The year is 2659, and the world has changed. The towering cities and verdant forests of the 2100’s are but a distant memory, an echo passed down from generation to generation, growing fainter with each retelling, until one day it shall be lost to time. Lost like so much else. Yet in the wastes of what was once known as North America, humanity lives on. The once thriving nation of the old-times has been reduced to a handful of nomadic herds, scavengers who stalk the barren plains, subsisting on the only thing left to them, the only resource that remains on this once-lush planet, and the very plague that scoured it of life. For in the far-flung future, there is only Fluff.
The sound of stone-on-stone echoed through the jagged hollows of the cavern, striking a steady rhythm. The virtuoso, a stern-faced hulk of man, hunched intently over the makeshift altar on which he worked, his chiseled features lit only by the frail light of a flickering fluff-pyre. He wore a tunic of pelts in bright blues, pinks, and purples, a patchwork garment that left his wide shoulders bare, and served to keep him warm during the cold-times. His name was Sony, though he knew not the origin of the word: His father had told him it was a word of the old-times, the name of a mighty empire which once held all the waste-world in it’s thrall. One could still find their sigils carved on the petrified artifacts of the lost age, wrought in a strange material so fragile it would snap with the scantest pressure, yet so enduring that it persisted where all else had crumbled to dust. The name had been a promise, from father to son, an ideal the herd-chief had aspired to. It was a promise that had been broken.
Sony had lost count of how many bright-times it had been since he’d laid eyes on another hoomin. There was a time when he’d marked each and every one of them, though that time seemed almost as distant in memory as the face of his father. The herd-chief had been the last to go, having lived to watch his herd dwindle, first to a few families, then to a few survivors, until at long last, only he and his son had remained. Even then he had persisted, time dogging his every step, until his aging body simply had nothing left to give. He had tripped, stumbled, and fallen, and by the time Sony caught him, the spark of life had already left the old man’s withered form. Leaving Sony alone, as he had been ever since.
Those days spent alone had seen Sony grow from a chirping colt of a boy, to a weathered and weary warrior. The hard life he’d lived had forged him into a toughie of statuesque proportions, and his sun-bronzed flesh was littered with the scars of lessons hard-learned. At first, it had been a struggle just to survive, but Sony’s father had equipped him with all the skills he’d needed to thrive in this world. He’d taught him to forage, to hunt, to skin. How to prepare hides, how to fashion tools, and most importantly of all, how to craft weapons. Weapons such as the one he toiled over at this very moment, carefully chipping and etching at the chitin on the altar, sharpening it, honing it.
The hulk’s lips parted as he raised his labor to the light, slowly turning it, inspecting the way the fire glimmered off every inch with a practiced eye. It was a spear, with a haft of old world cold-rock¹, wrapped with leather and bound with sinew. Upon the tip was fixed a horn as long as his forearm, worked to a wicked razor. Sony drew his thumb gently across the edge, and it came away wet with blood, eliciting a grim smile from the warrior.
The horn had not been a prize easily won. Sony had spent many forevers hunting the previous owner, painstakingly tracking the grand-fluff² through the barren wastes, hounding and harrying his every move. By the time the warrior had run the beast aground, his quiver had been empty, and all his spears long since spent. On sundown of the fifth bright-time, he’d managed to drive the beast to its safe-lair: A cave, but not of the dank, natural sort in which he’d made his home. This had been a cave of the old-times, marked with the smooth, flawlessly carved stone of the forebears, though the elements and centuries had dulled its once-sharp edges. There, beneath the earth, before an audience of the rusted skeletons of a herd of metal-monsters, the two had clashed one final time, until Sony stood victorious over its heaving body. In its final moments, as the light faded from its bulbous eyes, Sony had told it the same thing he told all of its kind he slew, the words having long since surpassed their original intended insult and become his very purpose for being.
“This is HOOMIN’S land.”
That was the warrior’s mission in life: to take back the waste-world, one Fluffy at a time. He knew, deep down, that it was a futile effort—for every one he slew, hundreds of thousands were born. And yet, something within him railed at the thought of allowing these foul creatures to claim his ancestor’s land unchecked. He would not let them have it, save for over his dead, defiant corpse. From the greatest grand-fluff to the smallest microfluff³, he would kill each and every one of them he could, and he would keep killing them until they day they finally gave him forever-sleepies, or until the day his body gave out, just as his father’s had.
But those were thoughts for later. For now, the warrior had more pressing concerns—such as the insistent rumbling in his stomach he’d ignored for the past hour. The sun would rise soon, and it was time for him to hunt.
Sony emerged from his cave, his pelt tunic obscured beneath a vest-like armour of interlocking greatfluff⁴ ribs, his newly forged spear slung at his back. A fluffy-leather quiver hung behind his right shoulder, filled with unicorn-horn arrows, and adorned with bands of carved hoof that helped the material hold its shape. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the wasteland before him, taking in every detail of the orange-sunbathed barrens.
In all directions, a great plain of dirt⁵ stretched as far as the eye could see, dotted with small hillocks and rocky outcroppings. Scant little grew here⁶, and what did was quickly consumed by the roving herds, save only for a handful of lonely fuzztrees⁷: foul, fleshy plants barely three feet tall that sprouted in the wake of herds. On the horizon, he could make out movement—a small herd, about 30 adults by Sony’s reckoning, though he was far too distant to pick out the tiny specks of the foals that no doubt traveled with them, the favored ones upon their mothers backs, and the least favored left to run behind the pack. It was a behavior all forms of fluff-life seemed to adopt instinctively, and one that served them well on the open plains. If the herd found themselves being pursued by a predator such as a fluffmaw⁸ or abberation⁹, or chased by a rival herd, they’d pick up speed and leave the unwanted foals behind, offering the babies up as a slower-moving sacrifice to save themselves. When Sony was a child, the Wisemamma had once told him a tale of a mythical being named Lizard, and how he would leave his own tail behind in a similar fashion—though Sony had never had much faith in the Wisemamma’s ramblings, ever since she had told him the legend that fluffies were once created by a man called Hasbio. To his mind, the idea any hoomin could deliberately unleash such a scourge upon the world was as unthinkable as it was unrealistic: no-one could simply create a creature the way they could a spear or a shelter, not even the forebears with all their marvels.
Marking the direction the herd was moving in, Sony began to pick his way across the wastes, towards the nearest fuzz-tree. Fluffies had a keen sense of smell, and if one wanted to catch a fluffy without being detected and spooking the herd, one needed to smell like a fluffy. The hulking hunter approached the tree and began to run his hands up the spongy trunk, gathering handfuls of the thick, viscous brown sap that oozed from beneath the brightly coloured fluffball that crowned the plant. Without hesitation, Sony began to smear the repulsive slime across his skin and armour, lathering himself in it until every inch of his body was lightly coated in a layer of pungent brown sludge. It was a vile smell, enough to make a man gag, though one he had grown accustomed to over the years, and it was easier to obtain than fresh droppings. Its use was the one reason Sony allowed the fluffy sprouts to exist here, in his hunting ground, instead of tearing them out by the roots wherever he found them.
Then, the hunter set off across the plains, keeping low and ambling across them in a crouch so as to avoid letting the herd spot his silhouette on the horizon against the backdrop of the rising sun.
It didn’t take him long to catch up with the herd. Even at a crouch, his muscular legs could carry him far further and faster than their tiny trotters could, especially as they kept a slow pace the unwanted foals could match. Instead of making right for them, Sony moved towards a point a short distance south and downwind of them, where he noted a series of rocky outcrops that would conceal him well while offering a fine vantage point. Once he lay flat against the dirt atop it, he took a moment to survey his prey.
His count had been close: there were twenty-eight adults in total, many of them in poor condition. Their fluffy coats hung limply, hinting at the loose skin and emaciated forms beneath it. At the very center of the pack, however, he noted a particularly bloated fluffy, a mare, by the looks, and no doubt the mate of the Smarty leading them—who else would be able to gorge themselves while the rest of the herd starved? A trio of similarly plump foals perched atop her shoulders, the tremors of each of their mother’s steps cushioned by the soft rolls of fat beneath them.
There was no doubt about it, she would be the hunter’s mark. Her meat would be rich and plentiful, and just as importantly, she was in the perfect position. Raising himself to a low crouch, Sony gripped his spear firmly in one hand, drew it back, then in one smooth, practiced motion, lunged forwards and released, his arm continuing its arc to point directly where he wanted the spear to go.
His aim was true, and the spear arced high into the air above the herd before plunging, tip-first, directly towards the fat mare in the very center. It struck her squarely in the back of the neck, driving effortlessly down through fluff, muscle, and bone, through her throat, and into the dirt beneath her, pinning her plump corpse to the ground.
The reaction was instantaneous. The herd was thrown into chaos, shrieks and screes filling the air as they all fled in different directions at once, scattering themselves, before their herd instincts kicked in, and each of them started looking for another fluffy to follow. This quickly resulted in them all wheeling about and galloping to and fro in a rough circle around the mare Sony had bullseyed, all of them too panicked to realize they weren’t actually going anywhere, nor putting any ground between themselves and the unseen predator. All the while, Sony watched brown foals scampering for their lives away from the circle, and heard the peeping cries of those ‘bad babies’ that hadn’t been so fast, as they were mercilessly trampled beneath the hooves of their own parents.
The circle of death was not an uncommon reaction, and one Sony had intended to provoke, though it had been more good fortune than any skill on his part that saw them form it. The herd could have as easily broken one direction or another.
Unslinging his bow, Sony fired once, twice, three times, deftly plucking another unicorn-horn arrow from the quiver at his back and nocking it between each. All three of his shots found their mark: the first in the eye-socket of a unicorn, the second in the heart of a pegasus, and the third between the eyes of the large stallion that seemed to be leading the herd. By the time the second arrow fell, the herd had realized where they were coming from, and begun to scramble for safety. By the time the third fell, they’d put a good 30 feet between Sony and themselves. The hunter drew back his bowstring for a fourth shot, but after a moment relaxed it: The herd was already too far to guarantee a killshot, and he wasn’t about to risk wasting any of his precious arrows on anything less.
Sony leapt down from his perch, ignoring the pitter-patter of the remaining, confused brown foals that had been left behind trying to canter away from him as fast as their tiny legs could carry them. He took long, slow, confident strides over to his downed quarry, reaching to pluck the arrows from their corpses and return them to their place in his quiver. These kills would serve him well. Their meat would feed him for days, especially that of the fat mare. The unicorn’s horn would serve as the tip of another arrow to bolster his slowly dwindling supply. The wings of the pegasus would find their place feathering those same arrows, or as down for his bedding if they proved too soft and unsuited.
He was reaching to pluck the third arrow from between the stallion’s eyes when, abruptly, those eyes shot open, and the creature scrambled clumsily backward into a crouch, visibly struggling to keep its balance.
“D-Dummeh hoomin! Smawty fink… fink ouh all go foweba sweepies…” the fluffy slurred, enunciating the words with obvious effort. That arrow in his skull hadn’t killed him, but it hadn’t done his already minuscule brain any favors, either. The fact he recognized Sony as a hoomin didn’t even register in the hunter’s mind—all fluffy-life seemed born with certain inherent knowledge, and not one had failed to recognize him as a human, though he was doubtless the first they had ever seen.
“Almost all of us.” Sony confirmed with a snarl, his broad brow downturned with disgust, and his dark eyes smouldering like hot coals beneath it.
“Dis… dis am Smawty wand.” the creature spluttered, one of its eyes refusing to join the other in meeting Sony’s gaze. It was struggling to breathe now, its fluffy sides heaving with exertion. “Smawty gonna gib… gib ouh boff… boff wowstest sowwy hoofies.”
The hunter parted his lips to retort, but his usual epitaph caught in his throat as, with a jolt, he realized what the fluffy had just said. His dark eyes went wide, and his heart began to beat upon his ribs as if they were the bars of a cell.
“Wait, what do you mean, ‘BOTH’?”
He stared intently into the Smarty’s eye for a moment, eager for an answer, before realizing it was no longer tracking his movements. The creature’s sides no longer heaved, and its eye stared blankly through the hunter rather than at him. The stallion had died then and there, still on its feet. Bitterly, Sony watched it for a moment longer, hoping against hope it might still have the slightest spark of life within it, might still whisper the secret it had hinted rather than taking it to the grave, but the corpse’s legs slowly splayed out as it sank to the ground beneath its own weight, empty and lifeless.
Sony stood as silent and still as a statue, not a muscle in his body moving. Then, he gave a shudder, and with an anguished roar, he drove his foot into the side of the creature with enough force to rupture the flesh, the creature bursting like an overripe watermelon. The body bounced and rolled wetly across the rocky ground, splitting open and spilling a slick trail of innards behind it.
The hunter shook his head, wiping the viscera from his foot against the coat of the mutilated carcass. In his fury, he’d wasted the body: the pelt was torn open and ruined, and the meat doubtless contaminated by the creature’s ruptured bowels.
Berating himself for his mistake, the hunter collected his arrow, his spear, and his remaining kills, and set off back in the direction of his burrow, his mind racing with the torment that was uncertain hope.
Glossary of Terms
-
Cold-Rock
A term used by the tribal scavengers to describe any metals or alloys that have survived to the modern day, be it from their makeup or being sheltered from the elements. In this instance, Sony had found himself a long, lightweight tube, likely of Aluminum. -
Grand-Fluff
A form of fluffy-life largely equivalent to an Elephant or Mammoth, omnivorous and cannibalistic by necessity. A Grand-Fluff is covered by a thick layer of shaggy fluff that offers decent protection against both the elements and the teeth and horns of their smaller brethren. Grand-Fluffs are rare, though they have large litters as frequently and grow as rapidly as the average domestic Fluffy species, few survive to adulthood due to the scarcity of resources and the massive amounts of food required to sustain their immense size. Those that do are typically both reasonably intelligent by fluffy standards, and formidable hunters and fighters. Grand-Fluffs seem more likely than most to sport horns, but wings are almost unheard of among them, though some Grand-Fluffs possess vestigial lumps of underdeveloped wings behind their shoulders. -
Microfluff
A cover-all term for the most diminutive forms of fluffy-life, which have taken similar roles in the ecosystem that insects and vermin once did. While this definition include the traditional domestic Microfluff, it is by no means limited to it, as various subspecies and mutations have emerged over the centuries. -
Greatfluff
A larger breed of fluffy that’s seen a resurgance of their horse DNA, and grown to a comparable size. They are similar to domestic fluffies in almost all regards save their size. -
Dirt
What Sony knows as dirt is, much more likely, a shallow layer of fluffy feces. It has a consistency closer to wet sand than dirt. Most surface layers of dirt have long since been consumed by those subterranean fluffy-life species that have mutated to derive nutrients from it, and any true dirt would be buried several feet deep. -
On flora
In actuality, due to the inefficient fluffy digestive system, their feces make for an excellent fertilizer that serves as a perfect environment for many traditional plants. The barren state of Sony’s hunting ground is due in large part to the over-consumption of these plants by fluff-life, not the lack of suitable conditions. Seeds are often excreted by fluffies after they feed, and plants will quickly sprout, but are just as quickly consumed, so while sparse, many species are not yet extinct and could manage to make a comeback if the local fauna could be driven away for a time. -
Fuzztrees
One of the many emerging forms of mutating fluffy-life, fuzztrees are in truth more animal than plant, though they use a root system to absorb minerals from the nutrient-rich layer of fluffy feces that coats the surface, and share many other characteristics with plants. They typically grow where fluffies mate. -
Fluffmaw
A savage form of fluffy-life, roughly equivalent in size and shape to a dog or wolf. Exclusively carnivorous, these creatures are named for their oversized jaw, similar to that of a crocodile or alligator. -
Abberation
While many strains and species of fluff-life have emerged due to their chimeric genetic makeup, they are also particularly prone to mutation, a fact observed early on in their outbreak with the proto-abberations collectively known as ‘Jellenheimers’. Abberations are the modern-day versions of these mutant fluffies. Each Abberation is unique as they typically cannot breed successfully with other forms of fluff-life, and attempts to do so usually resort in fatal birth deformities or miscarriage. Some Abberations sport obvious, extreme mutations such as tentacles, stingers, and deformities, while others may initially appear almost identical to other types of fluff-life, save a handful of small details.