FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Screaming. Someone was screaming. I gazed down at the stark, crimson splash of blood as it soaked my hands. I realised it was me who was screaming, screaming in sheer panic and fear.

I knelt in the soaking wet grasses of that dense woodland, as disbelief spread through me like a cold wind. I stared down at the ruined, bloodied body that was Broderic's corpse. His wide, alien amber eyes stared up into nothingness, his smile was curled and twisted, it was the same smile he used to use whenever we faced one another. His throat was caved in, blood bubbled and pooled out beneath him, his hair slick with the rain and blood, as he lay there motionless, dead to the world.

I whimpered and sobbed uncontrollably as I held my head in my blood-soaked hands and let the grief and realisation of what I had done crush me from all sides. The sobbing racked me and made me double over as the sheer sadness swelled inside me, hollowed me out, made me feel emptier inside than I had ever endured before then. The noise was soon quieted when a hiss of reptilian tongue snapped me free from my depression. The blood and gore and Broderic's body all faded and disappeared as I reeled and stared around into the nothingness all around me. Fear thrilled through me as the sound of rustling broke out all around me.

I was suddenly surrounded on all sides as thousands of large, fanged, squeaking rats spilled into the grasses and swamped me. I tried to stand, but staggered and spilled backwards, panicking, screaming as I thrashed amongst the sea of soddened, rodent fur. The nightmare swelled and smothered me, then died as another reptilian hiss stopped me dead. I rolled onto all fours and stared out around me as I glimpsed a collossal, thick, serpentine body slithering between the tall, skeletal trees.

The rain continued to pummel the ground around me, mud formed and suddenly I was shaking, trembling, as the scaled body rubbed against the bark and circulated me again and again. I couldn't see where the head was, just the body as it wound around and around, threatening me with a thrash of its tail, and a quick hiss of its invisible tongue. I was hyperventilating, panicking. I needed out.

I needed...freedom!

A deep, familiar voice spilled out across the night air. "You did this to them, Jack. You killed them. All of them, one way, or another, you killed all of them!"

I looked around wildly, determined to find the owner of the familiar voice, determined, because I loathed the owner.

The thick, serpentine body wound closer, making tree trunks creak and splinter.

The world swam with colour, nausea built inside me, as I span around, trying to snatch a glimpse of that serpentine head. There was a flash of fang and suddenly the world around me shattered.

_ Tap, tap, tap._

I reeled and panicked as I struggled against the bonds that held me in place. I was suspended upside-down in what looked like a large, spherical tank filled with pale-pink water.

_ Tap, tap, tap._

I struggled against the thick, steel shackles that bound my ankles and wrists. The steel must have been imbued with silver, otherwise the weight wouldn't have had that dull, stinging sensation. Lycanthropes might not be as allergic to that particular element as most stories would have you believe, but after six months it had worn away the flesh where it had touched and it made me ache to snap off the shackles and escape this imprisonment.

I could feel a thick, steel collar fastened tight around my throat too, a chain fixed the collar and myself to the bottom of the tank. I was disorientated, dazed and confused. Where was I? What was I doing here? I couldn't remember how I had ended up here. I stared outward and glimpsed my own reflection in the glass surface of the tank.

I had grown a little and thinned a little, six months locked away in a liquid-filled tank and having nourishment filtered through a tube would do that to a man. My black hair had grown out a little, so much so that it looked wild, floating around my eye. I stared back at myself and something felt wrong, something felt odd.

The eyes! I had had pale blue eyes, blue eyes I imagined I shared with my inner beast, but right now they were an all too familiar, alien amber shade. I panicked and flailed in the liquid. My arms never touched the sides of the tank thanks to the shackles, as I thrashed and panicked. I had his fucking eyes! I had Broderic's fucking eyes! I closed my eyes and prayed it was some fucked up hallucination.

_ Tap, tap, tap._

I reeled on that noise and opened my eyes. I glimpsed my reflection. Pale blue, thank God. Then suddenly my reflection faded as I met the honey brown eyes of a complete stranger.

He must have stood at around six foot four, he was all slender but had enough muscle that I knew his all-white uniform had to be tailored. He looked like he should be boarding some luxurious cruise liner, and instead he was standing in the middle of an all-black chamber staring up at me as I hung there, naked, save for the trunks I'd been spared and the mask that allowed me to breathe underwater. His hair was thick and a deep, dark brown, strands of copper and gold spun through his hair as he had it bound behind him in a no-nonsense braid. Everything from his attire, to his mannerisms, to the sheer sterness that oozed from him made me think he was a military man. Some kind of corporal, general, perhaps?

He smiled at me pleasantly enough, Hell, he even looked handsome even though he looked to be about in his mid-forties. He took two steps wide around the tank and touched a pale-skinned hand to a console fixed beside the tank. He pushed a button and then spoke. His voice crackled around me so clear, he might as well have been floating beside me, whispering dark little secrets to me. His voice was crisp, clear and even had a richness to it. Once again, not unpleasant at all.

It was a shame he was here, clearly keeping a watch on me.

"Your name is Jack Whyatt?" he asked in that crisp voice.

I blinked back at the uniformed man.

He grinned and added, "The mask fixed to your face allows you to communicate and be heard, Mr Whyatt."

I blinked again and could think of one thing to say, "F-Fuck you!"

The man grinned back and replied, "Linus said you were a mouthy little fucker in his report. My name is Zachariah Schneider. I am Haven Institution's Board of Director's Chairman. Pleased to make your acquaintance, Jack."

"What...do you want?" I croaked. I hadn't spoken for so long, six months and I hadn't been able to say a word outside of hallucinations, dreams and nightmares. My throat ached as I coughed and spluttered. Bubbles danced around me as I tried not to look into Schneider's honey brown eyes. There was something about him that was hypnotic.

"I wanted to be here when your isolation ended."

His comment stopped me dead. I suddenly remembered why I was here, locked away in this dark chamber, sealed in this fucked up liquid-filled tank.

Isolation was the name given to the method of discipline that Haven Institution enforced on its more unruly students. What it actually was was a mental, physical and emotional imprisonment that would bind an 'unruly' student and possibly even break them down completely. Had it broken me down? Time would tell. Right now, I was more concerned with the memories that flooded my mind.

Haven Insitution, the rehabilitation school designed to help unruly youths rebuild their lives, but in fact it was a place for a board of no-names to train and torment and control the minds of wereanimals they considered truly worthy of ensnaring and keeping within the walls of this institution. Between their Isolation scheme and the Initiation process that each and every student was subjected to, I shuddered and realised that death might have been a sweet release.

"Were you having a nightmare earlier, Jack?" Schneider asked suddenly.

I never replied.

Schneider grinned wider, "Tell me what you were dreaming about?"

I feigned ignorance to the question. I didn't want to hear him.

"It would be in your best interest not to ignore me, Jack. Do you remember what is keeping you here at Haven?"

I did. The madman who'd found me and brought me here had threatened the life of the one relative I cared about. My baby sister, Emma. Before Haven, I had been a rebellious youth who made his own way in the world, safe in the knowledge his baby sister was being taken care of by an adoptive family. It had been a decent life, fair enough it had its ups and downs, but I loved that life compared to the one Haven had enveloped me in.

"Now...what were you dreaming about? Was it about that werefox...oh, what was his name?"

"Miles."

"Ahh, did you dream about Miles' death? I mean, who could blame you, you were responsible for that one."

Miles had been a timid, harmless werefox and my roommate. He had also been killed because another werewolf had tried to entice me into a brawl. He had succeeded, but Miles had still perished. He had perished...because of me.

I glared through the water at Schneider and suddenly wanted him dead. "I didn't kill Miles!"

"So that's a no, then? Hmm...then did you dream about your time with our once-beloved Rat King?" Schneider teased.

"His death was not my fault, either!" I growled.

Schneider grinned wider and asked, "Did you dream about Broderic?"

I looked away then.

"Ahhh, you did dream about our cherished, house-psychopath. Did you dream about killing him again?"

I wished I was out of that tank, I wished I was beside the Chairman. I wished I had his heart beating in my hand. I had done it to the Rat King. I could do it again. I knew I could. Right now, I was in that head space!

"There! That's the look, the look Broderic loved so much!" Schneider grinned, he took a step forward and looked almost hungry as a growl trickled from my lips.

I realised myself and looked away, away from the Chairman, away from that vicious side of me that I hated so much.

"You don't like that side of yourself, do you?" Schneider asked.

I growled quietly and refused to acknowledge the man before me. Problem was, he was right. Miles had died because of me and that break in my mind, coupled with the removal of the Rat King's heart during an Initiation, had resulted in me being filled with so much anger and violence that I had hunted another man down, albeit a werewolf, and had struck him down without relent until he was dead.

Broderic had died at my hands, and even though it had been done as an act of revenge, it still haunted me, tormented me because during that final blow some distant, hidden part of me that retained a spark of innocence, had been obliterated in a wash of blood and viciousness. I had retained that light through the drug-induced sexual assaults and emotional torment, to have it blown away in a moment of madness. I'd relished in the death of that werewolf and that was what scared me.

That was what frightened me, and haunted my nightmares for the next six months following those events.

Being locked away had not been good for that either, I had no choice but to dwell on the things that happened.

I felt numb as I held back the sadness and depression that had been pressing down on me when I dwelled on what I had done.

"You need to accept what you are, Jack Whyatt."

"I don't want to accept what I am!" I snarled back.

Schneider suddenly looked oh-so-serious. "You are going to need that bloodthirsty side, or the next few days will be absolute Hell for you."

I couldn't stop the laughter that followed, as it trickled from my lips.

Schneider looked a question at me.

"Chairman Schneider, please listen to these next few words carefully, I have experienced Hell, Chairman Schneider, and know from past-experience I can survive its torments. You should be more worried about me turning that bloodthirstyness on you and yours," I grinned maliciously.

"If that's what it takes, Mr Whyatt."

"Where are the others? Where are Isaiah, and Lian?" I snapped.

"In their respected...entrapments."

"You placed them in tanks like these?"

Schneider shook his head.

I raised an eyebrow at that. Had they been lenient on the other two? On Lian maybe, but not Isaiah. Surely.

"You'll see in time." Schneider suddenly smiled and clapped his hands together, "Time to abandon this entrapment now though. The Headmistress wishes to speak with you before you re-enter the campus."

I blinked back at him suddenly. "Head...mistress?" I stammered back.

Schneider grinned.

He raised a pale-skinned hand and clicked his fingers. A second later men and women, all dressed in long coats and done in goggles and varied hair colours scrambled forward.

I wish I could say they were setting me free, but it was like leaving a cell and still being held inside the walls of a prison. It wasn't real freedom. That alone made me smile sadly as the long-coats released me from my prison. The one thing that kept me going right now was the possibility of seeing my friends, one in particular; Isaiah, the werecrocodile.

God, I hoped he was alright.