Firefox Story - Beginnings (Epilogue-ish)

>You are Anon
>You awake, rather suddenly, for reasons that are queer to you
>All you know is that whatever had awoken you, had decided to do it at the wrong time
>You tilt your head the opposite direction, facing your alarm clock
>3:43 AM
>God damnit
>You kick your feet in a silent rage, but ultimately think nothing about it
>That is, until you noticed that there wasn't that familiar weight at the edge of your feet, which allowed them to kick awkwardly into the air
>Despite the awkward action, you can't help but feel that something is wrong
>You begin to sit up and rubbing your eyes, only to find that Mr. Sandman assaulted them, dumping his whole bag of sand on your eyes, it seemed
>Sighing, you pick your glasses up off of the aged-oak nightstand to your left and place them, rather crooked, on your nose
>Sitting up at full mast, you re-adjust your body so your back is straight against the bedpost
>You still can't make out what seems to be bothering you
>It would probably help if there was light in the room, you dipshit
>With a flick of a switch, the lamp next to your alarm clock dimly illuminated your bedroom
>You slowly come to the realization that Firefox was not resting at the foot of the bed like she always has
>You could have sworn that she was there when you went to bed last night
>Surely she hadn't just got up and left in the middle of the night?
>Despite her... different... behavior, she wasn't one to run off
>Something is definitely wrong now
>You figure that she might still be mad about last night--you assume that she's probably just sleeping on the couch
>That puts your mind at ease a bit, but it doesn't excuse the fact that she didn't at least tell you, or leave a note
>You had taught her, from the very first day you began raising her, to always tell be responsible and caring for others, even if they didn't care much for you
>Slightly disturbed, you arise from your bed, throwing the covers off a bit harder than you actually intended
>As you began to stretch your back, you turn towards the calendar and slowly cross off yesterday from the smooth, slightly-chilled page
>Today was September 22
>You look down at the space below the date to see what you have anything planned for the day
>There was nothing important going on today, other than the fact that it was Firefox's birthday
>Like you would forget about that, it's not like you've celebrated it ten times
>And from each of the ten celebrations, there was a different memory that you could never forget
>However, reminiscing about them was not your current priority
>In fact, you don't even have any priority right now--you should be getting back to sleep
>You couldn't help but feel that you should go to the living room and check the couch to see if Firefox was indeed sleeping there
>Fuck what your brain wanted
>Right now, this was about Firefox's safety, not your well-being
>With that in mind, you grab a freshly-rustled sheet from your bed, along with your cell phone, and slowly lumber out the bedroom door, with early-morning aches evident in every step.
>You turn on a flashlight app on your phone
>To your surprise, it wasn't as bright as you had assumed
>You never really had a reason to use it until now
>Oh well, it still provided light in a completely dark one-bedroom apartment
>At least you didn't have to shine it down on the floor, you were always a clean person
>You pass through the rather narrow hallway that led into the living room, which was the hub of your general activities with Firefox
>A few in which you were not willing to remember at this point in time
>During your brief recollection, you fail to notice that you are nearing the couch
>Within seconds, you are on the carpet, parallel to the couch
"OH, MY LEG"
>If Firefox was sleeping, your loud outburst definitely would have woken her up
>Not to mention the clusterfuck of noise you just made might have lent a hand in that
>Yet you hear no stirring
>Nor gasps
>Nothing that would sound like a young, sleeping mare being jolted out of sleep on your couch
>You are slow to get up as you feel around for your phone, writhing with new-found pain
>When you do manage to get up, you drown the couch in your phone's flashlight, only to confirm your suspicions: Firefox was not there
>Panicking, you begin to turn on every light in the abode
>You check every nook and cranny of your tiny apartment
>You even check the bathroom, where Firefox would run off to when she was upset at something
>There was no orange-coated mare anywhere in sight
>If you weren't worried before, you were definitely worried now
>A cold sweat runs down your back as you check one last place in your apartment
>The only way you could leave it without injuring yourself from a 5-story fall
>You approach the door, and it was locked, from both the inside and the outside, just like you had left it yesterday
>You breath a sigh of... whatever it was you were feeling at this point
>You're currently contrasted against Firefox's disappearance and the fact that there's no way she could have left the apartment
>Normally, this amount of stress would be killing you
>You weren't very good at dealing with stress
>Firefox wasn't either, but she digressed
>She always knew how to console you whenever you were feeling down
>It seemed to you that all Browser AIs never really stressed out about anything and they always knew what to say
>Of course, there is only one in existance--Firefox--so comparing living, breathing Browser AIs to each other is essentially impossible
>You had figured that out about two years ago, near the eve of Mozilla's latest update (at the time)
>Speaking of updates...
>Focus, Anon
>Firefox is your only priority right now
>You're terrible at prioritizing
>But with the life of an innocent mare on the line, you couldn't possibly fuck this up
>Shaking your head doubtfully, you return your gaze towards the living room, which was a good 15 feet away from the door
>Although you seriously doubt that Firefox would jump out of the living room window, you approach it anyways
>Better safe than die from the fucking stress
>You had only given the window a quick glance when you were panicking
>You approach it with relative quickness, worry still being your prime sentiment at this point
>The window was vaguely ajar, a slight breeze flooding your adobe with a constant coolness through the tiny opening
>You remember that it was left open since yesterday
>That shit was hot, it was like an oven in your apartment
>Fucking humidity
>With no warning, you push open the rest of the window, the slight breeze blowing at full force as you allow more space for the wind to enter your apartment with its maximum potential
>Despite your half-naked desposition, you did not allow the coolness of the wind to affect you
>Although it was pitch black outside, a few lights illuminated the tiny town, which you moved to after you graduated high school
>You lived in a bad part of town, bad enough to not want to expose Firefox to it
>Despite that fact, you feel as though you had helped Firefox become a proper mare, fit to have an enjoyable future in this God-forsaken country
>You close the window and return your attention to the door
>Now the apartment is cold, good going dipshit
>With that, you walk into your small, 16'x16' bedroom
>Defeated and out of options, you rest at the foot of your bed
>You try and recollect the events that might have made her run away
>You hate yourself for constantly bringing up yesterday, but it's probably the only day that you can recently remember that might make sense as to her disappearance
>It was just an argument
>Nothing more
>There was no way that Firefox was going to do that on her own
>Especially in public
>You only wanted what was best for her
>Did she not understand that?
>You would think raising her for almost 11 years would have imbedded that into her skull
>You feel a tear begin to well up in your eye
>Firefox would have called you out on that, trying to make you laugh it away
>But you hear no agonizing, yet calming equine voice
>You felt more tears coming as you remember
>You were always bad at holding your emotions in
>It's not like having aspergers helped either
>That's not why you're crying and you know it, Anon
>You've created an impossible-to-break bond over the 10 years you've been together
>You remember how she would get so giddy whenever Mozilla announced a new update for Firefox
>Especially whenever the update that introduced applications came along
>She couldn't sleep for days she was so excited
>Although she could do everything like her computer-based counterpart, you had to apply updates to her manually
>Thankfully, you figured that out with your best friend at a local computer store on campus
>He, along with your mother, are the only people that know of Firefox's ability to project a screen from her eyes and her ability to access the Internet from her own body
>It took you a while to get used to that, but it wasn't without its advantages
>Almost everyone in town knew about Firefox the Equine-like thing
>You had implanted the thoughts that Firefox was just like a normal horse into the minds of everyone except your mother and friend, of course
>If the public knew that she could do things that were not humanly possible, it would be game over for you and, more importantly, for her
>You cringe at what you imagine the government might do to poor little Firefox
>Speaking of the government, you were happy that they passed off Firefox as just some prank whenever someone from your town had leaked information about her
>That caused quite the scare when you received a letter in the mail from D.C.
>You had made an appeal with the mayor, who, thankfully, loved horses
>You had asked the mayor to not leak information about Firefox--or as you called her in public, "Foxy"--if she was asked about Firefox
>She had agreed, so long as "Foxy" visited her every now and again, and you were to make contact with her if something groundbreaking happened concerning Firefox
>Thankfully, nothing that big ever happened
>Except for now, of course
>You pull out your laptop from underneath your bed
>Despite it being in sleep-mode, it still produced a bunch of heat, and it didn't get any better when the laptop was powered on
>It sounded like a miniature nuclear explosion was coming from your laptop when you pressed the power button
>Fuck, you've had it for 6 years and it still works fine
>You type in your password and load up the desktop, noticing that there was a notepad tab open on the taskbar
>You click it and the 72-point Impact font assaults you as Notepad extends to fullscreen
>It reads:
>"I love you Daddy"
>"<3 Firefox@"
>God damnit, right in the feels
>The atmark at the end of Firefox's name is basically her trademark whenever she writes on something
>She started doing that a few years ago, if you could remember correctly
>Despite having no thumbs, she could write better with a pencil in her mouth than you could writing with your dominant hand
>You chuckle at that as leave Notepad open and open up Google Chrome over it
>You couldn't seem to find Firefox on the taskbar, where it always was
>You shrug it off and type in Facebook's url
>You are shocked at what you see when you're finally able to load your profile
>Over 100 notifications, all written on your wall
>Each of them is for recognizing Firefox's birthday was today
>But one of them caught your eye
>It was from the mayor
>It read:
>"Happy birthday, my dear Foxy! September 22, 2013! Much love, -Mayor Imightgiveyouanamelater"
>For some reason, that date struck you funny
>Operating on only a hunch, you Google Mozilla's Firefox browser
>You click wikipedia's page for the browser as you can't seem to find mozilla.org anywhere on the first page of search results
>You skim through it, trying to find... whatever it was you were looking for
>"Mozilla Firefox was a free and open source web browser developed for Microsoft Windows, OS X and Linux (including Android) coordinated by Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation.
>"It was discontinued on September 22, 2013, at 12:01 AM after a massive amount of hacking and manipulation of the browser by other users forced Mozilla to close off the browser for public use."
>And that's when it hits you
>At this point, you weren't sure what to think
>Maybe this could be a dream, considering that there no way she could have left, and she was gone
>You try pinching yourself
>It ended up being a bit harder than you anticipated, but, alas, you remain at the foot of the bed, where Firefox would have been
>Looks like you're not in dreamland
>This is real
>Just like the memories you had with her
>You two had actually made a scrapbook earlier with all of your memories together
>When you said all, you literally meant ALL of them
>And you knew exactly where to find them
>Rising from the foot of the bed, you reach for the lone drawer on your aged-oak nightstand
>Besides a few pens and other random items, you find what you were looking for
>The orange scrapbook
>The red text titled it "Our Memories" and you immediately noticed the silver permanent marker scribbles on it
>Despite the immense sadness you were feeling, you manage to choke out a chuckle
>That was Firefox's first attempt at writing in the English language
>That was eight years ago
>Has it really been that long?
>Despite a few signs of wear-and-tear around the edges, the scrapbook was in perfect condition, with a tiny layer of dust casing the front cover
>You blow the dust off and flip open the cover
>The first picture was enough to make you close the book
>You were too unstable at this point to continue looking through the scrapbook
>The memories would send you over the edge
>Moreso than this situation already has
>You place the scrapbook beside you
>It's not like you could see anymore, the amount of tears you had welling up in under your irises
>You bring your head into your hands
>You take one deep breath
>And cry
>You cry like you've never cried before