FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Kenny dropped the book he was holding. He froze. The hand had scales! He racked his mind for anything like Halloween or a monster party costume that his sister might have found and try to scare him with, but she was too into princesses and fairies. His dad? No. His hands were smaller than the one on his shoulder. There was only one answer:

"Hey, kid. Turn around already." Said a gruff voice behind him. It sounded weary and tired, and like the owner didn't want to be doing this. By sound, Kenny guessed that it was a male creature.

Kenny turned around slowly, looking down. He saw boots, the kaki cargo pants, and then a utility belt with weapons on it. That scared Kenny even more. He was getting dizzy with freight and when he looked up even further, that was all he could take. His world faded as he took in the details of a serpent-like head and a big mouth in front of him, speaking something that Kenny's fading mind couldn't understand before he hit the floor.

___-___-___-___-___-___-___-___-___

His real name is unpronounceable by many beings throughout the universes that he has been to. So a lot of them just called him Liza. (Li as in lee Za as in zay) He didn't have a problem with that, though sometimes people called him Lezzy, and that annoyed him to no extent.

He was of average size for his race, which was a nice 6'5". Sure there were taller, but too tall and you didn't get onto Space Capture. SC was a program on his planet where young and old would train to go into space in order to find new creatures on new planets. If they were intelligible, they were brought back to his home planet to be further studied, or just to be kept as pets, or as some might call it, slaves.

Personally, he didn't approve of that system. He believed that you should go to the new planets, talk to the people, and bring them back only if they want to come, as if on a vacation. They could come home anytime that they wanted. But to be a free citizen from out of world, you had to go through a long test in order to see if you had any diseases and if you were hostile or not. During this time, the applier must stay at either a foster care home if they are young or a specialized hotel if they were adults.

This was a new stretch of space that he had never been to before. He had heard that there were radio signals being picked up from a planet, but no one knew where. So it was Liza's job to find out who was sending them and to see what life forms lived on the planet.

*****

It took about three days to reach the sun where the radio broadcasts were being sent. There were ten things in the whole area around the sun. A small asteroid at the end, then a slightly bigger blue planet. Too cold for life. Then came a bigger planet with a barely visible ring around it. No ground for life to form. It was followed by a gigantic planet with the most beautiful rings Liza had ever seen. They were made of ice and rock and dust, and looked like a rainbow that had wrapped around the planet. This too had no ground to stand on. The next was by far the second largest planet he had ever seen. It was HUGE!!! It was an orange hue all over, except for a small red spot that looked like a storm of some kind. He didn't think it wise to go onto the planet. So Liza kept going.

He came to an asteroid belt. It was fairly long, and his ship's hull took quite a beating. He got out alive, but with a few dents and scratches on his ship. He saw then a red planet. No oxygen, and still too cold for life, but it had ground. He was getting closer. His scanners showed three more planets, a beautiful blue and green one, perfect for life. Then, two more barren and hot ones. Then came the sun. He decided to go check out the blue and green one first. That one seamed the most likely to hold living things.

As he got closer, Liza noticed many lights on one side of the planet, the darker side. He decided to go there first, because it showed more hope for some intelligent life. The planet was of moderate size. His sensors read that it was more than 50% water. Liza just hoped that the intelligent forms weren't water creatures. Then it would be a hassle to move them.

As he descended, he noticed many moving lights in strips. ‘They must be vehicles' Liza thought. Liza followed them until he saw an off ramp. He flew over the streets of a small town and eventually found himself over a group of houses on a hill. It seamed like a private residential area. More intelligent creatures are richer by any standards.

He put his craft into hover mode, and got up from his chair. His craft was not the largest. Only made for one captain and another life form for transportation. He passed his gun rack. From the size of the things they drove, he wouldn't need them. Liza stepped onto the transporting board, and landed on the street below.

It was a small street, ending in a cull-de-sack. He saw all the lights off in most of the houses. But one caught his eye. There was a window open and light was pouring out of it onto the side walkway of a house to his left. He walked to the side of the house, and looked inside the window. There was a Boy reading in his bed. Nearly done with his book. Liza moved closer. The title read: To Kill a Mockingbird. The boy closed the book, and got up to get another one from his shelf of books.

Liza pressed the button on his necklace and teleported into the boy's room. He was surprised that the boy didn't flinch at the buzzing noise. It was truly quite hearable to most people. Liza then walked over and looked over the boy's shoulder. He had chosen a lengthy looking book called Inkspell. He saw the boy open the first page and read the notation there.

Kenny,

I hope that you take a liking to this book, as I once did. And don't forget to read the one before this too!

~Molly

So the boy's name was Kenny, and the book was a present from his friend Molly. There was a book before this one that he had to read, so it must be the sequel to the series. Liza wanted to learn more. He laid a hand on the boy's shoulder, to get his attention. The boy froze stock still.

Liza wasn't expecting this either. He imagined the boy to be freightless due to his ignorance of the buzzing of the teleporter. He removed his hand, and watched with anticipation as the boy slowly turned around. Liza thought him to be reasonably nice looking. Short brown hair, 5'5" was short for most races, and he had a lighter colored skin tone. He was human, if his sensors had anything to say about it. His language was English. He lived on Earth. What can't the sensor tell you?

The boy looked down first, inspecting with horrified curiosity. Then, taking in his head and finally what Liza was, the boy just dropped to the floor, unconscious. Liza panicked. He thought the boy to be dead at first. But he saw him breathing and that meant he was alive. Liza picked him up and laid him on his bed.

‘He must have fainted' Liza thought. ‘Am I really that scary? Surely there must be other creatures besides humans here, but what if there weren't? Then I must be the closest thing to a monster he has ever seen.'

Liza felt bad now. He just wanted a nice conversation with the boy, and then go back home and say that the radio signals were old, that they were distress calls sent out when the world was in chaos. Then, the world being deemed ‘dead', no one from here would get taken.

He sat down at the foot of the bed and waited for the boy's waking.

___-___-___-___-___-___-___-___-___

Kenny was coming to. His vision was all blurry, and everything was so bright and noisy. His breathing made him get a headache, it was so loud, and the light on his desk was brighter than the sun to him. The symptoms faded, of course, and everything came into a normal spectrum. He sat up slowly, dizziness trying to claim him once again. He fought it, and succeeded in sitting upright on his bed.

Kenny held his head, and rubbed his temples. ‘What had happened? Was it real? What was that thing and what did it want?'

He opened his eyes to another pair right in front of his. Kenny jumped back away from the yellow reptillian eyes until he could no longer scoot back. His head hit the wall with a thump. The thing leaned over and locked eyes with Kenny. Kenny was terrified. This was the part in all the movies where the monster eats your face off, of bites out your guts with his razor sharp teeth. Kenny decided he wouldn't want to see it coming, so he closed his eyes.

There was a breif moment of silence. Then, Kenny felt a hand grasp his head. But after the initial shock, he realized that it wasn't a malevolent grip, but more of a caring and gentle touch. He slowly opened his eyes.

"Are you alright, small one?" The creature asked.

Kenny didn't understand how the thing knew his language, because it was obviously not of this world. Kenny stuttered an answer that was you couldn't understand.

"It's alright. I wont hurt you. I just saw you pass out, and now you have hit your head on the wall."

"Yeah....I...I'm ok....." Kenny pulled away from the hand and sat up against the wall, still frightened of the thing on his bed. He now could get a better view of him, since he knew what to expect. The thing was some type of lizard creature or something like that. More like a raptor than a lizard when you look at the head, and claws on it's hands, but it's body was wrong for that. It was of human build, but really, really tall, like, around six something. His scales were green in hue, but more of a really dark green. He was wearing baggy cargo type pants that were a light brown. He was wearing a black, tight shirt that fit nicely on him. ‘He has some nice muscles.....' Kenny thought out of nowhere. He scolded himself for thinking weird thoughts. But anyways, the lizard creature was also wearing a belt with an assortment of guns.

The creature caught him looking. He opened a clasp and pulled out a small black ball. He handed it to Kenny.

"Here. Have one." He winked. Kenny looked at the small sphere for a bit, and then set it down on the table besides his bed. A small red light began to glow near the top of the ball. "That is a grounding device. So that if my people want to come here again, it will take a lot less time to get here."

Kenny picked it back up an threw it into his dirty laundry hamper out of anger. "What are you doing here, and why wont you leave me alone?"

"I'm from another planet. My job is to find out about other life forms in the galaxy, and if they are intelligent, then take them back to my planet for further testing. But I personally don't like most of the tests they do there. I came here to see some life forms, and I happened to spot your light on when I landed. So I teleported into here, and tried to get your attention. Then you fainted and I picked you up and set you on your bed. I have been sitting here waiting for you to wake up for a few hours. Your father came in, so I hid in the closet. He saw you sleeping and left a note saying that your mother has to work this weekend, and can't pick you up. My name is Liza, by the way."

His huge reptilian hand came forward in a handshaking gesture. Kenny tentatively reached out and shook the hand twice before pulling away.

"You know, being scared of me is silly. I'm the one of my people that you'd want to run into. So why are you so scared of me?" He sounded hurt.

"I haven't ever met an alien before, and you look scary at first sight." Blushing, Kenny turned his head away. He heard a buzzing noise, and turned back to see Liza had gone. Kenny rubbed his eyes. ‘Maybe it was all an illusion....'

He got up and walked back over to his book shelf. Inkheart was in the same place it had been before he pulled it out. He pulled it out, and opened up to the first page and began to read. The buzzing noise came once again. A hand was laid on Kenny's shoulder, and he turned around again.

Liza was standing there, just like he had when they first ‘met'. "How do

I look at second sight?" Liza put his hands on his hips, stuck his head up high, smiled and flashed his teeth in a comical manner, waving his tail from side to side slightly. Kenny laughed.

"You look.........I don't know. Funny." Kenny was warming up to the alien. He thought him to be mean and scary, but in reality, Liza was a very nice and funny guy. Kenny liked him now. Not so much that he would trust Liza too much, but still, he liked him.

Kenny admired the muscles of the lizard thing when he was sitting down, but now that he was flexing, Kenny saw a lot more of them. And the tight shirt only outlined them better. Kenny had suspicions that he was either gay or bisexual for a year or two when he kept catching himself staring at other boys' muscles and stuff. ;) What he didn't know, was that Liza had caught him staring at his muscled figure. He winked at the boy.

Kenny caught the wink, but not the jist. He had been lost in thoughts. He soon found himself in a huge bear-hug by Liza. His face being pushed against his pecs. Kenny blushed deeply, and Liza released him, laughing like crazy.

"What was that for!!!"

"I caught you looking' at my chest, so I teased you." He gave a wink again, and Kenny felt humiliated at the joke. Liza sat back down on the bed, and pulled out some type of clear clipboard. Holograms slid across the screen, and Liza started to scribble stuff onto them.

"A holographic notebook? Made by two pieces of glass and hologram cards in between with touch-sensitive pads?"

"How did you know?" Liza was astonished.

"I don't know. It just came to me.: Kenny sat down next to Liza. He was quite warm and was making Kenny want to snuggle up to him. But he refrained because that would seem weird. Kenny got back up, and grabbed his backpack for camping trips.

Liza saw Kenny putting clothes and things into the bag, and was troubled. "What are you doing?"

"You said that you take back the creatures you find to your planet, right? Well, I have got to get packed if that is the case." Kenny said as he set in his special box and journal on top of his clothes.

"What is in that box?"

Kenny pulled it back out, and opened it up revealing a bunch of tarot cards. "They help me make major decisions and help to tell what the future has in store for me. I have got to bring them. My mom hand painted these for me two years ago. They are single-handedly the most precious thing I own." Kenny put them back.

"Oh. Well, if you do end up going, what will your parents say?"

Kenny produced a pen and a piece of paper and scribbled down a note:

Dad,

As you know, next week is the last week of school. All we ever do then is hang out. I'm going on a trip with a friend. I'll be back sometime later on this summer. Don't worry, I'm in good hands.

~Kenny

He folded it up and set it down on top of the table. "Ok. I'm ready to go now. Beam me up, Scotty!" Kenny said with a smile. He was really interested in seeing another planet and seeing what other life form there were.

"Ok, whatever you say." Liza picked up Kenny and slung him over his shoulder making him ‘eep' in surprise. Liza touched a button on his belt, and there was a buzzing noise as they teleported onto the ship.

But when they landed, there were red lights and sirens going off. Something was wrong with the ship!