In the dusty lit glow of her small Manhattan apartment, Michelle sat low, bound, slumped in the dark corner, pleather cushion creaking. Rain hammered against half-cracked blinds, each droplet a tiny percussion on the glass. Her blue eyes traced the city below, a lattice of lights bleeding through wet fog, and for a long moment, she winced, pressure building in her fist. Ruled by forces too powerful to put a pin on, she could only really sit back in the grain. She never knew if she'd be devoured by the illusion of the depths today or tomorrow. She mired its wastes, focusing on plans: running from its nightmare.

The slippery slope of deceit and bureaucratic backsliding spun its web long ago, she felt.

She sipped the Lolita liquor, swishing it, savoring the sweetness, to coat her throat, feeling the faint tremor of anticipation tighten. Froggou’s whispers flickered at the edges of her consciousness—always there, never loud, never clear. She tried to ignore them, tried to anchor herself to the immediate world: the contracts, the city, the streets she nearly knew by heart from a few late-night chases. She'd have to wait an hour, though.

It was truly far from her first rodeo. She never pressed on to make her prey suffer, but some days it was a lie to not admit, it felt cathartic. A furry-eat-furry world, one might say. Suffice to say, it wasn't that humans were getting along the greatest with them either. Scrunching her eyes, Michelle recalled the family stories, the cryptic warnings, passed down and haunting at her only more, ever-silently. A bloodline to know Froggou.

But this was written in all manner of cynicism by life's playbook. Everybody's beloved mega-conglomerate needed more hired muscle. An uncaught and suspected sex-trafficker and necrophiliac? Geez, well, she signed up on the dotted line, then, practically. Dickory's TomTom Detective Agency was a highly shady group, anyways. No skin in the game, or off her bones. She skimmed over the conditions on her glowing laptop a few more times.

No compunctions otherwise. This was Just. She'd be back in the apartment probably by the morning. She closed the laptop as the cooling fans whirred down, unable to shake the echoing urges drifting onward through her psyche. A pull... a connection? No.

Her grandparents' description of Froggou had always sent shivers down the length of Michelle's arms, yet it also filled her with a sense of deathly curiosity. She had spent endless hours researching that myth, trying to uncover the truth behind the pulse inside her dreams. She was a young tadpole then, in the deep reeds' wake with the taste of brackish water and cryptic croaks echoing inside her skull. And darkness engulfing.

The untranslateable? A warning, perhaps? The path ahead? What lays beyond...
But she wanted to have none of it. Now that was all behind... right?
She clawed at a more immediate concern, however: Dickory -- a dark tuxed feline with a grin sharp enough to gut your hopes. Or put the moves on in the bedroom. Very keen jester.

She reversed gingerly from her lot, then hit the gas, tires shrieking against the rain-slick street. Her headlights split the darkness as she zipped toward the docks, where her speedboat awaited a pouncing, like a feral animal on the scent of her next meal ticket.

With each block whizzing by, and with incessant traffic stops, the whispers grew louder. A hiss at the edge of her consciousness, too rhythmic to be imagined. Froggou’s breath — she tried to call it that — pressed on her temples, urging her forward, deeper, sooner.

Yet even guided by spectral voices, Michelle kept her focus pinned. She would find Dickory and retrieve the data. In a world where everything was prey to greed, truth was her only shiv. And somewhere deep inside, she still believed it could carve a different future.

She croaked softly under her breath — an unconscious tick her grandmother once called “the croaking dive.” She hated this procession of ideals, but her heart was hammering in anxiety. She really shouldn't have found a living space so far from all the real action.

Erstwhile, in the messy, folder-strewn confines of his office — tucked aside in a nondescript building suite on the outskirts of FP Haven — Dickory reclined, stretching out in his leather chair, a tumbler of bourbon in hand, puffing back the peculiar vapors of a cigar wrap. The harshness of the desk lamp cast a long brown shadow across the lacquered wood, brightening clouds of cannabis in dusk.

As a sex crime enthusiast, Dickory had known his fair share of darkness in the life. And unlike others in his line of work, he simply wouldn't shy away from society's seedy underbelly. He embraced it, lavishing his opportunities to bring The System down in writ of irony upon whomever believed they'd escape its grasp.
He closed his bloodshot eyes for a few moments rest — let the velvety butter of Shawna's steamed hams enter the frame of his mind, maybe for all but a second.

Ghosts woven in the seams of his brain mold.
Tonight, his mind itched with a different fever. The folder before him teemed like Pandora's Box, filled with test results, genome overlays, and coded memos from Conglamorous. Among them: partial diagrams titled Chronostrand Vector and hazy photographs of swamp silhouettes in trees labeled simply “F— C— Enclave”.

Dickory’s grin faltered when he skimmed the edges of these papers. The tremor of danger thrilled him, but this was feeling bigger than he could imagine. With practiced motions, he loaded his micro-uzi and checked the pins on his grenades.

He would not let some green amphibian from county jail crack his domain tonight.

Grabbing a manila folder, he scanned once more: disappeared test subjects, timestamped swamp excursions, random glyphs scribbled by someone who clearly saw more than they should have. The glyphs looked familiar — jagged, looping, like the scars he sometimes woke up tracing on his own fur. No comment there. But he swore the pain was his own. What can it all mean, if even that was a lie?

Conglamorous wasn’t just a cosmetics giant. Their labs flirted with something deeper — messing with whatever primordial filament tied “furries” to their own bizarre genesis. Dickory didn’t know if it was a cosmic prank or biological terrorism, but it was leverage. And leverage, he understood.

Michelle stepped outside her clunker, webbed feet slapping against the rain-slathered marina hurriedly. Her speedboat was finally in sight, and no small investment for finding her targets. Froggou’s whispers now thrummed inside her bones, like an ancient gust blowing a name the mind wanted gone. As if they were the signals to ultimate destiny.

Why now? Why these visions again? she thought. She held a key fob into the air and hit the button, chirping proceeding from the speedboat. Sure, the fob made it sound fancy, but really, she just couldn't skimp on good security. Trust dock workers? How about never.

In her mind’s eye: a blurred memory of Tantanika — the old swamp matron, her grandmother, whispering riddles about “crossing her waters” and “the one breath below.” A night she now saw her reflection ripple into something else, standing at the edge of her watercraft.

Springing the motor into gear, she then braved the rolling tides and formations, as her hands adeptly swung in steering through the storm and night's dark. She tried to shut out the noise, focusing instead on Dickory’s last whereabout. No small guess, or a surprise. Her gut twitched; each whisper of Froggou felt like a hand pushing her to worlds beyond.

Her feet hammered away at the wood and pavement after docking the boat at LI Sound shoreline. The muddy rain drenched her calves and ankles. Well, at least this was her element. But for the boat, she might have some wet repairs later on that week.
Wet storage has its costs, but so does having a record in finding gainful opportunity.
To wait is to suffer. 

But to suffer is to realize, and to disagree.
Her vendetta was born by humankind, driven in outward rage... She knew that she would have to be at the top of her game if she hoped to outmatch another Furry on this haven's soil. Making her way through a darkened road of the Isle's edge, she stopped to compose herself. Why were the whispers back? Why do they haunt so? Who was her family, period? This game was more than her Reserves' deep end.

Inside his office, Dickory checked the clock and snickered jovially. He sensed the trap wires already cut — she was closing in.
So.
"You had to have come a long way, Michelle," he purred as the door slammed open, lock shards splintering. "Perhaps you were intending to outsmart me, perchance?" He flickered a fang from his hedonistic grin.

Michelle stood there, her silhouette framed by stormlight, her eyes electric with contempt. She took a few steps forward as her vibrato changed tenor.

"I’m not here to outsmart you. I'm just here to bring you down. So, shut the hell up and come with me!"

Dickory let out a hoarse laugh, tossing his joint aside, his fangs glinting beneath the haze, nearly delirious on her attitude. "So bold! But you have no idea how deep this cesspool runs."

Michelle’s hands sparked yellow, Chronostrand aflame in thin streams around her fingers, living gloves. Dickory watched, eyes darting to the door, where traps that once decorated his floor — were all snipped, all useless. Girl just knows.

His micro-uzi swung up, safety flicking off. “Predictabru.” Dickory jested. “You'll never understand how deep this one goes, either.”

In the dimly lit office, the tension was palpable as Michelle and Dickory faced off, each aware that this encounter would be a test of wits and determination. Both combatants had honed their abilities to harness NRG in unique and deadly ways, making them formidable opponents.

Michelle, with her frogly agility and mastery over NRG, channeled the ancient power of her ancestors' primal oasis. She could fire waves of NRG like ki, her attacks imbued with an intense gel that could pierce through even the toughest defenses. Her connection to old traditions was a curse, giving her immense power but also drawing her deep to connection with its tales of the otherworldly presence.

Dickory, on the other hand, had refined his use of NRG to enhance his combat techniques. His micro-uzi was modified to unleash sharp, precise volleys of energy-enhanced bullets, each shot capable of cutting through metal and flesh alike. Additionally, his training in Aikido allowed him to utilize weight-shifting throws, turning his opponents' strength against them and rendering them vulnerable to his rapid-fire assaults.

"I don’t need your sermons," Michelle gritted, tensing. "I came for a bounty."

Dickory’s smirk faded into something sharper, more feral. "You think Conglamorous is just blush and eyeliner? You think that swamp of yours was just a drill? Froggou isn’t a bedtime ghoul, darling — it’s the fountainhead. They’re mapping its resonance, trying to weaponize what’s in your blood. You think I run for fun? Sometimes! But someone's gotta run to keep the those bastard corpos from turning us all into skin suits for their pet projects."

Michelle’s jaw tightened. She hated every syllable that made sense.

"Spare me, goddammit! You’ve sold lives for less than your cheap-ass fedora."

"Sold'm, sure. But who the fuck else is looking? They’re building empires, girl. And it's just in one little name. The Chronostrand is both of ours. We’re prototypes, it, they, the blueprints planned, copied, warped, tucked away. I'm telling ya, this is us... this is the Furry existence, chained, prisoner."

Michelle’s aura flared violently orange now through her fist, a fire to light the dark. "You are crossing a thin line that is snapping fast, Dickory!"

Dickory’s paw hovered over his grenades, trembling — in abject anticipation. "We’re both stuck in this joke of a world, kid. You want answers? You think your grandmother’s ghost is croakin' poetry? Tantanika knew. She tried to keep you hidden from it." His eyes went livid in a smirk. "She failed!!"

A sudden gust howled through the broken doorway. Michelle faltered just enough for Dickory to throw a grenade — pin snatched in his teeth. She reacted in an instant, blasting it mid-air with a bolt of NRG, shattering the room in heat and shards of light.

Dickory vanished in a whip-quick dodge, slipping behind overturned furniture. He sprayed NRG-charged bullets, each one zipping past her like spectral dragonflies. Michelle bounded off walls, Chronostrand screaming in her joints, weaving through the maelstrom.

"You think you’re the only one hearing those ghosts?!" Dickory yelled, voice half-mad, half-exultant.

Michelle slammed down, firing a pulse that knocked the uzi from his paw. She stomped forward, pinning him under her glow, panting.

Dickory spat blood, then laughed. "Take me in. Do it. Conglamorous wins either way — they’ll pick me apart, pick you apart, and keep your swamp chants locked in sterile tubes forever."

Michelle’s glare seared him to the floor. But beneath it, a flicker — a question she hated more than anything.

Dickory coughed, wheezed, and smirked again. "She told me. Tantanika. Your grandmother’s folk speak about this "Froggou". They seen it... In the reeds, under the moon. Maybe their mind? Whaddid I think that whisper was?..."

Silence, and the slow drip of rain from broken beams and filling gutters. Huh. Kind of like... Seegar a bit.

It was a small world, after all.

[Oh, Furkind, bruv. She was a rap sheet for fuckin' miles. And none of it was my business. But her grandmother, made it mine. Tantanika. Some elderly frog woman, married up in Southold with a foxy bulltoad. They were real worried about their chief's concerns:

A green li'l girl they'd raised. Something about a grand destiny. Lunacy, really, but who am I, then? Looks like a talking cat. So, how's this one handle for a 50s flashbacks, eh?

"The world hasn't been this unbalanced in centuries," she blathered. But could any one person really reset the scales? Life's a much worse gamble, if you catch me on the algorithm.

Tantanika's conviction showed more in her words than most witnesses I'd heard, and I've been hearing some real shit. Yet, here I was, convinced by what should be impossible: Me. She. Us? Well...

Call it a gut reaction. Cheesy shmalt, if you will: it had to be whatever was left in my bleeding, sullen, despicable heart. Despite my 'charms,' I knew my career would end up leading to this.

Eventually. Somehow.

I could run the names, pull the public records. Child's play next to what I was stacking. Mashomack Preserve? The Down's Farm Preserve? Who was this Tantanika, for that matter?

And, if Tantan thought I wouldn't search her naming scheme, she had another thing coming.

Manhanset.

A tribe among many here in scattered history, old worshippers of space rock. A Long history, stretching back in Elder Earth. Big remnants clinging to old traditions, guarding territory up in our backyard swamps and estuaries. But if I hadn't known until now… clearly they'd hidden it well.

It was said, she swam more than she walked. But, maybe it was more a matter of skill than what she wanted. She was training to be mobile, keep out of dodge after all. Mashomack was the perfect training ground to hone an apex like her. And, making a few dead Conglamorous agents along the way? Exactly the kind of thing that I loved hearing about!

The authorities were off her scent, and the ones in charge of the preserves just keep looking the other way. The tidewaters are too thick and deep for anyone to do a proper investigation into things. Otherwise, county don't care.

She handed me one whacked-out tale, and now I knew our existence had to be linked. It never satisfied me to just buy the idea that this life is one huge simulation-then the scientists would be wasting time with the biggest troll ever conducted. And accepting a Hell and Heaven is just plain hella boring, to me, personally.

Her people called the thing... Froggou. Medically, I can't tell you anything significant on me last time I went to the doctor. At least, no more than a human can. But if Froggou is truth, then...

Then, I saw it: the files from Conglamorous: lab timestamps, a grainy tray photo, signs I knew... and a stamped subject line—L. Floran. Something in the prints smelled of antiseptic. Embalming oil, maybe? My claws wanted to scratch, and my head wanted out.

If Froggou was real, if Chronostrand had a map, then maybe the reason I see steel in a man’s reflex isn't luck. Maybe it’s wiring. Or war. And goddammit... now my mess to tidy.]

Michelle crouched, with her face inches from Dickory. "Give me one reason not to drag your sorry ass into the storm right now."

His eyes glimmered, stretching. Wide, craving, wilder than that. "Because I know how to finish the map. I know what Conglamorous doesn’t. You want your origin? You want the truth? You’ll need me alive. Otherwise, you’re just another ghost walkin' this swamp."

Michelle stood, fists trembling. The whispers were a scream of nature's anima again. Backing away, she found a cigarette on the remains on the floorboard still intact. She swooped down and smoked it, her first puff o' cancer perhaps in her life. She sauntered to a piece of the room's wet, flaming wreckage, and lit the fag, puffing a worrisome drag.

"You think I wanted to work for Conglamorous? You must think I get a kick out of hauling in backroom whistleblowers because the paycheck’s fat, too. I’m not blind, Dickory. But I’m not up in your shit either—making noble speeches with nothing but a half-loaded uzi to back it up. Guess your grunts were on vacation."

Dickory raised shaky hands in mock surrender, giggling, leaning in. "Spare the fuckin' martyr act, bitch. You’re not blind—but you sure are walking around with the lights turned off. Conglamorous has had its claws on your family for years. Lyssi, hello? And now you’re cashing their checks like it’s any other nine-to-five. You’re just one more name up on their ledger. My conscience is clear as fuck with what they do to us, Green.”

Michelle glared back in the gaze of death's strait. “I’m a survivor. That’s all. The bills don’t care who writes the check. And if you were half the detective you pretend to be, you’d see—sometimes survival’s all a person’s got.”

Dickory paused for a moment, and had his answer in smug resolution within a beat. “Survival’s one thing, darling. Selling your spine for it is another.”

Michelle turned away, silent, as Dickory coughed violently behind her. She quickly yanked the cigarette and immolated it in a small concentration of fist heat. Smoke wisped around her face, like the weight of the damage of this office and the likely-expected insurance.

Outside, rain slashed the sky in lightning veins. Long Island crackled with secrets too big for any one bounty. As they stepped into the night, Michelle felt it all twist tighter: her grandfather’s warnings, Conglamorous’s machinations, Dickory’s exhausted riddles, Froggou’s grudge. A grudge as hers.

She wasn’t sure if she was walking toward her past, or away from it — and for the first time in ages, she didn’t know which terrified her more.