FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Everything was hazy. It was all a blur. It was dark. That's all Chris could described his surroundings when he woke up, a slight headache making him groan.

He blinked once, twice, before his world started to focus. He noticed the blue glow of the doorway. It covered the whole space. Once he got his bearings, he realized he was back in his room...alone....again.

He sighed. What happened? All Chris could remember was placing that crystal atop the monolith before everything went dark.

And now, he's magically back in his cell. Well, not magically. He knew for certain magic had no part to play in this. Just scientific advancement and cruelest seemed to be the only cause of his predicament.

He sat up and immediately regret it as soreness shot throughout his body. He quickly went limp and laid on his bed.

"What the hell"

He moved his arms slowly, until he his eyes were able to see them. A surprised look adorned Chris' face. His arms were healed. Not a scratch was on them.

"It looks like they healed me."

As he touched at his arms, he felt them. They felt normal. Nothing odd or out of place. Complete homeostasis, aside from the soreness. He wondered when they had the time to heal him. He figured that they probably healed him when he was sleeping.

He affirmed his belief as he remembered the scratches, that were inflicted on him from the female Tauron from the ice world, were gone when he woke up the next morning.

He gazed upwards, staring at the bland coloring of the cell's ceiling. His eyes went from left to right, corner to corner. His eyes traveled along the doorframe, noting how it pulsated the blue light.

He was curious as to how this light acted like a force field. How they could cure life-threatening injuries so quickly. How they were able to develop a serum that made you invincible. But his body could care less.

It grew heavy, as did his eyes. His breathing slowed as did the beating of his heart. He faded in and out of consciousness before he gave up, letting his circadian rhythm take control of his body.

***

BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEEP

The sound of the ear-grazing alarm waking him up. He groaned, yawning as he didn't get much sleep last night. Then again, he never really got sleep for most of his life. Maybe 7 hours at the most a night, but usually 5 1/2 to 6 hours kept him going.

The F-57 drones were in his cell by the time he swung his feet off of the bed. He hurriedly got up and exited the cell, rushing out the doorway.

It still surprised him how his clothes were just as new as when he wore them to the club a few days ago. But what perplexed him was that he did have tattered, dirty clothes on when he went through the rounds. So what exactly was going on?

He was interrupted as a jolt of electricity to shot through his back. He stumbled but kept walking. He desperately wanted to lash out at those stupid drones. But what could he do? He was only human.

A few moments later he was back in the white room. The remaining 7 surrounded the translucent circle that would project Sor-dnaal. They all were silent, their facial expressions ranging from neutral to solemn. He honestly could describe their emotions as a grey rainbow; all shades of the same color.

"Well well. I certainly did not expect this crop of contestants to be standing before me today" Sor-dnaal exclaimed as he phased into existence upon the group via hologram.

They all looked up at him, the expressions tightening slightly. No one wanted to be here. Nobody wanted to listen to this madman. It's not like they could go up there and stop him.

"The end of this 3rd round was very exceptional" he added as a small screen materialized and replayed the skirmish atop the plateau.

Solara held the crystal as she trotted to the monolith, when suddenly Chris chomped down on Tauron's ear. His team writhing in pain followed immediately.

Chris stared blankly as he saw himself yank the crystal out of Solara's hands before placing it on the pedestal. Shortly after, her team started convulsing as Chris and his team went limp from unconsciousness. All the while, Eone's team stared on in a mixture of awe and shock.

"Now, 8 of you are left. Solara the Valraxian, Rashnaa the Akkrozs, Tauron the male Ren, and Shalokai the Quezznar have all been eliminated. With them gone, the quarterfinals are now underway!" Sor-dnaal exclaimed valiantly before he faded away.

Chris scowled as he was escorted to the vessel for the next round. What type of person would purposefully torture others? Why was Sor-dnaal doing this? He's not even benefiting from this!

He gazed back at Eone, who was looking at him. His wings pinned back to his shoulders, making his size look slightly smaller than it usually is. His central heterochromia eyes staring back into his dark browns. Not a word was said. Nothing needed to be said.

As he marched onto the ramp, he felt like he was getting sent to death row. His head remained down as he sat at the far corner. Thraal was the last one as the ramp sealed shut behind him, taking a seat in the middle. He didn't look happy either. Why would he?

Now that 12 of them were gone, everyone had a variety of seats to chose from. But like they cared. They were worried if they were gonna see their families again. They were concerned if they were gonna live to see another day.

Chris was focused on completing each round effectively. He didn't understand where that inner strength came from, but he needed more of that. That's what saved his ass those past rounds. This reminded him how he would get a rush of doing projects last minute and they would come out pretty damn good.

"Well, I usually was good under pressure. I guess procrastinating shit in high school and college paid off" Chris thought to himself.

As the ship took off and sailed through space, he thought for a minute. What was going to happen if he won this? A big prize at the end? Everything would return back to normal?

"Yeah sure. Because that makes total sense." He scolded himself.

There had to be something behind all this. Chris tried to remember what would happen if he won this. Well, he wouldn't get his planet destroyed. He also would have the Gnaxsus in his veins. But what else?

He couldn't get off scotch-free. Chris had a bad feeling. Something was coming. He didn't know what it was. It wasn't the fact that something big was coming. It was the fact that he didn't know what was coming. He could be wrong about it all, and go back to being a face in the crowd.

"Like that's ever gonna happen."

He wanted to win. He had to win. But in the back of Chris's mind, doubt started to fester. It always did when Chris went into uncharted territory.

His mind was everywhere by the time they landed. The thud of the landing becoming familiar now. Dim, yellow light poured into the ship as the ramp lowered. The light cascading off the ridges and curves of the ship and passengers alike, revealing to them their next task.

They stepped off the ramp, laying their feet, or other appendages, on the surface. It was rocky and rough. It was very similar to the planet Grall Prime, of the first round. Although, it was more jagged instead of unstable. Rocks of all sizes and shapes, colored cadet blue, jutted out here and there. The rocks surrounded them and scaled high above them. It was like they were in a giant hole.

Chris looked up and saw that they were already encased in the blue some of light. He could see past the translucent blue and spotted the rim of the massive hole they were in. He could see the rocks lining the rim of the hole, encircling them. It was far, too far away. If only he had wings.

"Eone has wings." Chris mumbled.

"The planet of Agnizab is a peculiar planet. It's atmosphere is so toxic, a carbon life form would die in roughly 3 minutes. This proved a such a challenge for me when I developed the Gnaxsus! I'm still in the making of tweaking it. So right now, the Gnaxsus in your veins will keep you alive for awhile, but it won't last forever." Sor-dnaal explained as his head phased onto the dome.

"Your job is to escape this hole and reach the pods that are at the top. Once this dome fades, you will be exposed to the toxic air. I can't guarantee you will be fine when the air circulates into your lungs. You will more than likely experience some hallucinations, then numbing, before your nerves cells eventually undergo apoptosis. The Gnaxsus can only prevent your cells from dying instantaneously, but you will endure cellular stress."

Chris was horrified. He knew damn well what would happen to the human body when a toxin is introduced into the body. Everyone else was scared, intimidated, etc.

"They don't know the shit we are about to be in" Chris said to himself.

He glanced at Eone, who was busy staring at Sor-dnaal. His lips curled up into a snarl, displaying his distaste.

"Good luck and may the strongest survive" Sor-dnaal stated before he disappeared.

Shortly after, the dome collapsed. Everyone took off in a mad dash. Some pushing and hitting others,trying to get to the other side. Eone dodged a hit and took off to the right. Chris spotting him, dashed in the same direction. Eone looked back at Chris and slowed down for him. He caught up and they both headed for one of the walls.

"We need to get out of here fast!"

"No! We need to stop!" Chris said as he grabbed Eone's hand and tugged him back.

"No we don't! Let go of me!" Eone snapped as he yanked his arm free. However he did slow down a bit.

"You don't understand! The air we are breathing is toxic! The more we run, the more breaths we need to take. The more breaths we take, the more air will circulate throughout our bodies and in our bloodstream. That in turn allows more of the toxic air in us!"

Eone's eyes narrowed in confusion before they widened a bit in understanding.

"We need to be calm about this, taking shallow breaths. We can't stop the air from entering our system, but we can prolong it" Chris explained as he pulled his shirt over his mouth and nose.

Eone, with no shirt to cover himself, ripped off a piece of his kilt. He wrapped it around his head and it covered his mouth snugly.

With nothing covering his knees, Chris quickly looked down. He was able to see some a small portion of his thighs. He was surprised as he noticed the blue and yellow lines that ran parallel along his underbelly ended near the middle of his slender thighs. His beautiful thighs. Oh how he wished he could see more.

Chris shook his head as realized what he was thinking. He looked back up and Eone and noticed him staring back at him.

"What's the matter?" Chris asked.

"I haven't really noticed how much you amazed me. How can a person of your standing be capable of such feats" Eone admitted a bit hazily. Chris noted how dilated his pupils were.

"Oh shit." He muttered under his breath. "Don't worry about it. It's just the toxic air affecting you. We need to make our way to the spaghetti in order to win the surfing contest" Chris mumbled as he dragged his ally towards the wall.

Chris's alarms blared as he realized what he said.

"Come on!" Chris gritted as he dragged a loopy Valraxian by him.

He started limping. He felt numb. He felt tingly, in all right ways. He look around him and observed the 6 other contestants suffering the same fate. 2 were on the ground unconscious. Tallula was twitching by a large rock. Thraal was slowly crawling up, struggling as he did so. And Kagoro was on the ground, not moving at all.

"Hurry up Eone!" Chris huffed.

He kept running and running, but the wall wasn't getting any closer. In fact, the ground beneath him started to warp and bend unnaturally.

"What the fuck?" Chris asked, confused.

He looked back at Eone and saw him sprawled to his side, flailing his arms around, making these signs with hands.

"I just gotta...gotta get..." Chris trudged.

He suddenly felt numb, losing feeling in his legs as he tumbled to the ground. His head felt weird, like someone placed an IcyHot on him. The world spun, getting faster and faster. All of sudden, there was no noise. Then everything went still. Absolutely still.