FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

First, there was only darkness.

Then, there was thought.

"Where am I?"

"Who am I?"

The thoughts were confused, questing, not knowing, but straining to remember. There was a thick fog, and it interfered. Slowly, it began to lift, and the thoughts began to remember. There wasn't room for much, as the fog was still thick about her mind, but she remembered her name, and her age. She thought to herself, 'I am Angela, and I am fifteen years old.' She could not remember where she was, or how she got here, and notes of confusion and panic entered her thoughts. 'Where am I? How did I get here?'

But into the surfacing thoughts, memories, and emotions, other things began to intrude.

First, feeling; a great warmth. A gentle current through her fur.

Next, scent; the smell of plastic, rubber, and cleaners. Stale and sterile air.

Then sound; water churning with a faint sucking sound. The beep of medical equipment. The faint hum and whir of machinery, all heard as through a thin wall.

It was oddly comforting, in some weird way. The sensory input was steady, and seemed to go on for a long time in her mentally fogged state. Angela felt safe at least, and relaxed as she slowly awoke. Faint at first, more and more sensation came to her. There was something in her mouth, and she was suspended in water. She experimentally tried moving. Her muscles didn't seem to want to cooperate. Every part of her felt like lead, every muscle suddenly checking in at once, saying 'I'm here,' and 'oh god, I'm so tired!' She went limp momentarily, but wasn't deterred. Trying again, she tried to twitch her tail. It took a great deal of effort, barely a twitch, but it moved. She felt her tail move through the water. except it wasn't water; it was way too thick, more like oil, or mucous. She kicked a paw. Again, barely more than a twitch, but it was starting to get easier to move. Angela's muscles resisted, but were beginning to follow her, if sluggishly so. But her paw didn't go very far. It felt like a series of ropes, attached directly to her skin at her hamstring, held it back. Gently, as she moved each body part in turn, she felt more; hamstrings, two on each outer thigh, and one on her pubis, just above her vagina. There were eight, in two rows of four on her belly and chest, just inside and above where each of her nipples were, and one over her heart. Four more were in her back; each kidney, and just below each shoulder blade. One each on the back of her hands, wrists, and upper arms. There were two on the back of her neck; one each side of her spine. She could feel some kind of helmet on her head, and what felt like a collar. She was balanced precariously on some sort of tiny curved seat, barely enough to cup her bottom. She couldn't suppress a shiver. What the hell was she hooked up to? Her initial fear began to return.

Slowly, Angela opened her eyes. They didn't want to open at first. They were gummed over with sleep, and something heavy pressed against them. But when they did open, they saw nothing anyway. At first, she could only sense light; she was surrounded by it. But it was a low, soft, and soothing light. Soon after, color began seeping into the light. It was green. It seemed as opaque as a concrete wall, but painted the color of tropical leaves. For several minutes, it was all there was; it enveloped her world, up, down, and to each side as far she could turn her muzzle. But then, through the green; something. A shape. It was blurry at first, but it resolved itself into a simple, familiar object; a chair. It was empty. The room before her resolved into being before her with agonizing slowness, her eyes eager to perceive, and mind hungry for information about where she was. She tried to look down at herself, but the mechanical arm holding the mask over her muzzle prevented her from tilting her head that far. She could see the tubes surrounding her though, just not where she knew they were attached.

A sudden, piercing beep sounded. It shocked Angela, causing her heart rate to jump. The soft sucking she heard earlier became louder, the gentle current becoming a torrent. It pulled her downward with it's force, but the various things attached to her kept her in place. The liquid around her bubbled and slurped thickly and disgustingly. She felt the level of fluid pass over her, leaving more and more of her exposed to the air. It took all of ten seconds to drain away, leaving her cold, shivering, and dripping the unidentified gel like substance. She looked around as the last of it drained away. She was in a tank. It made sense, she thought. The deafening beep finally stopped, giving her poor sensitive ears a break, but she had hardly any time to appreciate the quiet before another, albeit less intense beep emanated from somewhere above her. There was a sudden, heavy deluge of tepid water, refilling the tank. It was cloudy, and it itched like crazy; but it only lasted a minute before it too drained. In ten seconds, the tank was empty once again, leaving her shivering and now itchy. She tried to scratch the worst spots, but the various tubes inhindered her. The beep stopped, and a moment later, a third one sounded; it heralded a second deluge of water. This time it was clean, clear, and warm, and it made the itching come to a gradual stop. She could feel a continuous downward current as the water cycled through over the course of what felt like several minutes. But finally the tank drained again, this time replaced by brutally hot air. It was incredibly uncomfortable. Angela was sure that if she had been breathing that air, it would have seared her lungs. It seemed to never end, and it burned. Until suddenly, it was over. She was dry, and it was comfortably warm. The last beep ended. She hoped the machine was done, but she was resigned to hearing another. But it didn't come. A minute went by. Then another. And another. Just when she thought she was going to be stuck here forever if she didn't do something herself, something finally did happen.

Angela's throat started to feel numb, as did her urethra. Then there was a horrible sensation of movement inside her body. The mechanical arm holding the mask to her face retracted, and a catheter she hadn't known was there were both extracted from her body. Even through the numbness, she felt as the long tubes slid out of her. Neither were large, but the one in her throat made her gag and retch terribly anyway. they came out slowly, and though she felt no pain, it was agonizing. She heaved, and she could feel her bladder clench, but nothing came out. At long last, the tubes pulled free, the one in her mouth spreading the bitter taste of bile as it left. She watched as a two foot long tube as big around as her thumb ascended through her field of vision and away, presumably into the top of the tank. She continued to heave, but the heaves were as dry now as when it was still occupying her. Slowly, the spasms died down and she caught her breath, and the slight numbness receded. She focused on the fact she was no longer inhaling the smell of rubber. After a moment of catching her breath, she felt a gentle tug on top of her head as the helmet came lose from her scalp. Seconds later, a pain blossomed on he back of her neck as the collar came free and the two tubes there were pulled unceremoniously from her. She felt a fine trickle of hot fluid through her fur from the dual points, and knew instinctively it was blood. It stopped quickly though, and dried just as fast. A trio of mechanical arms descended from above her and in quick succession, felt as each tube was pulled free of her body. There was a pinch as each one separated, and a short trickle of blood after. The last ones to go were the ones on her stomach and chest. These one hurt a lot more when they came off, and bled more, but it was still tolerable, and the bleeding was still both insignificant and relatively short-lived. The one on her pubis hurt most, it being attached to a rather sensitive area, but faded quickly, and bled little.

Now Angela was free, but for the little seat upon which she was balanced. She looked down. She saw that she was suspended only a few feet from the ground, so she wiggled, trying to push herself out of the little cup like formation of the seat. She slid off, and dropped to the floor. She touched down, and her legs immediately buckled under her, muscles still too weak to support her own weight fully. She had thought that she would be able to support herself, but she had been wrong. She laid there, panting, light pain radiating out from her legs and the side of her body that she fell on. A couple minutes went by, then the seat she had been on lowered slowly to the floor. She watched it descend, and cursed herself for being impatient. She continued to lay there, muzzle pressed against the glass side of the tank, foot paws resting over a drain in the floor.

The pain faded away, and she carefully drew herself up into a sitting position against the glass, using it for a back rest, and descended into thought. She had been too focused on what was happening to and immediately around her to really think about anything beyond the tank, and anything further than that chair had been just a blur anyway.

"Where am I?" Angela asked out loud. There was no answer, but she wasn't totally surprised by that. What she was surprised by was her voice. It was low and raspy from disuse. She cleared her throat as she strained to remember anything she could of anything before now. It was hard; though mostly gone, the fog still clouded her mind just a little. However, colors, a sensation of motion, and a voice slowly drifted through the fog, and slowly crystallized into a coherent memory...

She had been wearing her favorite lilac colored sundress, trimmed with a simple yellow flower pattern on the bottom hem. It was the day of her fifteenth birthday, and her parents had promised her that they could do whatever she wanted for her special day. It was early in the day in mid July, not even eleven, and it was already seventy-three degrees and rising. Angela asked if she could go the water park, and if her best friend Jacob could come too. They readily agreed. When asked if she wanted to have anyone else come, she declined, and her parents nodded in unison, like they had just had something confirmed to them.

Angela called Jacob, who was ecstatic to go to the water park with her for her birthday, and had a gift for her. They talked for over half an hour before they hung up, and even then, it was only to go and pick him up. It was only a few minutes, but she was already anxious to see him when they pulled into the driveway. Jacob was already waiting on the front stoop, in his swim shorts. His light gray fur reflected the light of the sun. A package, about eight inches long and four square wrapped in a cheap, cheesy birthday print wrapping paper lay in his lap. Angela hopped out of the car the second it stopped moving and went over to where Jacob was sitting. He remained seated and silent until she was right there next to him.

"Hi," Jacob said, smiling as she approached. "Happy Birthday."

Suddenly shy, Angela blushed, ears turning red inside and kicked her sandled paw against the cobblestone walkway. "Hi."

Jacob stood up, and gave her a hug, then said something quietly into her ear. Angela blushed harder, but burst out laughing. The moment of awkwardness passed, and they ran giggling back to the car. Angela's parents looked into the back seat as the two buckled in, all smiles. But as her mother turned away, Angela thought she saw the beginnings of a tear. But soon, it was pushed far from her mind as she and Jacob talked. It was a little less than an hour away, but not more than a minute was ever spent quiet as they talked like they hadn't spoken in weeks. Angela was having the time of her life, and they hadn't even gotten to the water park yet.

There followed the best day of her life. Angela's parents went all out, getting them both priority passes, so they wouldn't have to wait in line, and leaving them to their own devices. Occasionally, she saw them observing her in the near distance, but far enough away that she felt free. She got to ride every ride, play every game, and all without having to wait forever, and with out one or both of her parents there. Even better than that was that Jacob was there for all of it.

The highlight of Angela's day was a few minutes after a particularly thrilling coaster ride. High on the rush of adrenaline, she and Jacob had ducked her parents completely, laughing like mad. Jacob's face had been a peculiar mix of fear and jubilation on the coasters cameras, and it had them both in stitches as they walked around one of the many snack bars to a quiet space behind it to relax.

Time seemed to suddenly slow down for Angela and her heart sped up. Jacob was suddenly in front of her, a tender look in his eyes, as he handed her his birthday gift to her. Breathing fast, she opened the package, taking no care with the wrapping paper as a strange sense of excitement came over her. The package was heavy, easily two or three pounds. More carefully, she eased a claw in under the tape and opened it. Inside was a single lilac, preserved perfectly in a solid glass. Angela gasped, breath taken away. Her favorite flower, and color. She shivered, feeling Jacob's paw on her shoulder. She hadn't noticed how much closer he had moved to her while she had opened and stared at the amazing gift he had given to her.

"Do you like?" Jacob asked, a hint of hesitation in his eyes.

Angela looked up, into Jacobs eyes. "It's beautiful," she whispered, feeling slightly out of breath. "Thank you."

Jacob leaned into her, and their muzzles met in a first kiss. It made Angela's whole body flush. She felt electrified, every nerve tingling. It ended far to fast, Jacob already pulling away from her, leaving her wanting more...

Hours later, when the sun was hanging low in the sky and dinner was long past, Angela's parents appeared out of the crowd. "Okay, Angela, Jacob. It's time to go home."

Neither was ready to go. But they suppressed their objections. It was summer, and the two of them had all the time in the world to explore the new depth of relationship that had just opened before them.

Getting into the car, Angela heard her father say to her, "Oh, by the way, we need to make a stop at the doctors."

"Why?" She asked, but her father appeared to not hear her. She didn't press it. To her, it was another few minutes she would get to spend with Jacob. Settling into the back seat, Jacob reached over and took her paw in his own. Angela's mother looked over at the back seat and saw. She turned away after a moment, and again, Angela thought she saw the beginnings of a tear in her eye. The drive to the doctors was much quieter than the trip to the water park, but it was a little shorter, and Jacob didn't let go of her paw for more than a moment the whole way. Angela didn't want him to ever let go.

The sun was setting as they pulled into the parking lot at the doctors office. They were met at the door by the doctor, a nice, wizened old ferret woman. It was a little odd, but neither she nor Jacob thought anything of it. The doctor wished her a happy birthday and handed both her and Jacob a large piece of candy. It wasn't the normal lollipop that was perpetually available, but a reasonably high quality chocolate truffle. Angela and Jacob looked at each other, eyebrows raised, but otherwise ate the proffered treats happily.

Angela was surprised to find as they walked in that there was no one else inside, save for themselves, the doctor, and two orderlies at the front desk. Looking at the clock above the counter, she saw it was a quarter after seven in the evening. She remarked on lack of other people, and asked what they had come for, but her inquiries were deflected. She and Jacob were instructed to sit and wait while they went and talked with the doctor in a back room. They sat down and waited. A few minutes, and Jacob yawned. He laid his head on her shoulder, and put a paw over hers on the arm rest. Another minute later, and her parents came out and sat down in the seats next to her. Jacob looked up blearily, but quickly returned his head to her shoulder, eyes drooping. She too began to feel tired, and before long, Jacob was snoring away peacefully beside her, head resting on her shoulder. She looked at him, and had a brief moment of worry. Why were they alone here? Why were they waiting so long that they were starting to fall asleep? She glanced at the clock on the wall opposite her and saw that they had only been here for fifteen minutes. Angela fought back a yawn.

"Mom, Dad, what's taking so long?" She asked, a note of confusion in her voice. Another yawn, this one refusing to be suppressed, escaped her in spite of her best efforts. Angela could feel her eyelids growing heavy, the darkness of sleep rising to claim her. She tried to lean forward, but her muscles felt weak, and Jacobs head proved to much of an obstacle. "Wh-what's..." She stammered, before her voice failed her.

"We're sorry, honey," came the oddly distorted sound of her fathers voice. "But this is for best." He sounded unspeakably sad, and worse, her mother burst into tears. As she slipped slowly into unconsciousness, she felt her mother and her father wrap her in their arms. "We love you, Angela. Happy Birthday."

A tear rolled down Angela's cheek fur as she finished reliving her last memory before waking up. "Why?" she asked. "What did you mean when you said, 'It's for the best?'" She buried her face into her paws, and cried for a long while. Her body still ached a little, and the wracking sobs helped not at all. But when she finally stopped, she felt a little better. Carefully, Angela got up. She braced herself against the glass wall of the tank. Her knees were still weak, and her muscles shook a little as she got unsteadily to her paws.

Keeping her paw against the side of the tank, Angela looked around again, examining the room on the other side of the glass. It was spartan in the extreme. It was little more than a silver metal cube with a counter, a sink, a couple of cabinets, and two chairs. One of them was by the only door, the other right in front of her tank, positioned as though someone had been sitting there and watching her. 'How creepy,' she thought. There were a few scattered papers on the floor, and what appeared to be an iPad on a charger on the counter. She circled her tank, and found behind where she had been sitting was a large red button with the words 'EMERGENCY OPEN' printed on them. She hit the button, and heard a pneumatic hiss as the glass slid quickly and effortlessly down into the floor.

The air was a tad stale, but it was warm, and the quiet hum of machine was as omnipresent as ever. Angela stepped out, and there was an immediate hiss as the glass tank from which she had emerged closed. The speed of its passage ruffled the fur on her tail. She stumbled forward a little getting out of the way and caught herself on the chair, momentarily grateful to whomever her watcher had been for placing it there. She sat down in it, and looked at the monstrous machine she had been hooked up to, her eyes beholding it in its entirety for the very first time.

Externally, it was simple, and almost elegant. A raised metallic platform, about an inch in height and five feet in diameter with a rubberized metal lip. A large glass tube, going all the way up to the ceiling, where an inverse of below met the glass. A small pair of lights showed at the top, a green and a red, and the red light was glowing. In the center though, inside, was the apparatus that she had been hooked up to, and it was scary. It looked like a stretched flat mechanical squid, each tentacle tipped with a needle an inch long. A series of lights, mostly green, showed on the apparatus; but a few were glowing red. Without thinking about it, Angela's hand moved to a few of the puncture wounds on her body. She could only find them by the dried blood in her fur; there was no other evidence that those needles had been in her. She had never been particularly afraid of needles, but the sight of so many, and so large, the knowledge that they had been in her caused a wave of nausea to wash over her. She closed her eyes to ride it out, but she found herself drifting off to sleep almost immediately. She fought back against the encroaching sleep, but it proved itself much stronger than her, and she fell under the inexorable grip of fatigue.

* * * * * * * * *

Angela's sleep was long, deep, and yet without rest. Her dreams were plagued by silvery gray monsters. Needle tipped tentacles, covered in mucous, and all out for her blood on a back drop of a water theme park. She played a twisted game of Hide and Go Seek, where she was always the only one hiding, and dozens were searching. They moved on their tentacles, their lopsided, gait producing a disgusting squelching noise that could be heard everywhere she went. Whether it was under the roller coaster platforms and behind their supports, wooden park tables or counters at the concession stands, or in maintenance closets left surprisingly unlocked, she could hear it. Angela looked out from behind the support she was hiding behind to see a lone monster passing near by, its queer, undulating locomotion making her nauseous. It was looking the other way, and she sneaked to a near by carnival game stand, behind an arcade game cabinet. She listened, hearing the monsters squelching away.

For several minutes, Angela rested. Moving from place to place, always on edge, she felt like a high tension wire. When she thought she could safely move on, she peeked over the cabinet, located the next potential hiding place, then darted towards it. Always trying to be silent, she move quickly, ducking, bobbing, and weaving, not quite knowing where she was going or what she was doing. But she knew hiding was not enough. They were everywhere.

Angela moved towards the slowly setting sun, glimpsed occasionally in her mad dashes between the humps of roller coasters. When at last she tripped and fell on her way to the next cover, her gasp of pain and shock alerted one of the monsters. It came from a narrow avenue between two booths, not thirty feet away from her, and in the direction she had been heading. She got up, turned, and ran. It pursued her, ever gaining, no matter how fast she ran. Other monsters, seeing their compatriots quarry, joined in the pursuit. More and more came, until she was surrounded, corralled against a game booths' exterior wall.

Angela couldn't tell if it was the one that had originally seen her or not, but one squelched out from among the others. It moved in front of her, its tentacles reaching, seeking her body. They touched her body, caressing her lewdly. The mucous smeared across her naked fur, cold and revolting. She hadn't smelled it earlier, but the number of them and their close proximity, she could smell a sickly sweet scent, like dried soda syrup and rotting fruit wafting from them. After a moment of the abhorrent contact, it drew back. It wavered in front of her for a moment, then suddenly lashed out, stabbing into her tender breast, piercing her flesh with one long needle over her heart.

The other monsters around Angela gave up a chorus of gurgling laughter in response to her screams of pain. She looked down at the needle tipped appendage buried in her as her scream came to an end. She watched in horror as the flesh rippled and molded, changing. She watched as the needle turned into a claw, then split into five fingers. The paw the tentacle had become was covered in familiar dark colored fur. Angela looked at the monster, only to find she was no longer facing a monster. It was her father, his fingers still buried in her chest. "It's for the best," he whispered mockingly, leaning in and whispering into her ear, then laughed. She felt his claws dig agonizingly deeper into her chest, breaking her rib-cage to reach her heart. Angela watched as he tore her heart out and consumed it still beating before her eyes. Released from his grip, she began to fall to the ground, and jerked awake. Finding herself sitting in a chair in an unfamiliar room, Angela burst into tears. She rocked back and forth in the chair, waiting for the awful images that tormented her to fade into nothing.

When at last the sobs had stopped, Angela laid exhausted upon the chair. It took a great deal of energy to get up from where she sat, but she could not bare to look at the machine she had been in any longer. She was still achy, but her legs carried her weight the first time she tried. She stood next to the chair and reexamined the room. It really was borderline featureless. Plain, unpainted steel walls and ceiling with a polished concrete floor. Steel counter against the opposite wall with steel sink and fixtures. Steel cupboard doors with steel handles, and a steel door in the corner. She turned her attention to the scattered papers on the floor. She was more interested in the iPad, but decided to save her curiosity for the moment. There was a layer of dust over the floor. It was fairly thick, but it was gone in a small trail from chair to door. No one had been in this room in a long time but for whomever her watcher had been.

Most of the papers Angela saw were filled with graphs, numbers, and technical jargon. Most of it was meaningless, or was simple read outs of her vitals. There were a few mentions of CRISPR. Why did that acronym sound familiar? Here and there among the other bits of data, she saw things like her name, or her birth date. One of the pages showed her a date that wasn't when she was born. It was more than two years after her fifteenth birthday. Her heart hammered in her chest. Looking up from the papers, she said, "Two years?! I've been in that thing for two years?!" She looked fleetingly back at the machine, then back at the papers. She moved over to the counter where the iPad was, and leaned against it and gripping the counter hard, fighting for breath. It was difficult to believe that it had been two years. But was it so hard to believe considering the oddness of her current circumstances? Angela looked down at herself, at her naked body. It looked exactly as it had when she had awoken on her birthday. If it had really been two years, wouldn't she looked different? Wouldn't her upper breasts have finished filling out by now? She didn't feel any taller.

Angela looked down at the iPad, and hoped it would have some sort of information on it that she could gather, to help put everything that was going on in perspective. Angela set down the papers she had collected, and picked up the device. The little green on light was off, so she held in the power button, and it booted up. It tooted out a welcome jingle, louder by far than the ambient sounds. It felt somehow unnatural and intrusive to her in the quiet, sterile isolation of this room. The screen flashed as it finished, and a time and date appeared on the screen; 4:57PM, June 27th 2049. At first, she couldn't believe the date on the screen. Her jaw went slack with disbelief. It was hard enough to believe that that she had been in that thing for two_years, let alone the _twenty-three that this date indicated. She fought the urge to vomit. Was she really thirty-eight years old? She looked over her body again, more closely this time. But no, she looked exactly the same as that day, sans the dried blood and her nudity. She stared into space for several minutes, trying to wrap her poor stunned brain around this single piece of world shattering information. Without intending to, she spoke; "Why was I in that thing for so long? And for what purpose?" She panted, anxiety making her feel hot. A drop of saliva fell from her lupine tongue onto the iPad, and she wiped the screen. The screen changed. 'It's unlocked?' she thought, surprised. More surprising however, was that a word pad was open, and on it, was a message:

Dear Angela;

We can't tell you what happened, why we did what we did. We wish we could have, but telling you would have meant we couldn't save you. What we can tell you is this; Jacob is with you. We knew you would want him with you on your birthday and made arrangements accordingly. Second, be strong. Things are going to be both hard and different for you and the others now. But you have a unique opportunity to shape the future, make it better, and fix the wrongs that we as a people made. We believe in you, always have, and always will, even though we are no longer with you.

With all our love,

Mom and Dad

XOXOXO

For the third time since her initial awakening, Angela wept. They were silent this time, but came much harder. Her tears smeared over the screen as she sank to the floor, back against the cabinets, the iPad slipping from her paw. When she could finally hold back the flood of tears, she saved the file and lovingly cleaned the screen and stood. She resolved to figure out what the hell had happened, one way or another.

Angela moved along the counter to the door. It opened automatically for her, and she stepped through into another room. The lights came on automatically, revealing another fairly spartan room. But this room was not entirely without decoration. Directly across from her was another door, same as this one, but for a logo she recognized as belonging to one of her parents subsidiary biotech-firms. She couldn't remember which one; there were simply too many. The walls, ceiling and fixtures were all steel here too, though there was a gold colored throw rug she knew had to be the one from her bedroom at home. It was clearly old, well used, and was just the faintest bit thread-bare at the left side. Running the remaining length of the far wall was a counter with various cubbies and drawers. She could see stuff in the cubbies. There was a swivel chair positioned at a point that seemed like it was meant to be a desk, with a little hooded light on a maneuverable arm attached to the wall above it. There was a small, familiar pink book in the little circle of light shed by the lamp, and next to that, a shining glass object roughly four by four by eight inches. She couldn't see it well with all the reflected light it was throwing off, but she knew what she hoped it was. In the corner against the wall on her side of the room was a double sized bed in a steel frame. It had the same crisp yellow linens on it that she had woken up in long ago with a blanket patterned with sunflowers. She went over to the counter, and set down the iPad.

Angela started near the opposite door, searching the cubbies and examining their contents. They all held something; mostly clothes, but there were plenty of books, papers, and a few trophies. Her backpack filled with school books had been jammed into a drawer. All of it hers, and all from home. She looked through her clothes, and choose a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. She was sad that her lilac sundress was nowhere to be found. After donning her outfit, she began rifling through the rest of her stuff. A fifth grade test she had scored a one-hundred and three percent on was in the first small stack of papers she examined. She couldn't believe her parents had saved that! The red pen smiley face on it, the wrinkled, aged texture of it was proof of its legitimacy. A couple of poems she had written and thought she had hidden well from her parents were in the stack of papers, letters from her relatives and a handful of birthday cards. Seeing all the well wishes made her tear up a little.

Slowly, Angela worked her way down the counter, going through everything, remembering every page, every picture, and pined for a return to it. She felt every item as an anchor that she knew increasingly as something connecting her to a time long past. Reaching the point where the book and the glass object was, she took a seat. The whole time, she had kept an eye on both, not daring to hope or believe. But now, sitting in front of them, she knew. The well worn cover of the book, with its pink ribbon page keeper, and the little pink hearts at the corners; this was her diary. And next to it, the preserved lilac flower given to her by Jacob. Angela hefted the glass encased flower and examined it. As enthralled with it as she had been, she hadn't looked at it particularly well. Understandably, she had been even more entranced in the boy that had given her such an exquisite gift. She hadn't noticed it at the time, but the wooden base had a gold filigree engraving on it's bottom. It said, 'To the girl of my dreams; a flower as perfect as you. Happy fifteenth birthday, Angela. Love, Jacob'. 'How did he know? ' Angela wondered, as she placed it carefully back on the desk. Angela stared of into space for a while, contemplating herself and Jacob as a couple. But after a time, shook the thoughtful cobwebs from her mind and looked down at her old diary.

Angela opened it up to the first page, and she beheld her younger self's messy, girlish handwriting; 'Dear Diary'. She thumbed through each page, reading every word, reliving every triumph and agony of herself from when she had started keeping it at age twelve until the morning of her last birthday. She realized as she read, she could recall with near perfect clarity each and every occurrence contained within the pages. Even the times when she was sitting at her desk at home, scribing those very passages, and the smell of the freshly laundered linens of her bed spread, heated in the afternoon sun streaming through the windows. She was sure her memory hadn't been that good.

Angela turned a page dated three days before her big day, where she described a dream of one day kissing her crush. She chuckled, knowing that her past self only had three days to wait. She turned to the next page, expecting it to be a blank, pristine white, with little blue lines and the little pink hearts at the lower right corner. Instead, she found more writing. It was vaguely familiar, but what grabbed her the most was the date; March 3rd, 2048. Her heart rate jumped like nothing else had made it so far. This proved conclusively with her parents note saying 'others' that she wasn't alone. But why was the date from over a year ago? And in her diary? Who had the temerity to invade her personal possessions and write in her diary? She read the entry.

3/3/2048

Dearest Angela;

It's been three days since we all awoke here in this facility. I still can't rightly say I know what happened, even though I remember clear as day the water park, and the kiss; the trip to the doctors afterward and falling asleep with my head on your shoulder. Most of us are preparing to leave, and I don't blame any of them. I don't want to stay here either, but I just can't yet bring myself to leave you. I don't know why you haven't awakened yet, but I hold out hope that you will. I will stay longer.

Love,

-Jacob

Angela flipped the book shut. He called her 'dearest'! Her heart fluttered, then began to race. She could feel the heat rise in her face and ears flush. Jacob wrote in her diary! Had he read everything she had written? Did he read the part where she admitted to her diary that she had a crush on him? Wanted to kiss him? She wanted to feel angry, violated that he would invade her space like that. But then she really thought about it. He had taken the time to let her know he was around, that he was okay. He told her that he loved her. And wasn't she in love with him? Of course she was, and she didn't want to keep secrets from someone she loved. Angela still felt a little embarrassed, but ultimately decided that her embarrassment didn't matter either. After she got through all this, she would be able to talk to him, and that was all that truly mattered. After all, they had already kissed, and the current circumstances surrounding her situation was far more important at the moment. She reopened her diary, and turned to see if he had written more.

3/4/2048

Dearest Angela,

I want to tell you everything that we know. But I was prohibited from writing anything. I can't fathom why, what with what actually happened and how things are now, but... Anyway, I can tell you everything when you wake up, and I'll be there waiting when you do.

Love,

-Jacob

A little frustration entered her mind. He knew, and couldn't just tell her? But then, why would he, if he truly believed that he would be here when she woke up? And what was all this about being prohibited? How would such a thing be enforced? Just what had happened, that things were so different? Maybe he and whomever was stopping him from saying would realized as time went by, she might not wake up and write it down? It was a stretch, and she knew it, but what other hope did she have? So many questions crowded her mind that it hurt. Angela read on in the hopes that something useful might be still included. And because she wanted to read more of her beloved Jacob's time since awakening.

3/25/2048

Dearest Angela,

I wish I had been able to write these last few weeks, but it has been a frenzy of activity as everyone moved out of the bunkers and into the world above. All my waking time has been traveling to and from here and New Dawn, setting up everything that was left to us by those who were forced to stayed behind. By the time I finished each day, I was too tired to do anything other than collapse on the bed in my room and fall into an uneasy sleep. But never did one day, not even one hour, go by where I didn't come here in the morning and sit in front of your tank, and pray that that would be the day you would wake up.

Love,

-Jacob

There followed three or four days of entries, followed by a gap of a couple days, before they resumed again forming a pattern. There were over a hundred entries, filling up nearly all the remaining pages of the diary. Towards the end of the entries, the gaps were getting longer. The lack of good information was still infuriating, but he was right. She would find out what happened, or find him, or die trying.

6/24/2049

Dearest Angela,

My hope begins to wane that you may one day wake up. I will never give up hope entirely, and I will wait for you always in my heart. I will still come and visit, though that may not be as often as I would like. I still cannot tell you what happened; it's both dumb and frustrating. It's one of the first things we learn after waking up. But without someone there to tell you, you will have to find out for yourself. I hope I will be there to fill you in, but if not... Well, I know you will figure out what happened on your own. And even then, if you can't, I will come before long, and I will fill you in then. Love you with all my heart,

-Jacob

Looking up from her diary, Angela realized she was tearing again, though none fell. Leaving the diary open, she grabbed the iPad and went to the bed in the corner. Sitting down, she opened the note left to her by her parents. She explored the iPad's contents. There wasn't a whole lot. There was an available wireless signal, but she couldn't access it. It was password protected, and after a few half-hearted attempts, she gave up. Still, the fact that a signal was present and with good strength gave her hope that civilization was not completely lost. A camera app, a couple of games, and a number of other apps that she either had no interest in or were useless without an internet connection made up the bulk of the remaining content. Digging a little deeper, she found a folder with a number of pictures in it. It seemed her parents had loaded her entire life in picture form into the thing. A picture of her Mom and Dad with a baby Angela stared out at her from the first image, her eyes closed and nose in the air, sniffing towards the camera. A tiny paw gripped the larger finger of her mother, while she reclined in a chair at home. She laid on the bed for a time, perusing the pictures that her parents had left for her, awash in the glow and warmth of the memories of good times.

As Angela scrolled through the pictures however, she began to feel thirsty. Leaving the iPad behind, she went back into the room with the horrible looking machine for a drink. There weren't any cups on the counter, so she knelt down to the cabinets and began to search around inside them. There wasn't anything in the first one save dust bunnies and a plastic bag. In the next, there was a surprise; in a hermetically sealed bag was her sundress. A smile crossed her face as she pulled the bag out and looked at the pristine fabric; it was like Christmas had come. She opened it and buried her nose into it, inhaling the strong scent of floral laundry detergent. She hugged it to herself briefly before tossing it up onto the counter. In the third cabinet, was medical supplies. Mostly first aid stuff, but there were a few bottles and vials of things whose names she couldn't pronounce, a stethoscope, thermometer, and portable blood-pressure monitor. Finally, in the second to last cabinet, was a stack of disposable Dixie cups. They were dusty, but appeared serviceable. She stood up and turned on the water faucet, only to make a face of disgust. The water came out reddish-brown, and smelled strongly of iron. However, as she watched, it turned clear, and the odor faded away. Tentatively, she filled the little cup part way, then took a measured sip. It still had an iron tang to it, but it was otherwise fine. She filled and drained the cup a few times, then filled it again and left it untouched on the counter for later. Reaching down, she pulled up the rest of the Dixie cups and set them on the counter. Angela had no idea if she would need more, but she hoped not. Sated for the moment, but curious of the last cabinet, Angela got back on her knees and looked at it. It was locked, and had a card reader attached to it. She jiggled the handle experimentally, but found it to be unsurprisingly locked. 'I'll find the key card and come back here later.'

Angela picked up her dress, leaving the cup of water behind, and went back into the other room. She carefully laid out her dress on the counter before returning to her bed. Picking up the iPad, she noticed that it was already near to midnight. She had intended to do some exploring, but she also hadn't expected to walk into a room with all of her most treasured possessions from home either, and had been side tracked badly. Her curiosity burned, but she was practical; she still felt weak and tired, and this area, if creepy, felt safe enough to rest up in. Angela searched for an outlet in the room to plug the iPad into. There was one by the lamp, and she set it on the charger. Before going to sleep for the night, she sat at the desk and wrote in her diary.

6/27/2049

Dear Diary;

Today has been a weird and scary one. Last thing I remember was the best day of my life. It was my fifteenth birthday and I got to kiss my crush, Jacob. But today... I woke up in a large glass tank, with dozens of needles in me. The only indication of how much time has passed are several entries by Jacob in this book and an iPad Mom and Dad presumably left for me that says its 2049! How can I believe this? Is this some kind of prank everyone but me is in on? I'm scared, and don't know what's going on. I haven't yet left this room, but I plan on exploring tomorrow. I need to know what's going on, I must find out.

Setting down her pen, she stared pensively at Jacob's gift for several minutes. It felt comforting to her to do something so normal as write an entry into her journal in this weird place and in these unknown circumstances. Angela looked back through the entries left by Jacob, then went to bed. After a few minutes of inactivity, the lights went out of their own accord, and she looked unseeingly at the ceiling in the pitch-black of the windowless room. Thoughts chased their way through her head. Most notably of which was the big machine in the other room. She knew what it was, even if she didn't know what it was called. She only vaguely knew what its purpose was too. It had something to do with with genes, and something her parents called CRISPR. She didn't really know what that was, she wasn't big into bio-tech. She had always been more into philanthropic and furitarian pursuits. Angela wished she had paid more attention in science class at the very least, more so to what she had over heard her parents discussing about their various companies discoveries.

* * * * * * * * *

Angela awoke, and panicked. 'Where am I,' she mentally yelled before she recalling her present predicament. She hardly had time to allow the circumstances to sink in before her stomach yelled 'FEED ME' at full volume. She clutched her belly as it cramped; it was so intense! How long had it been since she'd last eaten? She hazarded a guess that the machine had provided some kind of nutrition to her, though not in the traditional way. The tube in her throat had brought up only a tiny amount of bile, her stomach had to have been completely empty at that point. The discomfort took only a moment to pass, but in it's place it left an aching emptiness.

Angela sat up and the lights clicked on. Getting up, she brushed down her clothes, smoothing the wrinkles. "Why am I even bothering?" she asked no one, hands dropping to her sides mid-motion. "It's not like there's anyone here to see my disheveled clothes." She moved tentatively over to the door of her room, ready to get right into her explorations. Staying still wasn't going to get food into her stomach after all. She stood in front of the door, staring at the logo without seeing, straining to hear anything that might be on the other side of the door over the droning hum of the idling machine in the other room. She heard nothing, and inched tentatively forward. The door opened with a pneumatic hiss, revealing a large hallway, easily wide enough for four furs to walk abreast. The only light came from the light in her room.

From where she was standing, Angela could see the opposite wall. It was steel, just like the room she was in now, but the floor she could see was polished concrete. There was a large yellow arrow down the center. She couldn't help but think of how ugly an aesthetic steel and concrete were. Cautiously, she edged out into the hall, and looked around. She couldn't see anything, but then, she thought she saw a brief flash of something, light reflected from twin points a hundred feet away. There was a loud noise and an electric hum as lights began to turn on, first over her, then outwards from where she was standing. She stood riveted to the spot, staring at where the light had flashed back at her, but there was nothing there. Had she imagined it then? It had been so quick, one second there, then not. The lights illuminated the spot that the reflected light had come from, but there was nothing there. Her heart thudded in her chest, a sensation of unease in her empty stomach that had nothing to do with the clawing hunger that pervaded her.

Angela perked her ears and listened at high alert. She could hear lights turning on in the distance, places she couldn't see, but between that and the omnipresent sounds of idling machines she could hear nothing else. Daring to look away from the other end of the hall and examine the rest of her surroundings, she found herself in a long hallway. At the far end where she now looked was a dead end with what appeared to be a janitors closet. Alternating sides, there were doors, first on the left, then the right side, right past her to the other end of the hall. That end continued around a corner. She didn't want to go that way just yet, the anxiety of what she knew was probably not there impacting her decision more than she wanted to admit.

"Maybe there is some food in one of the rooms in this direction," Angela muttered to herself, going in the opposite direction of the arrow on the floor. She went to the room next to hers, and turned to face the door. To the left side of the door was a little name card that read, "Jacob Bowers". The door opened at her approach, and the lights came on.

Inside was a surprisingly clean room. She had been in his room at home on many occasions before, for play when they were younger, and study as they grew up. His room had always been in a state of perpetual mess, but she liked that. It was undeniably him to be messy. But here he had clearly made an effort to not leave it like a bomb had gone off inside. 'Well, maybe its not that surprising.' she thought. There was very little inside his room. He had only spent a few days here at first, and later, he only stayed a few days each week when he was here to watch over her. More surprised she should've been that her room wasn't a mess, as he probably spent most of his time in there and not his own. How much must he have cared, to spend so much time waiting for her to wake up? She went and sat on his bed and looked about the room. The covers looked a little rumpled, like someone had recently been in it. However, the bed was cold. He had been here two or three days ago, probably left right after he had wrote that last journal entry. It was the same as hers, minus the stuff from home; a steel counter/desk with chair, bookshelf, bed, and a door that led into a room that she knew must've contained an awful machine like the one she'd woken up in.

Angela left the room. Her stomach wasn't getting any fuller, and staying here wasn't going to get any food into it. Out in the hall, the lights were mercifully still on, and the end of the hall she knew she must soon go was still empty of whatever she had seen. Quickly, she traveled down the hall, looking at name cards. Most she didn't recognize, but two did stand out; Leila Black, and Rodger Bindle. Both were friends of her parents, and were indispensable assets to their bio-tech firms top research projects. She poked her head into those rooms. They were just the same as hers and Jacobs, except they looked like they had been considerably more lived in. They were however now very empty, the only clues to their extended use a number of scuffs and skid marks in the floor and desks, and a few scattered papers. About to enter, Angela's stomach growled menacingly, followed by cramps strong enough to almost drop her to her knees. Once they passed, she hastily made her way down to the end of the hall, slowing only so she could peek cautiously around the corner.

From her vantage point, Angela could see only one long hallway. It was so long, her eyes couldn't quite make out the end. The important thing was that there was nothing in the hallway, so she moved from her cover and started walking. Not far from where she had started was an intersection. Down the branching hall was another series of alternating doors on left and right sides. Inspecting the first door, she found a name card. "Juno Beaumont," it read. The name meant nothing to Angela.

Next to that door was a series of dents in the wall. What on earth could've done that to a solid steel wall, she wondered. She touched the dents. There were four; oblong, very closely grouped with a fine ridge separating each, and were very shallow. Angela stared for a moment, then curled her paw into a fist. It wasn't a perfect fit, but it matched. Someone had punched the solid steel wall with enough force to damage it, and not completely destroy their paw in the process. "How in the hell?" She wondered, her mind boggling at the thought.

Putting the disbelief aside, Angela quickly calculated the number of rooms between these two halls. There were ten on each side in both, so that was forty in total. Forty personal rooms. How many other people were there? She figured there would need to be more than that if there was to be a real chance at repopulating the world, unless only a single species had been chosen. Such a thing didn't seem right though; there had to be more. While most species could mate with those who were close on the evolutionary tree, like red, sliver, arctic, and fennec foxes or black, grizzly, polar and panda bears. There were dozens of other species groups, foxes and bears only accounted for two of those. And it wasn't like each room here was dedicated to one of each species; Jacob, herself, and Rodger were all wolves, and Leila, a doe. She was curious to look through some of the other rooms, but didn't. Her need for food kept her from deviating to much for the time being.

Angela passed a door on her left, just past where the hall had branched. Just beside it was a graffiti mural. It was a beautiful piece of art, but it concerned her. Little more than a year after the start of a post-apocalyptic repopulation effort, and some furs were already desecrating the very facility that had given them the chance. Where did the fur who did it even get spray-paint? She continued on a ways, until she came to a spot where the hall branched again. To the right, there was an enormous pair of double doors, one of which was propped open with a cinder block; to the left and forward the hall continued. About to move on, a draft of cool air about her bare paws, drew her attention downwards, where she saw mud. The mud on the floor was fresh. Still mostly wet, it trailed through the door and went off in all three directions. They were a little difficult to make out against the dark polished concrete floor, visible more due to the lack of shine than color. But what bothered her about the mud was the paw prints in it. They looked like hers, but smaller, and broader. Feral wolves, or maybe wild dogs? She didn't like the idea of either, but she knew which she would rather face. Had what she'd seen earlier been the eyes of a dog or wolf? She certainly hoped not. 'More likely,' she thought, 'there are just a few active cubs roaming about.'

She put her foot paw on the cinder block and pushed. The door swung lazily shut as the cinder block flew away from the door, sliding all the way across the hall, where it hit with enough force to crack. The sound felt loud even in the ambient noise that surrounded her.

"What the hell?!" Angela yelled, too surprised by the ease with which she had pushed the block to keep her voice down. She walked over to the cinder block, and touched its surface. It was cold and hard, roughly textured, just like she expected it to be. It was definitely a cinder block, not plastic, or painted Styrofoam. Though, had it been that, it wouldn't have held the door open. She gingerly hefted the block. It was so light in her paws, like it had little more weight to it than if it _had_been made of Styrofoam. Angela had never a strong girl, and she knew it; she had lifted cinder blocks before in her life. She'd needed both hand paws and a lot of effort to move them, and would tire after just two or three. Now here she was, holding one in one hand, and it was like it was barely even there. She passed it back and forth from paw to paw, and tossed it up a few time experimentally. Wondering if she was in a dream still, Angela wound up, then heaved the cinder block as hard as she could down the hall. A searing pain made itself felt as she hyper-extended her arm, elbow and shoulder ominously cracking. The cinder block meanwhile, flew a significant distance down corridor, a total length that Angela judged to be at least fifteen feet. Had the ceiling not been in the way, it certainly would've gone farther. When it hit the floor, it broke into several pieces, all of which scattered, creating quite a racket. She heard it, but didn't see it; she was cradling her sore arm, wondering at how she was able to lift and throw that block at all.

She didn't stare at her arm long however. Angela felt her stomach cramping again, so she started to move. After a few steps, the pain in her stomach became too much, and she sat down on the other side of the corridor, facing the large double doors. The pain was intense, but she ended up being grateful for it. It gave her time to stretch her arm, which was already beginning to feel better. But as the cramps eased, she noticed a map mounted on the wall. It wasn't particularly large, but it showed a rough diagram of the facility, with all its sections labeled and a nice red dot that showed where she was in relation to everything else. She was outside the largest of all the areas, the 'Warehouse', and her room was in a section labeled 'VIP Rooms'. Behind her was a collection of rooms, most notable of which was the kitchen. There were a pair of doors just a little farther down this part of the hall that led to the bathrooms, but going the other way was the 'Labs', the 'Rec-room', and 'The Bunker'. She could reach the kitchen going through the bathrooms behind her, and into the Rec-room. Once the hunger pains passed, she got up, and went down the hall to the bathroom door.

As Angela went in, she thought she heard a sound in the hall outside. She didn't bother to go and check on what might have caused it, and pushed it from her mind; she had to be imagining things. There was no way that there were wolves OR dogs in here. That was just plain silly, she convinced herself. Those paw prints had to be from younger pups. If furs as young as she had been saved, it reasoned that there were at least a few dirty young cubs had been here playing at some point.

The lights came on as she stepped in like everywhere else so far, though in here, a couple of the lights seemed busted, seemingly by deliberate vandalism. There were a handful of broken tiles on the floor, looking like something of great weight had been dropped upon them. The bathroom was done up in blues and lavenders, and had a row of fifteen stalls with five urinals on the far side with ten sinks, and on the side she had come in there was a row of thirty shower heads with drains in the floors. In the wall on the left of her was a series of laundry hampers, washers, and dryers. The whole of the center of the bathroom was taken up with a series of long benches with footlockers and pegs for towels and hanging clothes. Down at the far end was just more lockers. Angela gave the bathroom a cursory examination; she had to. This was clearly a boys bathroom, a prohibited place. She might never get a chance to see the inside of one again. She stopped in front of one of the urinals. She had heard of them, knew what they were for and how they were used, but had never seen one before. It didn't look quite like she had pictured in her mind. On her way back up the row of stalls, she had an urge to pee, so she figured to take care of that.

Several minutes later, shaking the last of the moisture from her paws, she exited the bathroom into the Rec-room. As the lights came on, Angela noticed the room was enormous. It had to be at least a football field in length, possibly more, and about as wide. On the far side of that was a pair of double doors. They were shut, and Angela sighed unconsciously with relief. The floor here was tiled in aquamarine, with dozens of folding lounge chairs sprawled about the space. A few were broken, mangled by some malign force. The center of the tiled space was dominated by a half-size Olympic pool. The water was clear and blue, and there were a few drying puddles of water near one of the ladders. Was someone still here? It seemed that the pool had been used relatively recently. She hoped there was someone here. If there was, finding out what happened and getting out of here to New Dawn would be a lot easier.

Moving further into the room, she found the tiling ended abruptly, replaced by a soft white carpet. In this area there were a variety of differently sized tables, shelves filled with books, a trio of pool tables, and shelves with games. There was even a giant flat-screen TV on one wall with couches arranged around it like a mini theater. Just past that was another pair of double doors, one of which was propped open. She went to it, looked out the door both ways, then pushed the cinder block holding it open away as gently as she could. The door closed silently behind her as she retreated back into the room.

Angela could feel another hunger cramp coming on, and they had been slowly getting worse, and felt like they were coming closer together. She moved quickly along the gaming tables towards the far end where she could see a series of long tables with benches. There was enough seating here for at least three hundred people. She wondered again how many furs there had been, that so much space was needed. She didn't spend long contemplating however; she could see a serving counter, and behind that, a door with big, bold letters proclaiming it the 'Kitchen'. The door was propped open, just like that door into the rec-room had been, and one of the doors to the warehouse.

"Who would prop all these doors open, and why? Could there really be someone that lazy?" Angela asked. She didn't expect a response, and she didn't get one. Inside the kitchen was a mess. There were bags of heavily preserved food torn up on the floor, half eaten and scattered. There was an open garbage compactor, the trash barrel laying on the floor. The compacted, desiccated remains like wise scattered as the fresher stuff was. Whoever was last in here must have been incredibly hungry, just like her.

Looking around at the other features of the kitchen, Angela saw it was surprisingly normal looking but for the mess. It was long and narrow, with a line of microwaves, several commercial stove-tops, ovens, and long counters with sinks for food preparation. There was a trio of industrial dish-washing machines. Set every ten feet of what appeared to be a hundred foot kitchen were large thermal doors. Most doors had 'Freezer' written on it, but there were a few labeled 'refrigerator'.

Angela pulled open one of the refrigerators. Inside were boxes upon boxes of food. She dove into the first one she could get her claws into, and tore the flimsy cardboard to shreds. Inside was a large quantity of Hot Pockets.

"End of the world and they saved Hot Pockets?" Angela muttered incredulously to herself. After the moment of surprise passed, she shrugged, and grabbed several. She stored them in her shorts pockets, then shredded a couple of other boxes. In one, she found loaves of stale Wonder Bread. She hadn't realized that Wonder Bread had enough bread in it to go stale, but oh well. She shoved a slice in her mouth anyway. It was unpleasant and slightly crunchy, but it was food, and it came not a moment to soon. Her stomach was beginning to cramp again, and she didn't know if she would be able to handle it if was worse than the previous. Hating every second of it, she jammed another piece of bread into her maw. The way it crunched at first, the taste, and the texture made it unpalatable from beginning to end, even in her state of advanced hunger. The ache continued to grow as the fifth slice went down her throat, but it stopped growing as she neared completion of the whole loaf. She still felt so disturbingly hungry however.

Angela left the refrigerator still gagging slightly on the bread, scraping her tongue against her teeth and the roof of her mouth to get the awful pseudo-bread off of it. Thirsty, and still tasting wonder bread, she rushed over to the sink and turned on the faucet to drink water and wash the crumbs from her muzzle. Once sated, she went to a microwave and put two of the peculiar, but treasured finds on the rotating plate and put in a time she hoped would cook them properly. Angela slumped against the counter, and slid down onto her butt to wait for the ding that would announce her food. The smell of ham and cheese quickly began to emanate from the microwave, and she sniffed eagerly at the air, wishing the smell alone could fill her. Her mouth watered, drool actually dripping down her chin like a dog. She stood up to find something to wipe her muzzle with. What would her mother say if she could see her, thin strands of saliva dripping from the corners of her mouth like she was still a puppy or a pet? Laying her ears flat at the image of a would-be scolding, Angela wiped her muzzle on her sleeve, a napkin or other such item not being present. Finished, she perked her ears at the microwave as if she needed the sound to tell her when it was done, in spite of the timer ticking away much to slowly. She couldn't wait any longer. Fifteen seconds left and she popped the door open, scooped up her food and tossed in two more. She reset the time then sat right there on the floor and gingerly took a bite.

It was delicious! For a moment, Angela was in heaven as the imitation cheddar cheese oozed over her tongue. The taste of ham lit up all of her taste buds, and she nearly whimpered from the sensory overload. She took a second bite. It burned her tongue a bit, but she endured gladly, chewing aggressively and swallowing like it might be stolen right from her mouth if she wasn't fast enough. Acting her namesake, she wolfed it down so fast, there was still almost thirty seconds left on the microwave when she got up to claim the next batch. She waited impatiently another ten seconds before prematurely popping these ones out too. The first two had been fine, after all, and place the last two she had claimed in their place.

Angela took a little more time eating these ones. They tasted slightly less amazing now, but still almost unbearably good. Taking small bites, she still made quick work of the food in her hands. The bell on the microwave dinged just as she was about to take the last bite. She didn't feel so excruciatingly empty any more, and the ache in her stomach was now fading; but she still felt hungry. Angela got back up off of the floor and collected the food from the microwave. Having allowed these ones to heat properly, they were a bit hot, but the pads on her hands protected her well enough. She sat back down and blew gently on the food. After a moment, she took a bite; it was just the right temperature. They didn't taste particularly good anymore. She wasn't sure if it was just that she wasn't as hungry now, or if something was actually off with the Hot Pockets, but she didn't care. It was still food, and she was still hungry.

Angela carefully got back up off of the floor, licking melted cheese from the fur on her paw. She couldn't believe she still felt hungry. For as long as she could remember, she had eaten like a bird. It had even been a running joke with her parents that she was actually bird, and was adopted. For most of her life, a single helping of anything, even a half PB&J was almost always enough. To have eaten so much and still feel even a tiny bit hungry was a shock, and just a little unnerving to her.

Going back into the refrigerator, Angela searched for more food. Towards the back, she found a stock pile of pickles. She'd never been much of a pickle furson, but they looked delicious anyway. She picked up the jar and grabbed the lid. At first it wouldn't turn, so she gripped it more firmly and tried again. The whole jar shattered in her grip, sending pickles, pickle juice, and glass everywhere. Pain exploded in her paw a several shards of glass tore into her paw pad.

Bleeding badly, Angela retreated to the kitchen for a first aid kit. She located one quickly. One-handedly, she pulled it from its mount on the wall, and opened it. She grabbed an alcohol swab and began cleaning the cuts. Once the blood was out of the way, she saw the damage. 'Huh, it actually isn't that bad,' she thought. The cuts weren't small, but the bleeding had already ceased. The pain was fading as well. Wrapping her paw with medical tape, Angela packed the first aid kit back up and stuck it back on its mount. She turned around to go back to the refrigerator and get a little more food, and realized, she was hungrier than she was before she broke the jar. Still nowhere near as bad as it was before though. How could she have gotten noticeably hungrier in less than five minutes?

Not wiling to risk breaking another jar with her odd and unexplained strength, she opted for another gag inducing slice of wonder bread and three more Hot Pockets. She shook her head at the microwave as they heated. What had the furs socking this place been thinking? She still couldn't believe that of all the things they could've stored for twenty plus years and they went with Hot Pockets instead of rice and pasta. With whatever their line of reasoning was, she was both surprised and disappointed by the apparent lack of Twinkies.

.

* * * * * * * * *

Angela navigated her way out of the kitchen and back into the rec room. She meandered back towards the bathrooms, wanting to wash the crusting cheese from her muzzle and paws. She was also feeling a little icky. It was normal to shower only every few days, what with the time consuming process of drying fur; but the idea that she hadn't showered in twenty-three made her shudder.

Along the way, Angela stopped to look more closely at the various features of the rec-room. The more she examined, the more she noticed that the room was in disarray. Not terribly so, but most of the equipment had undergone some fairly intense use. There was some broken stuff, mostly chairs. Here and there were board games or cards scattered about the floor, and a few pots with fake plants had been over turned. A print of a famous painting had been torn slightly, and fallen to the ground, and there were more dents in the steel walls. Near where the formerly propped open door was, a spot of blood was visible, partly obscured by a chair with a cushion missing.

"What's with the senseless vandalism here?" She wondered aloud. Reaching the pool area, she crossed over to the bathrooms. Angela entered into the women's room this time. The lights flicked on, and she saw it was identical in all respects, but done in pink. There were also no urinals; instead, there were more stalls. Thirty in total, she noticed each of the stalls were smaller by about a third, barely enough room to sit down. She got into one and relieved herself, hitting her elbows and banging her tail against the wall hard enough to hurt. She was amazed to find she left a dent behind.

Angela moved to the other side of the bathroom and stripped down, leaving her clothes on the bench closest to the shower she was using. It was uncomfortable, using such an enormous shower all alone. Yet, she couldn't help but feel that it would've been quite embarrassing to have to use it with others. She turned on the water, setting it to a warmish setting, and stepped under the jets. The pressure was good, and she began to wash, using a soap provided by a dispenser on the wall.

Angela lost herself in thought. She hadn't come across much in the way of information at this point. She had learned basically nothing about what had happened. As she scrubbed the fur on her tail, she mentally recalled the map that was outside the Warehouse doors. It had shown a lab, and she wondered if she aught to go there next. There was also another large area, The bunker, and a few offices. She recalled one of Jacobs entries saying that most of the furs were living in the bunkers, and didn't want to stay there, and that was why everyone had moved out so fast.

Squeezing the last of the suds from her tail and turning the water off, Angela decided she would go and check out the bunkers first. Then she would make her way to the lab from there. She shook herself vigorously, throwing a good deal of water everywhere. Still wet, she went over to the laundry hampers and found a pile of towels and clothes that seemed to be clean. She went to a bench and sat, slowly rubbing as much of the remaining water from her fur as she could. Angela lounged on one of the benches for awhile afterwards, letting her fur finish drying in the warm air. She was feeling just a little sleepy after her dubiously nutritious feast. She felt herself fading slowly away into dream.

A short while later, Angela awoke. She was dry, and, she couldn't believe it; she was hungry again. Not super hungry, but enough to be surprised. She gathered her clothes and dressed, before making a beeline for the kitchen. Once there, she grabbed a few slices of Wonder bread and water. She tried not to gag, but couldn't help it as she jammed the pseudo-bread down her own throat. Then she left, not wanting to tarry over long in the kitchen any more. She strode to the doors of the rec room leading into the corridor where the entrance to the bunkers were located, and pushed through. She looked both ways down the corridor, before going down to the far end where a large, propped open steel door stood.

Upon reaching the door, Angela could see that it was a stairwell, with the steel door propped open. It was six inches thick at least, and had a large wheel lock on the inside. There were three cinder blocks holding this door open, and she was mildly surprised that was all it took to keep it like that. The lights flickered a little down at the bottom of the stair case. Leaving the door open behind her, she descended the stairs and into the bunker.

Down at the bottom of the stairs, there was a second door, identical to the first. It too was propped open with three cinder blocks. Through that door, there was a very short hall that turned, putting the room beyond parallel with where the recreation room was above. The short hall had no lights of its own, but a sickly green glow emanated from somewhere just out of sight. She walked down the short corridor and turned to find herself looking into what appeared to be an enormous room.

From where she was standing, Angela could only see the wall ahead of her, but that was enough. She wasn't really sure 'bunker' was the right word for where she was, but more adequate words failed her. It was certainly large, and concrete, but those two particular features were not the most prominent that she could see. The most attention grabbing feature of this room was the machines. From where she was standing, Angela was only able to see nine; a three by three stack, like the Hollywood Squares. They were set into the wall with a floor that extended about five feet out beyond them, with hand rail and spiral staircase leading to the ground floor where she stood now. There was a long table with benches in the middle ground, between her and those machines. They were the same as the one she had woken up in, and it was from these that the omnipresent green glow emanated.

Dreamlike, Angela moved further into the room. She gasped as, spread out before her going hundreds of yards in on direction and another hundred in the other, were the same as she saw coming in. There had to be room for over a thousand furs in here. Taking a moment to count, she saw that there were one hundred segments to this room, each identical to the one in front of her. She turned around to see if there were more behind her; but there was not. On the side of the room from which Angela had entered was a series of bunk-beds, each three beds high, and three of them abreast. Her mind boggled at the number of people this place had been built to hold; twelve hundred and forty people in all, private beds included. And that was just what she had seen so far. She had no idea if there were more in the labs or not.

The whole room gave Angel the shivers. The rows upon rows of those horrid looking machines, the creepy, sickly glow provided by the same, and the dinginess of the room as a whole set her on edge. She walked slowly, struck dumb by the sheer magnitude of what she was seeing. It was no wonder everyone had left in such a hurry. A few hundred feet down the room, she noticed something off. There was a great deal more light emanating from one of the top tiers, but she couldn't see properly from the ground floor.

Angela went over to the spiral staircase that connected each of the two floors above with the ground and began climbing. On the second tier, she took a moment to look over the railing at the room. She could only see a few sections of the room in either direction, as each segment was walled from the one on either side, and the bunk beds on the other side of the room. She continued up to the top, and when she got there, her muzzle fell open in surprise.

The first machine in the row had someone in it. Angela could see now how she had looked as she awoke. Contained within was a red panda, who appeared from what little of his body was visible to be no more than twenty. The tubes were attached at all the same points on him as she had felt on herself. She approached the tank, and touched the glass. Its surface was very warm to the touch. Everything inside appeared green, even though she knew that most of it was the monochromatic pallet of plastic, rubber, and steel. As she watched, a few small bubbles drifted lazily up from the drain at the bottom of the tank. They moved slowly, proving that the fluid contained within was far thicker than water. Angela looked at the furs face, and saw the mask that covered his muzzle. A thick tube extended from it into the ceiling of the tank, and she suppressed a shudder. The memory of that tube in her throat was unpleasant to think about. She watched him silently for several minutes, lost in thought.

Feeling a kinship with this individual, stranded in a tank in a strange and unfamiliar place, Angela pressed her muzzle to the glass. "Who are you? Why didn't you wake up with the others, or when I did?" She barely whispered her inquiries of the mute, sleeping figure within, yet her voice echoed dimly back to her over the sound of the mechanical humming. Pausing a moment, she thought, and continued, "Why did they leave you here?" She paused a moment more, then, "Why did they leave us here? Did they not have a way to manually wake us up?" She cursed the lack of foresight that resulted in this furs and her own belated wake up.

Anger flaring, Angela restrained the urge to punch something. But, as suddenly as the anger had come, it left, leaving her feel cold and empty inside. She felt abandoned, left behind by a world long gone; a ghost unmoored and adrift in a time and a place not her own. Angela turned her back to the unnamed figure in the tank. Leaning against it, heart heavy, she slid down to the floor, a solitary tear seeping into the fur at the corner of her eye. The emptiness of the enormous room around her filled her with a reflection of itself, and the crushing weight of the isolation filled her with despair.

Still sitting with her back against the tank, Angela made an effort to pull herself back together. The emotions demanded of her that she cave in, give up. And she wanted to. What did she have left to her? Her parents were gone, and so was her home, silent, cold and still for twenty years now. All of her friends, her enemies, teachers, the weird guy who lived three doors down from her... All just... gone. But she realized; she _did_have a reason to continue. Three of them. She may not have known Rodger and Leila particularly well, but they were here, somewhere. And Jacob. Her boyfriend. In her minds eye, she could feel his presence, almost feel his touch, and it warmed her. She could hear in her mind when he said 'I love you,' to her after their first kiss, those three whispered words setting her mind and heart on fire. She sighed longingly for Jacob, but let the desire to see him again fill her, and it helped her to regain her paws.

Turning and staring back into the tank at the young man contained within, Angela again cursed the others for not being there when she awoke, and yet again, because no one would be here when he awoke either. She stared contemplatively at him for a long time, wondering who he was, where he was from. Sighing deeply, Angela turned away from the tank and went back down to the bottom floor, and began moving towards the far end again. It made her feel bad, but she had to admit that she was glad to not be looking directly at him or the machine anymore. These things all made her feel just a tad queasy. It was highly uncomfortable having to face the fact that there was someone still here who was trapped in one of those things, and she couldn't help them. She didn't know how to open them. And she knew two highly qualified scientists who helped make the damn things had been saved from whatever apocalyptic tragedy had befallen the world. If they couldn't do it, then what hope did she?

Suddenly, a grotesque thought popped into Angela's head. What if this was deliberate? What if Rodger and Leila had been deliberately keeping her and that poor Panda in those tanks? What if there were others?

"No," Angela said out loud, the sound echoing. "I've met them. They are nice people, they wouldn't do that." She pushed the awful thought from her mind. She continued down the center of the room, walking around the occasional table, until she reached the far side. There was a wooden door, out of place in the concrete and steel structure around her. She reached out and grabbed the door handle and turned it. It was unlocked, and swung open silently.

The room was dark and cold, and unlike anywhere else, no lights came on at Angela's entrance. Peering into the dark around the door and sliding her paw around the edges, she located a light switch, which she flipped. The room lit up with soft and warm light, coming from tinted halogen lamps hanging from the ceiling. Inside, the room was done in greens and browns, with wooden wall paneling and a carpet that reminded one of grass. It was like the room had been designed specifically to keep furs calm. There was rows of chairs, spread out, but still largely grouped in the center. There were enough seats for what appeared to be about fifty individuals. At the far end of the room was a large, very solid looking oak desk. It was a little off to the side, and on the wall next to it, in the very center, was a large screen TV with a DVD player hooked up to it and on the desk.

Angela slowly walked down to the center of the room to where the desk and the DVD player where, a sense foreboding building uncomfortably in her gut. Here and there as she walked, she saw signs of aggression. There were a couple of broken chairs, gouges in the wood, claw marks in the carpet. There were several large bloodstains in the carpet by the foot of the desk. She put her paw to her muzzle. They were very large, and if any of them had come from one fur, that fur might not have lived... Underneath her fur, she paled. What had happened in this room that had so clearly incited others to violence? She wasn't sure, but she knew somehow, that feeling in her gut, it was because she was about to find out at long last what had happened to everyone.

The TV was off, but though she was hesitant, Angel turned it on. An arc of static electricity bounced from screen to paw as she pushed the on button, making her fur rise. The screen flickered, then came on, crystal clear. The screen was solid blue. She turned around to the desk, and saw the DVD player was also off, and so turned that on as well. The screen flashed black, then the sound of trees in the wind began to play, the black screen fading to a picture of the forest in a light summer breeze. In a slight daze, she walked back towards the first row of chairs and took a seat.

* * * * * * * * *

An hour later, Angela was stunned, horrified, and sobbing. She knew that she was about to learn of the end of the world when she saw it, but she hadn't expected it to be a full-blown documentary about the collapse of civilization. What was more, it was her mother and father who had documented everything.

At the beginning, the footage was all normal, happy, every day furs going about their business, interspersed with a few video clips of reports of drastically rising cancer rates around the world. By the middle, there were riots in the streets, military crackdowns enforcing extreme martial laws. News clips blaming this agency and that terrorist group for what was happening, and religious nut jobs screaming for repentance before it was too late. Here, the voices of her mother and father gave a calm, collected explanation of what was happening. About the furs that were being taken and genetically modified to live in the post-collapse. And at the end, oh god, the end. Her mother, sick with the disease their own company had created at the behest of the government they worked for, had weakly held up the camera. Her father stood next to her, also sick but not nearly as far advanced. The tumors all over her body were large, warping her once beautiful and familiar features. There were lesions where her gorgeous stormy gray fur had fallen out, oozing blood and puss; it was on display for all to see. An IV drip, a catheter, and several medical devices were attached to her in various places. Her voice was faint and pained above the beeping, but the camera microphone was good. The camera view shook a little in her unsteady grip. She took a deep, pained breath, stared into the camera, and said, "T-this is what we saved you from. All we wanted was t-to help, and this is what it got us. I-," She took a deep, pained, shuddering breath, and her paw, holding the camera began to droop. "I-I'm s-so s-sorry." A tear trickled from the corner of one eye, as the camera fell from her paw. Angela watched as her mother expired, right there on film. The howl of despair from her father was all that could be heard above the sound of a dozen pieces of medical equipment all registered the critical failure of whatever organ or system it was monitoring sounded off all at once. Only after several minutes did the screen go black as it was finally turned off by her bereaved father.

It took Angela a long time to process what she had just seen and heard. First thing on her mind was the awful way in which her parents, and everyone else on earth had died. A disease that was absurdly infectious, and damaged the DNA, causing the body to become riddled with cancers and degrade, almost to the point of rotting while still alive. The mortality rate was one-hundred percent, couldn't be cured with the limited resources available in the limited time those still around had left, and took one to two years to kill. Just looking at her mother, Angela had been able to identify four different cancers afflicting her, all in very advanced states. She had no trouble believing no one could survive that for long. She remembered a news article she had read the day before her birthday. It had been about a sudden spate of cancers. Over the course of a month, over ten times as many furs had been reported coming in and being diagnosed with cancers, a few of which had multiple types, and the number had been continuing to increase rapidly.

It took some time for Angela to fight off the horror of that revelation. Her own parents had taken on a military defense contract to create a disease? That really didn't sound like them. They had always been very adamant that violence was wrong, there was no defense for those who hurt others for any reason.

Angela's thoughts were interrupted as a clicking sound resounded through the silence that blanketed the room. She turned sharply in her seat, fur all standing on end. Through the door behind her came a large wolf with a solid black coat of fur and a lab jacket. To Angela, he looked familiar, but her grief addled mind took a moment to place who it was and why he looked off. The wolf closed the door behind himself and waited patiently.

"Rodger?" Angela asked softly, not entirely sure she believed what she was seeing.

"In the flesh," Rodger responded in his deep baritone, casually striding forward to hug Angela. "It's been a while," He smiled, genuine happiness shining through. "When I went into the labs and saw that your tank had finally activated, I was overjoyed."

Angela stood up and gave Rodger a hug. "Something is off... Wait, where are your glasses? I thought you were nearly blind without them?"

"Don't need them anymore." Angela gave him a weird look, and he chuckled lightly.

"What do you mean, you don't need them anymore?" She asked.

"Ah, well, that's a bit of a story, even if you have already just learned the first half of it."

Angela teared up. The surprise of Rodger appearing unexpectedly had pushed all the ungodly horrors she had just witnessed to the edges of her mind, and the reminder set it all back upon her. Ever the curious girl, however, the puzzlement still showed on her face. "H-how does t-the end of the w-world relate to you n-not needing g-g-glasses?" She choked out, trying to restrain the tears.

"Ah, well, it was classified, but now that it's over, I suppose there is no harm in telling..." Rodger fidgeted a little, putting a claw into his collar and tugging, like he was trying to loosen it. It was a nervous twitch when he felt under pressure. "Well," he started, "I suppose I should start at the beginning." Rodger lowered himself into one of the chairs, pulled another around to face him, and patted it. Angela accepted the invitation, and sat facing him.

"It started about two or three years ago. I mean, two or three years before it actually escaped and all this awfulness happened. Your parents were finished with the consolidation of the various tech firms they had purchased, and compiling them into a couple of mega-corporations, they found themselves in a bit of a pickle. Your mother was a fantastic entrepreneur, your father an equally amazing geneticist; but neither of them had realized how much it cost to run a single cutting edge bio-tech research facility, let alone the dozens world wide they found themselves managing. They found the combined income from their other two mega corps were not enough to wholly feed the rapacious appetite of science, and pursue our lofty goals. So they had to turn to others for grants, and-"

"How do you know all this?" Angela demanded, interrupting Rodger mid-sentence.

"Well, I'm not entirely sure you need to-" Again, Angela cut him off.

"Don't need to know? I'm not a child! I just learned that my parents are at least in part responsible for the deaths of six billion furs! The magnitude of that fact is so extreme I can hardly wrap my mind around it!" Angela put her paws to her head and shook it side to side, as if hoping the centrifugal force would squeeze it from her mind. "It's the only reason I'm still coherent! If you aren't gonna tell me_everything_, don't bother telling me anything!" There was an edge of hysteria to her voice, a combination of too many emotions battling for control that none could truly be felt. Everything that she had learned... If everything was true, she didn't know if she could believe it yet. She needed to know. It was the only way she would be able to make any sense of it.

After a moment of hesitation, Rodger sighed. He tried to grab Angela's paw to comfort her, but she was reluctant to comply. He didn't force it, but kept his own paws where she could reach if she need someone to hold onto. "Okay, that's fair. I'll tell you everything. I suppose it isn't any worse than what you already know anyway." Rodger took a moment to collect his thoughts. Looking away from his friends daughter, he began, "I knew your parents growing up. I know I don't look it, but I'm actually the same age as your father was. We graduated from college together, both of us in magnum cum-lade in our doctorates for the double majors of genetics and virology. Your mother graduated the same, but in business. We all had a plan, and we did shady thing to achieve that plan. Your father and I went into different start up firms that according to your mother were very up and coming, and we did some insider trading to get her into a position as major share holder at both companies early on."

"But that's illegal!" Angela yelled, unable to keep her shock to herself. She just couldn't believe it, even if it paled in comparison to the horrible truth she had learned from the video.

"Very. But we had a plan to cure the world of cancer, that most dangerous and yet elusive of all diseases and cures. We wanted to change the world with our vision, but couldn't as just regular Joe's. We needed our own company, and in fields like ours, with what our goals were, that just wasn't possible on a timescale that was worth considering. We would be so far behind the game that we would have expended a lifetimes' worth of effort just to come in last place, if we even placed at all."

Angela was shocked and angered by the admissions. How much of what had happened was because of pride, or greed, or some perverted lust for recognition? Had her parents and Rodger really colluded and engaged in illicit activities just to have a better chance at doing it first? That was shameful, even if they were attempting to do something good. Angela gave Rodger a look that was beyond contempt, and dripping disgust, but held her tongue.

"You have to understand, we were young, and among the brightest. And though it's not true, the special sometimes come to believe that the rules just don't apply to them. To us." Rodger looked wistful for a moment, then continued on. "We thought we could do it the 'right way', that we wouldn't get caught. And we didn't, even if it was still wrong." Rodger paused in his recollection for a breath. Angela was at a loss for words, and so remained mute. "Anyway, during this time, your mother also aggressively purchased small company after small company, mostly ones that showed a high probability of profit. Soon, the money was rolling in, and we were able to formally collapse all of our collective holdings into a trio of Mega-corporations. But as I said before, the cost of our real interests were far greater than we had ever anticipated. We got by, getting funding from private sectors, and we were relatively happy.

"You were born during this time. Your parents were joyous with your birth, and for a time, you were the center of the universe. Research slowed somewhat as your parents turned away from their life long dreams to raise you. I kept working, doing my best, and your father was there to help, even if it wasn't with the frequency or fervor of before.

"Now, about the time you were ten, your mother and father began to renew their pursuit of our former dream. They had built up a sizable fortune, and they began dumping all that money into research. But in spite of all that money, we hit a series of dead ends that threatened to kill our motivation and drove us near to bankruptcy. Then one of our other lines of research began producing solid, viable results. That is the artificial womb, within which all of us who are alive now were in. These new inventions promised to revolutionize everything about medicine and genetics. From the relatively mundane of treating cancer, and vastly improving recovery rates, to treating infertility, and cloning. It's applications are near to endless.

"This new invention drew government attention. They wanted to see if we could create super soldiers with genetic modification. At first, we had declined, but our deficits were quickly growing to beyond what we could manage. Finally, even though none of us wanted to do it, we were forced to accept. They would give us all the funding we needed, as long as we pursued the creation of said super soldiers. We agreed." Rodger stopped a moment, clearing his throat. "So what we did was put the two researches together. You know what cancer actually is, on the genetic level, right?"

"Yes. It's cells that keep reproducing when they aren't supposed to." Angela replied.

"A bit over simplified, but not incorrect. A cancer cell is one where a gene, called an oncogene, was activated. Sometimes it occurs naturally, sometimes it's caused by a chemical ingested or inhaled over long periods of time that damage the gene. Oncogenes are important early on, in embryonic development in all parts of the body, and thus the growth factor. Usually by the beginning of the third trimester, most oncogenes have deactivated, and by birth, they are all inert. Other things can of course cause cancer too, like a random mutation, but those are actually an exception, not a rule.

Anyway, we were experimenting with oncogenes, ways of activating them that wouldn't cause cancer. It was a daunting task, and it was because of the Artificial Womb that we were able to manage such delicacy. We were effectively able to do both avenues of research in tandem. A long story short, we discovered not only how to turn them off when they shouldn't be on, but how to turn them on and use them in such a way that we could benefit the individual."

"But how was that? What did you use to activate and deactivate the oncogenes?" Angela asked.

"We used a virus." Rodger replied. "We used a variety of viruses that were engineered to take chemical catalysts to specific oncogenes in a controlled fashion. Unfortunately, there were only a handful of viruses that fit the need, and they were all fairly dangerous in and of themselves for one reason or another. In order to save on costs, we went with one that had a reputation for it's minimal latency and low fatality rates. Unfortunately, it had a very high infectiousness. We used a strain of Influenza."

"Influenza? You mean the Flu virus?"

"Yes. We used the Flu virus. It was easy to grow new strains for each oncogene, as it mutated quickly. As I said, the trade off was its infectiousness, and that was ultimately what damned us all. In a lab in India, one of only two labs outside of the one your father and I worked at that participated in this particular project, someone dropped a tray of vials containing several different strains. The individual went through all the proper decontamination protocols, save for the most important one; he choose to go home, rather than reporting the accident, and quarantining himself for symptoms. A rather significant lapse, to say the least. He deserved the death that came to him, but none of the several others he infected that night did. Each strain was supposed to be treatable in this worse case scenario by taking a specific chemical. But the Flu virus mutates very quickly. By the time we found out what had happened, hundreds, maybe thousands, were infected, and the virus had mutated several new strains that were resistant, if not out-right immune to the programmed treatment."

Angela felt very overwhelmed. She still couldn't quite wrap her mind around her parents being a willing party to criminal activity, let alone the mind shattering horror that their research had unleashed upon furry kind. She felt really dizzy, the thoughts going around and around in her head. Rodger kindly sat quietly, letting her think.

Standing up suddenly, Angela said, "I need a drink," and headed for the door. Rodger got up, and rushed to the door ahead of her. He opened it to let Angela pass, but there was something in the doorway.

Standing waist high, a feral wolf blocked the door. It seemed surprised by the doors sudden opening, having had it's nose down at the crack, sniffing the scents of the two inside. Rodger quickly stepped back, putting one paw out to stop Angela, and a second went to his hip, drawing a gun. He drew it out fast, and gracefully, with the ease of years of practice. It was so fluid, Angela didn't even notice the gun as she bumped into him. But as fast as Rodgers reaction was, the wolfs was faster. It settled down onto its haunches, and launched itself at Rodger. Looking up at last, Angela saw the wolf, sailing through the air towards them, and screamed. She back-stepped quickly, and slipped in her haste, falling to the floor. Sprawled out and in a daze, she barely registered the gun coming up, until Rodger pulled the trigger.

BANG

The sound in the small room was deafening, and Angela closed her eyes and covered her ears. The acrid scent of spent gunpowder filled her sensitive sinuses, and her ears rang horribly. There was a cry of pain, but she could tell by the pitch it was from Rodger, not the wolf. A metallic clatter rang out as the gun fell from his paws. Then she heard a gurgle as Rodger's yell was cut off, the wolf having lunged forward and clamped its jaws around his throat. Angela opened her eyes, and looked on at the horror in front of her. Fear made her limbs feel leaden. She watched as the wolf wrenched, with finality, the life from Rodger. Angela fought to keep from vomiting.

Rodger struggled weakly for a moment, terror in his eyes, as he looked pleadingly at her, like she might offer some help that might save him, his life essence spurting across the carpet from his torn arteries. Then his paw fell limply to the floor, hardly real, and the light in his eyes left, leaving them glassy and vacant. Looking up, Angela saw the wolf lift its bloodstained muzzle from its kill, and look back at her. Behind it, she saw a second wolf appear in the door, drawn no doubt by the commotion of the kill.

Angela cried. The tears gushed from her face, torrents near blinding her, as she grieved for the first furson she had seen and spoken to since waking up. The wolf turned to face her, and advanced. She could hardly see for the streaming tears, but she watched as the wolf cautiously advanced. As soon as it was able, the second wolf entered into the room too, but it stayed behind the first. The soft sound of the wolves paws and the silence of the room as they took first one step, then the next, conflicted horribly with the savagery of a moment before. The lead wolf crept closer, moving barely an inch with each step, closing the already short distance between it and her. Angela felt paralyzed by the wolfs gaze. It felt like it bored into her soul. It's hackles were pulled back, and it was growling softly; almost to quietly to hear. It looked and sounded almost like it was laughing at her. Taunting her to do something, and mocking her for not. The fear didn't go away, but it felt like something in that fear changed.

A sudden click. The wolfs paw came down next to the gun Rodger had dropped. The wolfs head dipped, almost looking away from Angela.

Angela didn't even realize what she was doing. She lunged forward, right at the lead wolf. She dove her head and paws right under it, hands grabbing the icy cold metal that was her target. As her paws registered the weight, she felt jaws clamp down on the back of her neck, so low down it was almost her shoulders. She drew the gun to herself, and flung herself onto her back as fast and as hard as she could. The teeth tore loose. The pain that blossomed in her was excruciating, but Angela subconsciously blocked it out. She completed her roll, returning to her stomach, and rose onto her knees. In that all to short instant of time afforded her by her actions, she leveled the gun and fired it into the wolf still getting up from floor where she had rolled over it.

BANG

Angela's paw went numb as the weapon discharged, and the sound, though it was expected, was still so loud it caused her to drop it. The bullet struck the wolf in chest, and she could see, in vivid, horrifying detail, as its rib cage shattered under the impact of the little lead projectile. Blood and bits of meat, organs too messed up to identify, exploded out the other side. An ungodly howl, and the wolf fell over, already dead.

Shocked by the volume of viscera, she failed to remember the fact that there was another wolf in the room. It violently reminded her of that fact as it came down on all fours, now standing astride her. She laid on her side, but lightning quick she was on her back, paws coming up to meet the remaining wolfs descending jaws. Angela caught it around its neck, and squeezed. She squeezed as hard as her paw could, and she felt as muscle and sinew gave way to the vice grip. She heard it when the wolfs neck cracked, the bone breaking under her enhanced strength. It struggled to get free, but it couldn't. It's paws scraped up Angela's clothes, and cut into her skin through her fur, but she kept her grip until the last desperate wheeze of air forced its way out. It went limp, and Angela dropped it.

Angela picked the gun up and began traveling back the way she had come, cold reality begining seeping in. Her rational mind waking up as the numbness of brutal fight or flight instinct receded. She had cried through out, but had felt nothing. Now, she felt it as keenly as the slowly healing wounds in her neck.

Angela urgently moved through the bunker. She wanted to be away from those feral wolves, and the body of her parents apparent partner in crime. Emotions warred within her, but she knew she had to hold them in check for now. She could better examine them once she was certain she was safe. And she knew for sure now that she wasn't.

When she had looked down at those muddy paw-prints, and convinced herself that they were left by cubs, she had identified eleven separate sets of tracks. Having dealt with two, nine more were left. Angela reached the stairs out of the bunker, both upper and lower doors still propped open. She realized now, it had to have been Rodger who had propped all these doors open. No one else she knew, except Leila, were so efficiency minded that propping a few doors open to save a few seconds would have mattered. She kicked the cinder block away as hard as she could, hoping to relieve some of the emotional pressure she felt weighing down her conscious in a burst of frustration. Her paw ached from the impact, bruising flesh and cracking a bone. She winced as she set it to the floor, but she could still walk. The burning pain gave her something to focus on as she digested the monumental truths that had been laid upon her, and threatened to utterly overwhelm. But that was all she cared about. The cinder block itself though shattered, cracks streaking through it, the force to much for its cold edges and solid facade to absorb. Chunks scattered in all directions as the door closed behind its rapidly retreating pieces.

A whisper of noise, a whoosh of air, then a low growl. Entirely on auto pilot, Angela lifted the gun and she spun around. No thought, just-

BANG

The bullet went right through the cranial cavity of the wolf, mid jump down the stairs. The now lifeless corpse continued its trajectory down towards her. Angela completed her turn, but didn't stop, using the momentum of her spin to propel her out of the way, and against the wall. She slammed face first into the opposite wall and the corpse landed at the foot of the stairs where she had been standing just a split second ago with a thud, and a crunch of breaking bones. Blood and gray-matter splattered as nasal cavity collapsed inward to the opened skull on impact, ruining her clothes. She stared down at the dead animal, eyes glassy with her own shock at the smooth, brutal motions that brought about it's demise. It barely even registered to her. What did register to her was further movement at the periphery of her vision. Angela turned again.

Almost without a conscious effort, a paw came up, and found it suddenly filled with yelping, squirming wolf. It hadn't been there a second ago, and now it was. Between her momentary surprise and the struggling wolf, she lost her grip on it, and it fell heavily to the ground. It sprang up, and backed off, weary of her. Angela watched it. She felt like she was at the edge of blacking out, but from in that razor thin line of darkness at the edge of cognitive capability, instinct reached forward. And with it, her paw raised once again. This time, gun paw came up as the wolf lunged. Angela pistol whipped the wolf, knocking it off course. The cold steel item in her paw lending a great weight to the already heightened strength she possessed from clear, blatant genetic tinkering. She wondered if that was where this instinctive combat reflex had come from as the sound of skull collided with the wall, ruining another of her long distant ancestors kin. Her parents _had_flat out admitted to tinkering with everyone they saved, and were developing super soldiers at the same time. Angela briefly wondered what else her parents had tinkered with inside her body before they died.

Silence descended in the stairwell as a last whimpering sigh escaped the second dying wolf. Angela looked down at herself, at the blood, and the flecks of larger organic material splashed across her once beautiful clothes- and promptly vomited. The acrid stench of digestive juices, mixed with the liquifacted remains of more ham and cheese hot pockets and wonder bread than she would ever care to admit to having consumed spilled out and down her front.

She hiccuped, and began to get up. Then she noticed that her clothes were actually beginning to dissolve where her vomit had spilled, and it was burning the sensitive skin and fur around her muzzle. She hastily doffed her shirt, staring in amazement as whole swaths of fabric seemed to decay in mere moments. The fur on her lower lip fell out, the skin beginning to bleed. She grabbed the least contaminated article of clothing she could, and wiped her muzzle. A small amount of skin and fur sloughed away. It was very painful, but even as she watched, the skin re-knit, stubble already beginning to grow from it. The inside of her muzzle burned like crazy, though it wasn't nearly as bad.

Reaching back over her shoulder, Angela felt the back of her neck and shoulder where she had been bitten not even five minutes ago. She felt a series of scabs. They were painful, but they didn't feel like she would've expected a new wound to feel like. But no; they felt like they were a day old, maybe more. She focused her eyes back on her lip, and was still surprised to see that most of the damage was still there, but it looked like it too, was a day old already. Gingerly, she lifted her injured foot, and found that it hurt just as much as before. 'Not surprising,' She thought. Bones took significantly longer to heal, and there were still limitations to how fast the rest of her could heal even with the tinkering, she was sure.

Shifting her perceptions off of herself, Angela realized she had spent to much time in one spot. It wasn't safe here. She needed a place to hide, where she could process everything she had learned, and maybe find out what else had been changed in her while she had been in that tank.

Logically, Angela knew that her clothes had offered little protection from the wolves, and she didn't mind being in the nude in the slightest. But, in the present circumstances, it made her feel far more exposed. She had already felt like she was a high tension wire, and now this made her feel like she was being pulled even tighter. She limped at high speed up the stairs, and down the hall, to where she could see a set of doors that led into the lab. If there was going to be a safe place that wasn't her room all the way over on the other side of the facility, the lab would be it. At least she hoped. She traveled three quarters of the way down the hall with out incident. She began to even think she might make it to the lab without having to kill another wolf. Then the lab door opened.

There was no thought.

Just reaction.

The gun came up, and she pulled the trigger.

BANG.

Time seemed to slow down, and the sound of the bullet ripping the air as it was fired echoed throughout the hall.

Brown and white fur.

Dull gray lead.

A shriek, and red blossoming over a pristine white lab coat.

Angela barely had time to register what she had done when she was already on top of the poor doe.

"A-Angela..." Leila wheezed, shock and pain written all over her face. Leila moved her paw, as Angela came to a stunned, horrified stop above her. By some sheer luck, she had avoided hitting a lung or her heart. Or head. Maybe her brain had sprung back from the edge just enough to avoid an instantly fatal shot. Nevertheless, it was a serious wound. The bleeding was serious and if nothing else, she might die if that wasn't stopped. She dropped the gun on the laboratory floor.

"T-ta..." Leila began, but the trauma and the shock kept her from being able to speak loudly or clearly. "T-take... Take me t-to... T-to the Art-Artificial Womb..." Angela sobbed into Leila's lab coat, unhearingly, until a gentle paw grabbed her trembling ones. "Qu-quickly. T-take me t-to... T-the Artificial W-womb." The effort of speaking seemed to drain the woman, and she slumped over, releasing her paws. But Angela got the message. Angela put up a wall between her and her emotions. They wanted to break her down with their weight, but that wasn't helpful. She allowed whatever strength had been driving her to take over again, and it was not a moment to soon. As she bent over and lifted the large doe over her shoulder, she heard the unmistakable sound of several sets of paws running down the hall. She heard a loud growl behind her as something tried to lunge in through the door. Angela reached out and slammed the door shut behind her as hard as she could. A crack, and a yowl cut short as a wolf, head in the door, has it's neck crushed to a pulp by the heavy door.

Angela looked around. There at the back of the room was a trio of the artificial wombs. She did her best, navigating around the many desks and cubicles. In spite of her enhanced strength, Leila was still fairly heavy. And because of her bulk, she wasn't entirely able to avoid every corner, desk, or piece of equipment.

Angela could feel the profuse bleeding, it trickled down into her fur at a significant rate. It made keeping a hold of Leila more and more difficult as she moved towards the back of the lab. Finally making it to the artificial wombs, she realized she had no idea what to do. After a moments thought, she recalled that she had been naked, and in that seat thing. She set about stripping Leila, removing the stained lab jacket, then the equally ruined shirt below it. Next came the belt, then pants and underwear. Finished, Angela pulled Leila the last few steps to the machine and tried to pull her onto the seat. It took some effort, balancing the now passed out adult onto the small slip of a seat. She was larger, heavier, and entirely unresponsive. After several attempts, Angela finally succeeded.

It occurred to Angela that she didn't know how to get the thing started. She did a quick circuit of the things inner area, being careful not to bump any part of it or Leila, lest she dislodge the critically injured doe from her precarious perch. Not finding anything, she stepped out past the ring of glass. There was a computer with a rather obvious cable connecting to the Artificial Wombs, so she went towards it. Two steps out of the inner area, she heard the glass tank slide up out of the floor and seal Leila inside.

Reaching the desk, Angela saw the computer was on, and there was a diagram on the screen. It showed the three machines, two empty and lit green, the third had an outline of a fur in it, and was flashing. Underneath all three was a power icon, and so she located the mouse, hidden under a few layers of papers, and clicked it.

The Artificial Womb in question sprang to life. The sound of machinery, omnipresent, grew far louder. From a few concealed panels in the ceiling of it, a trio of three-pronged mechanical hands descended. Each took up one of the many needle tipped tubes and inserted it into Leila's body with cold mechanical precision. As this was going on, the helmet lowered down onto her head. The mechanical hands latched it into place, then threaded the long tube that came with it down into her throat. Lastly, they attached the needled tubes to the back of her neck, and over her heart. Task completed, they retreated back from whence they came. A sound came from the console in front of her and she looked down. A read out and a number of options were arrayed on the screen.

Her name, species, age, height and weight. Social security number, complete medical history were all displayed. Below that was a diagnosis. It was listed as 'Minor exsanguination and organ failure; Kidney. Cause; Trauma. Condition: Critical. Action recommended: Organ reconstruction. Below that, where the options were arrayed, was a corresponding option. It blinked and flashed red from between the options 'Modify Genome, and 'Suspend Animation'. As curious as she suddenly was, a life hung in the balance, and she was at fault. She moused over the flashing graphic and clicked.

The gentle hum of the Artificial Womb had subsided, but picked up again as it engaged. A loud chugging sound, as a pump working up pressure came from it. A moment later, a deluge of translucent green sludge gushed from the ceiling of the tank, emanating from a pair of small nozzles she had never noticed, even in her inspection of her own tank. It barely took ten seconds for the tank to fill, so high was the pressure. It was a wonder to Angela how those little things could put out what had to be over a hundred gallons of that thick, viscous fluid so fast. Angela watched as blood mixed into the fluid, thin streaks of off color spreading outward as the tank finished filling. Then the streaks began to pull downward. A faint sucking sound came to her, like the one from her own tank, or the one that had that panda in it. The dark streaks of blood were pulled inexorably downward by the suction.

In front of Angela, the consoles screen changed. It now had lines and graphs covering it, readouts of Leila's heart, pulse, and breath rate. Body temp, blood oxygen levels, an EKG, and EEG all crowded the small display. There was other information laid out for her consumption too, but she didn't understand most of it, and she paid it no attention. It was all abbreviations and medical jargon that was well above her lack of medical training. She wouldn't have even known what an ECG or EEG was had she not been there to see them done when her uncle was in the hospital following his heart attack back when she was eleven.

It was a little harder to make out Leila now. The flowing, semi-gelatinous, green substance obscured her vision of the interior, absorbing and bending the light that penetrated the tank. Nevertheless, Angela could still see inside. The mechanical hands had descended from their ceiling compartments a second time, and each had grasped in it's digits another needle tipped tube. These ones were smaller, and were barely visible to her, but she watched as each was swiftly attached to the area immediately around the injury. Of the three hands, two returned to the ceiling. The third seemed poised for action, tips slightly spread.

A minute went by, and nothing changed. Angela felt her attention riveted to the tank, and to Leila. She watched. A scratching sound, and a whine from way off on the other side of the lab where a wolf was pawing at the heavy door. But still she watched, waiting. Almost as if at some unknown signal, the tips of the mechanical hand pushed together, then plunged messily into the gaping wound in Leila's side. A second later, it came out, and it held a small dark object. The bullet. The little piece of lead she had fired from the gun was now clasped in it's cold metal fingers. It retracted into the ceiling, leaving the tank filled only with the injured doe, and dark red trails through the viscous green fluid that surrounded her.

Angela realized she was shaking. As she moved her paw away from the mouse, she fell back into the chair she had belatedly realized was just inches behind her the whole time, feeling waves of mixed emotions wash over her. Her abdomen and back were cramping from being clenched, arms and legs shivering from sudden adrenaline withdrawal. Muscles she didn't know she had twitched with exhaustion and over-use. Her stomach was empty; she could feel that she was running on fumes, and the hunger pains were already beginning. Worst of all, now with the moment of quiet that had come so abruptly, the instincts that had taken her over so fully receded. Now her thoughts had resurfaced, loud and clear. She had watched someone she knew get killed by an animal. She had killed several animals. She had grievously injured an innocent person. Shock set in, and Angela stared into space, to overwhelmed by the events of the last fifteen minutes to process her feelings properly. Angela laid her head back, and slipped instantly into unconsciousness.

* * * * * * * * *

Angela awoke the next day to the same gentle hum of machinery as she had the previous, the noise from the Artificial Womb with Leila in it having died down some. She had slid down in the chair considerably, and her tail was pinched uncomfortably underneath her butt. She had a headache, and it made her groggy. The shaking and the muscle cramps had all stopped. The injuries to her shoulder had completely healed over, like nothing had ever happened. She could feel the smooth skin beneath thick, fully grown fur. Her ankle no longer hurt, though it was just the slightest bit sore. But this wasn't had awakened Angela. What had awoken her was an intense hunger pain. It stabbed into her guts, like a knife thrust by some malevolent force.

Angela slid out of the chair, and hunched over the desk, one paw supporting herself, while the other she placed over her stomach, as if she could protect herself from it that way. As it passed, she knelt down on the floor, and panted, exhausted and once again trembling. She needed food, and she knew it. But she didn't want to go out and face the wolves that she knew had to still be out there, waiting for her to exit the lab. She instead hung her hope on Rodger and Leila having food of some kind here in the lab. She may not have known them well, but they were married to their work. They had to have food near by so as not to detract from it over much.

Putting her nose up, Angela took a deep sniff of the air. It was more a wistful hope, than anything else. Her nose had never been particularly sensitive. At first she couldn't really smell much other than the iron tang of spilled blood and the cordite smell of broken stone and spent gun powder. 'But wait,' she thought, sniffing at the air some more. 'That happened hours ago! How am I still able to smell that?!' She sniffed at the air some more. Beneath the smells of blood and gunpowder was the smell of musk and body odor. She took another deep breath, wet black nose flaring rapidly. She was intrigued by the new world of scent that had been unknowingly opened up to her. How had she not noticed the new acuity of her nose? The more she concentrated, the more she could smell. It was dizzying to her, the myriad smells that were beginning to trickle though the more potent, cloying ones. A whiff of perfume, a touch of oil, the smell of...

In an instant, Angela was out of her seat and two rows of cubicles down the long room before she consciously registered the scent of cold cooked chicken and broccoli. The strong scent of garlic and oregano suddenly the only things she could smell. Drool leaked from muzzle as she tracked down the source of the amazing aroma. There, she could see it, a thin sliver of plate piled high with mouth watering pasta, in a small gap in the cubicle just ahead.

Angela stopped before the plate of food, and beheld it's gluttonous proportions. A mound of pasta, two whole chicken breasts with only a couple bites taken from it, vivid, green broccoli drenched in a buttery, garlicky Parmesan cheese sauce. Her knees felt weak as her stomach growled angrily, a wracking hunger pain coming on. She grabbed the chicken in her paws and tore into it. Butter and congealed fat soaked into the fur of her muzzle and paws. Even cold, it was divine to her desperate hunger. It was only after pausing in her consideration of how best to eat the mountain of pasta before her that she noticed the untouched fork and knife mere inches from her. Or the seat in the cubicle that she could sit on while she ate. Coming to her senses after partially sating her wild hunger, she took a seat and contemplated the little space around her. She reclined back, and daintily balanced the plate on her lap. She began to eat the pasta in a fashion much at odds with the savagery of her initial consumption.

Looking around the space, she found it belonged to Leila. A picture on the wall showed her in her graduation attire, holding a diploma, and surrounded by smiling family. Another picture, just of her mother and father, and few individual photos of her siblings. A day planner was closed and resting on the desk at which she sat, with a set of keys and a key card. Angela looked at the key card, and remembered; there was a cabinet in her room that needed one to open. She put them in her pocket for safe keeping. One way or another, even if it wasn't now, she was going to go to that cupboard and open it.

Taking another bite of one of the chicken breasts on the plate, Angela considered her options. There weren't many that she could see. The first was the least appealing, but quickest to get answers; just going out there, and fighting her way through the remaining wolves. The second was waiting for Leila, but she had no idea how long she would have to wait for her to be fully healed. There was still no guarantee that Leila would know how or be able to make things better. A third option was simply to flee; she knew where the exits were, thanks to that wall map.

Angela twirled the fork, getting as much pasta onto is as possible, and stuffed it hungrily into her muzzle. She chewed thoughtfully, going back through the events of the hours before. The wolves, while clearly dangerous, weren't as big a threat as she had thought. They had killed Rodger. But she had dealt with them with relative ease. She was aware now that her strength had been augmented, and maybe her sense of smell. There was also that frighting fighting instinct that had taken her over as she had fought with the wolves and fled for the lab... In her minds eye, she was still in that room, with the wolf on top of her as she strangled the life from its body. The way the flesh moved, the feel of muscles torn apart under the unnatural strength of her paws, the hard bone beneath and the sensation of bone cracking... She shuddered, a tear of guilt tracing its way down her fur.

She still couldn't believe that she had done that, that she had taken the lives of others, even if they were just animals. And she had come so close to taking the life of Leila, and that thought was far more tortuous. Angela allowed the guilt and the grief she felt to well up and pass over her. It hurt, but it seemed she was toughening up. Though the tears flowed, it wasn't crippling. The boundaries of her emotional state had already been pushed to breaking repeatedly. She continued to eat, trying to sate the hunger that burned within her as she let her emotions out. She finished it in silence, and set the plate down. She was still hungry, but only a little.

Getting up, Angela took a couple of deep breaths and stretched. She was sore all over, especially in her arms, and it felt good to move around a little bit. Having slept in a chair after her desperate exertions had left her feeling stiff, and left some of her muscles cramping.

Angela walked about the the cubicles for a few minutes, exploring, but there was very little of interest here. There were cabinets with card swipes, which she used on a few, but most contained files that were incomprehensible gibberish to her. There were also some interesting equipment here. She inspected a large piece of equipment she was pretty sure was an electron microscope, but she didn't know how to use it, so she left it alone. There were freezers lining one side of the room; glass fronted affairs filled with vials and specimens of all sorts. Near by was a machine that was circular, and had several vials in it and it was spinning at very high speeds. She could hear it's quiet whirring from several feet away.

Angela slowly navigated back to the Artificial Wombs, coming to stand in front of Leila. She placed a paw on it's surface and whispered an apology to her for hurting her. "I'm Sorry, Leila," she said, putting her paw to the tank. She felt the warmth coming off of it. Staring, she could see all the extra little tubes that were attached around the site of the trauma she had inflicted. It looked like one of them was circulating blood around the ruined organ. The wound was still open, held that way by a large stent. The skin and fur had grown back right up to the edges of it. Through the half inch gap in her flesh made by the stent, Angela could see Leila's kidney. It looked like it was still pretty bad; a hole in it maybe half the size of the stent. Still smaller than the bullet, though, so it was healing, and fast. The kidney throbbed halfheartedly, just noticeable in the tiny gap.

Going back over to the desk at which she had sat at to get the Artificial Womb started, she saw there was blood on the chair. Her own blood. It was dried, and there wasn't a lot of it, but it seemed obvious to her that it was hers. She looked at it, entranced. Somehow it didn't feel real to her. After a moment, she shrugged, and sat down, promptly forgetting its presence. She looked at the screen. Not much had changed. It showed only Leila's information, the same as it was listed when it first appeared on there. The sole difference being that where it had formerly said 'Critical', it now said 'serious', and the diagram of the Artificial womb was orange, not red. She wanted to click around on the computer, see if there was anything she could discover since it was not locked and password protected. More worried that she might mess something up and cause Leila more harm because she didn't know what she was doing, she left it alone.

Assured that Leila would be okay, Angela stared into space for a few minutes, gathering her courage for the next thing she knew she had to do: She had to return to her room and find out what was in that cabinet. She didn't know why, but she felt so oddly compelled to go and see what was in it. Even if it was only stuff she had already learned about herself, she needed to know. 'Maybe it was just the first mystery that had promised an easy solution' she thought to herself.

Then she laughed out loud. "Yeah, and look at how that turned out," Angela said to herself. "The quest for knowledge is always dangerous." She looked down at her bare chest, her modesty compromised by her apparently toxicly acidic digestive juice, and the specks of blood and matter in her bared fur. Disgustedly, she picked what seemed to be dried feral wolf flesh from a patch of fur on her side and threw it down on the ground. She felt so gross. There were a number of sinks in the lab, and so Angela, using almost an entire roll of paper towels, cleaned her fur. It was a long process. Feeling a little refreshed, she looked towards where she knew where the door was. She knew it was time, and so she went.

Near the door, Angela came to an abrupt stop. She hadn't really noticed the smell since she woke up, due to long exposure, but the smell of blood was still strong here. She took another step forward, and turned around the last cubical. Her paw came down and kicked something heavy, solid, and squishy. Looking down, she saw the severed head of a wolf rolling away from her now blood-splattered paw. She shuddered as it came to a rest a few feet away, where it's haphazard path lead it to a spot near the discarded gun. The head stared up at her, accusingly, it's hackles raised in a rictus induced snarl. It felt like its empty, glassy eyes were burning into her soul. Two feet behind it was the closed door, with a piece of a vertebrae wedged in the door, gore covering frame and the walls in a wide area.

Angela cringed at the obscene vision before her, knowing that she had caused it by her actions. She felt the horror, and the guilt keenly as a knife blade. It stabbed into her, pushing her back around the corner where she could no longer see and hunched down on her paws. The scene felt like it was burned into her retinas; even with her eyes closed, she could see it plain as day. It left her feeling like ice water had been poured directly into her stomach, making it clench uncomfortably. She felt the awful feeling in the back of her throat that heralded an impending upheaval of her stomach contents. But it never came, and after several moments of near gagging, it receded.

Angela caught her breath, and stood up. She had already decided what she was going to do, and she was going to follow through with it, come what may. Turning the corner again, she stared the wolf in the eyes. "I made a choice. And it was me, not you." It didn't really make her feel any better, but she knew that if she hadn't killed it, it would've killed her. She stooped over the head, trying her best to not touch it to pick up the discarded gun. She didn't like the thing, it made her feel ill, knowing how easily it had made a split-second reaction become a near fatal one for an innocent furson. It troubled her deeply. But she needed every advantage she could get, even if she didn't want it. And, she promised herself, she would discard it as soon as she could.

Moving to the door in a crouch, Angela tried to make as little noise as she could. She placed her ear to the door, and listened. There was no sound to be heard on the other side, and she sighed in relief. Standing back up, she wished that there was a window in this door, so she could double check with her eyes before opening. Keeping the gun hoisted in front of her just above waist level and pointed down, she used her other paw to nudge open the door cautiously.

It moved slowly, but something on the other side was resisting Angela's efforts, albeit ineffectually. As the door opened further, red streaks appeared under her; semi-dried blood squeegeeing across the floor as the rubber strip at the bottom scraped along the polished concrete. She stepped through the gap she had opened for herself quietly, then eased the door shut behind her. The last thing Angela wanted was for a wolf or something to get inside and be waiting when Leila was free of the Artificial Womb.

Once the door was closed, she saw what had caused the added resistance to the door: it was the decapitated body of the wolf whose head was now staring into space just inside the lab. Mostly congealed blood still oozed from the enormous, ragged, gaping wound crushed into its body by the heavy door slamming shut upon it. Again, Angela felt herself gag, but she resisted, and forced her stomach back into submission. If she wanted to avoid more of this, she would have to get to her room quickly, then she would have to leave. She didn't know where New Dawn was, but she figured it wasn't far if Jacob had been able to come on a near daily basis, and Leila and Rodger must have been there and back. Worst case scenario, she would have to back track, and wait for Leila to heal. Something she knew she should probably do anyway. She wanted to be sure that she was okay.

Going back into a pseudo-crouch, Angela padded down the hall between the rec-room and the lab. Going in both directions down this hall and towards the bunker, there were the bloody paw prints of the wolves, and her own. She followed them back to the intersection, where she peaked around the corner in both directions. Seeing no sign of the wolves, she stepped back, then looked at the doors to the warehouse. They were closed, as she had left them. It occurred to her then, that she had trapped the wolves in here with her, Rodger, and Leila, and it might have been a reason for their aggression; the wolves might have followed a prey animal in here, and then been trapped inside. With no way to escape, scared and growing hungry, they attacked the only available food source and apparent danger. Angela began looking for the cinder block that had been used to hold the door open. Maybe if she propped it, they would all seek escape. It took her a moment to recall that she had hurled it down the corridor, testing her new strength. She cursed herself and her impulsiveness.

Peaking back around the corner in both directions first, Angela stepped around the corner and continued her way towards the rooms where she had awoken. She stopped briefly in front of the graffiti on the way. She hadn't really appreciated the artistic flair, or the effort that had been put into it when she had first passed it. But now that she had seen and done awful things, after all that she had learned about the state of the world in which she now found herself... The simple lines, pleasant colors and graceful curves soothed her agitated mind. She touched it, and felt the rough strokes of a paintbrush beneath the pads of her fingers. She sighed, and turned away from it.

At the next intersection, Angela again peered cautiously around the corner. Down at the far end, a solitary wolf lay on the floor. It was awake, and it had it's head cocked slightly to one side, listening. It caught sight of Angela, but it didn't show any signs of aggression. Instead, it looked forlorn. Something in its eyes, in its expression, said everything. She moved past the wolf, leaving it alone. She knew this one wasn't a threat. Another forty feet, and she was back at the hall where her own room had been. The hall was empty, and she hurried down to her door. It opened automatically at her approach, and closed protectively behind her. She went over to the desk chair and sat down, trying to relax. She felt high-strung. She placed the gun she was still holding down on the desk as far away as she could reach without getting up and gulped down large breaths.

After a few minutes, Angela could feel the strain begin to melt away at last, the adrenaline leaving her body. She looked at the familiar things about her, and spied the iPad she had left here before her journey through the facility. She picked it up and looked at the date: 5:50Am, June 29th, 2049. She could hardly believe that she had been here, awake, for two whole days. It bothered her. She wanted out, and she would. But she had one thing she wanted to do first. It might have been dumb, at this point, but she couldn't just let it go. It was almost certainly pointless. But she just had to know what was in the key card locked cupboard.

Setting down the iPad, and casting a quick glance at the preserved lilac, Angela got up, and walked into the other room. The Artificial Womb stood before her as she entered, looking less creepy, but still unpleasant to her eyes. She turned to the counter, and saw the little Dixie cup filled with water. 'Such foresight' she thought, picking the it up and drinking it in one shot. She set it down, then walked forward to the last cupboard. She knelt down, took the keys from her pocket, and slid it through the reader. A green light flashed and a beep, followed by the soft click of a latch sliding free. She opened it and inside was a single sheet of paper. At the top, her name and birth date. Below that, it had two columns. The printing was minuscule, chock full of both numbers and letters. There were segments that looked like DNA sequences, but she couldn't make heads or tails of it. It frustrated her. All that effort for nothing! She threw the paper onto the ground in disgust. 'Why did I even think that there was a good reason to open this cupboard of all cupboards?' she wondered. 'I could've been out of here yesterday if I had just left once I had eaten!'

Angela stormed back into her room, and flopped down on the bed. She laid there for some time before she felt the stress from the lack of useful information, and foolish waste of time leave her. 'Still,' she thought, as she drifted off to sleep, 'I did learn a few things. I'm strong, my nose and eyes seem better than they used to be. I know what happened, and I think I might be able to move on.'

* * * * * * * * *

Angela awoke. She was a little chilly, laying atop the blankets of her bed, and without a top. The facility wasn't cold, but it was still cooler than her relatively short fur was able to keep her totally comfortable in. At least, not when she had no top on. She sat up, swinging her paws over the edge of the bed and looked around the room, knowing that she would not return to this place again. It was time to go.

Feeling a little hungry, Angela went to her desk, where she had laid out her sundress. It might not be the appropriate attire for a post apocalyptic world, but she loved that dress. It made her feel good, and she knew that Jacob liked it too. She took off the bloodied shorts and removed her panties, and looked for a fresh pair among the belongings left to her. She put them on and pulled the dress over herself. The fabric was as clean and crisp as she remembered it being when she last wore it twenty-three years ago. It felt so smooth over her fur. Turning to the counter, she grabbed her schoolbag, so out of place in a world where public school was no longer a thing. She removed from it the algebra and the social studies book which were still inside it. The papers, mostly completed homework assignments and the like, she also removed.

Carefully, Angela opened all the remaining pockets of her pack, and upturned it. A pair of headphones, her phone, a scattering of pens, pencils, and other assorted school supplies fell out. She shook it, ensuring that it was empty and began packing. She was able to fold four complete sets of clothes into the main compartment. She zipped that up, before looking through all the things she had here, and selected just a few to take with her. She was starting a new life, and, though it troubled her, she wanted to start fresh, no attachments to drag her down over the life she could've had if things hadn't gone so horribly wrong. Among the few things, she took the iPad, her diary, and the preserved lilac. After she had packed those things away, she eyed the gun. It was a dangerous thing, but so was she, with or without it. She hoisted the bag onto her shoulder and turned to the door.

Outside her door, the lights were still on, and she could see as she exited the room one of the wolves. It fled upon seeing her, clearly in no mood to fight. She followed after it, though it was not for the purpose of pursuing. She turned right at the corner, and followed the long corridor down, past the graffiti, and the other rooms, and to the intersection of the warehouse and where the labs were.

Looking to the left, she could see the body of the wolf, the carnage she had wrought. She looked away quickly, the pain of what she had done, even in self-defense, was a big pill to swallow. She had always thought of herself as a peaceful fur, but clearly, she had quite a survival instinct.

Angela continued forward. She didn't want to be here anymore. The corridor continued a great distance. She came upon the ruins of the cinder block she had thrown, and continued past that too. A short way after, there was a right hand turn in the corridor, and a pair of large double doors. She passed through, to find herself in what felt more like an office building than some large underground compound. It was narrower than the corridor, though still spacious enough to accommodate multiple furs. Along both walls, every twenty feet or so, was a wooden door with a glass window and name tag. A few names she recognized, as she walked by, most notably Rodger and Leila. She felt a pang of sadness in her heart upon seeing, Rodger's. He was dead, killed by a feral wolf, and she mourned him. There were a few branches off the main hall, but she didn't stop to investigate beyond what she could see as she walked by: A break room, a copy room, but most she couldn't see into as those doors rarely had windows in them.

Finally, down at the far end of the main hall, was another set of double doors. On the other side was a just a door into a stairwell and an elevator. Angela considered a moment, than pushed through the door to the stairwell, and began climbing. The stairs were lit by a bare bulb, one per flight, and they spiraled around the walls of the shaft, the space in the middle unoccupied. After climbing so many stairs she had lost count, she leaned over the banister to look up and down. The floor below her was just a speck. Up above her, she saw her journey was coming to an end. Rushing up the last dozen flights of stairs in her eagerness to be gone from the dingy space, she burst out onto a landing with another door.

Angela stopped to rest her tired legs, leaning against the door and examining the room. It was a very modern looking lobby. It was long, and relatively narrow, just enough space a handful for furs to wait around in. One wall was dominated by an enormous fish tank. It's glass was opaque with the growth of two decades of algae. At one point, it probably housed dozens of exotic species of fish, and would've been the envy of all but the greatest enthusiasts and zoos. She doubted any fish could still be alive inside. On the the other side of the room was a long white leather couch against the wall, and a series of stylish chairs arranged around a TV. It looked like it had burnt out, an image was seared into the screen. Straight ahead of her though, and the most important feature to her, were the doors. It was a double glass door, with foyer. She could see straight through them and to the outside.

Angela exited the building and found herself on a red brick pathway on a grassy hill. It curved around the building, and to a parking lot. Looking behind her, she saw the building was just a single story thing built into the side of the hill. The parking lot was high up still, and she couldn't see the beyond the lip. She walked down to where the asphalt began, listening to the drone of the crickets.

Angela continued to the far side of the lot, where she found a road leading down the hill some, before turning away and out of sight. She followed it, walking along the curb, testing her balance. The hill sheared away sharply from the road, barely enough incline and enough grass to not be a cliff. She was surprised to find she didn't feel vertigo, since she had never been particularly comfortable with heights. She took it as just another sign of how her short time since waking up had toughened her. Carefully, she stepped, placing one paw in front of the other, until she went around the bend in the road. There before her was a tunnel. It wasn't long, maybe a hundred feet through the side of the hill. She could see the predawn glow of the horizon through it. Hopping down off the curb, Angela jogged through the tunnel.

On the other side was a truly majestic vista. Sweeping outward from the still downward sloping road were fields of dew soaked grass, grown long and wild. It rippled in a light breeze, still cool in the predawn hours, but it carried with it the promise of a hot day ahead. In the distance, barely made out in the dim light, she spied mountains. Nearer to her and not far below the level of the road was a scattering of trees. Down at the foot of the road, where it ran along the foot of the hill far off into the distance, she saw a figure moving. She couldn't really make out any identifying features of the figure, other than that it was medium height and carrying a backpack. However, something in the figures movement put her at ease; it felt familiar somehow. Trusting in her new survival instinct, Angela continued down the road, keeping an eye on the figure.

After a few moments of walking towards each other, the other figure stopped as they caught sight of her. The distance between them was about half of what it was when Angela had first seen him, and now, with dawn having come two minutes closer, they could see each other. Angela stood rooted to the spot, many emotions fighting for control of her body. Soft on the breeze and the distance between them, a voice carried over to her.

"Angela..."

Angela shivered, and the spell was broken. She moved, wanting to be as near to the owner of the voice as she could possibly get. Cutting across the grass and down the slope she ran, as Jacob did the same, going up. Beneath a willow with wide spread branches they met, coming together like magnets, bumping noses harshly.

"Ah, my nose!"

"Ow!" Angela and Jacob exclaimed simultaneously.

"That wasn't how I imagined that would go," Jacob said sheepishly, rubbing his nose and pulling away from Angela. Likewise, she stepped back, turning away momentarily to soothe her sore nose. Jacob put a paw on her shoulder and spun her back to face him, and placed a gentle, soothing lick to her nose. The insides of Angela's ears burned bright red in response, and she returned the favor. Jacob grabbed Angela's paw and moved over to the tree trunk. Taking a seat, he let out a soft groan. "I've been walking for over an hour and a half. I need a break." He pulled her down into his arms and embraced her. They stared into each others eyes for a moment, content to just finally be together again.

"I've missed you," They said together. They burst out giggling; but something suddenly felt different. Something like a static charge ran through her, through them both. Jacob lifted a paw and caressed the side of her muzzle, and up her cheek. He slid it down her neck, and over her collar bone and shoulder, making her shiver. She reflexively pushed herself closer to him, and suddenly their muzzles were pressed together in a furiously passionate kiss.

After several minutes, they finally broke apart, and Angela nestled comfortably into Jacobs side. They looked out over the field above which they were perched. "I love you, Jacob," Angela sighed.

"I love you too, Angela," Jacob responded quietly, putting a paw around her shoulders and puling her as tight to him as he could. He rubbed her side as they sat there. Slowly, the sun rose over the horizon, revealing a small town off in the distance. "Welcome to a New Dawn, Angela," Jacob whispered into her ear, placing a tender kiss on her brow.