A Short "Hello World" :)
Hello all, I’ve been browsing for a month or two? I’m not really sure. I’ve decided that I wanted to try my hand at some fluffy writing, this is actually the first thing I’ve ever written and shown to other people, outside of school I guess. Very exciting! I hope you all enjoy it, after seeing so many people just expressing themselves I wanted to contribute to the fluffy world.
You weren’t originally a fan of fluffies. When you first saw a video of them online you were fascinated; I mean these were genuine, artificially created lifeforms! The idea of custom-making an animal to suit the wildest imagination was immediately appealing, and the fact that they could actually talk was literally the stuff of dreams. It was you suspicion of corporations like Hasbro and its now famous subsidiary, Hasbio that kept you reserved. With the prices they were charging and its stumpy, fragile bodies it was easy to just dismiss it as a luxury toy for rich people.
That is, until the Hasbio breakout happened and the shits started crawling out of every alleyway and copse of trees, begging for “huggies and wub” or stripping every bit of green from the countryside! The chaos they caused only seemed to escalate until it all came to a head in Cleveland, and all the souls lost on that day, may they rest in peace. It was only then that people saw them as dangerous instead of cute, and took them seriously. Of course it’s been years since then, and people have adjusted to this whinier, stinkier existence with a general attitude of uncaring. It was impossible to eliminate them entirely by now, but with regular efforts by extermination squads the fluffies’ population could be kept from becoming a real issue again.
It wasn’t until you came home from college one Thanksgiving break that you had a dealing with a fluffy that wasn’t a filthy feral, and even then it was a former filthy feral. Just days before your arrival your sister, Helen, had rescued the thing after it just walked up to her on her way home from school, and named it Mister Kindly. Mister Kindly did look pretty rough, however. He was a black unicorn, covered in scabs, and had large patches of fur missing on his entire body. Wherever Helen had fished him up from, he’d clearly had a rough go of it. He looked more like a mangy dog than a fluffy! You weren’t exactly thrilled with the idea of sharing space with a fluffy, especially when you’d much rather have a dog, and especially with one who wasn’t even pleasant to the touch, but you weren’t living here most of the time so it wasn’t your place to complain.
You watched from the living room couch as your sister, with permission/help from your dad, ferreted items into her room. A litterbox, fresh litter, food and water bowls, spaghetti flavored kibble, blocks, balls, foam mats, and a fluffy-proof gate, all newly bought, pass by as the sounds of fluffy babble fill the house. Excited giggles and squeaks emanate from a plastic carrier, interrupted with questions of “Nyu mummah? Nyu daddeh?” whenever he saw someone come into view. You made sure he knew you weren’t his “daddeh”, at which point he called you “daddeh-me”. Whatever. The house was already at capacity with three adults and one near-adult, so adding a pet into the mix was destined to make things cramped. As it was Helen’s idea to adopt Mister Kindly he would be kept in her room while you were home, and only after you went back would yours;p be converted to a saferoom. You braced yourself for the worst.
Only for it never to come, really. Thanksgiving break was only a week long, and aside from the initial excitement Mister Kindly proved to be a relatively calm and well behaved fluffy. He spent the majority of his time in Helen’s room because your family wasn’t sure how he’d behave yet, but by day 4 he was on the couch with you, crawling onto my lap as you silently screamed thinking about the diseased state of his skin. We had taken him to a vet and it turns out he did have some form of fluffy mange, it was thought. It was gross, with scabs dotting most of his skin and his fur growing in patches, not to mention the fact that he’d scratch himself incessantly and fling blood and bits of scab around. In spite of this, when you felt the warm weight of a living thing settle onto you it was almost impossible not to feel your heart soften. You’d get used to the feeling of his scabby head and back as you stroked him, eliciting appreciative coos from him for the “itchy scratchies”.
That was how your life with fluffies continued for a number of years. You were normally off at college, but whenever you visited for the holidays you could always get Mister Kindly and hang out with him for a bit to bring up your mood a little. Only for a bit, however, because Mister Kindly had a clear favorite in the house. As far as he was concerned your sister was the most important person in the world, and he followed her everywhere, from the bedroom to the bathroom. This resulted in more than a few accidents during your visits, after which Mister Kindly would say something about “bad poopies” and Helen would scold him before cleaning up the mess. Besides his occasional problems with accidents, over the years you noticed how Mister Kindly’s skin cleared up thanks to the persistent efforts of his veterinarians. It turned out he didn’t have fluffy mange, treating him for it didn’t end up doing anything. It was only when they gave him the equivalent of fluffy steroids that something finally changed, and they figured out what was wrong after three maddening years: allergies. Of all things, this little scab ball had allergies? Apparently so, and after weekly shots of a custom serum for him Mister Kindly was no longer scratching himself raw and grew a wonderfully glossy black coat. He would need the shots for the rest of his life though.
Now you’re out of college, and congratulations, you’re now an engineer at Paytheon Technologies! They’re not exactly the most ethical people to work for, but the number of zeroes in your salary and the comfortable lifestyle that affords means you don’t really care about that. It also helps you overlook how boring the work is. Sure it’s not simple by any means, but engineering isn’t a passion for you. It’s just something you had an aptitude for when you were a kid, and would be an easy way to live without having to worry about being ever being short on money. You’re here to extract money from Paytheon for your own uses, and Paytheon is extracting your work from you. It’s not ideal, but you chose it.
Work is just a means to an end. The most important end being your own personal space, your house! It’s not particularly big, but it’s situated out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded on all sides by a few acres of scrubland. By no means a wasteland, but also not a friendly place for people or pets to go roaming. It’s got a rain collection system and solar panels to save a bit on bills, and some large freezers in the garage since trips to the grocery store are a whole day affair. You wanted to feel like no one else was around to bother you or catch any embarrassing moments, and with Paytheon levels of money to throw around you were able to finally have your dream. As long as you gave up 5 days a week of enjoying it up, but whatever. You worked from home so at least you didn’t have to follow a dress code or be around people in person, right?
But something’s still missing, you’re not happy like you should be. It feels like every day is the same. You’re not really looking forward to anything except when you can stop working, and then you dread the moment that you’ll have to start again the next day, or the next week. Barely noticing holidays, trying to jam as much entertainment into your brain as you can during your time off because after all, this is the time you waited for while you were working, right? It just became a horrible cycle, and one that was difficult to notice, let alone break, until one day you got a phone call from Helen.
“Yeah?”
“Hey… So, mom and dad are finally doing that digital nomad thing, remember?”
“Oh yeah, so they’re selling the house?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s crazy. So what’s up?”
“Well Mister Kindly’s been living with them but he can’t follow them around, and they won’t let us keep pets up here so…”
“So… you want to know if I can take care of him?”
“Please Steven? Just until I can find a place that accepts pets! I mean you like him right, he’s a sweetheart.”
You pause for a moment. If you don’t take the poor guy, he’ll have no one to look after him. He’ll probably end up getting sent to a shelter, and god only knows what’d happen to him there. Mister Kindly’s already had a rough enough life, he didn’t deserve to get kicked to the curb like that. Plus, maybe a companion is just what you need.
“Ok, I can take care of him.”
“Thank you! The house is getting emptied in a week so I’ll bring him over before then. Bye!”
You hang up. Well, there’s no turning back now. You’ve just become the proud caretaker of Mister Kindly, and now you had to prepare yourself for this responsibility. You can convert the spare bedroom, which until now was used for miscellaneous storage, into a palatial saferoom. And maybe you can even set up a pen for him in your office, so he doesn’t get lonely. You remember that Mister Kindly’s a pretty clingy guy, but that should work since you feel the need for some fluffy affection. You’re gonna do this right! Mister Kindly is your sister’s after all, it’s not permanent, and you wouldn’t want there to be any bad blood between you two because of the guy. All that’s left is to wait for their arrival.
Author's Note
There we have it! This was more of a setup and isn’t how I imagine the bulk of the story reading, as I’ve realized a lot of this was in second-person perspective. In the future I want it to be more from Steven’s perspective, and maybe even Mister Kindly’s perspective. I tried to be as lore accurate as possible from what I’ve picked up, but I will admit I haven’t read all of The Fall of Cleveland yet so if there are any major inaccuracies please let me know. A number of questions came up to me while I was writing this, like how long do fluffies normally live? I decided they lived to be like 10? The shorter side of dog lifespans. If this turns out to be wrong I’ll change it in future stories but I’m already locked in here! Oh well. I hope you guys like it, Part 1 will be out in a week maybe, I’m not a fast writer but I sure am motivated!