FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Shattered

Chapter XXIII

Alex was in a dark room, laying upon the grate like flooring, not a single light was to be seen. Seriously confused, he tried to get up, having a difficult time managing it with only a single arm. Yet after some determined grunts he managed to get on his feet. As he tried to puzzle out where he was, he stumbled around the dark room, looking for a light switch or door, anything that could alleviate the crushing darkness surrounding him. After a few minutes of fumbling around with his arm, he sighed in defeat, falling to his knees in despair, the blackness was choking, making him gasp for air.

That is when things went from bad to worse. The once hidden walls showed themselves, red runes seeming to be scratched into them before the concerned human's eyes and began to glow brightly. But it was not a friendly glow, it held a sickly aura and seemed to promise nothing but madness. That was not all, the lettering itself sparked something in his damaged head, something that he did not like in the least. Alex felt as if a greasy and oil blanket was slowly ensnaring his brain and constricting, blotting out lucid thought and reason. He knew, somehow, that it was responsible due to the festering crimson scribbles that were carved around him.

He tried his best to tear his eyes away from them and try to win back his hard fought self and the measly memories he tore from his clouded mind. But it was inevitably futile, it was an affliction of the soul, and could not be so easily beaten. For every second he stared into the archaic blood red runes, he felt things begin to slip away, NO! He would not let himself go again!

With one last desperation filled roar, he wrenched himself onto the floor and huddled up into a ball. There he began to cry, alone and afraid, his only companions being the sultry whispering voices in his mind, softly pleading him to look back upon the wondrous gift they wished to bestow upon him. As he continued his obstinate refusal, the voices slowly shifted from friendly and welcoming to violent and coarse, that's when he felt something grab him and toss his battered body into the air. The force was so great he slammed into the ceiling, and heard a sharp snap as something gave in his chest.

He fell to the floor with a whimpering moan, he had felt his left leg give away, and he could see bone protruding from his mangled calf. The mauled human looked to see what was tormenting him and saw the most frighting and beastly creature his amnesiac mind had ever laid eyes on.

It must have once been a human, but now it was some twisted atrophied carcass given a sick version of new life. Its guts were open to the air, seemingly held in by some unknown force, and it had some tannish bone like protrusions out of its shoulders that looked more like spears then anything else. Its face was a decayed wreck, the lower jaw was hanging off a single strand of rotten sinew and it had more saber-like teeth then a shark. The monster was far larger then a normal human being, standing at roughly seven feet. But, for some reason, even with all the decay and mutation warping its visage, Alex felt as of he knew the thing. As he gazed upon its putrid countenance, he noted that its bloated eyes held a spark of intelligence in them. This was no simple beast...but something more.

"We meet again Alex." The creature spoke, it's lower jaw flapped uselessly up and down as it did, the whole act was pointless considering the noise did not emanate from the polluted corpses voice box, but rather through the very air itself. The buzzing resonance of its speech smothering his wit.

"Who...what..are you?" Alex demanded in-between broken sobs as he clutched his broken limb. The bone was stained red, Jutting from the splintered leg.

"Don't you remember me? We just spoke earlier." It hissed mockingly, a strange concept for a terrifying monster. "It's me, Santiago."

Alex unconsciously shook his head in denial, something the creature noticed. "Oh but yes!" It snarled, stepping closer with its mangled legs, dragging the left uselessly along. "If only you could remember, you would know that you abandoned your species to die! This is what I am now Alex, this is what you made all of us!" It howled, smashing Alex to the floor with a talon. The blow sliced his chest open vertically, soon which flowed a crimson river.

Alex was frozen, he couldn't get himself to move no matter how hard he tried. He just laid there as the creature approached, the only sound in the room was the incessant whispering and the wet drawl of the monsters damning tread. "You will make wonders for us Alex, the means of our ascension!" It raved, stabbing a blade into his shoulder, and forcing him to the floor. The pain was excruciating, compounding in his numerous wounds and making cry out in agony. Then, it began to drag him to a cavernous opening that materialized out of nowhere. "The darkness will break you, and we will mold what remains." It growled softly, pulling him into the darkness with a steady unforgiving pace. Alex clawed at the floor with his only hand, and cried out to the unforgiving oppressing air. He tried to escape, tearing a massive gouge in his pierced shoulder and ripping the fingernails from his hand. It was not enough, as the creature inexhaustibly lead him to his doom.

---

Fay woke up and climbed out of Alex's bed. She saw that he was slumbering peacefully and so thought she could sneak out for a few minutes and grab some breakfast, or perhaps coffee. She strolled slowly down to the cafeteria, feeling better then ever. Alex was sure to be back to normal in no time. Last night had been wonderful, he had shown that he cared for her, even in his fractured state. It was a relieving thing to know, it had been a fear of hers since it was discovered that he had forgotten everything. But it seemed he still clung to his little remembered thoughts, something she doubted she could have done in his position.

Fay found herself humming a gentle tune as she opened the double doors to the cafeteria and sauntered inside. She looked at her friends and couldn't help but giggle.

Fox was snoring abominably loud, his legs inside the bench of the table, but his body was on the floor, his head repurposing his fluffy tail as a pillow. Falco was leaning on Peppy, both having fallen asleep sitting down. Slippy's head was in Miyu's lap, and he snored softly. Miyu was face-planted to the metal table, a small puddle of drool surrounded her open muzzle. Krystal was sitting sedately, her head in her paws as she slept, muzzle held up high.

Fara was conked out, Penelope curled up in her lap. Lupa was sitting across her, the wolf had her arms crossed and was laying her muzzle on them, her errant pink tongue sticking out the side.

Fay smiled as she scooted past them to the small expresso machine at the edge of the table area. It was good to see them all together, it showed the collie how much they cared for Alex. If there was anyone in Lylat who could help him it was they. She grabbed one of the cheap white cups in one of her her brown paws and brought it under the nozzle, a few presses of a button later and the frothy pungent aroma of fresh coffee drizzled into the air, revitalizing the canine. As she waited for the dispenser to finish, she looked back to her friends.

The twitching of Fox's little wet black nose signaled the awakening of the vulpine. Fay, in all her time with him, never once seen him miss out on his morning coffee. His emerald green eyes shot open and he lunged forward towards the direction of the life giving fragrance. What he didn't realize was that his legs were still under the table, all he accomplished was a halted leap and a bruised muzzle. "Ow." He groaned, his face still in the ground. He heard Fay chuckling from the are of the coffee machine and lurched his body to face it. "Sup Fay." He greeted from his grounded location casually, leaning a paw on his head for support.

"Hey Fox." She replied, still chuckling at the unfortunate orange furred vulpine. He was a funny fox to be around, that's for sure. The machine beeped signaling the completion of the brewing and serving process. Fay pulled the cup from under the dispensary and brought the styrofoam container to her fuzzy lips. She took a sip of the dark brown substance and sighed loudly in satisfaction as it pattered down her throat, purposely teasing her friend. The food here may be terrible but the coffee was great!

Fox became jealous and leaped into the air with surprising agility. He landed on his hindpaws and quickly scurried over to the machine. In seconds he had a cup under the hose, a stream of liquid tinkling into the foam receptacle. His father, James, had instilled in him the terrible curse of the coffee drinker. While his father was alive, he had hated coffee, claiming he would never drink it willingly.

James, had only ever responded one way, he would chuckle and say in his strong but gentle voice, "some day son, you will change, you will turn into the man a see growing inside of you, and liking coffee is the first step." He added jokingly, ruffling the younger Fox's head. "And when that day comes, I hope I will be there to see it."

But he never did, he had been betrayed and murdered by his friend, Pigma. One day, years after his father passed away, Fox nabbed a cup of coffee on his way to the academy, it was a spur of the moment kind of thing. As he walked out of the shop and took a sip, he was punched in the gut by that vivid memory of all those years ago. Now, he always drank coffee, and every sip reminded him of his father. It had become a ever present commitment to himself, a way of making sure he never forgot.

Fay watched as Fox became withdrawn, listlessly swirling the bitter liquid in its container gazing into its brewed depths intently. No doubt he was thinking about some thing, long in the past. As she stood next to her friend, she cradled the foam cup in her cold paws, the room they were in was not that well regulated for heat. Either that of hospitals were naturally kept to a cold temperature. They stood side-by-side in silence, until the other members of the team began to stir.

The first one to completely regain their faculties was Peppy, the old hare far more experienced with the matter of sleeping.'he turned to his left and saw the dozing Falco, snerking obnoxiously in his sleep. With a chuckle he sat up, letting the snoring avian fall unceremoniously to the bench, smacking his beak upon the steel. Now awake, Falco bolted up to glare at the mischievous hare, rubbing his beak sullenly. "What the hell was that for?" He muttered.

"Was what for? I simply stood up." Peppy replied innocently. "Really Falco, I think you need to be careful of where you decide to lay your head." The hare retorted, walking over to the duo by the machine.

Falco grumbled to himself and caught up with Peppy. "Whatever, I got my eye on you old-timer!" He warned, not quite believing that the recent event had been a harmless accident.

"I had no idea you felt that way." Peppy said with a mock stage gasp. He felt like being a little playful today to balance out the stress of the past, and Falco was giving him the perfect opportunity to do so.

"Wha-what! Not like that!" The now red faced avian stuttered, caught surprise by the antics of the aged hare. Peppy was the last one he pegged for a dastardly wit.

By now, Fox and Fay were laughing uncontrollably, finding relief in the bickering of the two. Peppy smiled, content that his plan had worked. Falco was not so happy, looking at the three with barely veiled annoyance. "Yeah yeah, laugh at the bird, that's all your good for anyways. Lord knows you guys can't fly without me." He muttered, crossing his feathered arms and sulking.

The laughter had awoken the others who groggily made there way to the assembled group. "What's...so funny?" Miyu demanded with a yawn, waving a brown spotted paw in front of her muzzle tiredly. Trailing behind her was Fara, holding a half awake pup in her russet arms, and Lupa, who was following after them.

"Just discovering Falco's dark secret." Fox answered with a smirk, looking to his increasingly flustered friend.

"Oh really? Do tell." Miyu meowed, grinning evilly, excited at the chance for potential ammunition against the annoying bird.

"Nope, none of that!" Falco shouted, leaping between the new arrivals, not willing to let this embarrassment continue. The outburst somewhat awakening the still disorientated team.

"All right guys let off." Slippy said rubbing one of his eyes with his webbed hands, being the nice guy he always was he wanted to give Falco a break. The poor avian could dish it out, but not take it.

"If you say so." Fay replied, before noticing that Krystal had not said anything yet, deciding to remain silent and to the side while the others jokes around, she went over to the mute vixen. "Everything okay?" She inquired, laying a paw on Krystal's.

"I can't seem to laugh, I know I should, but I can't." Krystal replied, a little hysterical. "How can they joke when he lies down the hall, clinging to his sanity?" She suddenly demanded heatedly, her clawed paws flexing with frustration.

"Because that's how they cope." Fay replied gently, calming the vixen's trembling paws with her own. "You can't allow yourself to fall into despair."

"I...I know." Krystal sighed heavily. "It's just that, it's hard to swallow, this all seems like too much, how much more must Alex and us suffer before we can go back to normal?"

"Krystal, nothing has been normal since I've came back to you guys, and I don't think it was when he first arrived either. I don't think anything will ever be normal as long as he is around, not that I'm saying its a bad thing." Fay said with a wry grin.

Krystal turned to her friend and smiled back, displaying more confidence then she had. "You're right Fay, you're always right."

"Now you understand!" The collie said pseudo haughtily, making her friend chuckle. "See, you can laugh!" She jested, poking Krystal in her blue furred chest. "Now let's go with the others, I'm sure you want to see Alex as much as anyone one of us, if not more so." The now considerably better vixen walked with her friend back to the team.

Fox turned from Peppy and spotted them. "Hey you two, how are you holding up?" His eyes showed their concern, but he kept it lite for everyone else. The others saw her and Fay, and have her the best attitude they could manage.

"Hanging in there." Krystal answered, flashing them a brief thankful smile. She appreciated it all, truly they were her family, through thick and thin they always pulled out the stops for each other.

"I'm sure he will be back to normal in no time!" Fara said with a confidence that was good to hear. The fennec vixen still honestly believe that with all her heart. Penelope just laid in Fara's arms, watching the adults with a studious gaze.

"Fara's right, it will all work out in the end, you just have to have faith." Lupa supported from her place next to the dark red vixen. It seems they had become friends.

A few minutes of pleasant conversation was interrupted when they heard shouting coming from the hallway. Curious they moved to the doors and opened them, just in time to watch a crash cart go flying by down the hall. Two stone faced feline doctors, (a orange tabby and brown calico), and a kangaroo nurse were guiding the metal trolly down to the end of the way and came to a stop outside Alex's room. They were talking rapidly as they opened the door.

Deeply concerned, the team ran over and fox grabbed the kangaroo nurse before she could enter. "What's going on?" The vulpine demanded.

She looked worried as she answered, repeatedly glancing back to the developing commotion inside. "The monitors in his room have gone haywire, he's going into cardia arrest....his heart is falling." She added softly, "I don't think they can save him."

"W-why?" Krystal stuttered in shock. Fay could hardly believe it, last night and this morning he had been doing fine, for someone with amnesia anyways.

"We don't know, it just started minutes ago, we are just the response team." The female kangaroo replied, before entering the room, in a rush to do what she could.

Wasting no time, the team followed after her. What they saw was not a pretty sight. The two feline male doctors were desperately trying to hold down the thrashing human, even with a missing arm he was proving a difficult patient to restrain. He was tossing erratically and letting out noises more akin to a wounded beast then a man. This was no thing for a child to see, Lupa quickly picked up Penelope and dashed out of the room. As much as she wanted to be there, it was better that she stayed with her baby sister.

Seeing that the doctors were ineffective a keeping the spastic human down, Falco and Fox rushed over and helped them. With the two strong supporting paws, they finally managed to get him somewhat under control. "What is causing this?" Fox grunted, using is immense strength to keep his friend from hurting himself or anyone else.

"I don't know." The orange feline replied as he held Alex's left leg, "it has to be something with his mind, some sort of trauma hat just surfaced now." The cat sighed, "if my hypothesis is correct, then we can't do anything for him. We have no idea what our methods would do to one of his species, not to mention he is the only one ever seen." A particular crazy bout had almost loosed his leg but the feline clamber down. "I suppose if we had to we could use some simian treatments but I don't think they are closely related enough to succeed."

"Is there any plan at all?" Falco growled, he was pissed that all these doctors couldn't fox the problem. If they couldn't, what were they good for?

"I'm sorry...but no, we may just have to let him go." The hazel cat added from his place at Alex's left armed stump.

"Unacceptable!" Krystal shouted, running over to the doctors.

"There's nothing we can do!" The tabby exclaimed angrily. He wasn't heartless, he just felt that he was out of options.

Krystal looked defeated before her muzzle lit up with an idea. "Maybe not, but I can!" She exclaimed loudly.

"Excuse me?" Kangaroo said in surprise, she had been preparing the shock cart when the vixen had startled the experienced nurse.

"I am a telepath, its so simple I wonder why I haven't thought of it till now! I can help him!" She said, looking to Fox pleadingly for support.

Fox took only a second to mull it over. "You think you can help him?"

Krystal nodded impatiently. "Yes!"

"Then do it, but be careful I don't want to lose two of you." He said reluctantly, but trusting that she spoke the truth.

Krystal didn't waste time responding, she just wrapped her cerulean paws around Alex's sweaty and cold head, and closed her eyes in concentration. Within moment the turbulent human had settled down, the doctors, Fox, and Falco no longer having to hold him. "Krystal?" Fox said after a few minutes of silence. But she didn't answer, her mind was already communed with Alex.

---

Where ever she found herself, it was dark and damp. The air was chilly and not a sound could be heard beside her own loud breathing. Shivering, her fur and clothes seemingly nonexistent in this frigid expanse, Krystal searched for Alex's manifestation of his consciousness. Krystal had only joined with a few minds, and that had been when her homeworld still thrived. And in those few times, she had never been in a place like this.

She wandered aimlessly through the darkness, the floor under he felt spongy and wet. She couldn't see it, and she didn't want to. Soon a dim red light began to gleam softly in the direction she was going. As she got closer the light started to make shapes and forms out of the darkness, Krystal was in some sort of corridor, tot which the entirety was consumed in a fleshy growth that looked allot like...you now what? She didn't want to compare it to anything. Shuddering, she trudged through the squelching mire of biological tumorous matter that blanketed everything in eyesight and finally escaped the corridor of disgust. Upon her break out, she unwittingly discovered the source of the malevolent light.

Krystal was in a room that triggered every repulsive and frightened instinct in her animalistic repertoire. The whole place just screamed wrong. The room was so dark that she couldn't even tell were the walls or ceiling were, the light was a neon crimson scrawling script that zigzagged across the walls with a pointless insanity, there was no reason or pattern to it. In fact looking at I only made the vixen's head hurt.

She turned away, but she did note that it felt like peeling a off a bandage, it was not a nice feeling. Now even more uneasy she walked into the gaping hole on the opposite side of the room. She began to jog, needing to find Alex somewhere in his own mind. Krystal was scared, what was this, this darkness that seemed to prevail a hopeless feeling of despair, all encompassing in its dark majesty? How could it relate to Alex? Then, she landed on the answer to her questions, this was not his mind, or at least what it normally was. No doubt the evil she sensed here was the insanity he had warned them about. How could it affect someone so? Now full on sprinting, she began to feel hysteria building up, but for the life of her, could not discover where it was coming from. She forcibly made herself relax, it was this place, just being here messed with one's mind, she had to get to Alex and save him.

She ran, now at a significantly calmed pace, until she found the end of this particular corridor, that was also bathed in the cancerous flesh growth. When she reached the end, her vulpine ears detected the sound of faint screaming. Panicking, she ran to the end of the hallway and turned into the only room connected to it. And what she found...made the vixen echo that suffering howling.