FSE

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formerly SoFurry search engine

It was a cold and dark day in San Antonio... the sort of day where when a person stepped outside, it felt as if the wind was pulling the flesh from their bones, and every drop of rain stung and froze to the skin... but then again, it was always a cold dark day in San Antonio. The dark brooding storm clouds of the Veil boiled in the sky like the stirring of a cauldron and the rain seemed to perpetually hang in the sky. A heavy dense fog choked the ground, fog so thick that my feet were completely obscured from view. I couldn't help but wonder if my feet had been lost somewhere between here and my flat, and that I had just some how gone on in their stead. There was the steady drip, drip, drip of rain, splashing heavily against the top of my hooded head, before first sinking into the flimsy fabric of the hood... and then into my hair.

The street was crowded, so packed with people that it seemed like a virtual sea of humanity. Everybody was dressed the same, and everybody looked the same. Like myself, every person on the street was dressed in the standard uniform of the time, a flimsy gray hoodie, and a flimsy gray pair of pants, neither was truly enough to keep out the cold or the wet, not for very long at least. Women were to bind their breasts, men were to shave their faces, everybody wore the same bobbed haircut, and hoods were always up to obscure the face. Yet, despite all of these people, it was all but silent. Nobody made eye contact, nobody carried out a joyful conversation, and an air of oppression hung in the air like the thick fog beneath our feet.

Somewhere a steam whistle bellowed out, hissing out to announce the shifting of a time period. Almost like the flip of a switch the street emptied, what once had been a mass of humanity milling to and fro and heading to some unknown destination, suddenly became a ghost town. A few stray souls lingered, like myself, in the mist, and the silence of the, now mostly empty, street. I sloshed on, my boots stepping in an occasional puddle or hidden pothole, soaking my pants to the skin beneath.

Eventually, I made my slow, miserable way to a building, a "pub". It was an ugly building if there ever was one, but what beauty there might have been in the architecture of Old San Antonio was long since lost to the world. The Veil and the mist obscured what did remain. The building was a rectangle, extruded as if from the street itself. It lacked features or anything that made it particularly interesting, with windows so dirty and soot-stained that they might as well have just been part of the wall they were set into. No voices cried out from inside the pub, no cheerful singing of drunkards greeted my ears, or smells of freshly fried fish greeted my nose... not that I would have truly known what any of those things sounded or smelled like. No alcohol was served here, nor tales were spun within the building... it was a pub in name only, one of the few throw backs to Old San Antonio that the government allowed us.

As approached the door I was greeted by two figures, they were different... while the rest of the Citizens like myself were dressed in the uniform of the city, these two men, for I could only assume their sex, were dressed from head to toe in armor. The armor was a matte black, with plates, which protected all of their vital areas, their heads obscured in matte black helmets, viewing the world from behind mirrored visors. They patted me down as I approached, searched by pockets, their hands were rough and cold, caring not for privacy nor my feelings of being violated so, and for an eternity their search wore on.

"She's not a Splicer," one of the guards stated at last, announcing that they had finished their search. Taking out a small syringe, he slid the metal needle into my arm, stealing a small amount of blood. The used syringe was set-aside in a cooler at their feet, with hundreds of other similar objects. They would go back to a government lab latter for testing.

The inside of the bar was distinctly different from the city outside. Gone was the dreary gray atmosphere, which seemed to hang in the air like an oppressive blanket. Gone were mist and the cold and the wet. The bar wasn't much to look at inside, but it was filled with a rich orange light, and the sound of voices... in some ways it felt as if I had stepped into a faded picture of Old San Antonio, caught the briefest of glimpses of what the city had once been. The bar had been around for as long as anybody could remember... it was one of the first buildings to open after the War, and the nuclear winter that followed. Just how long the bar had been open, what it's original name was, or even who owned it were a complete mystery... but in the sea of oppression that was San Antonio, the bar remained an island of freedom.

The inside of the bar was filled with figures, crowded around tables, sitting at every available space at the bar. The sense of cheer in the bar, like everywhere else was held in silence and voices were lowered... but nevertheless, the bar held an aura of happiness and relaxation. No alcohol was served here; such beverages were banned under Regulation #2543, which was instituted close to a hundred years ago, nor other sorts of recreation drugs. Even the idea that a bar existed to serve such substances was a flickering memory from a lost time. If a soul had conserved ration credits, they could purchase black coffee... but most, like myself came for no other reason than the atmosphere.

Slowly my eyes scanned the crowd as I began to move away from the door, and despite myself, a small smile caressed my lips as my eyes locked with those of another. "Serena" I stated simply as I approached a woman sitting by her lonesome self in the back. As she looked up, the hood fell back from her head, revealing the pretty young face beneath. She had skin as pale as fresh snow, with delicate, angular features. Despite the institutionalized haircut, she wore her short bobbed hair in a way that was pleasant to look at, and although rare to see, she had a smile, which could push back even the oppressive fog outside. She looked up, her soft red lips forming some syllables, my name, which I longed to hear her pronounce, but it was lost in the blaring sound of the war propaganda from one of the TVs mounted on the ceiling... for some reason I felt as if I had missed my last chance to hear her pronounce my name.

"How many years has it been?" she asked with that smile I craved to see as I took my seat at the table.

Her eyes seemed as if they were almost too bright, too luminous to be real... they seemed different than last time I had seen them, more full of life, more full of... expression. She looked dangerous today, Serena had always been an individual full of life, even in this bleak world, but tonight, tonight it almost felt as if she was burning with expression like a torch. Her every movement expressed some desire, some want, something that went contrary to the world just beyond the door of the bar. When she looked at me, I felt as I was being sized up the same way a predator from the Old World judged it's prey... there was a carnal hunger in her eyes. I wanted to run, but something rooted me to the spot. Instead I swallowed nervously, my tongue slipping out to lick my dry, cracked lips. "Five," I replied, I remembered every day, "Five years since the Lottery matched us together. Five years since we first met in this bar"

"It has been a long time," she agreed. As the night wore on, I felt myself beginning to unwind, and relax around Serena, as I always did whenever I met with her. Tonight... tonight was different however. Before the clock struck 23h00, she reached out across the table, her hand taking mine in it's own. The sensation of warm skin against my own caused me to withdraw in shock and terror, I looked around the bar, afraid somebody had seen... but nobody had. I looked up just in time to feel Serena's lips upon my own... a kiss... tonight was going to be different.

* * *

The dirty light of the streetlamp pierced through the curtains in Serena's small one room flat. It was the first time I had ever been in her home, she dragged me through the door, kicking off her shoes in the process, never once letting go of my hand. She moved with an eagerness that betrayed her excitement, the tension and nervousness visible in her face... but also shown along side delight, with a side of mischief. Serena's face expressed more emotion in the span of a single second than I felt I had seen in my entire life on the faces of all the comrades I toiled along side with.

The apartment itself was in disarray, the kitchen looked like it had never been used, a thick layer of dust covered every available surface, a standard government issued armchair lay not far from her bed, it had been torn apart, strewn across the floor as if a wild animal from the old world had made it's way into Serena's home with a vicious vendetta against all armchairs. The sheets on the bed rent and torn apart, and downy feathers were flung every such way... I couldn't help but wonder just what had happened here, yet if this violent state of deconstruction of Serena's apartment concerned the girl at all, she showed no signs of it. Rather, Serena dragged me over to the destroyed remains of the bed, before shoving me down upon it.

I drew a rattling breath as my back hit the bed, my sigh lingering in the space between us, a space that was soon filled when she crawled atop my chest. She stalked forward as if she was some feline entity. For a minute's time, she stared down at me, just smiling at me with that expression... cocky, so sure of herself, I was positive that she never once questioned if this was a good idea. She knew exactly what she wanted and wasn't afraid of that desire. Off came the hoodie, flung off of her body like the unwanted scrap of cloth that it was, off came the chest bindings, which sailed through the air. Article after article of clothing she wrenched from body, there was no show in her movements. It wasn't just a resignation to copulation that powered her motions, rather it was the desire to feed that ever present feral hunger. It was the show that the cloth was just cloth, and just one more unwanted barrier between her body and mine.

When at last she sat atop me, naked... no, nude but far from naked, clothed in the pale orange light from the street lamp just beyond the window, I finally saw her for what she was, a Splicer. "Splicer" I whispered in a breath. Marks covered her body, small round and circular, like one would find on an exotic cat. They trailed down her slender form, cupping her modest, pert breasts, before continuing downward, running down her sides and caressing her warm thighs. As she moved above me her hot groin pressed against my belly, radiating heat.

Reaching up, she brushed aside the hair from her ears, and for the first time I was able to see that her ears had become long, pointed. I paid more attention to that smile of hers, and noticed that it held entirely too many teeth... long pointed, like those of a cat. I held a breath as I beheld her, and slowly she leaned forward, planting kiss after kiss on my forehead, cheek... neck... Her long nailed hands came to clutch at my shirt, tensed for a minute, before rending it apart. More kisses were laid upon my body, shoulder, chest... with impatient eagerness her fingers worked apart the bindings on my own breasts and still the kisses continued. Her hot lips lingered, pinching and biting my flesh, it hurt and ached, but I dared not tell her to stop, whether it was fear or desire that stilled my tongue, I cannot say. It was only when I felt her lips on my bare thighs and realized that I was as bare to the world as she was that I shoved her aside with a cry.

"Splicer!" I cried out again, this time defiantly in fear and anger. Suddenly everything made sense, the expression, the destruction, and the emotion with which she beheld everything. My friend, the one who I had confided in the most had forsaken her humanity. I glared at her accusingly, feeling a rush with emotions that I had never before coursed through my veins. Intense fear, not the normal simmering fear that living under the air of oppression had given me, but a fear which made my pulse quicken, made it hard to think... a fear that made me want to lash out in anger and hurt. I felt anger, anger at the betrayal of my friend, anger that she wanted me because she desired me and not because she wished to sate a biological urge... and lust, lust for the alien creature she had become.

She approached me slowly, reaching out with a clawed hand, resting her hand upon my knee. I looked into her eyes in time to see them fill with tears, before streaming down her cheeks. "Why?" I demanded, my own tears welling up and going blurry with tears, "Why. Why. Why." Each repetition of the word was louder and filled with more anger than the last. I wanted to last out at her perfect, yet corrupt feline face, to make her feel physically what I was feeling now...

-SMACK!-

My hand stun in pain, and giving a cry of fear, I realized my mistake. I had acted on emotion. I looked across the ruined bed at the animal... no person I had hit. Serena held a hand up to the spot where I had hit her, she glowered at me, yet... that expression soon faded. It wasn't a look of anger that replaced it, but a soft smile. Before I could even so much as cry out again, she grabbed my ankles and dragged me away from my corner, laying my struggling form out, before laying atop me, pressing her nude body against my naked form, her bare cheek against my own.

"Why" I asked again, this time in a whisper, "Splicers are taken away, never seen again..."

"Because... I love you." Those three words, the three words I dreaded hearing more than anything in the world. If there was anything that the government had wished to stop out in our society, it was love. Everybody was the same; everybody was brothers and sisters in arms against the Russian menace. Every comrade had made the sacrifice of emotion to survive in this bitter frozen wasteland of a world. Love invited rebellion against the cause, emotion invited change, and change brought destruction and discord. Love... was unacceptable.

"And because you love me too." The truth in those words hurt. Try as I might, I valued Serena as more than just a fellow comrade in arms. She wasn't just a fellow worker to me; she wasn't just somebody that I toiled beside in the factories of San Antonio. Serena was somebody who I looked forward to meeting every day at the end of my shift; she was the sort of person who I delighted in seeing her smile, the sort of person I looked forward to seeing express emotion. I realized I didn't want to see her simply put her head down and accept the government's law. I wanted her love.

"I hate you and I love you" I realized she was right. Gently she began to kiss the tears from my face... but unlike before it didn't last long. Her feline form climbed off of me, slithered away into the darkness for a time, and for a few long moments I was left alone with my thoughts. When at last she returned, she came carrying two things... A small CD player, and a zip lock bag with several vials of liquid and a syringe.

~Ariella, 7:30 I don't want to get up yet Listen to the morning music cursing the alarm you set~

The music filled the room with a colorful and playful melody. Its tone was cheerful and happy, and I was more than content just to lay and listen. I felt a weight upon me, and I looked up in time to see Serena's nude form climb atop me once more, the heat of her body radiating against my own. "Will it be okay?" I asked nervously as she took out the syringe and filled it with a small amount of liquid from each vial.

"I promise nothing" she smiled down at me, taking my one of my arms in her own, before pressing the tip of the needle to my skin. I let out a shuddering sigh as I felt the cold meddle slip into my flesh, piercing my stoic exterior to my vulnerable depths. Slowly she pushed the plunger... and instantly I felt as if ice water had been dumped into my veins. I shuddered and shivered with a sigh. The needle was removed and she sealed the wound with a kiss, before resting her head upon my breasts. "You will get very sick, and very ill... and you will sleep for a long time... but when the fever has broken, and when you have awoken, you will see and feel and dream as a person was meant to... only by casting aside what makes us human, and face trial by flame, can we realize how very human we really are"

I closed my eyes as she stared to kiss me again, tears coursing over my cheek, and wondered if I would ever awake again.

~I've been in the tall grass all my life Until you came along now there's one less thing wrong ~

* * *

"I remember..." a voice washed out over the crowd, the voice was wavering, shy, scared... subdued. A figure climbed up, accompanying the voice, making its way to the top of a stack of over turned cars. It was a hooded figure; it wore the same clothes as all of us did. Gray hoodie, gray pants, androgynous, subdued... As the figure climbed a top the over turned cars, it addressed the crowd, staring at each figure in our small gathering, one at a time, eyes gleaming from the depths of the figure's hood. I smelled something burning; somewhere somebody had dragged out an old oil drum, and started a fire. "I remember... when I was young and my parents told me stories of generations gone by. I remember stories of how the lights of Old San Antonio would shine like a thousand stars in the night sky. I remember the stories about how boats would paddle down the channel of this city, giving tours to visitors. I remember tales of how the River Walk was lined with so many clubs and restaurants and cafes, and every night before the sun would go down, the river itself all but seemed to come alive. Pulsating music would fill the air, and the sound of song and cheering filled the air. Ever night was like a party, the air was hot, scented with the smell of a hundred different cuisines. There were tales of how every night Old San Antonio would come alive, how the streets would become one massive sea of humanity. We partied, we fought, we danced, and we swayed to the music."

I reached out and took Serena's hand in my own; I felt her fingers intertwined with mine, the warmth they brought in the cold air of the city streets. Already the fog was rising out of the river, filling and clouding the dense street. At first I feared that the mist itself would be all it took to clear out our protest... to make those few of us who had come scramble back to the safety of our dens, like dogs with our tails between our legs. Yet, as the speaker began to talk, his... or perhaps her, voice sounded out over the crowd, growing stronger and more powerful with each passing second. Even as the last word 'music' faded in the air, the wavering sense that the speaker had had was gone, replaced with a confidence that fought back against the cold. Around us, others brought out oil drums, torches, ancient flashlights that should have long since ceased to function. Another person had brought wood... a precious commodity in the changed world if there ever was one.

"Nobody speaks of these tales any more. Nobody fondly remembers the days when people walked through the streets of our city as comrades... not as comrades as our dear government sees us, but as true brothers and sisters. We had differences! We had emotion!" There was a pause as the figure regarded the crowd again. Slowly it reached up and removed the hood. As the cloth fell away, the crowd as a whole gave a cheer. The speaker's head was shaved, completely. Her, for the speaker was female, had a face covered entirely in swirling tattoos. They weren't complex; they were bold lines, bars around the eyes, black lines caressing the cheeks. She had more bits of metal in her face than most of us had on her body.

Slowly her hands lowered, clasping the zipper of the hoodie, pulling it downward... the zipper got caught, and in a moment of enthusiasm she gripped the jacket and pulled. A moment held in the air, a tense moment, and then a ripping sound. To my ears it sounded for all the world as if the very earth itself was tearing apart... the fabric gave way and the speaker, our leader, cast it aside. Letting it fall to the ground below. Beneath the hoodie was more tattoos, more metal... her belly button was pierced, her body covered almost in stripes. Some was ink injected beneath the skin the rest was animal-esque stripes. There were scars, there were bruises, and she bore it all, skin, metal, breasts, bruises, stripes without hesitation, she dared us to look. A long slender tail lashed out behind her, and she let out a feral roar, showing far too many teeth for a human to possess.

"The government wants us to forget. This is for your protection, this is just a temporary measure, and democracy will be reinstated after the war is over! How long now have we been at war! How long since our brothers and sisters were shipped off to the front lines of a war across the ocean! How has it been since the bombs began to fall and the Veil was raised! How long since the Eternal Winter of the atom bomb came!" She wasn't asking how long, she was demanding, over and over she fired her questions into the air, demanding answers that would never be heard, over and over again each shout like a rifle shot, resounding off the buildings.

"How long! How long!" The crowd began to chant. I began to chant. Serena began to chant. Over and over we chanted until the demands for answers grew to a deafening roar. Eventually our leader held up a hand, silencing us.

"How long... have the excuses kept rolling off of the government's tongues? How long will we listen to their lies! I asked you here today, because for the first time since the bombs fell and the government took us to it's poisonous breasts, I will get those answers that we demand. It is time for us to stop asking and start doing. Too long have we been sheep, shepherded from one place to another like the slaves that we are in this city that used to shine like a beacon of hope. Today... today that changes!" the cheering, to be in the center of it was something that shook me to the core.

When the speech had started we were few in numbers, a select and trusted few who had came to hear our leader speak her mind. As she had spoken more and more people had been drawn out of their flats by the rousing cries outside. More and more people had joined the mob until we filled the plaza, spilled over into the alleys beyond. Some came to add their voice to cries for justice, some came for curiosity... some came to try and quell the protest before it started and were swept up in the movement. Fires, more and more fires and lights filled the plaza, lamps, and torches, everything imaginable... and for one moment, for one brief moment, I could see the lights of Old San Antonio. Hoodies were torn off, ripped or flung or burned... skin was showed, lips met lips, fists met flesh. Riots, screams, cries, songs, the sound of kissing... For one glorious moment in time we stood as Old San Antonio had stood so long ago, the legends were alive, emotions ran high... tilting my head back I let out a howl of ecstasy... and I wasn't the only one. Splicers, people almost too animal to be human, even normal people, more and more people matched my cry.

Then... the moment passed. A shot, a single resounding shot rang out through the plaza. It echoed off the building and then... there was silence. I happened to glance up, just in time to see a crimson flower bloom on our leader's bare chest... and then she fell. Down she was cast, off of the overturned cars, down to the street below. No angels caught her, no devils laughed... she just hit the pavement, dead. The screaming stared. First it was isolated, one or two people the rest of us just staring in shock and horror at what had occurred, and just as the cheers had grown before, so too did the screams... except these didn't stop. Louder and louder, they grew until I felt as if I too would die from the noise... the raw, horrible emotion. For one fleeting second, I wished for the safety, the androgyny, and the oppression of the world just one year ago.

I looked to Serena, I saw her lips form my name... a scream of terror in her feline eyes... and then she was taken from me, wrenched from my hands. My fingers grasped at air, trying desperately to catch her... but she was already gone, dragged away. The soldiers of the government moved in, clad in black armor they marched through the crowd like sharks through a school of fish. They killed those who didn't immediately get out of the way, uncaring... there was no hatred in their movement, no emotion, nothing but brutal, horrible efficiency. Somebody jerked me from behind, and my head collided with the pavement below... and I too, was cast down.