FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

A dark mote drifted along the cosmic moors. It wheeled through the darkness between once great suns. The remnants of a supernova brushed along the vessel, cast aside by a gentle pulse of the ship's grav-shield. The sleepers, heedless dreamed on.

A passing ship might pause, lingering momentarily between the wide expanse of two dim stars, but scanning the apocryphal data-core of the ship, would out of mutual respect for the beings onboard pass on - most of the time.

How long had it been? How many years had passed since last they had awoken, since last they had breathed...

Nomori stirred, hearing the icy hiss of her stasis chamber as the long cables which fed into her blood, which kept her locked forever in an endless sleep slithered their way out of her neck as she regained consciousness. Her lungs tingled as they often did as the drugs worked their way out of her system. She moved, stretching her muscles after their many-years stagnation. Except... something was different. She felt around in the darkness as she experienced a tingling sensation along her skin. This was not normal... But then, no other teams had been studied through more than five stasis cycles. How many had it been now? She yawned, her muscles sore as her nerves reactivated. She hoped the tingling along her skin would subside. Except, the more she moved, the more the drugs wore off, the more noticeable it got.

The restraints which bound her arms released as the familiar voice of the ship's computer played its awakening message.

Awake refreshed, surveyor Kedra. Congratulations. You have enjoyed another long night of rest. We have reached the septacentennial period of your millennial journey. We have nearly reached luminal velocity and are proceeding...

She turned her head in the darkness, reaching for the knob to silence the annoying machine's voice. She blinked, the lingering traces of the medicine still blinding her. As she listened to the computer's voice coming from the overhead speaker, she noticed something else odd. Her ears felt large... and they moved with every word of the annoying bastard's message.

Moreover, as she licked her lips, she felt that her teeth were not as she remembered. Was the sleep doing something to her memory? No... No, they definitely were NOT like that before. What the fuck was going on? They felt sharper, as especially was the case with two of them towards the front. When she closed her mouth, they poked out onto her bottom lip. Did the care unit still have a dental module? Her teeth must've managed to decay somehow.

Unencumbered by her restraints, he eased herself into a sitting position, using the sides of her bed as support. As she sat up, she felt something long stretching down from below her shins.

Was it a life support cable? No... She could feel it. As if it were a part of her own flesh. But... that couldn't be. She blinked again, spots appearing in her eyes as the rods and cones of her eyes slowly came to, as her optic nerve began to come back online.

The hell?!

She blinked again, looking up at the hazy image of the top of her chamber, purple and reflective as it was. But instead of an image of herself looking back, she saw... something else. A creature. Except, when she turned her head, so did it. The creature, whose face looked like that of a cat back home, mirrored her mouth as it opened. She licked her lips, her tongue running over her too-sharp teeth, and felt her tongue run over coarse hair, as if she had grown a beard in her slumber. She winced at the surprising sensitivity she felt on certain points of her lips, as her fingers ran across particularly thick hairs. As she gazed up at the creature, its tongue ran over its long feline whiskers.

Am I going crazy? she thought, What am I looking at? That... That isn't me.

She moved again, looking at the image of the creature cast in scintillating shades of purple and green, the chamber's roof looking just like the folded wings of a beetle. The creature once again mirrored her. Her breathing quickened as the life support system pumped oxygen into the chamber. She coughed, feeling remnants of fluid in her lungs. She tried her best to ignore it. She lay there, breathing slowly, wheezing, as she slowly regained use of her fine muscles. The mental suppressants slowly released their grip, and the strangeness of what she had experienced went from a mild curiosity to something truly horrific.

Her mind reeled as it rose from the drowsy temper of a century-long slumber. She pressed a hand to the console to the right of her bed, noticing as the bed dropped how heavy, how thick her hands seemed. As the bed lowered, it afforded her room enough to sit up. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand groggily. As she did so, she felt how... hairy they seemed. What the hell?! No, no... That couldn't be...

Her eyes widened as she looked at her hand. What had at first seemed to be a mirage, a memory of her sun-tan when she lived earthside now seemed to be an thick covering of short hairs, like the skin of an animal. Her nails also were not those she had known. They were long, black, sharp like daggers set into her squat fingers. The skin of the bottom of each digit, as well as the palm of each hand welled up in puffy black pads.

Meanwhile, the computer began rattling off about something again. It stuttered for a moment before the outside latch of the pod began to unbolt, creaking beneath the strain of a century of disuse. Damn it. She knew they should've done repairs last time. If they didn't, they might end up being stuck in their pods next waking cycle. But that was of little concern compared to what she saw next...

She sat up in her bed, that long, thin something twitching between her legs. She looked down, and let out a scream that echoed loudly within the confines of her pod. It sounded more like a bestial screech than a sound a that had ever come from a human. Indeed, it seemed, she no longer was.

What had at first seemed like a tan was instead a dense coat of hair that, impossibly, now seemed to cover her skin. On her arms and back it seemed dark brown, with lighter shades on her stomach and chest. Small nipples now lay on her stomach in several pairs, like those on a cat.

She licked her lips again, feeling her face with her new hands. She let out a low, rumbling sound in frustration as she tried to speak.

"No..." she managed finally, "No, no, no..." she whispered, in between catlike mewls. "What-the-fuck is HAPPENING?!" No, it had to be a dream. A simulation protocol gone awry... This couldn't be...

She ran her claws through her new coat of fur, feeling the tingling sensation of each and every hair. Her mind raced with new urges. It all felt so real.

The ship shuddered, and the computer let out a stuttering message. She hissed in irritation. A hum echoed throughout the chamber, resonating in a rhythmic beat that lulled her mind. Her instincts subsided. Her green eyes rolled back in her head for a moment as dazzling visions filled her mind, visions of a dark star rising over a screaming sea. Impossible shapes filled the heavens above and below.

The visions passed as the pod cover lifted up with a puff as the air pressure began to equalize. Her stomach rumbled as her involuntary nervous systems began to activate again, her satiation centers begging, pleading for food. Her mouth watered at the thought of savory flesh, the taste of blood...

She kicked her legs desperately at such thoughts. Her bed began to shake as the hatch opened above her.

Initiating dressing protocol, subject quav-ampher-betra. Nomori Kedra.

Her bed flattened into a platform, which slowly began to rise through the hole where the pod hatch had laid. She stood up on wobbling legs, her tail lashing wildly as she tried to gain balance on the moving piece of machinery. The familiar blue lights of the outer chamber glowed dimly from the edges of the room. She looked down at herself again as robot arms rose out of panels in the floor. A probe did a body scan, flashing in miniature a hologram of her new body.

"Wake up, wake up, wake UP!" she rumbled to herself.

Custom body print. Begin clothing procedure. Proceed with pattern for wardrobe, the computer announced. Just as with every cycle, clothes would have long crumbled during their century-long slumber. Time moved strangely for those under the influence of the Morpheus Drip. Clothes and documents crumbled, machines broke down, but the passengers like eternal clocks kept ticking, as the stars and galaxies wheeled by.

She let out a hiss as one of the probes poked her in the behind. She bared her fangs and turned around to look at the Spinneret model arm which was flitting about below her waist, doing adaptive scans every few clocks. Another arm joined it, this one devoid of the camera which the lead arm used. Suddenly, the gun tucked underneath the end of each arm let out a click as thread began to stream out. The lead arm hooked a loop of string around the other arm before poking her rear again, this time under her tail. In a flash, the lead arm wheeled around, and made another tight series of loops around her tail as the other arm slipped out of the first loop, cutting it with a small tool on its head.

She grimaced at the ordeal, but settled in for the rest, having done this many times before. Even if not... quite like this. The arms passed back and forth over her, spooling thread and fiber, fashioning for her a set of shorts much like those she had worn in previous cycles, though seemingly adapted. She shuddered. Why couldn't this weird ass dream just be over already? She reminded herself to adjust the settings of the Drip the next time she was awake - actually awake. She sighed, trying to remember the techniques she had been taught to move onto a new dream sequence. Normally when dreams were this lucid, they faded on their own pretty quickly, anyways. What was going on?

She hissed again as the probe yanked several hairs when they got caught in the spinning of the fiber. Several others it had missed, and poked through the fabric it had spun thus far. The spinnerets clicked, loading a new length of thread as they continued weaving. Soon, her blue shorts were finished, covering up the strange sight of her groin. Her claws dug into the fabric of the platform as she spun around, looking at the shorts. She managed to pluck a few of the stuck hairs out before the spinnerets began working on her shirt. The short a quick loop around her waist before drawing around, under, and over each other. Soon, the alien sight of her animal-like teats, fur-covered belly and bosom disappeared beneath plain white cloth.

The body-scan probe appeared again, approaching her feet. An image of the shoes she had worn in previous cycles appeared, and flashed red.

Wardrobe protocol inapplicable to hybrid transfer. What, it wasn't going to give her shoes? She huffed. stupid dream. She looked down at her feet. God, it looked like she was standing on her tip-toes. That might explain the computer's behavior. She shook her head, her ears laying back. "Stop trying to rationalize a malfunctioning sequence, damn it!" she cursed to herself, noticing how rough, how low her voice now seemed, although there were still touches of her normal tone and cadence. Everything in this dream, it seemed, had to be different, had to be new.

She mewled in surprise as an injection arm poked her neck. She spun around, baring her fangs, "Shit! Did you just MICROCHIP me?!" That usually only happened to the livestock and test animals. Oh, right. She was an animal now, too. She rolled her eyes as the platform lowered to the level of the floor, and the arms retreated back into their associated panels. The blue lights flickered, turning pale white as the sleep settings turned off. The door on the far end of the room clicked as it unlocked. She rolled her shoulders and sighed. Might as well, right?

Her ears swiveled at a sudden sound, scratching, followed by a weird screech. She sniffed at the re-patterned, metallic scents of the hallway. The metal panels which were the walls still glistened, the crystalline structure apparent on the surface. Suddenly, a shape could be seen at the far end of the hallway. It swayed, back lit with a fuzzy halo by the lamps behind it. A long tail twitched behind it with every step as it ran, heavy footfalls rapping on the plastic floor.

As it came closer, she could see that it looked like a leopard, except its body was more like that of a human. As it ran, it did so in its hind legs, save for short bursts where it dropped to all fours.

"No... nom... nm... NOMORI" the creature cried out suddenly in a voice which was half-familiar. She shook her head, putting a paw on the wall for support as she gasped.

"Jack..." the said as the leopard came near. It slowed, its tail curling around as he tried to keep his balance. He came to a stop before her, panting. Jack's eyes were those of a cat now, though they still carried the same curious weight that they normally did. She stepped back a few paces, her tail lashing from side to side.

"What the hell is happening?" she gasped, running her claws through the ruff of fur on her neck. "Will this weird-ass dream never fucking end? Jack... help me remember the dreaming techniques you told me about a few cycles ago."

The leopard's face wrinkled with woe, "No, Nomori. Listen... You don't understand. Something is wrong. This isn't a dream sequence. The Morpheus, it's... it's done something to us while we slept."

She turned away, "No. That can't be right. This has to be a dream. Why would the Drip do something like this to us? No... no, it fucking-" she closed her eyes, trying to will the dream away. She thought and thought as hard as she could, a paw around her shoulder. Her claws dug into her flesh. She hissed at the pain, but continued on until she drew blood.

"STOP! STOP IT!" Jack said, yanking her hand away, "Listen to me... we have to figure out what's going on. The others are waking up now. We need-"

The ship lurched suddenly, an alarm cutting him off. The lights flickered as a dull hum filled the air.

The pair's eyes rolled back for a moment as their minds slipped into a trance-like state. The computer beeped out a warning of various health concerns.

Test animal health protocol Sigmor. Subject Kedra and Subject Ocherin - decreased heart rate. Anomalous sleep cycle- the computer rattled off, its voice stuttering and falling into silence as an unearthly, almost metallic roar echoed down the hallway.

They both turned to look at each other, fining themselves able to see one another quite clearly even in the dim light.

"What...?" Jack trailed off

"-the HELL was that?!" Nomori finished for him. Down the way, one of the doors opened as another confused and distraught member of their crew awakened to find themselves in a body they did not recognize.

The ship lurched again as the lights along the hallway began to flash red.

"Alert! Alert!" the computer called out, "Crash imminent! Propulsion inactive. Abort!"