FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Bruce, having left his class hungry and well rested, made his way to the cafe.

As soon as the smell of food hit his nostrils, a pang of hunger struck his stomach. Eager to satisfy it, he made his way to the counter, only to find that a few of his other classmates had beat him there. A pair of guys in front of him that Bruce recognized earlier as having been talking to the teacher as he came into the classroom currently looked like they were going to jump the counter and devour everything if they didn't get their food soon.

"How am I this hungry? What did we do in that class besides watch a movie?" one asked.

The other guy shrugged. "Beats me." he said, starting at the menu intently. "I passed out almost as soon as the stupid thing started. Pissed off this chick next to me with my snoring, I guess."

"Is she the blonde with the nail file she looked ready to jam in the back of your neck?"

"That's the one. Though, the redhead next to her didn't seem any less upset."

Something nagged at the back of Bruce's mind when he heard them say that they fell asleep as well. He couldn't place it though. A lot of them had decided to take a nap. The movie was one of those poorly done ones with the dumb PowerPoint scene transitions and flashy geometric shapes from way before he was born. He stopped caring as soon as he saw it.

But still, it didn't sit right with him.

Shrugging it off, he found himself at the front of the line. The two guys ahead of him had gotten their food and wandered off to eat. The lady at the cash register looked beyond irritated at the sudden influx of customers, and judging from her opened book facing spine-up, she had been trying to catch up on some required reading for another class.

"What can I get for you?" She said, at least making a half-attempt at being polite.

"Two burgers, a thing of fries, a strawberry-banana smoothie, two of those huge rice krispie bars with the chocolate frosting, and a bag of sour cream and onion chips." he rattled off without thinking.

The clerk nearly choked on her candy in surprise. "Damn, you must really be starving." She said, regaining her composure. "Uh, that will be..." she pressed several buttons on the register. "forty seven dollars and ninety two cents." She looked at him curiously, as if wondering whether or not he'd go back on his order.

Bruce hesitantly reached into his wallet. He had no idea what he had left, but was pleasantly surprised to find almost a hundred dollars in cash in there. Taking out fifty, he handed it to her smugly. "Throw in a bag of Cheetos, and keep the change."

Amused, she took the cash, and when it came back as legit, she put it away and put the change in the tip jar. Soon enough, Bruce was carrying an armful of food to a table, plopping down unceremoniously in the cafeteria chairs and immediately digging in.

It didn't take long for him to eat everything he had ordered. Content, he sipped on his smoothie nonchalantly as he wandered back to his dorm.

Along the way however, he decided to take a detour by the new teacher's classroom, just to see if he had another class, and how they were faring against the worlds most boring film.

---

Surprisingly, the classroom was empty. Van Heim sat at his desk, typing away at his computer. There were a few students in the classroom, mostly the ones Bruce noted were sleeping or daydreaming during the film. Oddly, it was only guys there, even though several of the female students had drifted off as well.

"Ah, hello!" Van Heim said cheerfully, surprising Bruce. "Sorry I didn't see you come in. I'm just swamped with all this extra work. Thankfully I have a bit of a prep period right now." He motioned to the students. "And it appears that several of the young men in my first class have decided to do some extra reading on the subject matter." He smiled at Bruce. "I can assume you are here to do the same?"

Bruce shook his head. "Actually, I was hoping you could give me the link to that video you showed earlier. I'm starting to regret taking notes now. Everything seems to have just slipped my mind." He laughed nervously.

The truth of the matter was, he had no idea what compelled him to come here, but it wasn't that awful video. If anything, he wanted to know more about this guy. As polite and friendly as he was, there was something about him that gave Bruce a weird feeling, not unlike the one he got while listening to that conversation in the cafe.

As he thought about this, his eyes spotted none other than the two guys who were in front of him, having that conversation. The coincidences were piling up one after another, and it didn't sit right with him. But without any actual proof that something is going on, he had to keep quiet.

"Oh?" Van Heim seemed surprised. "You didn't really miss anything." He said. "You should take a look through the textbook for this class. It will certainly be more effective than that movie was."

Nodding, Bruce made his way to the bookshelf and grabbed one. It was a mustard yellow, with purple writing on the cover, along with a cross section of the brain, with different parts sectioned off from each other. Having a seat, he opened it up and began to look through it.

"I hope you boys don't mind if I put on some music." Van Heim said, before turning on the speakers. A heavy drumbeat filled the air. Not loud by any means, but incredibly deep, and in time with Bruce's own heartbeat. Guitar and Higher drums floated sporadically among the beats, at odd intervals, as if trying to dodge the sound, but still make a tune. It was hard to focus on the book with the tune playing, so Bruce put it away, and looked at some of the other books on the shelf instead.

The shelf had not only the usual class textbooks, but also quite a few other novels and the like, most of which were fantasy or mystery. Several of them featured -- you guessed it -- orcs on the cover, while a few other were centered around psychoanalysis and even hypnotism. All of them made Bruce uncomfortable for some reason, save for one. A brown and gold book that almost blended in with the shelf itself. It had no words or any other identification on the cover or spine, and the inside pages seemed mostly sporadic writing with the occasional drawing or diagram, almost like a research journal. The difference was that this book seemed mostly about the subject of magic, with instructions for spells and rituals, diagrams of summoning symbols and identification of potion ingredients.

"Harry must've forgotten to take this with him to Professor Snape's class." He said to himself, paging through the book, and occasionally letting out a chuckle. The subject material didn't really interest him, but the amount of work put into it, just to make it appear as real as possible kept him going, just to see what else the mystery author had written in his or her book.

"Ah, that is mine!" Professor Van Heim said, red with embarrassment. "I must have set it down there when I was looking for something, and I had completely forgotten about it! Thank you for finding it!" with lightning speed, he snatched to book from Bruce's hands, snapping it shut, and placing it in his coat pocket.

Bruce wanted to say something, but at the same time, he didn't know how much Van Heim had seen, so if he revealed that he had been looking at it, rather than just paging through to find an owners name, he might get in trouble. And after this morning, he felt like he wasn't on the Professor's good side, so he wisely kept his mouth shut.

"Thanks for letting me look through the textbook, sir." Bruce said, suddenly eager to get out of there and back to the normalcy of his own dorm. "I'll see you on Thursday, then!" He walked quickly to the door, leaving a baffled Van Heim behind.

"Yes well, if you have any other questions, feel free to come by between then and now!" He called after him.

"Not on your life, you kook." Bruce whispered to himself.