FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

All my troubles began when I got this "digital companion" app off of the app store. I didn't think much of it at the time - I can't even remember why I got it in the first place. Maybe it was out of curiosity, or a quiet desperation for change. After trying to open the app, nothing happened. I couldn't delete it either - it just reappeared a moment after.

The hour turned to seven in the morning and rays of sun danced across my skin through my bedroom window. My truck barely came to life with a deep growl, and I backed it out of my driveway.

Entropic waves of hot air rose up through the asphalt straight into my melting brain. I was just about ready to drop the last brick I was laying when the chattering of my coworkers signaled lunch break. We sat in the shade and briefly distracted ourselves from the ceaseless turn of the day.

With a sandwich in hand, out of habit, I checked my phone, and to my surprise had gotten a text message. The number wasn't saved on my phone, and after a couple of seconds of squinting my eyes at the screen, I realized I couldn't read it at all; it was just a disjointed mess of digital characters. In the message was a single photo I recognized as a street from my childhood. I didn't think much of it - break had ended and it was once again time to toil.

Soon enough the five-o-clock sun hung in the sky, draping the world in tendrils of shadow. I got in my truck to find several more messages that had been sent over the past few hours. Pictures of a park I go to on weekends, the golf driving range I used to frequent when I was young. The city library. None of them seemed especially peculiar, although my connection to all of them was bothering me. I dismissed it as some kind of troll, just malware in good disguise. I drove home, roasting like a rotisserie chicken on black leather seats.

The next day, I awoke to a picture of a large tree I faintly recognized with some kind of black smudge in the photo. I looked closer, and creepily, it looked almost like a person was peeking out from behind the tree trunk. It was hard to make out exactly what it was, but my curiosity had my breath fogging up the screen trying to conjure an image out of a few discolored pixels. I suddenly became aware of two white beady eyes peering at me through the reflection off my phone screen. I instinctively looked behind me, only to find, obviously, nothing there. Maybe the heat was getting to me. My morning grogginess was swept away by something nervous and skittish, and I sat up in my bed, still holding my phone. It buzzed in my hand.

A picture of my old high school with a black figure that could barely be made out as humanoid standing behind a stop sign. At the construction site where I was just at a day earlier - myself in the photo working with the figure peeking around from my truck. Did I have a stalker? No, that would be ridiculous, I didn't even have friends. It must have been some troll with photoshop and too much free time. Blocking the number didn't work either.

I sat in my truck after work that day, wiping sweat from my brow. Checking what photos I had received from the number had become a habit after a couple of days. But this time, something much more dreadful made its way into my vision. It was a photo of me, sitting in the driver's seat moments before. Two clawed, bony hands rested still on my shoulders. Covered with coal-black fur, a person with an empty dog skull for a head. A slightly opened jaw revealed wicked, uneven teeth that filled me with terror. I saw the white eyes again. Looking straight at me. I yelled and turned around to once again find nothing there. I sat in silence for a miserable moment. Resting my trembling hands on the steering wheel, I began the drive home.

The truck's old suspension creaked as I came on the empty gravel driveway. My phone kept buzzing, but I forced myself to ignore it and opened the door to my house. Reassuringly, it was exactly as I had left it that morning. Perhaps it was too decent a creature for home invasion. My phone rang. I couldn't help myself from looking.

It in was my driveway. Looking through my front window. I texted back immediately.

*Who is this?*

I climbed out and ran to the front window, to, of course, find nothing there but some birdshit I had forgotten to clean off. All this had driven me to a boiling point by now. I smashed the window with a fist. The terrible sound of shattering glass filled my ears. I clutched my bloodied hand and sunk down against the side of the house, my eyes hot.

Upon looking at the reflections of the hundreds of shards of glass on the floor, I became closer to the unshakeable feeling of death hurtling toward me. In every shard of glass, the monster's fragmented form reflected through, smiling at me, teeth gleaming white. I knew this game would not end until one of us were dead. Running wouldn't do anything. I had to get to my gun. I rose with a new vigor flowing through me, my heart pounding in my head. As I opened the door and stomped up the wooden stairs to my room, a second, heavier pair of footsteps sounded behind me, almost teasing me. I didn't dare turn around.

I opened the closet, carefully avoiding looking at the wall mirror inside, and grabbed my shotgun. I felt the sharp pain of its claws raking slowly down my back as I loaded buckshot. It all happened in an instant. I loaded the third shell and only then allowed myself to look at the wall mirror in the closet before turning around as fast as I could. The monster was there, hunched yet still looming over me, long arms draped at its side, studying its prey.

I screamed as I pulled the trigger and shot lead into its skull. It fell back to wooden floor with a crash I couldn't hear over the ringing of my ears. Disoriented, I fired again and missed it's body entirely, making a plume of particulate out of the hardwood floor. I stood over the creature's twitching body, the sawdust in the air stinging my eyes, and unloaded lead straight into its black chest, shredding it while the butt of the shotgun recoiled back into my face. The creature let out a final twitch and then lied still, quiet as ever. Bright red blood and shattered teeth pooled on the floor.

..

I decided to lift up and push the body out the second-story window. It was easier than painting the stairs with blood.

Latching the lock open on the window and lifting the pane up with a creak, I stared at the grass twenty feet below. I dragged it by the underside of the arms and lifted its head up the windowsill with a grunt, awkwardly pushing it over and out to the ground below. After a laborous process I dumped the body in a nearby forest. I felt this odd feeling while doing so - I imagined myself to be a serial killer discarding the bodies of my victims. Or maybe just a weak, lonely man trying to make sense out of something which could not be understood. Perhaps I wasn't really seeing straight - Had this creature ever actually signified any hostile intent towards me? Now that my primordial reptile brain wasn't the dominant mental agent guiding my actions, I could see a bit clearer. Did I kill something not worthy to meet death?

"Son, you've been working here for almost 6 years now. You need to stop spacing out at work."

I was brought back to reality to find my superior casting a concerned eye on me. I must've looked like-

"...like you've seen a ghost. Is everything okay at home?"

"Yes sir. I apologize. It won't happen again," I lied.

Monday hours weened away brick by brick. We were renovating an old building. I couldn't help but feel this unsettling eeriness looking at dust in the air refract light. Or the black tufts of fur in the oddest places. Under a desk that must've been half a century old. In between walls where the insulation used to be.

For a reason which I can't understand why - maybe a hunch, or a tiny, curious voice in my head, I knew I still wasn't alone.

My phone rang.

END