FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Date: CT2-5876/01/02

The food is good - extremely good, actually - but as I eat I can't shake the feeling that something is off. Despite only ordering dishes I'm familiar with, I have the distinct impression that it's all merely a copy of a copy of the real thing. I suppose the passing of thousands - perhaps millions - of years was bound to mould a lot of what stuck around into flawed facsimile of itself. Still, it's a little unnerving.

The afternoon is well upon us by the time we leave. Zach asks me if I'm ready to go through with the surgery required to become a morph, as if he were asking nothing more substantial than whether or not I wanted a haircut.

I go lightheaded. After our mind altering conversations at lunch, I'm coming around to the idea that slowing things down might be for the best. I want to become my sona, but I've wished all my life for that chance, it can wait another night. If I'm still here when I wake I'll go through with it, but for all I know I'll wake up aeons further into the future, or right back where I started.

I still have no idea how I ended up here, or why. A large part of me doesn't want to question it. I think I'm hoping that if I simply accept my new reality for what it is it won't be taken away from me.

Zach prompts me for an answer, so I explain my hesitation and suggest instead that I take him up on his earlier offer of visiting someplace more familiar to me. He agrees readily and I ask if there's anywhere we could go that's based on early twenty-first century London. He checks and, yes, there are a few options. We transport to the least populous one and, god, it's uncanny.

Stepping off the transporter pad is like walking right out of King's Cross station. Everything is pretty much exactly the same as I knew it, give or take a detail or two, with one huge exception: there's barely anybody here. The few people I can see are all plain base-humans, keeping to themselves or together in small groups, discussing, admiring, walking, sitting.

I'm in wide-eyed awe, drenching the city in my gaze.

“How does it compare to the real thing?" Zachary asks, his eyes on me more than the scenery.

I shake my head. “It's a lot quieter. Other than that? It's eerie as fuck."

“Too accurate?" He asks. I nod. “Wanna leave?"

“No, no." I beckon him over. “I want to have a look around, maybe give you a bit of a tour."

“Ah, I get it. I've been showing you around all day and now you get to return the favour."

“Something like that."

We wander together through the dead city for a time. Zach points at shops and buildings and barbers and bicycle racks and bus lanes and zebra crossings and asks what they are. I've already answered half a dozen questions by the time I realise he could have learned all this just by consulting his display. I can't tell whether he's intentionally humouring me or if he's enjoying the novelty of receiving analogue explanations for once, either way I play along.

I feel a strange sense of serenity as we parade this odd approximation of the ancient streets I once called home. Everybody I ever knew is dead. Everybody who ever knew me is dead. The way of life I once lived is utterly defunct. None of this information particularly upsets me. If anything, it's a power trip. I outlasted all those bastards. Some freak accident, some cosmic coincidence, landed me here and - assuming that same force doesn't drag me back, or push me further - it is unequivocally the best thing that has ever happened to me.

I didn't belong in the twenty-first century, I belong here. I feel that in my bones. I believe it completely.

We end up exploring an empty shopping centre and, as I lead us into store after store, I'm blown away all over again by how close this life-size replica comes to the real thing. I don't think this ghost London is based exactly on the London I left behind, it's probably a few years out one way or the other but, regardless, most of what I see is instantly recognizable. There are differences, of course, the main one being that all of the shops are empty of stock and, when met with close inspection, lack in detail, but other than that it's pretty much perfect.

I have a vague sense of having visited these places when they were vivid and alive, heaving with people, but the memories are blurred. More 'flashing disjointed images in my head', than any kind of solid whole. I suppose I can't be too annoyed with myself: I've been through a lot today. I'm going through a lot.

While continuing to explore the centre, replicated London shifts from an exciting rendition of my home, to something strange and off putting. Something about all of this is somehow wrong, like the meal at the restaurant. It's so close to comfort, but bewilderingly inaccurate in subtle ways that make it upsetting to behold.

Zachary catches on to my diminished mood and encourages us to leave the building. I follow, and the fresh air outside helps. Except it's not fresh air at all, is it? It's the likeness of such, exactly as this London is only a likeness of my own, and the food nothing more than an appropriated impersonation. All of it is, without scrutiny, identical, but on inspection little other than a hobbyist's copy.

When Zach asks if I'm okay I try to explain these feelings. He tells me he understands, but I'm not sure he really does. He thanks me for the tour and asks if I'm done here.

I want to say yes. I want to yell no. My head throbs. Neither thought leaves my mouth, instead I ask: “is this place all of London? Or just a small section of it?"

“Zed," he says, then he repeats my question. Zed explains that it's not only all of London but, rather, the entirety of England. After blinking away the insanity of what I've just heard, I tell Zach a street name and ask if we can transport there. “Absolutely," he confirms and, on my urging, we head to the closest pad. Only when we arrive does he ask what exactly we're doing here.

I point at a specific window among the blocks of high-built terraced housing in front of us.

“That's where I used to live."

Zachary looks at me, head in a quizzical tilt, then at where I'm pointing, then back at me.

“The whole building?"

I laugh and shake my head.

“No, barely a sliver of it."

In truth I'm not entirely sure why I thought coming here would be a good idea, other than the vague hope that seeing home would comfort me, or give me some kind of closure. I mean, that would be nice, right? I lead Zach inside and he follows with his tail wagging.

As I had expected, none of the complex's doors are locked. The entranceway and stairwell are much as I remember them and as we venture in it almost feels like I really am coming home after a long, strange day out. We take the stairs up a couple of flights before stopping at a particular door.

“Through here?" He asks.

“Mhm," I hum as I reach for the door handle. My head throbs. I'm suddenly uncertain of the whole affair. Like, I want to go inside, but I don't want to go inside. You know?

Come on Mei, get a hold of yourself. It will just be some generic room in there, not an exact re-creation of your living space. But, what if it is? How many impossible things do you have to see before you start believing the impossible?

“Second thoughts?" Zach asks.

This is ridiculous.

Is it?

It is. Surely.

Surely?

This is ridiculous. I open the door.

The room inside is empty, entirely. I step inside and Zach follows suit. I look around, I poke my head into other rooms. Empty, all of it. The walls are a familiar colour, the flooring is right, but otherwise it's empty. I guess this replica isn't a no-holds-barred all-out affair after all.

“When I lived here there was furniture, I promise."

Zachary chuckles and leans out a window, surveying the city. “Whatever you say."

“What's that supposed to mean?"

“I was enjoying the idea that you slept on the floor in this totally empty home of yours."

I raise an eyebrow. “You have a thing for clinically insane women?"

He turns to me, eyes narrowed, then laughs and scratches the back of his head, unexpectedly bashful. “Just teasing," he says. I nod. “So, definitely-not-crazy lady, why don't you tell me what you used to have in here so I can imagine a day in your life?"

I point at a spot on the floor. “The sofa was there, a big, ugly, red thing. There were photos up on the wall, here, behind it of our family. And uh, through here, that was my bedroom. I had a desk there, my bed went there, wardrobe, pile of dirty clothes."

“You lived here alone?"

“No, with my parents. The cost of living in London was," I shake my head. “I couldn't afford it alone, not yet."

“How old are you, anyway? Disregarding the years between you falling asleep in London and waking up here, I mean."

“Twenty-six," I say. His eyes go wide with shock. I put my hands up defensively. “I know, I know, a bit old to be living with the parents, but things were different back then. Trust me, I was far from unique."

“No, I mean, wow. Well, It's easy to forget how people used to live."

“Money was a bitch."

“Not that, well, not mostly. I mean, you're only twenty-six?"

I'm caught off guard. “Yeah I, uh, I thought we were a similar age."

“Try adding some decades on, I'm forty-eight."

“What? You look so... young!"

“I am young!" He exclaims. I try to wrap my head around that, while simultaneously apologising. “No, it's fine, just, think about everyone you've seen today. Have you seen anybody who looked older than, say, thirty?"

I close my eyes and attempt to mentally catalogue all of the faces I've seen so far on the Cube.

“God, I think, maybe, one person?"

He nods. “Sounds about right, and let me tell you now: they wanted to look that way."

Of course. It feels obvious as soon as he says it.

“Okay," I say. “But you're forty-eight? And that's young? I mean I wouldn't call it old, but, you know, middle aged, maybe."

“Yes Em, I'm young, at least relatively speaking. People on the Cube can pretty much live as long as they want."

“Jesus! Really?"

“I mean, there are disclaimers I could get into, but, yeah. I'll add that most people get tired of life eventually, almost nobody actually wants to live forever. When people have a couple centuries' life experience rattling around their heads they usually decide they don't need a third."

“So the average lifespan here is, what?"

“About two-hundred years, I believe."

I think of my pathetic, ancient body, my life expectancy of eighty and all that awful, decaying ageing I was expecting to face.

“What about me?" I ask, spoken soft, but selfish.

He takes a few seconds to properly parse my question.

“Oh," he says. “Don't worry about it, two hundred years is yours for the taking. Or a few millennia, it's up to you."

Another euphoric rush. Another surge of tears.

“Fuck."

The word is all I can come up with; I eject it breathlessly.

And here I was thinking I would-

That I wouldn't-

That eighty was a stretch goal, at best.

“I'm gonna assume that's happy crying," Zach says, patting my back in jerky, awkward motions. He's out of his depth, just as I am.

“It is," I confirm, through sobs. “It is." I wipe my eyes and apologize for my outburst. Zach tells me it's fine and we soon move on as if nothing had happened.

“So," he says. “You were telling me about your home."

“I was," I say, nodding. “Yeah." He follows my lead as I walk through the flat. “Over there, that was our joint kitchen slash dining room. We had to prepare our own meals back then. Or at least put them in the microwave."

“Do I want to know what a microwave is?"

“I doubt it. A foul device, to be sure," I smirk. “But you can always get your display to tell you, right?"

“Oh, I don't look up everything. Life's more fun with a little mystery." His toothy smile sets my heart aflutter.

I wonder whether I should find him less attractive for being almost twice my age, but the question is a non-starter. The context of his age and my own are so utterly divorced from one another as to barely matter. Where I'm from I'm a young-ish adult and, from what I can tell, he is this era's equivalent of the same. It's all relative, and that's good enough for me.

I realise I must have a particularly bad case of horny-brain when he repeats something for the second time and I only just catch what it is. “Em, what was in this room?"

I walk over and look to where he's pointing. It's a mid-sized room, as empty as all the rest.

“I, uh," I rub my forehead. “I think this was my parents' bedroom? Or was it...?" I feel a headache coming on. Being here, delving into memory... it's more stressful than I knew. Why do I want to remind myself so directly of the life I've left behind? Of all these people, dead and buried, that I'll never see again?

“You're not sure?" He asks, confused.

I rub my forehead. “No, I know, it's just..." It's just what? “I want to get out of here. Bad memories are creeping back in."

“Oh, Zed, you told us earlier, right? I'm sorry for forgetting. You hated your old life." He takes my hand and my heart skips as he leads me out of my old home. “Should I have tried to stop you coming here?" He asks, naive and undecided.

“No," I say. I squeeze his paw. “You've been nothing but wonderful to me. It was my own mistake to make, but thank you for dragging me out."

He tugs at the purple collar around his neck and grits his teeth.

“I still feel like I've failed you."

“Why the hell would you feel like that?"

“I was trying to ease you into your life here, but over and over again I've overwhelmed you. I'm sorry, Em."

“Hey, this is all new, and it's hard for the both of us. Nothing you've done was meant to hurt or upset me, in fact everything you've done has been to accommodate me. Zach, I'm incredibly lucky to have met you, don't doubt yourself."

“I'm the lucky one, Em. It's not every day I get to meet somebody as interesting and sweet as you. In fact I've never met anybody quite like you."

I freeze up. Is he flirting with me, or simply being kind? Horny-brain, I hate you.

Why not just ask him?

Why not? There's a million reasons!

Come on Mei, if not now, when?

Fuck it.

“If I didn't know any better I'd think you were trying to seduce me," I say, the words sounding more fragile and tender coming out of my mouth than I'd intended.

“Oh, uh, no it's- I mean, you're beautiful and I'd li- I- I'm sorry. I'm not good at this. Normally I can just- But with you-?" he shakes his head, unable to get his point across, words failing him. “I'm sorry Em. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

I fidget and fail to make eye contact and silence falls between us. Ears drooping and tail still he wordlessly leads me to the nearest pad, doubtlessly believing he's fucked up. The opposite is true. How do I-?

Fuck it.

Fuck it fuck it fuck it!

You are no longer meek little Mei, scared of everyone and everything. You are no longer that introverted, isolated bore. You are Em. You are an eccentric, outspoken and fun, soon-to-be squirrel morph and, right now, you're fucking horny. You are your idealised self with nothing held back. You are that bitch, so act like it.

Before I have the chance to change my mind I open my mouth.

“Zach?"

“Yeah?"

“This is the first time you've met a woman from ancient history, right?"

“That's right."

“Well, believe it or not, this is the first time I've met a hot-as-hell hyena morph."

He stops in place, turns to me and raises an eyebrow.

“I, uh-" He clears his throat. “If I didn't know better I'd think you were trying to seduce me, Em."

“What if I am?

I match his stare. From a tight, flat expression he grows a grin. He slicks back his golden hair and flashes his fangs.

“My, my. You really do have the hots for us furry-types, don't you?"

He wants this.

I don't let my confidence waver. Instead, I lean into it, extending a hand to stroke his cheek.

“Does that bother you?"

He angles himself into my touch, a small act of submission. It seems to me that he's the one matching my stare now. His tail is wagging. He bites his tongue gently.

“Are you sure you know what you're getting yourself into?" He asks, voice so low that some of his words are closer to growls than anything human. God, we need to fuck.

“I only have one question."

“Anything."

“Can you get me pregnant?"

He laughs. “Not unless we both want that, and I don't."

“Good. Then I'm sure," I say. He nods slowly. I lower my hand from his cheek to his collar and, before he can react, I grab it and tug down hard, bringing his head level with mine. “The real question is: are you?"

He doesn't need to answer, the hunger in his eyes tells me everything I need to know.

---

Oh. My. God.

That's something I thought I'd never get to do outside of masturbatory fantasy and, let me tell you, the real thing is even better than I'd dared imagine.

My body is on fire. If he went easy on the newbie, I couldn't tell. I was gaped and railed hard, twice, and that was after swallowing one of his prodigious loads.

Zachary's pre alone totalled to what would've been more than a half dozen orgasms from your average twenty-first century dick. Drinking down his climax was like trying to chug a bottle of Diet Coke that'd just met a pack of Mentos. God, if I never get to do anything like that again at least I have this experience permanently seared into the wank-bank I like to call my memory.

The feeling of his fur on my naked body! His snarls, those guttural growls! His tail wrapped around my waist! I came so goddamn hard when he hammered me into his bed. I came even harder when I got on top and rode him, milking him for another fat load of his cum. Now I'm stuffed with his juices and my pussy is raw and my limbs are jelly. I'm well and truly fucked, and I love it.

Too explicit? Too visceral? If this is all coming as a shock to you, you haven't been paying attention.

That girl I was pretending to be is not the real me, this is. And here I am, naked, lying on my back beside Zach, in his bed, halfway catatonic. He has one arm over me and is fast asleep, snoring quietly. I may as well be fucking dead. I've lived the dream and arrived in heaven.

I fucked an anthro for real. There are a whole load of furries back in my time who would've fucking murdered for this, straight up, but I'm the lucky-ass bitch who actually got to live it out for real. Now I'm laying back, full of anthro cum, glowing in the aftermath. Fuck. I won. I won so goddamn hard.

My fingers wind their way to my clit and I work myself up all over again, reliving the past few hours in flashing mental images and intense remembered sensations. I'm so sore down there that the pleasure mixes with pain, but it doesn't stop me. I reach climax in minutes, writhing and moaning softly, existing in pure bliss. God, my hands are sticky. My whole body is sticky. Fuck it, I don't care.

I'm absolutely goddamn motherfucking exhausted, but...

I can't sleep.

This was the best night of my life, but now I...

What if...?

What if I don't wake up here?

What if I wake up in London, back in 2022?

What if I wake up even further into the future?

What if I wake up at some random point in history, adrift in time and space?

Waking up here opened all possibilities.

No. No, no, no. There is a reason for this. It isn't random. I'm here because something happened to me, or because I did something to cause it. Last night is a total blur, but that has to mean something, right? I'm certain it does.

There's so much I still don't know, and not just about this place and time, or about how I got here, but about the time I left behind. What happened to my family, my few friends, the world?

One thing at a time, right? One thing at a time.

Still, I can't sleep.

I want to fuck Zach again. But it's more than that: I wanna go out and fuck any fur that'll take me. I wanna swim in anthro dick and pussy, I wanna be buried alive in big fluffy butts and tits. I wanna go out, party, get fucked up on some crazy ass future-drugs and have sex until I pass out. I wanna be the pass-around party bottom. I wanna be the bad bitch dominatrix. I wanna be a fucking squirrel-morph with a huge tail, wide hips, perky breasts and goddamn goofy-ass buck teeth.

God, it's good to be Em. I feel alive like I've never felt before. I'm unlocked, unleashed. This beast was living inside of me for so long, now I can finally let it free and be the person I was always meant to be. Not mild mannered, nerdy Mei, no. Eccentric, ecstatic, electric Em.

But, that's not gonna work if I fall asleep and don't wake up here. I couldn't go back home now. I could never. I'd- I'd wanna- I'd wanna fucking-

What was I doing last night? How did I-?

What does it fucking matter?

The real question is: how can I know I'll still be here in the morning?

The question nags at me. It nags and it nags. I remove Zachary's arm from my chest and slide out of bed. I can barely feel my legs, walking is difficult, but I manage, somehow. I close the door when I reach the next room and awkwardly ask the empty space for some light. The nothingness provides. I go over to a console built into the wall. If Zachary is to be believed, and I think he is, Zed has the sum of all human knowledge and access to pretty much all recorded human history at its disposal. There must be a question I could ask to help allay my fears, but what is it?

My head throbs as I try to divine an answer. Several possibilities disintegrate in my mind before they have a chance to fully form. I rub my temples and grimace.

I need to find something simple and obvious. Something essential.

Ah. There it is.

“Zed," I say. “Show me all the information you have on Mei Stephenson, born 1995." Realizing a potential issue I add: “on Earth, England, London, August 12th."

The screen in front of me flashes on and suddenly I feel ill. Right there, plain as day, is a photograph of me taken at my family's last Christmas dinner. I'm sitting, clutching a glass of Prosecco and wielding a sardonic smile underneath an oversized, bright red Santa hat. Above it is my name. Beneath it reads: August 12th 1995 - January 2nd 2022.

It makes no sense. It makes no fucking sense.

Oh god.

It isn't the file itself. It isn't the extensive list of links and dense paragraphs of information all about me. It isn't even the damn date of death. It's all of that, and it's more.

It's the damn photograph.

My mother took it on her phone just over a week before I woke up here. I indulged her specifically because she was internet-illiterate. I knew it would never end up online, nor in print; it wasn't a special enough occasion or a good enough photo for that. That photo was to live and die on her phone. I can't even imagine how it ended up here.

I double over and throw up spontaneously. When it's done I collapse onto the floor and hug my legs, hyperventilating and wheezing. My head is spinning, or is that the room? Is this it? Is it happening again? Am I gonna black out and wake up somewhere else? Or- Or something even worse? I-

Get up, bitch. Get up. What the fuck do you think you're doing? The answers are right there. All you have to do is get up. You're that badass, confident bitch, right? You're a brand new you? Then get up and fucking prove it.

I put both hands on the floor and push up. I tell Zed to clean the mess I made and a small, agile robot zooms out from a newly opened hole in the wall and dutifully mops it up. I breathe in deep and exhale, allowing the bot to finish its job before continuing, thankful that I haven't woken Zachary up just yet.

Okay. It's time. I look again at my file. There's Mei, smiling back at me, a dead look in her eyes. She's sick and tired of this shit. Little does she know, she won't have to endure it for much longer.

The page is filled with quick links to various subsections ranging from an extensive summary of my life, to a far less wordy account of my lasting impact and legacy, to a collection of all recordings and photographs taken of me, to all writings by me or that refer to me, the bulk of which being social media posts, and there's more. I skim through it all at high speed, not taking much in other than a vague comprehension of the sheer, gargantuan depth of it all. It's mind bending. It's mind fucking shattering. I was a nobody. I am a nobody. If this is my page then...

I ask Zed to show me the page of some celebrity I grew up admiring. Their page is similar, but with, - as I suspected - a hell of a lot more content in each section, plus additional subsections that would have no relevance to a layperson like me. I return to my page, head clouded, feeling faint. I could get lost in this so easily. These pages aren't wiki entries, they're entire fucking wikis unto themselves.

What do I do? What do I fucking do? What should I read? What do I need to know? I can't go through all of it, I'd go in-fucking-sane. Okay. Okay, okay. Fuck.

Start with the big one. It says I'm dead. I need to know why. I need to know if any of this is real, or if I really have died and this is some strange kind of afterlife. I bring up the relevant section and read.

Mei was reported missing by her parents on January 2nd 2022. In spite of a spirited local campaign utilizing the most recent photograph of her available (as seen at the head of this document), Mei was never found and was declared legally dead in January of 2029.

Little information was found at the time regarding the circumstances of her disappearance, leaving many questions unanswered. However, by examining contemporary data and holistic history it can be speculated with 95.39% accuracy that-

I stop reading. That's more than enough.

Answers are forming. I went missing. Of course I did; it only makes sense. And that's why that photo is here. It all checks out, in a barely-believable sort of way.

The speculation on my disappearance that follows chills me in concept alone. To read it would be pointless and disturbing. I'm here. I know what happened. I jumped forward in time to the Cube. I just don't know how.

If only my memory wasn't so damn blurry. All I can... That night. 2022. First of the year. I felt something so strongly. And I left home. I remember that now. I left home and I-

I have no clue.

God, my parents. The poor bastards. I hated them sometimes, but for all the ways they failed me, I know they loved me. And, I suppose, I loved them too. Now they're gone, and they had to live out the rest of their lives without me.

Tears fall onto the console. I cup my head in my hands and sob. This is too much. I'm so glad I'm here, on the Cube, but... I left them back there, alone, frightened, without answers, and not just my parents, the few I saw as friends too. It's an awful, consuming feeling of failure that descends on me.

I doom scroll through my personal wiki, tapping and poking at random. It doesn't only contain the information and posts from my public social media accounts, it knows all of my private ones too: my furry accounts, my AD. Oh god. Scroll, scroll, tap. Tap. Tap. Scroll. Yup. Fuck. There's my nudes. I posted a couple of these online. My scrawny, pasty ass. Full frontal with a mediocre furry draw-over replacing my face and adding a tail. I couldn't afford a fursuit, not even a partial, so I drew my true self into existence. God, there's even some titty shots here that I shared over DMs. How in hell did they end up here? I didn't post them anywhere permanent. Then again maybe the recipients did, or maybe they were saved onto some hard drive somewhere and extracted way later, or intercepted by pervy internet-monitoring government officials. I have no idea.

I suppose this means anybody that gets to know me on the Cube will have easy access to my nudes and all the knowledge in the world about what a total nutcase I am. Great.

“Zed, can the subject of a file request restrictions on what information is public access?"

“Yes."

Zed's voice is calm and neutral and seems to come from no particular direction. It's kind of fucking creepy.

I go back to studying my file, skimming what it thinks my lasting legacy was. My unexplained disappearance made friends sad, family sadder and even upset some strangers. My disappearance exacerbated the paranoia of some who heard about it too. I left some friends and acquaintances with happy memories though, thoughts and feelings that affected their lives in positive ways, so it wasn't all awful. In fact, more than anything, it was low impact. The truth is, overall, I really didn't matter.

Even this, relatively brief, section has sublinks within sublinks. The embarrassing wealth of context and information feels exorbitant, gratuitous and ultimately pointless. What does any of it even mean? It's ancient, utterly irrelevant history. I did jack shit to affect anything.

I want to tell Zed to cut off access to the photos, and to amend the damn thing to account for the fact that I'm still very much alive but, at the same time, I don't. There's a strange sense of importance about the entry to me, something precious, like a meticulously crafted sculpture that could crumble at any moment if treated improperly. The information is more than I can handle all at once and, somehow, I think that means I shouldn't mess with it. Not yet, at least.

I want to know more, so much more, but it's hard. I'm here, and for all I've lost, for all those I hurt by leaving, I know I'll be happy here. Probing into my past like this, so violently, all at once, can only hurt me. So many things are fuzzy, unclear, translucent at best, but maybe that's exactly how it should be. I know on the surface that doesn't seem to make sense, but something deep down inside me tells me it's right. I'm here; all I need to do now is live my best life.

But, first, there is one thing I have to ask Zed. I just don't know quite what it is.

How did I end up h- No. Yes? No. Is there a chance I'll be sent ba- No. No. Do you think I'll wake up at some completely other point of space and time? Right. No. What even is that?

Here's the question: “Zed, where will I be when I wake up?"

“You are not asleep."

Right.

“When I go to sleep tonight, on the Cube, where will I be when I wake up?"

“You will be on the Cube."

I exhale, expelling some of the tension from my lungs.

“Are you absolutely certain?"

“Yes."

“All of history, all of human knowledge ever, plus whatever you have observed of me, tells you with complete, unwavering certainty that I will wake up here, on the Cube?"

“Yes."

“Fuck," I say.

Zed says nothing.

A huge, dumb grin spreads across my face. I'm lightheaded and happy and tired. I return to Zach and crawl into bed. Sleep finds me before a single worry can claw its way into my mind.

My dreams are formless, amorphous blobs of empty space, cascading into one another again and again. It isn't scary, or even disconcerting, it's just... absence, made manifest by subconscious. It's nothing as something. Or, perhaps, it's the other way around.

I wake up serene, entirely aware of where and when I am.

“Morning Em, want some breakfast?"

It's Zach, grinning lazily, sitting beside me, looking down into my eyes.

“I could do with a drink," I say. My fingers walk along his chest, down to his crotch and take hold of his half-hard length. “Any ideas?"

His smile widens; his animal-sharp incisors poke over his lip.

“A few."