody had ever really taken an interest in his life before, except for Benny. With that being said, Chris began to tell his life story, earning looks of bafflement and awe from Emily. When he finished Emily told him her life story, as she thought it was only fair. Laughs and momentary pauses for questions filled the room as Emily told her tale.

"...wait wait wait. You mean to tell me that you actually keyed your bosses car?", Chris asked, shocked.

"I did. The fuck wit deserved it though", Emily growled.

"You know, for a highly advanced spaceship and all, I expected our cells to be better", Chris commented.

"What?"

"Well, they don't even have a toilet in here!", Chris exclaimed,"All they have is this useless box."

"Well it has to have a use for us, or else they wouldn't have put it in here with us", Emily thought out loud as she got up to examine the strange box.

Chris stood up as well and looked at it from all angles.

"There's no opening", Chris said after both him and Emily circled the box a couple of times.

"This box is as good as scratching your arse with a bowl full of spaghetti", Emily sighed, coming to a halt in front of the box.

"What?", Chris asked from the other side of the box, looking at Emily with confusion.

Emily gave Chris a look of bafflement before she realized something. "Oh yeah, I forgot. You aren't from Australia. Scratching your arse with a bowl full of spaghetti means it's useless."

"Oh, well why didn't you just say that?"

"Where's the fun in that?", Emily groaned, gesticulating to exaggerate her point. However, what she didn't expect was for her hand to phrase through the front of the box.

He and Emily gasped and took a step back.

"What the hell?!", shouted Chris.

Emily and Chris looked at each other with looks of disbelief across their faces.

Emily slowly moved her hand towards the box. Right when she was about to touch it,

she hesitated and slightly drew back. She looked at Chris with unease. Chris nervously shrugged his shoulders, prompting Emily to place her hand on the box.

Just like when she initially touched the box, her hand phased through the box. A bluish outline wrapped around the areas which had passed through the box.

"What the..?"

"It's like a hologram of sorts", Emily asserted as she wafted her hand through the box. She withdrew her hand and rubbed her fingers together.

"It feels like running your hand through sand, but it's different. It's almost like running your hand through water as well", Emily described.

"Try it", Emily suggested.

Chris stepped forward, gazed at his own hand, took a deep breath, and phased his hand through the hologram. He waved his hand around. He started making bigger motions with his hand until it made contact with a surface. The thump that resonated from the impact surprised Chris.

"What was that?", Emily asked.

"My hand hit something. I think it was the side of the box", Chris answered. For reassurance, he thumped on the surface again. He moved his hand to the other side and found out that that side was solid as well.

"Well we know that this side has a hologram and the other sides were solid. All that's left is the back side", Chris surmised. Emily caught what he was trying to get at. With a unsure glance from Emily, Chris pushed through the hologram and immediately knocked his shins into something hard.

He let out a shout of pain as he stumbled forward. His hands came up quickly as he caught himself and was satisfied to see that the back wall was indeed solid.

"Chris! What happened?!", Emily panicked.

"I just...bumped into something", Chris replied.

As he looked down to see what caused him pain, he was puzzled at the sight before him.

Near his knees was an oddly-shaped orifice. It curved and angled upwards slightly, forming a vertically-angled platform, perpendicular to the aperture. It almost looked like a...

"Really? This is what it is?", Chris asked rhetorically.

"What is it? Is it dangerous?"

"Come and see for yourself", Chris huffed.

Emily stuck her head in and looked around. When he eyes finally settled on the orifice, he eyes squinted in disbelief.

"Is that a toilet?", Emily questioned.

"Looks like it", Chris commented.

"So I guess this box surrounding it is for...modesty?", Emily speculated.

"Well, it beats the toilets in most prison cells on Earth."

"You know what? Aliens having modesty, finding out that we aren't alone in the universe, and finding out that we might just die tomorrow....I'm just going to lay down and try to sleep", Emily sighed as she stepped out of the box. Chris followed suit and when he stepped out of the restroom, he saw Emily laying down on the bed to her right. That left Chris to claim the bed to his left.

As he sat down, Emily turned towards him. "Are you ready for tomorrow?"

"What do you think?"

"Well if we do die, it was nice knowing you Chris. Goodnight", Emily stated before turning to face the wall.

Chris looked around their cell before his eyes settled on Emily. He wanted to say something to her, but nothing came out of his mouth as the reality of her statement hit Chris like a brick wall. He could die tomorrow and never got back to Earth.

With the weight of tomorrow resting on his shoulders, he lay down for the night. His mind was filled with fear and worry before he finally drifted off to sleep.