The next morning came before too long. The keyhole’s shaft of light once more shifted to a golden yellow, illuminating exactly one inch of the trunk’s otherwise pitch-black interior.
The complaints were almost immediate.
“Eww! Smewwy! Nu wike smewwy pwace!”
“Mummah, wha happen?! Why smewwies?!”
"EW! WHO MAKE POOPIES ON BABBEH?! NU AM POOPIE-BABBEH! NU NU NU!!!"
“Dummeh mummah, make poopies gu 'way!”
“Hu hu hu… pwace stiww smewwy an’ dawkie… babbeh nu wike…”
Cinnamon herself was roused by the mewling and squeaking of her spawn, but she realised with grim certainty that there was nothing she could do.
“I-it otay babbehs!” She attempted to reassure them. “Wiww nu be smewwy owe dawkies fow long! Nice hoomans wiww fin’ us soon! Pwomise!”
Cinnamon hoped she was telling the truth.
She pulled her cramped, itchy form over to the keyhole and peered out as best she could, but couldn’t see much more than the dirt-brown ground and the clear blue sky.
“HEWP!” She squeaked, her voice echoing around in the trunk but otherwise not travelling very far. "HEWP FWUFFEHS! FWUFFEHS TWAPPED! FWUFFEHS STUCKIES! HEWP MUMMAH PWEASE! HAF BABBEHS! BABBEHS NEE’ HEWP! HEWP!"
Cinnamon paused for breath, only to realise nobody was coming.
“HEWP!” She cried, even more loudly and desperately than before. “FWUFFEHS AM STUCKIES! NEE’ HEWP! BABBEHS SCAWED! PWEASE HEWP!”
But still, nobody replied.
Cinnamon sucked down another lungful of stinking air, readying herself to shout again (although she was slowly realising it didn’t matter anyway), when a sharp jab at her teat stopped her.
“Dummeh mummah, gib bestest babbeh miwkies!” Her bestest demanded. Cinnamon glanced down at the voice, only to realise she couldn’t see anyway, and with a sigh lay back down again to let it feed.
Her bestest suckled at her teats for approximately ten seconds before letting go.
“WHUH… WHEWE DA MIWKIES?!” It shrieked, pounding it’s tiny hooves into Cinnamon’s teats. “DUMMEH MUMMAH! GIB MIWKIES TO BESTEST BABBEH!”
“Pwease nu huwties, bestest babbeh… mummah nee’ nummies fow makin’ miwkies.” She explained, as she had needed to do several times before.
“DEN GU FIN’ NUMMIES, DUMMEH MUMMAH!” Her bestest snapped at her. “BESTEST BABBEH HAB TUMMY-HUWTIES!”
Cinnamon looked around… but the trunk was as dark as ever. Even then, she already knew there was nothing inside it. The trunk was as empty as it had been yesterday, before the lid closed and trapped them all inside. There was no food anywhere, nothing but Cinnamon, her five foals, a slowly increasing amount of feces, and a lot of itchy, scratchy fabric.
“Dewe nu nummies hewe, babbeh…” Cinnamon replied glumly, refusing to get up from her position. “Nu nummies fow mummah… nu nummies fow miwkies…”
By now, the rest of her foals had waddled over for their own breakfast, only to hear these words as they arrived.
“Wha?!”
“Nu nummies?! Nu miwkies?!”
“Buh… buh babbeh hungwy! Hab biggest tummy-huwties!”
"Hate nyu homesy! Nu wan stay! Wan gu!"
“SHADDUP DUMMEHS!” Her bestest snapped at the others. “YOO STEAW AWW OF BESTEST’S MIWKIES! NU WEAVE NUFFIN FOW BESTEST! NAO BESTEST HAB TUMMY-HUWTIES COS OF YOO!”
“Buh… buh babbeh hungwy too…” One of the others mewled. A second later there was a thump followed by a wail. “OWIES! BABBEH HAB WEGGY OWIES AGAIN! HUHUHU!”
“Babbehs, pwease nu fighties!” Cinnamon pleaded, her mind unable to cope with any more emotional strain. Her predicament was bad enough, but she wasn’t trapped here alone… she had also led her five beloved foals into it too. Their fate was her fault, and she knew it.
“SHADDUP DUMMEH!” Her bestest barked at her, stomping back over to her empty teat. "BABBEH WAN MIWKIES! NAO GIB MIWKIES!"
And with that, her bestest latched onto her nipple, and bit down with his still-forming teeth. They weren’t formed enough to be capable of chewing solid food, but they were certainly formed enough to be present, which Cinnamon realised as she felt something hard clamp down sharply on her sensitive skin.
“OWIE! HUWTIES!” She squeaked, thrashing with her limbs until she felt one knock against something. At that, the pain stopped… only to be replaced by a new kind of pain.
Pain of the heart.
“OWIES!!!” Her bestest shrieked from the other side of the trunk where it had landed in a heap. "MUMMAH NU WUB BESTEST BABBEH NU MOWE! MUMMAH NU GIB BESTEST BABBEH MIWKIES! MUMMAH GIB BESTEST BABBEH OWIES!!!"
Cinnamon considered going over to her bestest and comforting it… but decided against it.
There was no point.
“Shaddup, dummeh babbeh… yoo nu bestest… yoo jus’ meanie…” She muttered to herself.
The hours rolled on.
Foal after foal pawed and suckled at Cinnamon’s teats, only to find them as empty as their stomachs. They went to milling around the trunk as the bestest continued to sniffle and sob in the corner, with each fluffy (Cinnamon) included emptying their bowels at some point across the hours.
On the upside, they no longer had any turds left to shit out… but on the downside, the emptiness in their guts only emphasised the emptiness in their stomachs.
One after another the foals returned to Cinnamon, asking timidly if she had gotten any milkies yet… and every time, Cinnamon had to turn them down.
The hours rolled on and on and on, until finally the fluffies became aware of something.
First, the stink of shit had gotten worse, despite nobody having taken any more shits. That didn’t make any sense.
Second, they had all started sweating, huge droplets of salty moisture falling from their thick fuzzy coats. But that didn’t make sense either, they only got sweaty when it was hot, and they were inside! Surely that meant they couldn’t get hot enough to sweat, right…?
“Mummah…” One foal mewled, it’s lips stickly smacking together as it spoke. “Babbeh hungwy an’ fhiwsty… pwease gib miwkies nao…?”
Cinnamon’s heart ached, but her answer was the same.
“Nu, babbeh, nu can gib miwkies…” She whimpered through her own dry lips. “Mummah hab nu miwkies…”
“Hu-hu…” Her foal whimpered, waddling away quietly. All around the trunk, the other foals were starting to pant and gasp for air. The atmosphere inside the trunk had become utterly stifling. The keyhole let in enough air for them to breathe, but the heat was making the stink of shit far worse than it had been before, while the tiny keyhole barely let out any of the increasing temperature.
The weather the day before had been cloudy enough to be cool, but bright enough to be warm, a perfect balance of temperature. But today… the sky was blue, there wasn’t a single cloud to be seen, and the sun was pounding down on the gleaming black bodywork of the trashed car.
“Mmmummah…” Another foal groaned, the one Cinnamon had stepped on, as it dragged itself over on it’s bad leg. “Babbeh so fhiwsty… pwuh… pwease gib dwinkies…”
Cinnamon tried to reply, but her lips had stuck together from the sticky dryness of her skin.
“Suh… sowwy babbeh…” She gasped out as she finally opened her mouth. “Mummah nu hab nu dwinkies…”
“Buh… buh babbeh fhiwsty…” Her foal whined as sweat poured out of it’s soft, fluffy, well-insulated body.
The increased moisture in the trunk from the sweat only made it even more unbearable, as the air became thicker and more humid. The fluffies weren’t just hungry, they weren’t just thirsty, they weren’t just choking on turd fumes… they were barely even able to move in the awful, cloying, suffocating heat of the trunk.
At some point, one foal vomited, but all it produced was a puddle of stomach-acid that burned it’s throat and lips on the way out, which contributed to the rancid stink that had been filling the trunk ever since it slammed shut.
Cinnamon was feeling the worst of it. Her foals were small and could only take so much, but Cinnamon’s body was larger. The heat was unbearable, prickling at her damp, sweaty skin while her lungs fought to suck down any oxygen left in the fetid, stinking atmosphere.
She could barely see, the trunk was still dark but her vision was blurring to the point that she couldn’t even see the keyhole anymore, her dizzy head just lolled from side to side as she tried to see anything, but knew it was no use.
There was nothing to see.
There was nothing to do.
Nothing except suffer.
Cinnamon wasn’t sure when her foals began to die, but she slowly became aware that the sound of breathing in the trunk was getting quieter, and the sounds of shuffling, crawling movement had completely stopped. She couldn’t even speak anymore, couldn’t muster up the energy to do so. Her entire body was simply limp, wheezing for breath as the dense heat seared it’s way into her brain.
The last thing she was aware of was a tiny voice mewling from the depths of the trunk.
“Huh… huh… hah… hatechu… duh… dummeh mummah… bestest buh… babbeh… hatechu…”
Two days later, someone finally found the car.
The road was rarely used, mostly due to it’s sharp, winding turns that were known to catch new drivers off-guard. Sure enough, one very new driver (and his girlfriend) took a sharp turn and impacted hard against the front of a tree, which sent them spinning out of control before finally coming to a halt on the edge of the road.
Since then an entire week had passed, the fluffies arriving on the fourth day, with the car being found on the seventh. A local farmer had taken a shortcut, only to find the festering corpses of the two youngsters (he presumed they were youngsters at least) in their wreck of a car. He swiftly phoned the police, who turned up shortly after for the usual round of statements and forensics work.
At some point or another, one white-suited CSI member popped the car’s trunk to check for any illicit substances… and almost vomited in their own mask. Not from the smell, but from the sight alone.
The trunk was completely brown on all sides. It was caked wall to wall with shit, which had been smeared and ground into every fibre of fabric there was to be found. Not only that, but there were what looked like some sort of large rats in the trunk, which had evidently died at some point too. They were mostly covered in bugs, which scattered as soon as the trunk lid was opened, and their remains had been horrifically chewed and torn at. Bones were visible in some areas, patches of brown-stained fur could be seen at random points on the corpses, but they were all definitely dead.
The CSI official walked away to fetch something from a toolkit, just as one of the tiny half-eaten things began to twitch slightly. The bestest baby had, against all odds, managed to survive the heat, the dehydration, the choking stench, and even the relentless devouring of the numerous bugs that poured into the car as his family began to rot away, filling the trunk with an even more rancid stink.
The bestest baby was still alive, his stomach was empty, his fluff was all pulled out, his skin was torn apart, his eyes were half-eaten and his limbs were little more than stumps with visible bones protruding from them… but he was alive!
Then, his exhausted heart gave one final, weary beat and he suddenly fell still.
The CSI member returned, clasping a pair of metal tongs in one hand, holding a ‘BIOHAZARD’ bag in another, as he began plucking out each of the rat-things in turn, dropping them in the bag.
They’d be incinerated shortly enough, and considering the smell of them, that was probably for the best.
END
