FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

A cool breeze flowed through the alley, rustling bits of garbage. The sound of cars drifted in from a distance. Then the silence broke as a male fox anthro ran down the alley as fast as he could, heavy footsteps drawing closer behind him. It was midnight in Crestwood, a very dangerous time for the citizens, because between midnight and 6 AM, the city allows all predators to hunt prey species and smaller predators freely and without consequences. Fen looked like a typical male fox anthro. Red and black fur covered his slender, five-and-a-half-foot-tall body. He was twenty years old, lived by himself, and worked as a cook at a restaurant called The Gilded Fang. It was a popular, affordable restaurant, and he had chosen to work there because it closed at 10 p.m., giving him plenty of time to get home before the daily hunt began. Until tonight, at least. Fen looked at the clock and sighed. There were only fifteen minutes of service left, and then he could clean up and head home. He began wiping down the counter when he heard the blood-curdling sound of the ticket machine printing another order. His eye twitched as a long slip of paper curled from the printer. Then he heard the soft voice of the waitress, a female cheetah named Lin. "Sorry," she said sheepishly. "A group just came in. I hope you don't mind." "Don't worry. Home is overrated anyway," Fen replied sarcastically. She chuckled as she walked away to fill their glasses. An hour later, Fen sent out the final dish and began cleaning, with Lin helping. Once they finished, Fen checked his phone and saw that it was almost midnight. His ears folded back, and a chill ran up his spine. There was no way he would make it home before the hunt began. He quickly locked up the restaurant and started speed-walking home. All around him, he saw a few other anthros-mostly prey species and smaller predators-heading indoors in preparation for the hunt. When the clock struck midnight, the haunting wail of the tornado sirens began. Fen panicked. The hunt had begun. Victor, an eight-foot-tall tiger anthro, yawned as his last round ended in the game he usually played with his online friend. He checked his messages but saw nothing new, so he sent a quick message. "Hey, I guess you forgot about me, lol. I'm bored, so I'm going out hunting. Talk to you later." He stood up from the couch and stretched. It wasn't often that his friend failed to join him online, but life happened. They had been friends for the last few years, though they had never met in person. Victor left his house, locked the door, and breathed deeply through his nose, filling his lungs with the cool night air. Then he began walking, scenting the air for potential prey. After about ten minutes, he caught the scent of his next meal and licked his lips as drool gathered in his mouth. He followed the scent until he spotted the fox ahead. It wasn't a prey species, just a smaller predator, but he would do just fine. Victor's stomach rumbled excitedly as he crept closer, placing his steps as carefully as he could while still closing the gap. Then he accidentally kicked an empty bottle. The sound rang out louder than a gunshot in the quiet street, and his prey looked back, eyes wide. Fen was walking quietly down the road to avoid attracting the attention of any large predator when he suddenly heard an empty bottle skitter loudly along the sidewalk. He looked back and saw his worst nightmare: a male tiger was stalking him. Fen's eyes locked with the big cat; he saw the tiger's lips curl menacingly in a snarl, drool dripping from his jaws. His feet were already moving before he could think about it. He ran as fast as his legs could manage; he could hear the tiger behind him. Victor locked eyes with the fox and saw his muscles tense, ready to flee. He snarled in annoyance. This was supposed to be easy, but kicking that bottle had ruined the ambush. He might as well have called out to announce himself. Then the fox took off like a bullet, and Victor gave chase. He gained on him quickly as the fox took random turns, trying to throw him off, but soon enough, Fen made a wrong turn and ended up at a dead end. Victor smiled. He had his prey cornered. Fen skidded to a stop. There was a wall blocking his only escape. He turned around slowly and looked at the tiger. This was it; he was going to be cat food. "Please... don't eat me," he begged. The tiger grinned, and the sight of those fangs made Fen's fur bristle. "I think we both know begging won't save you now, little fox," the tiger said. Fen searched for a way to escape but found none. His ears folded back against his head, and he whimpered as he realized he was trapped. The tiger smiled and stepped toward him to claim his prize. Fen backed away until his back pressed against the cold brick wall. The tiger stopped in front of him, close enough that Fen could feel the heat radiating from the large feline. The tiger's musk filled his nose; it smelled like old leather, musty fur, and earth. Victor stood close to the fox, watching his prey shiver in fear. He grabbed him, opened his mouth wide, and pressed the fox's head inside. The taste spread across his tongue, sweet, salty, and musky. Victor swallowed, feeling the fox's head enter his throat, and heard a muffled whimper from within. Fen's eyes widened as the tiger opened his mouth, sharp fangs framing the pink interior. Strings of drool stretched down to the barbed tongue, pooling beneath it. Farther inside, the wet, pulsing throat led into inky darkness. The tiger grabbed Fen by the shoulders and forced his head into his waiting mouth. Wet flesh pressed around him as saliva poured over his orange fur. Fen felt the tongue move beneath his muzzle, pulling him deeper into the tight confines of the tiger's throat. The slimy passage squeezed around his head, drawing a whimper from him. His nose filled with the tiger's stale breath, mixed with the faint acidic scent of his destination. Another audible gulp dragged him farther in. He felt his head slip past the tiger's collarbone as the tiger's jaws closed around his shoulders. The tiger swallowed again, pulling Fen's shoulders into the tight throat. His head was now in the tiger's chest, where the steady pounding of the big cat's heart and the slow whoosh of air from his lungs were deafening. Another swallow brought Fen's stomach inside. His head slipped through a ring of muscle and into the tiger's stomach, the tips of his ears brushing the wrinkled walls as the tiger leaned back and let gravity help drag him down into the acidic prison. Victor burped loudly as the fox settled into his stomach. He licked his lips, chasing the remaining flavour of his prey, and he rubbed his stomach, admiring the fullness he felt. Victor began walking home; the feeling of the fox shifting inside him made him purr. Fen panicked. Everything around him moved, the wrinkled walls rubbing stomach juices and half-digested pizza into his fur. The smell made him gag. He knew it would take a few hours before the acids broke him down into fox-flavoured soup, so he pulled out his phone, thankful he had chosen a digestion-proof case, and turned on the screen. The light instantly blinded him. After a moment, his eyes adjusted, revealing the pink, wrinkled walls around him. He thought about calling the police, but they would do nothing because he had been caught during the hunt. He thought about calling family or friends, but none of them would be able to help him. He sighed and whimpered, a tear streaking down his cheek as he realized there was no hope. In a matter of hours, he would be nothing more than tiger poop. Victor returned home feeling satisfied after a successful hunt. He plopped down on the couch and cracked open a beer; he drank slowly as he started his game up again. Fen grimaced as cool, foul-smelling liquid poured over his head. He heard the muffled sound of a game console turning on and sobbed quietly. His life meant nothing to the tiger. He was just another meal, as ordinary as a pizza, rather than a living person. Then he thought of his online friend and decided to send him a final message. "Hey... so I have some bad news. I was on my way home from work, but it ran later than usual, and... I was eaten. I just wanted to say that the last few years since we met have been the best of my life. You were there when I needed a friend, and you were there to make fun of me whenever I did something embarrassing, like a real friend. So, I guess this is goodbye." Fen sent the message and turned off the screen, leaving himself in pitch-black darkness. All he could feel was the stomach squeezing around him, kneading acid into his sodden fur. Then he felt the vibration of a notification from the tiger's phone. Victor looked at the message and sat up in shock. "Hey, I'm sorry to hear that. Send me your location; I'll see if I can negotiate your release." Victor sent the message, adrenaline rushing through him as he realized he might still be able to help his friend. A reply came quickly. He opened the shared location, frowned at the map, and typed back. "That's strange," Victor typed, frowning at the map. "My app says you're where I am... wait. What kind of predator ate you?" Inside the tiger's stomach, Fen felt the heartbeat around him quicken. He stared at his phone and typed back. "Of course it would stop working now," Fen replied. "But if it helps, it was a male tiger." Victor read the message, and the world seemed to tilt beneath him. The words struck like a blow to the gut as the realization sank in. He had eaten his best friend. Panic surged through him; he dropped to his knees and forced himself to bring the fox back up before it was too late. Fen felt the tiger collapse to his knees as the stomach clenched tightly around him. Maybe my friend found him in time, he thought, just as his muzzle slipped back into the tiger's throat. Victor retched as the fox slid up his throat. He doubled over and heaved again, expelling a spray of foul liquid before Fen spilled out onto the floor. Fen coughed and looked around, expecting to see his friend. Instead, only the tiger stood there, hunched over and coughing. "W-what is going on?" Fen asked. The tiger looked at him, ears folded back. "You have no idea how sorry I am," Victor said, his voice rough from vomiting. "Why would you be sor-" Fen stopped cold. "Wait..." "You have every right to hate me," Victor said quickly. "But I swear, if I'd known it was you, I never would have done it." He gave a weak, nervous laugh. "On the bright side... we finally met in person." The joke died the moment he saw Fen's scowl. "Don't follow me," Fen growled, turning away before Victor could see his face break. He walked out before he said something that would shatter what little was left between them. Part of him wanted to scream, to demand how Victor could have swallowed him and still call himself his friend. But the words tangled in his throat, buried under shock, fear, and the humiliating sting of tears he refused to let Victor see. Fen shoved the front door open and stormed into the night, leaving it hanging wide behind him. Victor took one step after him, then stopped. Every instinct screamed at him to follow, to apologize again, to somehow fix what he had broken. But Fen's words held him in place. For once, Victor forced himself to listen. He closed the door slowly, locked it, and stood there with his hand on the knob, staring at the wood as if Fen might come back. His phone felt heavy in his pocket. He wanted to message him, but even that felt like another way of chasing him. By the time Fen reached home, the anger that had kept him moving had begun to crack. He went straight to the bathroom, stripped off his ruined clothes, and stepped into the shower. Hot water beat against his fur as he scrubbed repeatedly, trying to wash away the sour, acidic stink clinging to him. Even after the smell had mostly faded, he kept scrubbing until his skin burned. When he finally shut off the water and shook himself dry, he caught his reflection in the mirror. A few bald patches marked his fur, the skin beneath red and raw. He looked exhausted, shaken, and smaller than he felt. Then his phone chirped. Fen picked it up and saw a new message from Victor. It read, "Hey... I know you're still angry with me, and I don't blame you. I just wanted to say..." Fen rolled his eyes, unwilling to read any further. After a brief hesitation, he blocked Victor on the messaging site. Victor regretted sending the message, but he needed Fen to know how deeply sorry he was. He watched as Fen opened it-then a notification appeared over the chat: "You can no longer contact this user." "He... he blocked me," Victor whispered, blinking back tears. He checked the other apps they used to chat, but each one showed the same message. "No..." Victor whimpered. Two weeks later Victor stared at the chat with Fen. It still showed he was blocked. His thumb hovered over the screen for a moment before he let the phone drop beside him on the couch. He understood why Fen wanted space; he had replayed that night often enough to know he deserved the silence. Still, after two weeks, the quiet had started to settle under his skin. He took a slow drink from his beer and set the bottle down with careful restraint. Maybe this is all we are now, he thought. He only sees me as a monster, so maybe I should show him a real one. Fen grumbled. Another late group had kept him at work past closing again. He stepped out the restaurant's back door into the silent night. It was already past midnight. The door shut behind him with a click that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet. Fen locked it and started walking home. As he passed a dumpster, a figure stepped out from behind it. It was Victor. "Well, well," Victor said, stepping from the shadows. "Out past curfew again, little fox?" Fen stiffened, then bared his teeth. "What do you want, Victor? Was blocking you not clear enough?" "Oh, I understood perfectly," Victor said, taking a slow step toward him. "Then why are you here?" Fen snapped. "We're not friends anymore." Victor's mouth curled into a thin smile. "I know." His tongue dragged slowly over his muzzle. "That's why I'm not here as your friend." Fen took a step back as the meaning settled in. "If we're not friends," Victor growled, "then you're prey." Fen's ears flattened against his head. "Victor, this isn't funny," Fen said, his voice tightening. "Good," Victor said. "Because I'm not joking. I'm going to eat you again." Fen bolted before he could think, panic taking over where reason failed. Victor's roar tore through the alley behind him, bouncing off the brick walls until it seemed to come from everywhere at once. Fen ran harder, breath burning in his chest, but the heavy footfalls closed in fast. A sharp tug wrenched him backward as Victor's claws caught his shirt, and a heartbeat later Fen slammed against the wall. Victor loomed over him, hot breath washing across his face, thick with meat and the familiar bitter scent of his favourite beer. Fen squeezed his eyes shut, trembling, waiting for the bite, the darkness, the awful pull into Victor's throat. Victor froze. Fen was shaking beneath his hands, helpless and braced for the worst, and the sight cut through him harder than any anger could. This was not justice. This was not revenge. This was the only friend who had ever truly known him, terrified because of him. The fury he had carried for two weeks drained away all at once, leaving only shame. Slowly, Victor let out a shaky breath and lowered his forehead against Fen's. His claws slipped free from the fabric, and his grip loosened until Fen could have pushed him away. Fen opened his eyes, confused and still trembling. He had expected pain. He had expected to feel himself forced past Victor's jaws again. Instead, the tiger only stood there, shaking almost as badly as he was. "Fen..." Victor's voice cracked. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm not going to eat you." Fen stared at him, breathing in short, uneven gasps. "Then why?" he whispered. "Why would you make me think you were?" Victor flinched as if the words had struck him. He looked away, ears pinned flat. "Because I was angry," he admitted. "Because you blocked me, and I felt like I lost the only person who mattered. I wanted you to hurt the way I hurt." His shoulders sagged. "But the second I saw how scared you were, I realized I was becoming exactly what you thought I was." Fen's anger wavered, but it did not disappear. His throat tightened, and he shoved both hands against Victor's chest, not hard enough to move him, just hard enough to make the tiger feel it. "You ate me," Fen said, his voice breaking. "You swallowed me like I was nothing, and then you thought scaring me again would fix it?" Victor did not answer right away. His eyes shone, and his mouth opened once before closing again. "No," he said at last. "Nothing I do can fix what happened. I know that. I just... I didn't know how to live with you hating me." Fen swallowed hard and wiped at his eyes before the tears could fall. "Then maybe you should have thought about that before you made me afraid of my best friend." His voice dropped to a whisper. "I don't know if I can forgive you, Victor." Victor nodded, the movement small and unsteady. "I know," he said, barely above a whisper. "And I don't expect you to forgive me. I just don't want you to hate me. You mean everything to me, Fen. But if you decide you never want to talk to me again... I'll understand." Fen looked at Victor, his expression torn, his hands still pressed against the tiger's chest as if he might need to shove him away. "I don't know," he said. "When I look at you, part of me still wants to run." His voice faltered. "But another part of me misses what we had." Victor swallowed hard and lowered his gaze, his claws curling loosely against his palms instead of reaching for Fen. "Then I won't ask you to stay," he said, his voice barely steady. "Not tonight. Not while you're still looking at me like I might hurt you again." He forced himself to take the smallest step back. "But if you ever give me the chance, I'll spend every day proving I won't." Victor stepped back, giving Fen enough room to leave if he wanted to. Fen watched him for a long moment, then let out a quiet breath. "I'll unblock you," he said. "I miss having you as target practice in the game. My skills are starting to fade." Victor's ears perked up. "You're an ass, you know that, right?" Fen chuckled, then stepped forward and hugged him. Victor gasped softly before carefully returning the hug.