FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Hello! Its been forever since I've worked on this story, but the creative mood struck me so here I am. I rewrote the first chapter so it fits a more traditional type of story writing. Other elements will change as well when I see fit. Don't be afraid to tell me how I can improve my writing skills. I hope you enjoy!

//////////

At first he thought it had been a dream. Lyle had been sleeping peacefully until his doorbell rang. Although once it rang again he concluded that it must have been some sort of joke, after all there were a large number of college kids in his neighborhood, they probably wanted to get back at the old psychology teacher for assigning a large homework load that particular weekend. Well for one he wasn't "old" he was only twenty three, a fact that stunned most people he met, they saw his silver white fur and frown lines and just automatically assumed he was ancient, no... just natural fur coloring and pessimism, he thought to himself as he rose from supine position in bed. Letting his paws drop to the hardwood floor he stood up and wiped the sleep from his eyes. Walking forward towards his bedroom door he reached for the handle, missing it several times before finally clasping it with his silver-gray paw and turning the handle. From there it was a short walk to his front door, he opened it without a second thought, part of himself thought he was still dreaming, while the other cared little that he was scantily dressed in only his boxer shorts. What he saw solidified his belief that he was dreaming. A large menacing black wolf stood before him in a black suit and dark shades, he chuckled to himself and mumbled out loud. "Must've been watching too many movies about spies... wearing shades at night, ha! so tacky" He yawned and went to close the door, the wolf jutted his foot outward catching it midway which startled the vulpine into wakefulness. "Lye Evans?" The surly male asked in an even baritone voice. "Who are you?" He said with a small bit of anger seeping into his voice, this had to be a prank, " If this is a prank then I'm going straight to the dean's office" he tried to make his voice as stern and authoritarian as he could, but it ended up coming out as little more than a dry croak. "Sir I'm here to pick you up, I can't tell you anything until, you'll be filled in on the way to Graikoi." The canine replied in the same deep steady tone. "The air force base?" Lyle asked incredulously, "no wait... listen I have no idea who you are or if this is some sort of elaborate joke, but Its four in the morning and I need to be in bed, I have a lot of things to do tomorrow so please go away." He lied, he had no plans other than staying in and watching reruns of terrible TV shows tomorrow, regardless of lack of plans he had no intentions of going anywhere with this stranger especially at four AM. The wolf let out a sigh and reached into his pocket which made Lyle's eyes go wide. Did he have a weapon? He barely had time to finish the thought before he saw what the charcoal colored canine had in his hand: a cell phone, tapping a few icons on the touch pad a voice came into focus. It was the face of his past college Dr. Jessica lance, they had spent a few years together working at various research labs, trying to get experience in the psychology field before they transferred over to better positions, he had chosen to teach at a university, Jessica had been scooped up by the military because of her work in the development of PTSD therapies. A slender fox, she was bright orange instead of grey. " Lyle, it's me Jessica, look I can't tell you anything right now but you need to come with this man it's very important or I wouldn't have bothered you like this... please trust me?" She asked with a pleading look, Lyle simply sighed and grumbled an "okay" before returning to his room and getting dressed in a pair of jeans and a white polo, he managed to smooth down his messy head fur and grab his laptop bag before heading back out into his living room and following the black wolf out the door.

The canine led him silently out of the house, letting Lyle close the door behind him and lock it. His house was small but nice, two or three converted cargo containers covered in white concrete the interior was visible from the outside via a large glass window pane, his floors were dark wood and his furniture was minimalist but comfortable. Looking back to the wolf he was led to a black SUV, it was nondescript save for the blacked out windows (Illegal except for use by the government) Climbing into the plush leather interior he was surprised to see another occupant sitting in the back seat, a grey lynx with tufted ears and steely gray eyes, he was in a similar black suit but appeared to be of a slimmer build than that of his companion, he was also more talkative. "Dr. Lyle Evans I presume?" The lynx said clearing his throat without letting the fox utter a word he presented a paper to the fox " I'll need you to sign this before I tell you anything" The cat said sharply, frowning with agitation the fox took the paper and glossed over it, basically it was a confidentiality agreement except if he broke it instead of a lawsuit he would face jail time. Without hesitation he signed it, he had no intention of telling anyone about this trip at an ungodly hour anyway. "Okay I've signed your forms now tell me what this is about" he said with a frustrated sigh "do you want me to conduct a therapy session at 4am in the morning?" Lying his head back and closing his eyes he waited for a response, tiredness was beginning to take hold of him once more. " In a way yes... but first answer me this, before you started teaching at Caldwell university your main area of research was in area of human archeology yes?" This jolted him awake, turning his head to stare wide eyed at the cat he answered "yes, I worked on a few dig sites before pursuing my degree in psychology... why? Did you find something?" He asked his voice sporting an edge of excitement"

Human civilization had always fascinated him as a child, there was so much that anthros didn't know about the strange race. Sure there was evidence that humans had once inhabited the earth, vast ruins of megacities that stretched for hundreds of miles across the east and west coast of the continental united states, these were the largest ruins left by the precursors of the anthros, smaller cities and installations dotted the planet's surface, all untouched by curious anthro researchers. Many believed these husks to be a treasure trove of information and advanced technology and many more agreed that the ruins should be exploited... there was only one problem, humans had apparently wanted the ruins to stay untouched forever... gigantic bipedal machines patrolled the perimeter of these once great metropolises. Armed to the teeth with a variety of weapons and ever vigil in their defense, these machines marched calmly around the ruins of the great settlements, following their master's last command with mechanical perfection. Every attempt to breach the once great cities had failed, most of the time a trespassing team was caught and gently escorted outside the perimeter. Fewer times when military force had been applied the machines used jamming or precision weapons to disable the invading forces ability to fight, any soldiers were escorted outside the perimeter jus like their unarmed peers. Amazingly not one anthro in recorded history had been killed by the humans awesome mechanical creations. Despite repeated attempts the machines patiently thwarted every attempt, until finally most had given up. That left only a handful of ruins to explore, those that had been seemingly forgotten by the machines and for good reason: they were utterly devoid of anything interesting, a few buildings and what remained of personal automobiles, the greatest find was what appeared to be an unmarked graveyard in Montana, over five hundred bodies had been found, each tagged with a strange plastic bracelet and each piled layer by layer until a macabre wall of skeletons was formed. Sociologists theorized that it was either some sort of strange burial ritual, or that the ones buried had been sick with some sort of infectious disease. Study of the corpses revealed that human physiology was bizarre, yet oddly similar to an anthros, bipedal with ten digits, opposable thumbs and a ribcage, but an oddly there was no tail, just the vestigial remnant of one near the bottom of the spine, humans also possessed an oddly rounded head and the presence of both canine teeth and teeth that looked like they were meant for chewing plant matter. So far that was all they knew... what humans looked like. Nothing of their culture, or why they went extinct which was a big question since from what it looked like humans were the most advanced species on the planet at the time.

Anything new discovered could be a quantum leap in civilizations quest to understand the precursor race. So naturally Lyle was ecstatic. "What did you find? A new grave site or a building?" He asked urgently, his thoughts were racing as his mind considered the possibilities. The lynx looked back at him and seemed to ponder whether or not he should tell the fox, a few agonizing seconds passed before the cat apparently decided he could. " We found... what appears to be" he cleared his throat again " a live human... in what we can only guess is some sort of stasis pod, we found it at the bottom of a mine in Nevada, just two weeks ago, once we cut it open we found a living being... after an X-ray it was confirmed that it has skeleton matching the ones we found at the grave site in Montana" The fox was stunned speechless, now he knew why Jessica had thought to fetch him at such an ungodly hour, an actual living human being! His mind went over endless possibilities " w-well he could have been the last of his kind... maybe he was preserved so that we could find him, maybe he's supposed to teach us about their civilization, this could change everything! If he knows anything at all about their technology it could..." he sputtered and tried to calm his now racing heart "I need to see him! Please, just let me talk to him for..." The lynx put up his paw to stop the doctor from continuing " that's why were bringing you to Graikoi air force base, he's been unconscious for a few days, and he just started to wake up, we've had him sedated so that you can be the first anthro he's seen... we assume that since you're a psychologist and an expert in human civilization, you can ask the right questions and ease him into everything." The cat explained, and for the next three hours the car drove silently along the flat Washington state road, winding up until it came to a large gated military complex, it was seated at the base of mount Rainier and dug all the way into the mountain until it hollowed out into a command bunker, over a hundred miles away lie the ruins of a vast human city, a prominent spire with a needle tip sticking up defiantly from the jagged ruins of skyscrapers.

After what seemed like an eternity the car came to a stop outside the tunnel blast door, it opened silently to allow them passage. From there it was a short ride on the military equivalent of a golf cart, and then a ten minute descent in an elevator before they came to a what looked like an interrogation room, only inside it looked more like a hospital room, with a team of doctors hovering over a supine figure, time seemed to stop as the armed guards opened the stainless steel door to allow Lyle inside, moving inside he approached the foot of the bed and quietly asked the two doctors who were discussing something about muscle tone to move from the foot of the bed, silently they abided and let the grey vulpine view the figure on the table. He was male, obviously from the larger muscle tone and presence of a penis and a set of testicles. He had no fur, instead he was covered from head to toe in skin, just skin but with a ghostly white tone to it. By his height the fox concluded that he must be an adolescent, maybe only 16 years old he guessed, the grave site in Montana thankfully had different skeletons varying in size and structure, which let researches extrapolate age and sex. The young male possessed very little body fat, instead his skin was pulled taught against him, making his muscles appear prominently along his body including his abdomen which was sporting the beginning of a six pack. The youth was obviously alive, made apparent by the occasional twitch of one of his muscles, a nearby monitor showed that his temperature was 110 degrees Fahrenheit, slightly warmer than an average anthro. Other than his lack of a thick fur coat and the strange shape of his skull the next thing a person would notice about the young human would be the scars that covered his body. long thin lines that represented lacerations and dark circles in strange patterns that dotted across his chest and stomach...gunshot wounds. Most disturbing of all were the bite marks, they were human in origin and ranged from right below his right pectoral muscle all the way down to his ankle... for some reason other humans had bitten the boy, and deeply... most of the bite marks were dark indicating the presence of several layers of scar tissue. The gray fox was awestruck and stood motionless in wonder as he watched the living fossil sleep peacefully on the gurney. His heart jumped as he saw the youth's eyes twitch and flutter, then slowly the ghostly white lids lifted to reveal two bright blue eyes, the human's mouth opened and revealed the teeth that had been studied by researches for decades, he made direct eye contact with Lyle, seeming confused for a moment before uttering something that turned every head in the room. "Its freezing in here... cover me up." The boy croaked out dryly before closing his eyes and drifting back off to sleep.

//////////

Some inspiring first words from the last human on earth eh? I would imagine coming out of stasis would be a lot like coming out of surgery, in that your completely confused and just blurt the first thing that comes to mind. Notice how I'm keeping state names because I don't want to write a completely new language. Some words might change though, so that should keep it interesting. I tried to describe a human as best I could from the point of view of someone who isn't human, I think I did a pretty decent job considering that most animals save for chimpanzees have different skull structure then humans. Please tell me how I can improve future chapters and I'll try my best to improve. Also, did you notice that the name of the military base "Greikoi" is the Greek word for origin? I think its fitting considering that this is the first chapter. Hope you enjoy the next chapter.

Hunter~