FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Prologue

The air stood still around him, like his surroundings; it was frosted, sharp and unmoving. There was neither breeze nor draft daring enough to disturb this place.

Icicles jutted from skeletal trees like crystal teeth of the contorted wooden watchers that desperately clung to the last of their withering foliage. Clusters of brave evergreen bushes managed to survive by huddling together and poking their branches above the drifts in sporadic little tufts.

Every breath felt like trespass as it crept from his lips as a treacherous mist, the only thing betraying his presence apart from the thudding of the heart hammering in his chest.

He hadn't moved since he came to be in this place. Several long moments passed before he realised what was amiss...

His only company in the vast, frozen forest was the ominous blanket of silence. A poor blanket, it would bring no warmth or solace with its presence.

Even in the bleakest of winter cold or darkest hours of the night there would be the distant chattering of well adapted predators. Even the feint rustlings of scavengers foraging through the frost encrusted leaves that littered the floor would be heard. The tiniest squeak or rattle would seem deafening in this alien place...Yet, complete silence was all.

Where the hell am I?

A voice suddenly startled him. As though a rider on a silent horse had sped past him hissing whispered words into his ear;

Help me.

It startled him from his assessment. The stranger jumped, spinning around wildly looking for a source to the noise. He almost instantly regretted breaking that status quo - realising for the first time since he came to be in this place, he had moved.

His heart pounding in his ears as his eyes darted frantically around the clearing... and yet nothing. No attack, no pain or death. He looked around, much like a child expecting to be scorned. Minutes passed without any sign of change or movement.

Weighing up the options, he gulped and took a timid step toward the edge of the forest.

Please Caleb, help me...

This time his hairs stood on end as the eerie echo spoke his name. He staggered a little... It left him disoriented like someone had just flashed a bright light behind his eyes. It was in his head!

"Who - How do you know my name?!" He shouted - his frustration and fear overcoming caution. If something could break into his head, then eerie forest glades were the least of his problems. He took another step.

Caleb's eyes widened. The pale trunk of a tree in front of him suddenly began to leak something that looked like blood, and that something trickled together in a most unnatural fashion... forming the imprint of a hand slipping down the surface. He tried to back away but his body failed to heed his mind - hand reaching out as though it had a mind of its own as his numbed fingers making contact with the trunk.

Instantly the forest seemed to drop its temperature even further, sending a shiver up his spine and making his skin crawl. He tried to recoil, to pull his hand back, but his muscles simply refused as though he were glued in place. Then it came again, this time it was stronger, like a force weighing down on him.

He fell to one knee just before the woman's voice sounded clearly through his mind.

Please, find me.

With those words, the tree seemed to shriek as warmth burst into his hand and arm. The tree shook as the handprint turned to a dusting of charcoal. Caleb finally managed to pull himself back. He stared at his hand in disbelief, no longer frozen by the cold as he came to his feet.

He felt, strange. It was as though the air now carried a feint perfume on it... though his nostrils couldn't quite pick it up. Like an itch it grew within him and he could feel it blossoming in his mind, like an idea coming to fruition.

He knew what to do.

Caleb rushed to the edge of the glade, like a moth drawn to a distant lantern he scrambled into the frozen thicket. Spotting the first sign - A bush dusted with ice on the far side of the clearing that bore a few flecks of the same ominous crimson, as though an injured quarry had run past.

He quickly rushed to it and scanned the surrounding forest - Clue after clue feeding his frenzied search. Another small scrap of blood on the snow, a leaf marred by crimson, a snapped twig, they drove him onward. He didn't need any more clues, by the time he reached the top of the next outcrop he knew exactly where he was running.

Here.

The whisper was defined... He felt it's urgency as he rounded into a small clearing. He felt the blood slowing in his veins - what he saw made his breath catch in his throat. It was as through the rest of the world had suddenly ceased.

Before him was the most beautiful woman in all of creation.

Even in the icy clutches of the starless midnight every sculpted curve, even her very skin seemed to glow as though it were lit by a warm afternoon sun. She was perfection - as though the gods themselves had held a contest of feminine creation and she was the glorious result.

She lay atop an ancient looking altar. It was arcane and marvellous in harmony with the woman. It looked to be the intricately carved, woven roots of an impossibly old tree. Its stone-like bark lit faintly in the same otherworldly glow.

It would have brought him to his knees, were he not already stumbling to the ground clutching at his chest as he fell like a soldier in battle. Even as his vision dimmed, he couldn't peel his eyes away from the sights before him - the images burning deep into his very being. In his final moments he saw the woman stir, weakly pointing at him.

In a rush unlike anything Caleb had ever experienced, he felt a presence surge through him, his heart beginning again and his body filling with warmth and strength. Like a full dose of what the frozen tree had done to his arm.

He didn't have time to ponder, the woman's arm fell. It lulled against the altar, weak and despondent and the surging presence left Caleb. He saw a trail of the purest crimson trickling down the side of the stone surface beneath her. She was bleeding.

His hairs stood on end, his skin flushed and tingled with every step he took - wholly unnoticed as he rushed forward. Getting closer the warmth seemed to return. It felt as though her presence was the source of all the love and peace in the world. Caleb didn't even notice the tears running down his face. From his tear soaked lips he sputtered; "I - I ... I'm sorry."

What was he sorry for?

Before he could figure out what had possessed him, the very world around him seemed to shift - rocks lifted from the ground, trees splintered with loud cracking and snapping noises. The ground shuddered as though the very forces that bound everything together were being broken.

Terrified, Caleb looked up from the altar. The wind had picked up from nowhere and with a howl it began blasting debris to and fro in a tempest.

He felt her stir, and as he looked back down a presence unlike anything in his life seemed to surround and fill him; it was like walking out of a cave and into the sunlight... albeit sunlight that made even his teeth and the back of his skull warm. He felt protected, like nothing mattered any more... He felt safe.

It was no mere voice, no whisper or sound - but a bursting of dam waters in his mind when she spoke to him:

Do not be fearful child, it's over.

The suddenly insignificant body of his was lifted from the ground, or he was lifted from it. He couldn't tell. Caleb went to scream, but no air would come from his lungs - if he even had them anymore. The light increased tenfold, hundredfold. It burned. It pierced through every fibre of his soul...

In his last moment, as the deepest parts of him were pierced, he heard her call...

I will show you.