2 stories that explores my headcannon’s bioengineered fluffy virus. Inspired in part by the Covid lockdowns.
Janine looked at the corporate internal memo. Because of the “Fluffy Flu” and a federally mandated shutdown of all nonessential businesses, Hasbio was forced to close down all their Fluffmarts temporarily. As a result, the breeding mill that Janine worked at was suddenly overstocked with a mandatory freeze on all foal shipments to Fluffmarts.
All the better, as a sick stray had managed to wander into the delivery bay of another facility and cause a mass fluffy die-off. Somehow a cellphone video leaked online.
Workers in hazmat suits carrying fluffies by the armful and dumping them into a hastily dug pit. Many mares were begging “Sabe fwuffy! Am soon mummah!” Others stumbled around mumbling “nu feew gud. Huu huu. Thinkie pwace huwties.” The rest bleeding from their mouth and nose, either to far gone to speak or mumbling “Wan Die” over and over.
The worst part of the video was the carpet of chirpy foals in various stages of sickness that the mares mostly abandoned and trampled over in their fear all peeping in a discordant chorus of pain and fear. The worst part at least was until workers poured “burny wawas” over them and lit a match. The screes formed a terrifying cacophony that was so loud the sound in the video cut out repeatedly.
Hasbio promised to develop a vaccine for fluffies as fast as possible to protect fluffies and their human owners but that still left a lot of people worried in the dark as the sizable feral population collapsed and the last survivors of herd die offs fled into urban areas to beg humans to make the sickies go away. It was like a zombie movie, except they demanded skettis and hugs instead of brains.
Many owners were terrified, for themselves and their pet fluffies. Any fluffy seen outside was met with preemptive violence: strays, runaways, off leash domestics. It was not known to jump the species barrier but was almost 100% fatal in fluffies and extremely airborne. Scientists where perplexed as to where it came from given that fluffies have no natural relatives to contract a hemorrhagic fever from.
Janine continued to read the memo. To protect the company’s floundering financial assets, they were going to have to cull most of their stock and quarantine the small reserve of fluffies to breed when they could resume operations.
The A line was obviously chosen to survive, B was also being saved but they were going to be used as milknurses when they resumed production to increase A line’s productivity. C through N lines were getting the chopping block. With 300 fluffies in each line that was just over 3500 fluffies they were ordered to dispose of by Friday, humanely (If possible).
Janine sighed and passed the information to the foremen; she was an office worker after all. The workers were rather attached to the breeding mares. Who wouldn’t be, given their constant kind words and tender care of their newborns? They took the news poorly but knew it was for the best, rather they die by their hands than from the virus.
The week progressed as workers converted an upstairs stock room into an isolated wing of the mill to house the 600 mares and additional stallions chosen as a sort of fluffy ark. A few fluffies went missing from the other lines, workers reported litters abandoned in their pens without a mare.
Some people in the office asked around and determined that a few workers decided to save their favorites from what was coming by smuggling them home. They didn’t get reported and there would be no way for corporate to audit the stock after Friday.
By Wednesday, L through N line had been culled. Workers took them by the dozen outside and snapped them and their foals necks. Most had very little time to feel fear. Very few had the stomach to do it and work was slow going. They still had 9 lines to go. Their sourcing for dry ice to suffocate them all in their sleep had fallen through, and time was running out. Without a solution, corporate would force them to resort to the burn pit.
Thursday came and someone came up with the idea to drug them. A concoction of sleeping pills, expired pain pills, and Benadryl was mixed into skettis and distributed in a large open area where A and B lines originally sat. Thanks to a fire system feature, every pen door could be opened or closed in an emergency with no fear of a mass prison escape thanks to the perimeter fence.
The remaining two thousand mares and as many foals nestled on their backs were herded in. It was all so confusing and exciting for them; they never had a sketti day like this before. The workers said goodbye for the night and closed the doors.
A window upstairs could look down into the area, but no one wanted to. What played out was a mass overdose, mares gobbled greedily at the skettis, noticing they tasted funny offered their sketti milkies to their chirpy foals, many of whom were now talking and walking since they were no longer being shipped out when they grew old enough.
The mares tried to sustain their energy and celebrate the sketti party they all got and fought the sleepy feeling but eventually gave in and laid down. They died of respiratory failure as they overdosed. The chirpies went to sleep next, being so frail and drinking so much milk.
The colts and fillies were last, they were too busy playing at first to either drink milk or eat the skettis. The ones that picked at sketti scraps did not consume a lethal dose and simply went to sleep. The ones that drank late milkies felt dissatisfied as their mummahs had stopped making milkies despite eating sketties. They went to sleep on an empty stomach.
Both woke up to a sea of corpses, cold limp fluffies that had all voided their bowels. The brave workers that stepped in Friday morning found dozens, if not hundreds of foals crying and shaking their mummahs and siblings begging them to wake up.
They simply went to work grabbing them one by one and twisting their necks. A handful of the smartest foals played dead. A brilliant idea if not for one flaw: they were all shoveled into a giant pit outside and lit on fire. The lucky ones suffocated before the flames could reach them.
Chris got home from his last shift at the Fluffmill. He was laid off until the lockdown ended, luckily his meager house was paid off and his savings were enough to cover a few months of basic expenses. He was going to enjoy his extended weekend with his new pet. “Daddeh homsie! Daddeh homsie!” his yellow and green unicorn called out to him, formerly named G-187.
“There’s my Lulu!” He laughed. She made uppies and he knelt down to lift her. For a moment he instinctively grabbed her neck but stopped himself. The past week had had a lot of that, but he tried to force that from his mind and shifted her to be cradled like a baby. “So, how is my little girl feeling?”
“Wuwu am miss bebbehs su manies! Hab big heawt saddies! Buh nao Wuwu hab big heawt happies! Wuwu meet nyu fwen dat say dey wan be spechow fwen an gib spechow huggies fow mowe tummeh bebbehs!” Lulu chirped excitedly.
Chris was alarmed by this statement; Lulu was an only fluff, and he didn’t have a dog door for her to get outside to socialize. Even if he did, he would have secured it given the circumstances. “Where is this special friend?”
“Am outsies in daddeh’s yawd! Wuwu make tawkies fwu window!”
Chris walked to his back door and looked out through the large door window. Sure enough, there was a brown stallion mulling about, he tripped over his hooves as he nibbled on the bushes.
“Spechow Fwen! Daddeh am homsies!” Lulu screamed through the glass.
The stallion turned to look; blood was dripping from his nose.
“I’m sorry Lulu but we can’t let him inside.” Chris pulled her tighter against his chest and looked to make sure the windows were closed.
“Dat otay daddeh, Wuwu can gu outsidesies tu pway wid spechow fwen!” Lulu was oblivious to the danger he posed.
Chris played with the blinds and dropped them over the door to stop Lulu from seeing out. “No, you can’t go near him at all. It’s not safe.”
Lulu was inconsolable. He locked her in his bedroom and listened as she kicked on the door begging to be let out. Chris moved her litter box in there and fed her in there, not that she had much of an appetite. She wailed herself to sleep and Chris did not sleep much better.
The stray scratched his hooves against the back door begging to be let in. Chris wanted to go outside and put it down but he didn’t want to risk spreading the disease to Lulu, instead enduring his cries. The Stallion asking for his special friend, complaining about head hurties asking for hugs. The next day complaining of hunger and his see places not working. By Sunday hallucinating and reliving the death of his herd.
It was not a fun weekend for Chris.