Tickle pressed himself as far back into the pipe as he could.
In the alleyway outside, what was left of his family was being tortured to death. His fat blue hooves couldn’t reach up to cover his ears in the confines of the pipe, so he simply listened. To their screams. To their suffering.
A group of teenagers had wandered into the alleyway where Tickle and his family’s nestbox was located underneath a few pipes. For a minute or two, they acted kindly towards the Fluffies, offering them cuddles and treats. Tickle was nuzzling one of his little chirping brothers inside the box when they had arrived, and just as he was about to leave to greet the possible “nyu mummahs an’ daddahs”, they turned violent.
Tickle had only just fearfully squeezed into the pipe when a hand reached into the box and stole away his brother who giggled and hugged the hand, instinctively mistaking the situation for an adoption.
He did his very best to keep his scaredy-chirps to himself, but any Fluffy in fear is simply incapable of such a task, nevermind a little baby like Tickle. Luckily for him, his panicked squeaks were far too quiet. He had only opened his eyes three days ago, and was barely on his feet yesterday morning. As for speech… well, he could spit out the important stuff (“gib huggies/miwk/wub”), but not much else.
As the horrendous sounds outside began, his bladder involuntarily released a stream of frightened urine.
When the teens were done gleefully gutting his mother- who woefully recounted every ugly detail as it happened- they moved onto his siblings, most of whom hadn’t even started walking and talking yet. One by one, their baby-chirps became baby-screeches, which became pained gags, which became silence, all cloaked beneath howling Human laughter. The group of boys were bored again almost the moment they were done, and wandered off back into the city beyond without even examining their sick work.
Tickle, meanwhile, lay wedged in the pipe for hours, sobbing tiny whimpers as his diminutive heart raced with every moment. The smell of blood and guts became his company, along with the cool, wet embrace of the piss-soaked metal and fluff around him, both helping to make him feel even more scared.
Eventually, though, his hunger for milk and want for hugs finally overpowered his dread and he gradually clambered out.
He flopped down into the nestbox face-first. As he sat back up, he gently rubbed the pain in his snout away. Despite its small size, the nestbox suddenly felt huge and hollow. Rising to his hooves, he cautiously approached the box’s entrance, and peeked his head out.
His brothers and sisters lay in a messy pile before it, all seemingly squeezed to death. Their entrails had burst from their orifices, their tummies and chests were deflated, and their eyes- bloodshot, unmoving, and staring at nothing- bulged out of their heads.
Inching out of the nestbox, his sight glued to the gore-pile, Tickle approached with a trembling gait. His brother who had been taken from the nestbox, a lime-colored unicorn called ‘Greenbean’, was splayed out facing towards Tickle, who reached his head down and nudged one of his brother’s hooves with his snout, “G-gweenmbeem wubwub?” he mumbled.
Greenbean, of course, did not reply, so Tickle nudged him again, this time on the head, “w-wubwub?” he requested; Greenbean always loved to cuddle up with his bigger brother, so Tickle was at a loss as to why there was no response… and why it made him feel so scared. He loved his brothers and sisters, but now, for some reason, he didn’t want to be near them anymore.
Slowly, he backed off with an awful terror building up within him, an aura of imminent and undefined danger seeping from the his siblings’ deceased fluffpile like an incense of doom. The air weighed him down as the walls of the alleyway seemed to close in, but just as these feelings were about to reach a hideous crescendo and overflow into desperate screaming-
Bump.
He had backed into something soft. Quickly, he snapped his head around- only to be face-to-face with his mother’s great minty-green visage.
“Mummah wubwub!” he uttered reflexively, dropping onto his haunch and raising his forehooves aloft in the infamous huggy-pose, “hee hee, wubwub huggies!” he called, his fear abating, a big goofy smile lighting up his little chubby face. Mummah was here, and she would take care of everything with a big, warm hug and some milk!
Yet…
She did not reply.
“Mummah?” Tickle squealed with a hint of confusion, his smiling begining to falter, “Miwkie wubwub? W-wubwub!”
After a few more fruitless queries, Tickle shakily reared up, pressing his snout into his mother’s puffy cheek, attempting to reach his stubby hooves to hug her- surely this would make her notice him! Mummah loved little cheek-hugs from her babies!
When it inevitably didn’t work, Tickle sagged back down to the ground. For a few moments, his burgeoning mind tried to comprehend why his mother wasn’t giving him the hugs that he wanted- that he needed! Did she not love him, her bestest little baby, anymore!?
A tiny tantrum unwittingly escaped the blue foal then. He flailed his hooves as he writhed on the ground, little farts of waste shooting from his behind, all as he spewed juvenile chirps- another futile attempt to gain his mother’s attention. He succeeded only in tiring himself out.
For a short while, he merely rested in defeat, tearily gazing up at his mother’s lifeless eyes, with an occassional sniffle and wiggle of his hooves. Ultimately, his tummy reminded him of something just as important as hugs, and after a few wriggling attempts to roll off his back, Tickle rose onto his hooves and trundled towards the side of his mother’s head.
Milk was on his mind now, serving to briefly abate his fear and the strange, stabbing pain in his heart. As the ‘best’ baby, he was intimately familiar with the sweet, silky taste and scent of his mother’s warm milk- the reason for his especially rotund appearance.
As he emerged from around her mint-green head, he found his mother’s body was gone. Just gone. A piece of bone poked out of her neck stump, and a pool of red (decorated with little flecks of flesh and mint-colored fluff) painted the immediate area, but her body was simply gone.
He couldn’t really comprehend what this meant, naturally, and immediately all those feelings of doom and danger returned. All of his bwuddahs and sissies and even his Mummah weren’t talking or moving, and Mummah couldn’t even give milkies anymore.
No siblings = no playtime, no snuggles. No Mummah = no milk or make-better huggies = tummy and heart hurties. He could understand this much, which intensified his misery.
He began to weep little chirps of sorrow on the spot as he collapsed sideways towards his mother’s decapitated head. Gently, he nuzzled deep into her cheek fluff, trying to hide himself completely inside. Maybe if he hugged her enough, things would all get better.
For the rest of that night and several days thereafter, Tickle sat dutifully with the remnants of his family, and when he was able to stay awake, he hugged them, and cried quietly as his hunger grew.
Believe it or not, starvation was in fact a scenario that Hasbio accounted for in their labs: while they strongly recommended that a Fluffy should eat 5 times a day, the reality was that, while extremely painful, even a baby Fluffy could last a week or even more off of its own fat reserves alone, and lucky little Tickle was very fat indeed.
As the flies, maggots, cockroaches, rats, and mice came for the corpses, he found himself futily trying to push and scare them away. The mice generally retreated, while the rats took what they pleased as he hid from their claws. The flies and maggots and other insects were unstoppable though, and before long, what was left of the carcasses were infested and squirming with larvae.
Finally, on the 6th day, Tickle collapsed from hunger and exhaustion.
He had gone from a chubby little ball of blue fluff to an almost skeletal creature covered in foulness.
It was here, on death’s embrace, amongst the rotten debris of his loved ones, that Tickle met his salvation.
The first thing he noticed was her smell- or, rather: the smell of her milk. With his crusty, heavy eyes, he wearily scanned what he could around him. Maybe Mummah’s body had come back…
“Hmmmm… siwwy heawin’ pwaces, dewe nu am chiwpy Babbehs hewe,” a tender voice floated through the alley. The voice of a mummah.
Tickle tried to raise his head and hooves, to try and get up and find this mummah, but his neck and legs would not move.
“Dis pwace am smewwy, nu gud fo’ soon-mummah…” the voice said, “nee’ find bettah pwace fo’ nyu nestie…”
An instinctual realization washed over Tickle upon hearing this: if he did not get this mummah’s attention, then… something bad was going to happen. Just like with the rest of his family. With every bit of strength left, he called out with the most pathetic, gut-wrenching, helpless baby-chirps as loud as he possibly could (which was still only just audible).
What Tickle was experiencing was not a will to live, but rather the deeply ingrained and Hasbio approved will within all Fluffies to be adopted. It was about to save his life.
“Huh? Whud dat noisie? Oddment weawwy am heawin’ a babbeh?”
Tickle, one final time, unleashed a long woeful peep as the last of his energy ran out.
“Hewwo? Dewe am babbeh hewe? Hewwoooo~” the voice called, coming closer. A single tear, made from what was left his Tickle’s body moisture, flashed down his gaunt cheek when the mare came into view over him.
She was a pale cream-yellow color, though with large spots of a very light brown here and there. Her mane was poofy and unkempt and was mostly a bright orange but with some red streaks. Her big emerald eyes gazed down at him with an incredible compassion.
“Babbeh? Yu makie noises? Nu fowebah sweepies?” she asked, carefully touching him with a hoof. He could only open and close his mouth and dart his eyes, “Babbeh nu can tawkies?” She asked, as she looked around the alley, sniffing at the air: looking for this poor baby’s family. She could see only scraps of old fluff lying around, and smelled foulness.
She returned her eyes to Tickle, examining him closer, “Babbeh nee’ sum miwkies…” she whispered mornfully, “an’ nu can see yu mummah…” for but a moment, a quick consideration flared behind her eyes, “Oddment hewp Babbeh,”
She attentively scooped him up with a hoof and, lying on her side, brought him over to her teats, making sure his mouth was over the nipple. At first, she wasn’t sure if he was suckling or not, but after a few moments she could just about feel the slightlest stir of his mouth.
Tickle, for his part, desperately suckled as much as he could, but with his weakened state and dry mouth, could only barely massage the milk-gland in his mouth. Ultimately though, this proved to be enough stimulation, and trace amounts of milk began to drip out.
Each dribble of milk steadily restored him to life, and Oddment let him feed until his belly was distended and full, which she rubbed until he burped and finally fell asleep with a single, satisfied chirp, assured by her warm safety and unable to keep himself awake any longer.
She tucked him into her neck fluff afterwards, making sure to pad her mane around the spot she had placed him, and quietly left his nascient grave.
