FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

A low sun shone brightly on the rolling tundra. There must have been quite a warm spell to bring out a such a thick carpet of tiny bright flowers and hairfine grass. The ground looked soft and cool.

Luke looked into the screen bemusedly. He'd seen a place like this before, one which had no signs of any habitation, no other visitors.

Along one horizon, what might be mountains made the horizon a darker blue. In other directions, the colorful ground seemed to extend forever. Front and center was lounging a cheerful Siberian husky, tongue lolling, panting happily.

"Nathan... " he started to say slowly.

"Don't tell me. It's all too unrealistic. Flowers everywhere and grass like fur. There should be bare patches, clumps of weeds, rocks, stuff like that. Hey, it's my dreamland. I guess my subconscious likes lots of teeny flowers."

"No, that's not what I was going to say at all. I've seen this before. I've been there with Ben several times. In my dreams."

Nathan was silent for a while. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. There's a dense grove of trees not too far away. It's got a pond hidden in the middle. And a dry stream bed leads from there to a waterfall."

Nathan pressed an arrow key on the keyboard. The point of view turned around, revealing a grove of trees.

"You can't see the waterfall from here," he said quietly. "You have to follow the stream bed to find it."

"What do you suppose this means? Did you ever tell anyone about this? Read about it, maybe? I mean, if we both dreamed it, we both must have learned about it either from each other or from somebody else, right?"

"Yeah. Except I don't ever remember reading or hearing about something quite like this before I dreamed about it. I'll admit I was expecting to see something besides the waterfall, something I had read about, but that didn't happen."

"Colossal Cave." The missing locked grate.

"Plugh."

They grinned at one another, then Nathan got much more serious. "I think we have to assume that similar effects have similar causes. There are other similarities, but Sasha wasn't made by PCInc. Her tags have a different company name on them. I don't have a recharging box, either."

"Maybe PCInc's a spinoff and Sasha's one of their earlier models. Maybe he plugs directly into a wall socket." And maybe that explained why the dog was heavier, too. The technology wasn't quite as advanced.

They both looked at their plush animals. The animals just went on staring at whatever stuffed animals find so fascinating.

"I think this is more than just a little scary," Luke admitted. He slid over. Nathan's warmth was comforting. Someone else to help face the unknown.

"Have you ever gotten the impression that your dream Ben might be dangerous?"

"Nope. Not to me, anyhow. Like his papers say, he's extremely affectionate." Extremely.

"Same here."

They both were very quiet for a long time.

Maybe one of the cloud shadows chasing across the land was actually a herd of animals. It was too far away to be sure, and it wasn't headed this way, anyhow.