Eiji was nine when his grandfather told him the story of the Jubokko, the vampire tree that grew soaked in the blood of a battlefield and sought new prey. It was a fantastic story for the final camping trip of the summer. The final trip they ever went on together.
When Eiji came back to his grandparents house the next year the house was quiet, his grandmother still in quiet mourning. She had cleared away the dead shrubs some time after the funeral and planted a tree in their place. Eiji set up the tent next to it, the compromise between his grandfather’s advice to camp and clear one’s head for the rest of the year as well as to never wander off alone. The next morning he woke up to find his grandmother glaring out the window with a sour look on her face, telling him he slept in too long and a Herd of Fluffies had been begging at the sliding door for hours. He liked Fluffies, especially the ones that could speak Spanish at the pet store, but these were Ferals and were tainted. So one by one he snapped their necks, his grandmother offering a prayer from the window each time. Unfortunately one of the mothers had been in late stage pregnancy and was from a breed skinnier than the rest of the Herd making her look quite mundane. She also was far more strong and sturdy, fighting young Eiji and managing to pull him offbalance, dropping straight onto her and rupturing her insides. Eiji saw he had sprayed the young tree in a not insubstantial amount of her innards. An idea came to honor his grandfather while he rinsed the filth off in the cold stream.
…
Sixteen years later Eiji set up the tent then pulled a squirming Foal from a compartment on the side of a large segmented crate. Inside was a selection of storebought, lured, and stolen Fluffies. He’d come up with a great many rituals over the years, all to increase the importance of the sacrifices.
The Foal was designated as the first, prepared in advance. One of the two most innocent and sweetest of the Fluffy family he had baited out of the yard of a little girl that annoyed him with her singing during his morning walk. While the rest of the Fluffies were spoiled, the two that came to comfort him when he pretended to cry had unknowingly marked themselves for a far worse fate than their selfish and wicked clan which sang rude rhymes and slipped in and out of English while complaining.
One twin had been fed a steady diet of Abuse videos, misted with cold water frequently, kept removed from anything that could provide comfort or companionship, and told her what exactly he would do to her and her family while showing her a jar full of beans pained in various colors which each represented a past victim, alongside one in the colors of each member of the family. The other sweet one was spoiled all the more, he encouraged all bad behavior and delivered luxuries unprompted and with a computer tablet which responded to his desires for videos or games which turned him in short order into a truly nasty Hellgremlin, his only viable complaint being stuck in essentially a Foal Can where he was literally soaking in his own waste.
The two siblings met through glass preventing sound exchange each day, both speaking of their experiences while not understanding the other could not hear them.
As for the rest of the relations he had kept them in small covered and lighted enclosure, fed and provided toys but otherwise unaware of the outside world. He was quite quiet at home, partaking of television exclusively through headphones so soundproofing was unnecessary, allowing him toneavesdrop and plan their ends. It stunk of course, but that was part of the ritual. This group shocked him, as all members of the family save the father lamented the loss of their siblings. To be sure they had entirely forgotten the details, recollecting the wrong colors and sex, but they were still keenly aware that there was a loss. All the better.
One Fluffy, miserable and pure, groomed carefully and decorated in fragile lace ruffs. One sinful and full of entitlement, a ball of shit and piss. The rest in the middle, stinking of waste but as clean as normal Fluffies get and generally happy. At the end of the month he took the train with his luggage, the three Fluffy groups isolated in different compartments, and entered the courtyard where the tree was.
Two nitrile gloves were pulled on, an apron applied. No impure blood would touch his skin in this.
First, the sweet sad Filly. She screamed and quivered as her bowels and bladder pressed their contents against the superglue that had sealed her nether orifices shut, though a jab of anesthetic had numbed her before the terrible skin-melting burning. The painkiller was refreshed again while she flailed, mouth opened as wide ad it could and eyes bugged out with the full whites of her eyes showing. He waited until she had exhausted herself, the somewhat human-like scream giving way to a hoarse huffing before a breathy peep, taking around five minutes of constant struggle before she went silently limp panting with her tongue extended beyond the occasional attempt to lift a foot or whimper. He then produced the ceramic knife, long and sharp, then slowly slid the tip down the side of her face, pausing next to her bulging eyes so she could see the thin edge, and spiraled his way south through her fluff, drawing out the time as much as he could until it reached her belly just in front of where the fluff thinned for the eventual udder she would never have. He set her back against the cutting board and turned the blade of the knife towards her head then slowly smiled to show her as many teeth as he could. She had given up all her energy in the first struggle, and even the quick burst of adrenaline faded after a minute. She could barely keep her head up to see. Once he was satisfied he jabbed straight through her gut and back then swung the knife down through her top half with enough force to cause an echo through the trees. Dead as instantly as he could provide. He pivoted the knife then bisected her lower half, tying her back together with string in the color of her fluff and setting her at the base of the tree, dumping the blood off the board in a circle around her.
Next the mother, who never forgot the sexes of her missing young. She struggled while he suspended her by the scruff of her neck and he took advantage of the unrest to deliver a half dose of painkillers, the Mare trying to summon her family for aid before realizing they were not coming. Eiji allowed her to finish her pleas to let her go and return to her babies, and when she finally took a breath she sensed the smell of blood and her lost Foal on the hand which he had been holding near her face. She began to panic so he spun her around to see her dead child. The flailing began so he grabbed each hoof and, without allowing it to slid around in his grasp, turned it widely like a crank in the socket to destroy all the bones. He then set her face to face with the child, part her tongue sticking out the left side of the mouth which had a tucked-in jaw while the other side jaw half jutted out, eyes went in different directions, and one ear stuck back. Once the screams of pain subsided the Mare blubbered about her baby being made ugly, so ugly their human mother may not love her anymore. Just as it dawned on her that the Filly was not moving Eiji beheaded her then placed the head back carefully where it belonged. The blood from her drained downwards, reaching the distant roots.
Next came the Colt who had nuzzled his mother and shared tears into each other’s faces over the most minor of complaints while the family wad together. He was calm and confused, happy to be going where his mother went. He got a slight dose of painkiller, unlikely to offer much comfort but part of Eiji’s ritual. Once face to face with his dear beloved mother’s paralyzed expression of grief he tried to hug her while Eiji held onto his lower half. Once he had begun crying at her lack of response, questioning if he had angered her and insisting that he loved her, Eiji informed him she was dead then showed her his sister. The clever boy screamed, immediately aware of her state unlike his mother, prompting Eiji to apply a pair of pliers to quickly crush each of the bones in his limbs. After a minute of that Eiji’s knife severed his spine between the shoulder blades, giving him a relief from the destroyed limbs but keeping his brain going for a bit longer. He was placed around the base as well, blood spreading down the slight hill the tree was planted in.
Next the Filly with the spots. Valuable, soft yellow fluff with each spot a different color and a white mane like a birthday cake. But Eiji would willingly sink her likely $700 plus four times that for the pair that had made her and siblings carrying those genes into this project if it was necessary, the loss of someone else’s bounty he couldn’t sell being laughably insignificant compared to the cleansing feeling the ritual brought. He still winced slightly as the needle, with not even enough anesthetic to even numb the pain from the needle poke, entered her. It was not from her shrill scream but from the feeling of destroying something so valuable, though when he pushed it away there was a sweet excitement underneath that anxiety. She was shown her family, but this time the knife entered her at the start of her panic. Several slices down her belly, puncturing skin and fat and into the soft organs. As she flailed she tore her gut open, the insides slipping out of her and bouncing suspended in the air. She was placed down around the base as well before Eiji took a small stuffed toy Fluffy from the side pouch then placed its mechanical arms around her and turned it on. The simulated hugs and crackling low quality voice box comforted her as the life faded. Blood ran downhill.
The final innocent was a Filly that was simply too stupid to be wicked. A Sensitive, rotund from a ack of activity as her only physical engagement was flailing her limbs while laughing at the silly words and games of her family and the tickles they gave her. The huggy toy was removed from the dead Filly and placed around this one, her sight of her dead siblings and mother blocked from her eyes. As far as she knew she was being entertained by her new Fluffy friend as a human prodded her, searching for abdomen for entry points. Suddenly sharp pain, her odd gasping distress noise and gasping screams coming as her organs were perforated. Kidneys first. Then her stomach in the upper portion of her belly, causing stomach acid to begin flooding out. She was in severe pain beyond even a normal Fluffy’s understanding as bad things had happened to her soft places, breathing was difficult, so she hugged her new friend close and thought of the Fluffy family that loved her hoping they would come and make the pain go away soon. They did not. He cut her in half horizontally after a minute of suffering, blood flowing down the roots.
All five good Fluffies now formed a star around the tree.
Next out was the Colt who selfishly devoured his food, always first and scarfing down as much as he could before he was jostled away. Eiji spent a minute telling the Fluffy about Spaghettiland as a kind of Fluffy afterlife by dropping in as many keywords in Japanese and English as he could until the Foal was excitedly cheering and begging to go. His belly was then opened, so quick and lost in his dreams of the afterlife that he wasn’t aware at first that anything had happened. His first scream came as he was placed in the tree with a hook through his scruff. Eiji then told him to focus on the afterlife as he died. The blood dripped down onto the space between his siblings below.
Another Filly, this one who would fight her siblings at the food dish with ample biting. She was told of the Fluffy afterlife as well, this time however he cut off her soft hoof-like toes, the knife coming down after he pushed her belly-flat to the ground to splay them. She was placated with assurances the hooves had to teach Spaghettiland first, then he inserted the knife into her taint deep horizontally then vertically, cooing to her in a baby voice about how she was on her way there while he spread the cross-shaped opening with his fingers then gently squeezed her belly and let her guts fall like the worlds worst diarrhetic accident. She hung too from a hook, her guts reaching the grownd and baptizing her dead previously pristine sister and Sensitive brother in blood and feces from where it dribbled from the diced anal sac and perforated intestines.
Now the father. Stoic seemingly, but after a month Eiji realized he was merely uncaring. There seemed to be nothing wrong with his mind, he spoke, responded to the emotions of others with understanding when brought into a conversation, and intervened when fights had resulted in extensive shrieking though only after the mother’s voice rang out with a call for order. But otherwise he spoke only to demand entertainment, selecting a Foal to dance for him even if they were sleeping or playing even though he already had a designated dancing Foal in the Sensitive doing a kind of lazy twist. He would appoint them to play games, even when eating or snuggling, then complain when the wrong one won, having a constant rotation of designated Bestest which fulfilled criteria only he knew. He never raised his voice, his actions sounded firm but the Foals never sounded like they were struck hard by him. Still, the misbehavior of the group was on him as the female acted exactly as Eiji thought a mother should, grooming and teaching and providing the Foals with their emotional needs while the father was a lazy useless freeloader who spoke only when obligated or bored. He also got the afterlife chat, combined with a dab of oil scented like pasta under his snout. He closed his eyes and smiled, remaining as silent as ever. The eyes shot open and he finally raised his voice in a scream when the knife began separating skin from flesh. Sadly Eiji had not yet learned the skill, watching Fluffy and pig butchering videos on Touyube but not being interested in torment outside his rituals nor wanting to taint the formula with a video playing on his phone meant he could only improve once a year. He did more tearing than cutting, white connective tissue and yellow fat clinging to both sides of the slice. He tried to follow his formula of assuring the father of the wonders of the afterlife but kept trailing off trying to concentrate or getting frustrated shouting over the screams. The cutting was asymmetrical, jagged in spite of his superior cutting tool. He dropped the Fluffy after nicking his finger through the glove, messing the blindly struggling and screaming beast with dirt and resulting in the Mare’s head being kicked down the short slope. With a sneer Eiji ignored his smarting finger while trying to get the Mare head back in place, then roughly putting the father in his hook to bleed out, only a quarter skinned. The three dead selfish Fluffies now formed a triangle above the star.
He thought about cleaning off his hand, but opted to just press on. Only two more to go.
Truth be told this Colt was not as bad as his father in Eiji’s eyes, being no different than the other food bowl roughhouser. The difference was that this Foal was prone to biting his siblings, and Eiji had no interest in hauling the father up the ladder to reach the higher branches of the tree. Truth be told he probably wasn’t even from this litter, it had taken him a while to refer to the adults as his parents and was the only one still nursing when they had been first taken, to say nothing of the different shape of his body with a smaller back end and thicker legs. But Eiji didn’t have any plan for leftover Fluffies, figured he had might as well use any he would kill anyway on his activity, and didn’t want to risk letting it loose in case it was chipped. But it was with a half heart and awareness of his throbbing finger that he gave it the Fluffy heaven talk, applied the scented oil, and opened a can of Fluffy-grade spaghetti then stuck a finger in it and placed it in the Fluffy’s mouth. It bit down in excitement, apparently having actual sharp teeth because it managed to break his skin. Rather than the planned death of the Foal via a 50% solution of potassium hydroxide in isopropyl injected directly into its leg muscles and anal sphincter it was dropped and landed directly on its head, neck snapping instantly with the bliss of the taste of spaghetti sauce and MSG still on his mind. Eiji swore up a storm as he climbed the ladder, losing his balance and mashing the Foal against the tree when he grabbed the branch for support. Both cuts now burned as he pressed them against the dry tree bark, sure it would be contaminated on his right hand when he realized the sudden heat around his fingers was the injured finger being fully within the guts of the Fluffy from the tight grip that had saved him. With a great deal of blasphemy he impaled the anus of the Fluffy on the branch where it was supposed to die slowly.
Once Eiji reached the ground he moved the ladder, dropping it twice and slipping on Fluffy blood which caused him to bang his knee sharply while crossing beneath it trying to line it up with the other branch. The bark on the branch was gouged by the edge of the steel frame of the ladder as he pushed it in place, smaller branches crushed and fell down on him. With that degree of mood he grabbed the final Foal, the wicked little spoiled prince. He hadn’t had a chance to test the evil of it, merely relying on the logic that he has spoiled it to much it must be sinful now. He questioned this when he accidentally turned around without covering its eyes, the sight of its brutally murdered family sending it into hysterics. He doubted it heard much of his placating talk of the afterlife, so extreme was its stress. He wondered if it had turned sour at all given its pleas for them to wake up so they could be hugged. Desperate, Eiji broke the no contact rule he had established and gave it a hug of his own, rocking it the way he had his younger brother as an infant. Once it began to relax be stooped down and grabbed the spoon, adding a small gob of noodles straight from the can the whimpering Fluffy’s mouth. His wide frightened stare faded, lost in the bliss as his animal brain and Programming Bulb flooded him with serotonin. So lost in the sweet flavor that he didn’t notice the needle. No anesthetic this time, just a small sample from the $2000 bottle of tarantula hawk venom, the most painful toxin in the world. The Fluffy opened its mouth, shed a tear, then simply stopped breathing. It did not respond to CPR, only providing Eiji the taste of Fluffy spaghetti and drool. He climbed up the ladder and shoved its stiff corpse anally on the branch then snagged his coat on another, trying to free himself but only putting himself offbalance and falling.
Eiji kept his eyes shut for a few minutes, feeling his limbs and extremities to verify nothing had broken nor was still numb. When he opened them he beheld a terrifying sight. The tree trunk was lowering towards him, and he put up his arms in an attempt to protect himself from the impact. Instead it slowed down and stopped. Stunned he laughed and started to try and scoot away but strangely found himself pinned at the ankles and waist. It was then that he heard a noise and darted his attention back to the looming tree above. Only now did he notice how it swayed in a windless evening, how the foot wide trunk had somehow curved away from him while moving closer. It leaned its branches down then a split quietly opened in the trunk, revealing rocklike teeth around a deep open cleft into the tree. Then a sound came from that darkness; “We both grew up well, Eiji. Thank you for your kindness, but when once you honored your grandfather with gifts proportional to your means, you now only treat my yearly meals as a game to play, and I am still so very hungry.” Only the memorial marker laid on a pedestal for Eiji’s departed grandmother bore witness to Eiji’s final offering to the tree.
