Little Mister Wanna-Die
In terms of abuse, Butch considered himself unique. Any old abuser could grab a fluffy off the street and pull off its legs, but Butch? No, despite his name, he preferred psychological damage.
The idea of fluffies being loud and happy and playful all the time grated on him, like a terrible combination of little kids and yappy dogs. When he grabbed a fluffy it wasn’t to kill it or leave it crippled for life, but to break its little psyche into the so-called “wan die” loop. Once broken he’d place it back where he found it, seemingly unharmed but fully dead inside.
Honestly, the owners’ confusion and distress was almost the best part, though he only picked domestic fluffies if the owners grated on him. Owners like his neighbor, Mr. Folgerson.
Today’s target was Folgerson’s fluffy, Merol. Both owner and fluffy were loud and cheerful and liked to be in the yard way too much, as though life was all sunshine and foals. Even the name annoyed Butch - Merol! Not Meryl or Melon or anything that made sense, but Merol. What, had he named it “me roll” and then pronounced it wrong?
Whatever, after Butch was done, the stupid fluffy would never pose an annoyance again.
Catching Merol was an easy task. Butch leaned over the fence and called for the little fluffy, who dutifully trotted over. “Hey, you want sketties? I’ve got some.”
“Mewow wuvs sketties!” cried Merol, hooves flying into the air in preparation for pick-up. “Wan sketties a wot!”
Thus, Butch picked the little fluffy up, tucked him under his arm, and walked inside. He set Merol down on the dingy table in his torture room and plucked a large butcher knife from its wall hook, making sure to keep his back to his victim.
“Whewe sketties?” asked Merol, and he could just feel those shiny blue-green eyes staring at him. Grinning to himself, Butch put on his cheap dollar-store halloween mask and swiftly turned around, knife raised.
"There are no sketties! The only food here is you!"
Merol stared up at him, eyes wide, for a solid five seconds. Then his legs suddenly folded into jelly and the fluffy collapsed, all life vanishing from his face as his head thumped onto the table, staring morosely at nothing. “Wan die.”
“What?” Butch stumbled on his words. His victims had reached the “wan-die” loop easier and easier as of late, but this -? “I haven’t even- But- I haven’t even touched you yet!”
“Wan die,” Merol repeated in a monotone voice.
“You can’t do that!” Butch protested, grabbing the fluffy’s ear to yank his head up a bit. It was like lifting a bag of sand. “I had plans. At least let me nick you!”
He put the knife to Merol’s ear, parting the fur and touching the skin, but got no response. He was so tempted to cut into the appendage but that would be bad - Merol would have visible damage and then his entire modus operandi was ruined. So he let the head drop and instead put his knife to Merol’s back, prodding the tip at his spine.
“Wan die,” murmured Merol. Butch stabbed through the skin just a little, looking for the screech of a fluffy that had been faking its condition, but aside from a brief tense of the muscles there was nothing. “… Wan die.”
“You can’t do this to me! You can’t go into wan-die mode that quickly!” Butch threw the knife aside and snatched Merol up, shaking the fluffy. It was like shaking a plush toy, limbs and head flopping around listlessly. “Do something! REACT!”
Merol slumped as the shaking stopped, hanging limply. “Wan die.”
“I’ll cut your eyes out! I’ll put needles in your ears! You will never see your daddy or the flowers ever again!”
“Wan die.”
It was no use. Butch could of course move on to harsher methods like dislocating and re-locating the fluffy’s limbs, or putting a blindfold over his eyes and tricking him into thinking he was too bad a fluffy to deserve his eyes. Insults and swears that could make the meanest smarty break into tears.
But none of that would help if the fluffy was already broken. Butch had no real choice but to take off the mask, pick Merol up and bring him back to his yard.
“Howdy neighbor!” called Mr. Folgerson, who had appeared to tend his flowers. Butch cursed under his breath, but handed the catatonic Merol over to its owner.
“I don’t know what happened,” he explained, trying to think of a good excuse as he spoke. “I thought I had some leftovers and was gonna give them to him, but it turned out I ate them last night and then he just… collapsed. I think he’s broken.”
“Wan die,” added Merol almost as if agreeing. But to Butch’s surprise, Folgerson just laughed.
“Oh don’t worry,” the man smiled. “He’s not broken, he’s just a drama queen.” He looked down at Merol and scratched the unresponsive fluffy’s chin. “Come on, Merol. I’ve got some spaghetti treats inside, would you like that?”
Just like that Merol came back to life, bright and shiny-eyed as he pawed at his owner. “Yus! Mewow wuv sketti tweats!!”
“Well alright, head into the house and I’ll be in tow.”
Butch stood speechlessly as the fluffy was put down and trotted off, happily excited as if nothing had ever happened. Had he just been outsmarted by a fluffy? How had he just been outsmarted by a fluffy? “How…”
“Yeah, I think he picked it up from one of those wan-die fluffs you leave lying around,” Folgerson said, hand on his hip. “Don’t try that again, you hear?”
Butch wasn’t sure what to answer, but ended up not having to. As both of them watched, Merol stepped on a rose thorn and instantly seized up, then collapsed as if every bone in his body had vaporized. “Wan die.”
“Oop, gotta go take care of that. See you around, neighbor!”
Silently going back to his own house, Butch sat down at his torture table with his head in his hands, trying not to let the failure get to him. He had other targets, other fluffies to torment.
… Maybe those physical abusers were onto something after all.