Chronicles of a dragon.
The world was a
different place since the change. Nobody was quite sure why it happened, or how
our plans went so wrong. Needless to say, the world as we knew it was no more.
We were all still here, just we adapted. The economy recovered from its
disastrous crash, people went back to their jobs, children resumed school. We
all learned a lesson or two from the wildfire. It went away after its deed was
done, to where; we still do not know. A few oasis of normal life remained, but
they were being shut down one by one, as the occupants of the archologies
decided to convert to the new life. Billions had died in the wildfire, but
nature had reclaimed the world. Old mistakes were wiped clean, and a clean slate
was laid out to make all new ones.
But I seem to have gotten ahead of
myself. Who am I who tells the tale you ask? I am Tombfyre. I’ll be you’re
guide. Though, where were going, I still did not know who I was.
It
began like any other crisis did; with a total media blackout. Nobody knew what
was going on, because nobody suspected anything for once. It was the year 2001,
and the world was still racked with chaos. Wars were being waged in the 3rd
world, but the rest of human society turned a blind eye to what was going on.
While the “decent” parts of humanity were busy patting themselves on the back, a
space probe came back to earth on a routine mission, and brought back a little
surprise; a new form of the cold. The scientists at NASA quickly found the new
sample, but did not realize that some of it had escaped into the atmosphere. The
NASA boyz quickly tagged the sample as “wildfire” mostly in part of a joke. They
had no idea what they were playing with.
It was early in 2002 when the
first cases of wildfire infection were documented. It was first recorded as a
common cold, but with adverse side effects. People got boils, rashes… and the
odd dermal deformity. 80% of the people who got the early stages of wildfire
survived. And 18/20 of them got away without any after affects. Those 2 people
who did now however, were reported to have scars, marks, growths, and other
light deformities. Every last reported case of this was carefully covered up,
with lots of tax dollars, and plastic surgery.
The cases spread however,
and by the summer of 2002, the virus had mutated, and was getting worse.
“Cases of the unknown virus are on a steady increase. What was just
folklore back in winter, has in only a few short months, become a world wide
threat. We urge out listeners to remain indoors, and to avoid contact with
others. We are still unsure of how the virus is spread. Again, if you, or anyone
is suspected of being a carrier, we urge you to seek medical attention. Better
safe than sorry.”
The TV turned off, and a sigh was heard in the
background. A young aged human was holding his head, and looking haggard. He
stood up, walked over to his computer, and turned it on.
*** Access node
164.246.723.86 ***
Enter ID:
Tombfyre.
Enter password:
#$*^@$
Access granted. Welcome back Tombfyre.
“Yah yah, just get on with
it.”
*** Checking messages, forums, rooms, boards, nodes, and secondary
access routes. ***
10%, 25%, 40%, 50%.
“Damn this is taking all
day… Others must have been here while I was away.”
80%, 100%. Check
completed. New messages displayed below.
“Bout time. Lets see.”
*** Access central net. Relay greeting ***
Tauros: Hi
Tombfyre!
Meanbean: hi there!
Tombfyre: Evening all.
Drake:
Tombfyre! Hello!
Jade: Welcome to the party!
Tombfyre: Thanx you guys.
So I guess you all hear what’s going on in the world right?
Sunblaze: Who
does not know by now?
Blue: Yah, the media is saying were all screwed.
Drake: Now now blue, were not all screwed. At least I hope not.
Tombfyre: Yah, were not screwed yet.
Tauros: Yah, I for one am gonna
stand up and fight!
And so it went on every night. Night after night of
staying in contact with each other. The whole furry community had agreed that if
worse came to worse, they would drop what they were doing, and come meet
together at least once. Did I mention that I was part of the furry fandom? Well
now I did, so there. I thought of myself as a dragon. One of the draconic crowd,
who seemed to be stuck. We wanted out… we just did not know how far we would
fall.
Our little project to meet up was soon going to become a reality.
More and more people were getting sick, and people were starting do die. As many
people as possible were going to meet in a remote location, making sure they
were perfectly healthy first. So far, it looked like we were going to be seeing
well over 10000 of each other. Nobody seemed to care if they lost their jobs,
seeing as most things were starting so shut down anyways. The plan on when to
meet up got bumped ahead, seeing as the virus started to kill at a much faster
rate. We decided to all drop what we were doing, and get together in a coastal
town. Some relic of society on the coast of Florida became the prime target, and
our shanty town began to swell with numbers. The place we chose was abandoned,
and nobody knew what it was called anymore. We called it hope as a joke. About
50000 people drifted into Hope, Florida and every last one of them were somehow
involved in the furry community. Sectors of Hope were soon visible. All the
inflation obsessed furs took the east end, the macrophiles went north, fat furs
to the west, hypers/mirco went south, and the plain and normal furs took
central. It was a funny place to be. Everyone liked everyone else. There was no
government, or social organization. Everyone just looked out for everyone else.
I lived on the border of the north/east areas, because liked both macro, and
inflation. Several others lived in border areas. It was funny to call them
borders…. Other than some crudely made signs, just to say who likes what, there
was no separation. It was nearing Christmas when we lost contact with the
outside world. Those skilled with communication tried in vain to regain contact
with the rest of the world. We had no idea what was going on at the time, but we
found out later. While we were having the time of our lives in Hope, the world
had gone to war. One side “knew” the other was responsible for the plague, while
the other “knew” that the other had the cure. It went on like that for a while,
and soon full world war was declared. It missed us somehow, mainly because we
were not on any maps. Nor did we have the power plant running until after
Christmas. While we were opening up our new tidal generator, the 3rd world had
been destroyed. The rest of the world had also been crippled. Some large city
states were formed, as the last bastion of humanity. What the war had not
killed, the wildfire was getting rid of. Billions died from the virus and wars
put together. A few million were saved from the ravages of both however, and
placed into air-tight mega cities. New York was one of these cities. Same with
Los Angeles, Washington, Edmonton, Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Paris, London,
Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo, and some other random cities, in equatorial areas. Each
mega city was self sufficient, and they kept the wildfire at bay.
All
other places, not protected by one of the air tight domes constructed, was torn
apart by rioting, the wildfire, and poor upkeep. Another 3 billion died as time
passed. And only a scant 500 million humans lived on earth anymore. 2million in
each mega city, and 460 million scattered across the world. It was in the spring
of 2003 when the wildfire struck Hope. Nobody seemed to care anymore, and had
finally come to terms with the end. Everyone seemed to get sick at the same
time. A widespread cold blanketed the town, and all were sucked into its rage.
The strange thing was, weeks passed, and nobody died. Life resumed as normal,
and everyone was confused. A town meeting was called, and everyone showed up.
The questions were all the same. “What is going on?” And so were the answers.
“We have no fucking clue.”
Life went on, and still everyone lived. It
was celebrated as a miracle. Nobody was sure why they were saved, and nobody
really cared. What was important, was that we were alive! What we did not know
however, is that the rest of the population was alive as well. We were not left
unscarred however. Many of us started to get the telltale after affects of an
encounter with the wildfire, deformations. They were small at first, but over
the months, people started to look less and less human. Nobody complained,
because it was better than being dead.
Some of us were getting
suspicious to our changes, but nobody said anything. It was only when some of us
were clearly no longer normal homo-sapiens that vocalizations began. Another
town meeting was called, and the topic debated.
“Mr. Chairman, does
anyone here have the slightest clue what seems to be happening?”
“No Mr.
Speaker. It was rumored that the first people to survive the wildfire had the
same kind of deformations that we did, but we all seem to be going past that
point. Some of us have suspicions, but no facts.”
I chose that moment to
be bold. Standing up, I raised my hand. Or what was left of it.
“Mr.
Chairman? Can I say something?”
“And you are?”
“You all know me as
Tombfyre.”
“Ah yes, one of the founders. Speak.”
“Ok, we all can see
that were not suffering from mere deformations here. I’m thinking we’ve all
gotten what we’ve always wanted. Look around you. Everyone is going furry in
some way. You can’t tell me that having shiny skin is a deformity, nor being 8ft
tall. Its hard to believe, but I for one am happy. Here, look at this.”
I peeled back my shirt sleeve. A small patch of dark red scales were
right there on the center of my left arm. All who could see started to cheer.
“Order! Order!”
“Mr. chairman, I don’t believe order is necessary.
The people are happy, and rightly so. I don’t have facts on paper, but I believe
they are plainly evident.”
I sat back down, and after a few mins of
celebratory yelling, the meeting was adjourned. I walked back to my place, and
was accompanied by many old friends. Tauros, Drake, Meanbean, Sunblaze, Jade,
Blue, Specs, and Magnon all fell into step beside me. We all walked over to the
apartments we had fixed up, and entered out respective places. They were my
family, and vice versa. Time continued to pass, and everyone kept changing. The
central area was overrun with all the normal morphs, while the outer areas were
taking longer to change. Latex furs, and other inflatables finally got to put
into practice what they had always wanted to do. The hypers were all busy
playing with they’re oversized sex organs, and the micros were hard to see. All
the fat furs were getting rather round, and waddling around. And finally, us
macros were expanding out of our homes. I for one was starting to change fast.
The scales had spread all across my body, and I had been on all fours for a
week. I slept through most of the changes, and I was glad. Having your bones
break, and reform is slightly painful. It took a week for my muzzle to grow in,
and I stayed awake after that change. My wings were interesting to get, as they
felt like an extra pair of arms. The tail was the best part. I just loved that
thing! So think, and powerful, and fun to hug. My body was fully formed as male
red dragon, and I was overjoyed. I paraded around the city showing off my new
body. Every day was a new treat, as I was several feet longer/taller. I was not
the only one getting larger. Tauros my minotaur buddy was up to 20ft, and all
the other macros were getting rather large as well. I had to move into a cave
when I got too big, because even the warehouses were too small for my giant
self. It took a few months, but by fall, nobody had bothered to measure me yet,
but I assumed I was 350ft tall, and 800ft long. Everywhere you looked, there
were giant furs roaming around. A big wolf known as rogue had occupied a large
cave near the one I dug, and Tauros seemed to have moved in with him. I did not
know many other macros personally, so I decided to look around.
Everyone
in Hope knew me, because you could always see me above the city line. Lots of
furs had started to spread out, expanding hopes borders. Mostly the furs that
needed more space. I.e.: the macros, and all the big inflationists. I ended up
drifting between different parts of the city, liking everyone. One day I was
just my usual massive self, the next I was horribly overweight, after that I was
full of helium, you get the picture.
Life was good, but conflict was on
the way. We thought we were safe from harm here. We thought we were the only
ones left. We were wrong.