FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

John woke with a start as the lights in the room flashed on one by one. Where was he? He didn't remember signing up for this sort of shit. He jumped to his feet and was instantly hit with a shock from nowhere, throwing him onto his back with a scream. The man saw only spots in his vision for a minute as he writhed on the floor.

What the fuck was going on?

There was a crackling noise, and then feedback from an older intercom. The voice coming from it sounded like it was buried underwater. "You are a dog. That is your purpose in life."

What the fu-

"Who are you? What the hell is this!" John yearned for answer, standing back up as he found the source of the sound by the fourth word. "I'm not some dog. I'm a human being with rights-"

There was another painful shock that he felt flash through his body, sending him crumpling to the floor in deep confusion and intense, nerve-singing pain.

"You will be conditioned. That is your first of many shocks. You will learn to be a dog." The voice spoke with cold, clinical precision.

John twitched a bit and then finally got back to his feet again, shakily and weakly struggling to find his footing.

The room was all white thanks to the bright flood lights that hovered just beneath the ceiling on the walls. There was no looking at the walls head on, and the ceiling was off limits too thanks to the brightness. His only way to look around was by staring at the floor.

"This is not what I signed up for." He said with barely repressed anger. "I want to see Dr. Change now. I must have been placed in the wrong room." A sharp, stabbing went through his collarbone before he felt the shockwave spread outwards from there. This time, instead of falling to his back, he landed on all fours, panting and gasping for air.

"The doctor has designated you for conditioning. You will become a dog in the proper way. That was what you signed up for." The cold, clinical voice evoked the shape and color of stainless steel scalpels flying at John's ears in his head.

"No, no... this is a mistake. I said I wanted to be a proper dog, like, you know... a gentleman but also a dog. Like... a dog with a big mustache and those old-timey suits and stuff." John gasped for breath as he looked around the floor, unable to see past that level. Christ, whose idea was this? That was such a glaring mistake.

"You specified only 'proper dog' on the forms. Therefore you will be made into a dog, properly. Now sit." John heard the canine command and he was dismayed for a moment at this. Dumbfounded, he couldn't believe that they had taken his fantasy out of context. This place was meant for human augmentation, wasn't it? A place you could go and turn into an anthropomorphic creature of your dreams, right? After all-

BZZZZZT!

"Sit."

"Damn it I wanted to speak English and talk like a gentleman. Let me see the doctor!" John shouted, and fell back on his rear as the shock continued to shape him.

"Good boy. You have learned your first trick. Repetition will ensure that you learn faster and with fewer shocks. When you are deemed passive enough, someone will feed you your reward." The voice informed John as he felt his head swimming in a pool of stupid, hazy confusion.

There were no words from the damning voice after that. The floodlights went dimmer, thankfully, and John was able to finally get a bitter thought past his lips without reprimand.

"What the actual fuck have I done..."

The portly young man sat on his rear as he looked around the room, trying to make sense of what he had to work with. The answer was bleakly little: aside from a dog bed and a food tray that was made of metal (probably tin with nickel, judging by the shine in its surface), there was only one other thing in the reinforced concrete block of a room and it was a tennis ball. His eyes were drawn to the ball almost instantly because it was the only thing in the room with a hint of color. He stood up and went to it, picking it up and holding it in his hand.

The ball was jumbo-sized, more like a tennis ball had eaten another tennis ball and had absorbed its mass. A bounce or two of the ball determined it was sufficient for passing the time. He tossed it at the concrete wall, harder than he had thought he had, and ducked for cover as the ball sped back towards him and bounced off the wall behind him to smack him in the head. He groaned a bit and rubbed his head.

"Ow."

He rubbed his head and that was when he felt it, brushing up against his arm, and with horror he grabbed at it, nearly choking himself in the process. A collar was attached to his neck, sitting low and close to his chest. John grabbed it again and the shockwave that came through it startled him, but it was not as intense as it had been before. This thing was a shock collar. It had to be.

That was one mystery solved, he thought to himself and Johnny sat back down on the concrete floor, trying to peel it off his neck. There was no obvious clasp, not even in the back, nor a Velcro strip, or a button or even a buckle. It was like one solid piece of metal all the way around his neck, with a small box at the front that simply must have contained the shocking mechanism. His tugs were met with small shocks initially, but he learned quickly enough he shouldn't try to push his luck for more.

Without any hesitation, John got back to his feet and started to look for a door. There wasn't one that he could initially see, even after pressing and feeling on all four walls for nearly an hour. Escape would prove impossible with nothing to climb onto to reach the air duct in the ceiling, and he knew he was probably too fat to squeeze into it even if he wanted to. As he pondered how he even got into this room to begin with, he felt fear creep into his body.

He was alone. Terrified and alone. He needed a friend right now. Tears began to well up in his eyes as he felt the fear beginning to take hold. There was a sudden crackle and then on the far side of the room, a hidden panel that had been somehow overlooked began to open. With only his instincts pushing him, he ran full force at the door.

BZZZZZT!

John had managed about three steps before he fell onto his belly in pain. He couldn't see for a minute. Things hurt too much to move. He heard footsteps enter the cell and as he looked up to see who it was, he felt pure terror causing adrenaline to pump through his veins. He didn't have a way to fight back. He was not even sure if he could in this pain. That shock had to be the worst one yet, incapacitating his basic motor functions. All he could do was drool a bit and think, but beyond that was out of his control.

The footsteps stopped in front of him and he looked up with all his might to see into the face of the man wearing the expensive leather loafers. The floodlights had grown in strength and his face was hidden.

"You have a name, dog. What is it?"

John felt his ability to speak slowly return, his tongue felt too heavy and thick in his mouth, but he finally came out and spoke in a whispered gasp, "J- John.... P... P-"

"Wrong. You are not John. That is your mulligan. You will receive a shock for each wrong answer now." The man stood before him. He sounded different from the man on the intercom, but John was sure that the man was the same even so. "What is your name, mutt?"

John was silent. He didn't have any other names that he knew of, so what would be the point in saying the wrong answer twice?

A searing shock from the collar stole his breath from his lungs again and he wheezed and rasped.

"You have a name, dog. Are you too stupid to remember it?"

"I'm not stupid- I... I'm not..." John tried to fight back but he couldn't. He didn't know any other names.

"You're not a human. You are a dog."

"Fuck you." The man didn't use the collar in response to this, but John did not go unpunished for this outburst. The expensive leather loafer found contact with John's chest as it kicked upwards and then knocked John onto his back. The force behind such a nice shoe was far too strong for him to fight. When it landed on his chest, he felt like it would crush his heart into the floor.

"You are not a human; you are a dog."

"I am a human! OW!" He whimpered as the shoe felt like it was pressing harder into his chest. "Ok, ok... I'm a dog... I give up. I'm a dog!"

"That's better. Good dogs don't fight their masters. You want to be a good dog don't you?" John nodded weakly, "Good." The man let his shoe up a bit, but kept it firmly on John's chest. "Do you remember your name, mutt?"

"N- No." John sighed as he felt the fear punch through his heart. Blood pulsed icily through his whole body.

"Such a stupid dog," The man sneered at him, which John felt a pang of shame pierce his mind, and made him very saddened to realize he couldn't be anything else to this man. He was a human, he knew he was.

"I'm sorry." John cried out with tears stinging in his eyes.

"To be sorry implies that you are going to change. Lucky for you, I believe that you are sorry." The man grimly sneered at the fat boy on the concrete floor beneath his shoe. "Your name is Elwud Drigsbe."

John winced at the name, knowing instantly what kind of dog they had planned to make him. Unlike some people he had met, he didn't particularly like the idea of becoming this guy, well, this dog. A big, dumb, enthusiastic sheepdog with an emphasis on all of those words; they were going to make him into that.

"Elwud... Drigsbe," John said with a ragged breath.

"Good boy. Now tell me your name." The voice said with as much warmth as a cold operation table to the patient going in for surgery.

John repeated, "I'm Elwud Drigsbe." The words sank into his head, but he didn't want to hear them. When the man took his foot off his chest, however, John realized he had done what he was supposed to.

"Good boy. You learn quickly, if a little bit too stubborn to show it." The man bent down a hand into his pocket and produced a reward for John, then tossed it on the floor carelessly at his feet.

John didn't even want to know what it was, but he also already knew. A dog treat, no doubt, in the shape of a bone, and it was probably disgusting for any human to eat. Slowly, his eyes drifted to it, and confirmed his suspicions, "I don't want that."

"You are a good boy for remembering your name. Don't you want your reward for being a good boy?"

John went to pick it up with his hand, but a clearing of the man's throat told him that he was about to un-earn that treat. He felt a whine in the thickness of his throat, and stared up at the man. "You can't be serious."

There was no response. John turned back to the treat after a long time, knowing what was expected. He slowly pulled himself closer to the treat, then carefully and timidly bent down and scooped it up with his lips, past the teeth, and onto his tongue where he bit down on it. The taste was horrible shit scooped into a pasty cookie-like substance. But he had to please this man at the risk of more shocks, and so he ate it. He had no choice. When it was all gone, John fearfully and almost childishly opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue to prove the treat was gone.

"Good boy!" the response was cold and clinical, like a scientist declaring 'Eureka!' at solving a problem rather than a genuinely pleased owner. John winced and mumbled at this as the man started to walk out of the room, "You are going to learn yet. Now... let us try this." He came back into the room and filled John's dog bowl (he winced again at the idea that it was his bowl) with a mixture of hearty dry food and a sickeningly wet can of food atop it. "Here's your breakfast for today."

John started to walk over to it, but the man grunted again. "What?" He asked innocently, "I can't stand on my own two feet? At least Elwud, erm, at least I should be able to do that." The man was silent, waiting on John to make his way to the food bowl properly, and so without any further arguing, and after much hesitation, John sank to all fours and crawled to the food bowl.

"Now a good dog always eats his meal until there's not a single bit left. You want to be a good dog, eat it all up." Perhaps to reassure John, the other half of the bowl was now filled with cool water. John stared hard at the mountain of dog food. He'd eaten far more before in one sitting, but this... this would be a piece of cake if it weren't inhuman.

"A- All of it?"

"After you finish your meal, we will practice a few more tricks, and then you will be able to reach the physical transformation you sought."

"Somehow," John said at the risk of sounding defiant, "I don't think it's what I want anymore." He bent down and his nose sniffed the awful smelling food. He didn't know how dogs could simply care less about the smell of their food, or the look of it. He supposed that given their instinctive nature, dogs would be content with eating it or raw meat all the same. He tried to delay it by licking at the water, but it didn't even help that the man was watching him. Slowly, he turned to face the dog food again.

"A good dog always finishes his meal." The man repeated slowly.

"I'm a good dog." John said with such confusion that he wasn't sure if he could fully believe it or disbelieve it anymore. This traumatic experience was more than enough for him to lose his mind, and somehow he was still holding on. He started to put his mouth on the dog food and chewed through the wet stuff before finally getting to the dry stuff underneath.

It was like eating battery acid, but somehow he managed to do it.

With that out of the way, the man applauded the good dog some more and started to give a new command, "Roll over, Elwud. Let me reward you with belly rubs."

John flopped onto his back without much hesitation, glad to finally get something that he was sure he would enjoy. Belly rubs had been something he'd received as a kid whenever his stomach had been ill. They had always been associated with good feelings and he hoped this would be the shining point of this whole day.

There was no disappointment this time. The man reached down and methodically, unemotionally rubbed his belly and John closed his eyes letting out a sound of appreciation. The rubs felt like a warm fire after a cold afternoon in the snow and John was more than thankful to have his belly rubbed, especially after such a rough meal.

"Now, dog," the man's voice was all business again. John felt the rubs stop and his brief pleasure was gone suddenly, "we need to prove that you are built for being a dog. We are going to practice a few things, but first..." The man revealed a syringe and John felt the fear sink his heart through the floor. "We must make sure you don't misbehave."

"I... I won't misbehave." John pleaded a bit, saying anything to get that needle to go away. He couldn't stare at anything else.

"I know you won't. But it must be awfully uncomfortable for a human to crawl around on all fours, let alone to do what we need you to do next. So we are going to fix that problem and give you a dog's perspective." Before John could say more, he felt the collar lock him up again with another tense shock, and he fell onto his belly in roughly the same manner as he had before.

When he was on the ground, the needle jabbed right into his spine between the shoulder blades. It hurt like hell, but he couldn't react. The collar had sedated his nerves with this shock, and he was unable to fight back. Then, the real pain began as his shoulders and shoulder blades began to pop and sear in intense, blinding, white hot pain. He let out a howl of anguish as they shifted, becoming narrower on his body and locking his arms into a quadruped position, always facing forward now. His hips shifted, rolling over themselves as he was forced onto his legs and new arms. The legs shifted, his feet changing into the hind-paws of a large dog as his weight was positioned onto the balls of his feet and toes while the rest of his feet launched upwards into haunches. To combat his legs being so much longer than his arms, he felt them shrinking to match the length of his arms so that the four limbs were now capable of holding him level.

He was locked into a canine's quadruped position. He took a few steps testing this new position. It was far more natural than crawling, that was for sure, but it was still terrifying. He hadn't expected to be made into a real dog! That was not in the papers!

"How was that?" The man asked as he patted John's head. "Doesn't this feel much better for a dog like you?"

John only whimpered a little bit, feeling like speaking would bring to light the fact that he still had a human voice. He was almost certain they would take that from him too eventually, so he began to feel like hiding it in hopes that nobody would say anything about taking it. He'd show the world what was going on here when he got out. If he did get out.

Just then, the man stood back up and commanded, "Roll over!" John's body rolled over on its own, and to his horror he felt degraded and humiliated. This was terrible. What if they asked him to speak? "Sit!" He sat on his haunches and rear this time far better than he expected he could. "Beg." John felt himself whine as he placed a hand on the man's pants legging and tugged it. He briefly considered why he still had humanoid hands, but when he blinked and observed them again, he could feel they were painfully shaping into far less useful dog paws, like his feet had.

There was no denying that this was a humiliating, mortifying experience. It was impossible to believe he could go back to society like this now. Even if he could be surgically fixed, they would mock him as a freak now. The man spoke one last command, sending a chill through John's body, "Speak! Speak, boy."

John didn't know what to do. Should he bark? Should he talk in his human voice? What would they do to him if he didn't do it at all? What would they do if he did? He stared up at the man, now much larger than when John could stand on two legs, and whined a little.

"Speak, I said. Or that collar is going to hit you with another wave of volts."

There was no misinterpretation in the man's voice. He wasn't going to get anything less than perfection with this command or else he would be dissatisfied with the results. John mulled over the command again before deciding finally to just let out a curious bark.

"Poorly done. Again." John's voice felt odd after the attempt, but he tried again and to his shock, it sounded different. Far more convincing than the first time around. "Almost there. Again." The man ordered, "Speak, Elwud." And with enthusiasm he knew could only come from hearing the name, John barked louder and deeper in his chest. This sounded so close to an actual dog's bark that was almost certain that they'd just robbed his voice.

The man didn't reward him with belly rubs like he had hoped, but with a single dog treat again. John ate it up as he felt his canines lengthening a bit into sharper fangs. There was a discomfort and a bleeding from the gums as he felt them change, but it was brief compared to his arms and legs. Finally, he showed the man again he finished the treat, to which the man only stood steeled for his next command.

John saw the tennis ball come out into view from one of the man's hands. Enthusiasm and pure joy reached his brain instinctively, much to his rational terror. His mind was slipping, he knew, and there was nothing he could do. "Fetch!" The ball was thrown out the doorway of the cell and John's brain had to agree on both sides that leaving the cell to find the ball was the right answer.

He chased after the ball, forgetting about the man entirely as he bounded down the hall, looking for his freedom. It was nowhere to be found, and soon, the ball was lost to his memory too. He cursed himself for feeling so dumb now, and John whimpered a bit as he found himself lost in blinding white corridors. Without a sense of direction in here, he had no idea where to go. He stopped and looked around for a way out.

The next thing he knew, he was feeling a sting around his collar as the shockwave spread out from it into his body, paralyzing him with the fear and pain that it instilled in him. He felt himself fall onto all fours as he looked at the white tiled floor. The last thing he remembered as he began to black out from the pure pain was that he was still human. He was John. He was not Elwud Drigsbe. He never would be.

John was rendered unconscious by the shock of the pain.

When he awoke, he was in a very different place. He was lying on a bed, curled up in a ball shape and covered in a thick, hairy blanket. He leapt off of it in surprise, and to his horror, the hairy blanket followed him. He barked at it for a second before realizing the truth. He was covered in fur. White fur pure as winter snow, with a black tipped nose that was glistening, jutted forward from his face in a thick canine muzzle. He knew what had happened. They had finished changing him.

A quick glance around at his new body was enough to tell him everything he needed to know about it. They had turned him into a feral version of Elwud. He was sure that his chin was black with fur, the only real patch of black on him aside from the bangs of his hair. He didn't immediately see his hair and it was only after a sneeze that those bangs fell over his icy blue eyes and covered most of his vision. He was partially glad for that shade; the grey scale of colors was making his eyes a bit sensitive to all light.

Elwud looked around the room on all fours. The place was warmly furnished, plagued by a heavy reliance on wood as the decorative material, but nonetheless inviting compared to a concrete cell. He padded around on all fours around the room as he drank it all in. When he realized that the door to the room was ajar, he squeezed himself through it and out into the hallway.

Only a few other doors lined this hallway and a staircase was nearby on his left. He trotted down the stairs, intent on escaping out the front door of this house if he could find a way to get the door to open. Hopefully there would be a dog door. Then again, he thought as he felt his corpulent gut scrubbing against each stair as he bounded downstairs, Elwud is a fat dog so he might not fit through the door anymore.

As he reached the downstairs area, a huge living room was opened to him. The smell was unexpected, full of smoke from either of the stone fireplaces that flanked a small foyer in the large living room. Elwud looked around and found that it wasn't the fireplaces that smelled of smoke, but of the huge man smoking a cigar on the couch as he read a book. Whereas John would have been able to read the book's title, Elwud didn't know how to read human languages. He wasn't even sure if he would be able to speak human anymore.

The man on the couch, for that matter, wasn't human either. He was a massive bear/tiger hybrid of sorts. He looked over at the dog and smiled warmly, even though his face was twisted in a gruff look of sorts.

"Elwud, you're awake." The voice sounded slightly southern to Elwud, but he felt a bit of enthusiasm at hearing his name called with such a warm reception. "I didn't expect the anesthetic to wear off so soon."

Elwud tipped his head at this, and when he dully recalled being subjected to torture and horrifying experiments as a human, he lowered his eyes and whimpered, backing away.

"No, no," the bear said reassuringly, "Come here. Come on, boy, come over here."

Elwud slowly approached the big bear, seeing his grass green stripes on his arms and across his body of dusty brown fur. The bear/tiger hybrid was huge, probably close to seven feet tall and the big belly and muscles he had on his body looked rather inviting. The sheepdog leapt up onto the couch and laid his head on the bear's belly.

"You okay, Elwud?" Just as he said that, Berkley stubbed out his cigar and breathed the last of the smoke into the air. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions right now."

Elwud nodded, saddened that this had happened. He knew the way this bear was talking that he was meant to be his pet. What he didn't expect, however, was the big bear to hug him tightly in such a deeply friendly and meaningful way that it evaporated all of his fears and worries in a second. He felt loyalty and devotion to his owner quickly replacing those negative feelings, and a happy enthusiasm began to return again, even if it were dumbly accentuated with a pool of uncontrollable drool accumulating at the corners of his canine muzzle.

"You didn't want to be a feral did you?" Elwud shook his head at the question. "They knew that. They didn't take everything, you know. They did leave you with one or two small things. They can't take everything, they don't know how." Elwud perked his ears up and looked at Berkley as the bear gave a knowing smirk, "They couldn't take your mind and they couldn't take your voice."

With a thunderous shock at this realization, Elwud opened his mouth for the first time since he'd seen Berkley and garbled out almost unrecognizably, "They can't?" He felt hot at the two words. He could still speak English! "Hehe, they can't! I can talk!"

"I don't know why they can't, but they let their subjects keep their voices even if they could take them away." Berkley was explaining while Elwud spent some time trying to adjust to the heavy growl in his words so that he could speak more.

"What do I... dog mouth is hard... hard to speak..." Elwud felt frustrated and even dumber than before he opened his mouth. He couldn't make a full sentence lasting more than a few words before the growls overtook it.

Berkley ruffled the dog's hair and smiled a little more warmly, "Don't worry, big guy. You may have been assigned as my pet but I know we'll get along very well. After all, I was a human once too. You never forget it. You just learn to adjust to the new life after a while. They take care of you. They won't let humans see you anymore, and they do other stuff so nobody comes looking for you."

John was still inside the dog's head, struggling to speak and break out, but Elwud was in total control. He knew that if the bear was telling the truth, he could learn to control it in time. That gave him some sort of hope.

"What do I... How can I... Speaking... damn it." He talked slower than he wanted to he could make his words more easily recognizable and sound them out better, "I... human once... need to..."

"I'm sorry, but that can't happen..." Berkley shook his head and hugged the dog some more, "But I will treat you like an equal here. They expect me to treat you like a big pet, but they didn't say how. So I will take care of you and you won't have to worry about anything anymore. At least, not anything human."

Elwud let out a bark and nuzzled the bear's chest then, happy to be safe with this bear. It would be the start of a brand new life, one that, while scary now, Elwud was blindly optimistic would get better in time. There was nothing that he wanted more than a friend, and Berkley seemed more than willing to provide it.

"I'm Berkley." Berkley smiled, his gruff voice dark and thunderous, almost feral sounding itself but more eloquent.

"I'm... was..." He tried to think of his old name but he couldn't anymore. Only Elwud was there, and it was all he could think. "Name... is... Elwud... Drigsbe." He barked at hearing his own name and dumbly added, "I'm a... good doggy!"

"Yes you are. And you're my good doggy." Berk hugged his new best friend close and warmly, "And I'm your best friend."

Elwud smiled dumbly, drool pushing out of the corners or his mouth and down his chin in enthusiastic streams. He knew he was home now. He and Berk would make a new life together, a better life than the one he could barely remember having once had. The thought of a future with the big bear taking care of him was all he wanted anymore. Nothing else mattered.