It had been a few bright-times and things weren’t getting a lot better for Louisa. Then again, they weren’t getting much worse. Her thinkie-place hadn’t played any new tricks on her, which was good. But her daddy was using the sorry stick on her whenever she made bad poopies. Sure, he wasn’t doing it very hard. It wasn’t hurting her. She cried every time and told him she was sorry, and that her babies were causing her to make bad poopies. He said he didn’t believe her because he saw her running around the safe room chasing the new ball he’d bought her, which meant she could run to the litterbox just fine. It made her mad because daddy was smarter than her; she was a dummy for letting him see her running around just fine. So she started using the litterbox to keep daddy from hitting her.
There weren’t any sketties. Daddy wouldn’t give her sketties no matter how much she begged. He kept telling her that he couldn’t get them for her and kept swearing that he’d NEVER given her sketties. She kept telling daddy what a dummy he was, but still there weren’t any sketties. It had been so long since she’d had sketties that she was starting to forget what they tasted like. It was starting to feel like maybe daddy was right; maybe she HADN’T ever had sketties in his housie. Maybe her thinkie-place WAS playing tricksies on her. She knew she’d had sketties before. But when? Where? Here? Her old daddy’s housie?
Her stuffy friend was a good comfort to her since she was growing too fat to play as much as she usually did. She would spend most of her day in her nestie, snuggled up to her stuffy friend and singing to her tummy babies. Her babies! She couldn’t wait to meet them, to play with them and give them the bestest milkies and the bestest huggies and love! Finally she WAS having trouble getting to the litterbox to make good poopies and peepees. Daddy could see how fat with babies she was, so he forgave her and cleaned up her poopies and peepees without punishing her. He even brought her a new nestie. It was just as comfortable as the nestie she had, but it was MORE comfortable around her tummy. It was soft and warm just where the babies needed it! Plus it was attached to the litterbox, so she didn’t have to move to make good poopies and peepees.
She knew she was going to have her babies very soon. Daddy seemed really happy about it, too. He liked to sit by her nestie while she sang mummah songs to her babies, and he’d run his fingers through her soft fluff to make her coo and burble. It was weird; she didn’t love her daddy, but she FELT like she might be able to love him. He was making her…happy? He wasn’t giving her everything she wanted, but she still felt like she might be happy. Oh, she still wanted to break him and make him as sad and dumb as her old dummy daddy. She didn’t know how yet, but she thought she might be able to use her babies to do it. But until then she was…maybe not happy. Content? It was nice. It felt nice, having him pet her and tell her how soft and pretty she was. She KNEW she was the softest and prettiest fluffy ever, but it was nice to hear it from her daddy.
After a few bright-times of being stuck in her new nestie, singing and cooing to her tummy babies, daddy knocked on the open safe room door to get her attention. She looked up at him and smiled. He was always happy when she smiled at him, and she needed to keep him as happy as possible.
“Hey, sweetie.”
“Hewwo, daddeh.”
“I brought you a special treat, something to celebrate your babies.” He walked over and set the bowl in front of her. She saw it before the smell hit her sniffy-place. IT WAS SKETTIES!
“Ohhhhhh DADDEH! Daddeh gif Wouisa SKETTIES?”
He grinned at her. “I figured it was about time I gave them to you. You deserve them. You’ve been such a good fluffy lately, and I know you think they’ll make the best milk for your babies.”
“Das twue! Sketties make bestest miwkies fo bestest babbehs! Awwwww daddeh, fank yu!”
“You’re so welcome. Eat up, girl!”
She eagerly dug into the sketties. She paused for a second after the first couple of bites. Something was off, but she couldn’t quite put a hoofsie on it. This wasn’t how she remembered them tasting. Then again, had she ever ACTUALLY tasted them before? She couldn’t remember anymore. Everything was a blur. Reality was fuzzy because of her mean thinkie-place and the trickies it had been playing on her. Well, whatever. Sketties were sketties, and she didn’t want to make daddy mad by complaining about them. Maybe they weren’t the best sketties. Maybe they were dummy sketties. But they were sketties, and her babies would love them.
Louisa scarfed down the rest of the sketties and licked the bowl clean, giggling as she tried to lick all the sauce off of her snout. Daddy laughed, too, and used some wipes to clean off the sauce she couldn’t reach. The wipes smelled pretty and made her smell pretty, so she always liked when daddy used them.
“Fank yu fo sketties, daddeh. Fank yu fo makin Wouisa wook an smeww pwetty.”
“You’re welcome. Do you want to stay in here for the rest of the night, or do you want to come watch TV with me? Just regular TV, not FluffTV.”
“Wouisa stay in hewe, daddeh. Su sweepies aww da time nao. Babbehs am comin’ soon.”
“Okay. If you need me, call for me. I’ll be awake for a couple of more hours.”
Of course she wouldn’t need him. She’d eaten dinner, she smelled pretty, and she had her nice, comfy nestie to snuggle into. Teebee would be nice, but if it wasn’t Fluff Teebee then she didn’t really care. So if that wasn’t an option, why bother leaving her nice, soft nestie? It really was amazing what a big dummy her daddy was. He’d given her everything she needed before sleepy-time. Why would she need him? Maybe she’d yell for him later and see if she could get a snack.
She tried to roll over on her side so she could rub her hooves on her belly. She got about halfway there, which was good enough, and started cooing and singing mummah songs to her babies. She loved them so much already and they weren’t even here yet! She couldn’t wait to teach them how to be good fluffies. They’d team up with her and soon they’d all run daddy’s housie! She started giggling to herself and talking to her tummy babies, telling them all the things they’d do to make daddy’s life miserable. They’d make poopies everywhere and make him clean them up! They’d scream and cry and demand sketties for every meal! They’d…
“Ohhhhh, nuuuuu,” she cried out as a sudden rumblie passed through her tummy. The sketties were making her feel tummy hurties. She felt a little sickies, like she might need to make sickie wa-wa. The rumblie got a little stronger and she winced in pain. Her tummy babies kicked hard. Could they feel it, too? Oh no!
“DADDEH! DADDEH! HEWP WOUISA!”
Daddy came running into the room. “What’s wrong, sweetie? Are the babies coming?”
“Nu, daddeh, babbehs am kickin, buh tummeh haf bad huwties. Feew sickies. Hewp Wouisa, hewp bestest mummah nao, daddeh.”
“You have a tummyache? Maybe those sketties didn’t agree with you. Do you feel like you’re going to throw up?”
“Wouisa feew wike makin sickie wa-wa when huwties fiwst stawt, buh nao jus feew tummeh huwties.”
“I’ll be right back.” He left the room and left her there in her nestie, softly huu-huuing as her stomach rumbled again. He came back fast and put a small bowl in front of her. She rolled back over on to her tummy, crying out at the brief pain, then put her snout right above the bowl.
“Wha dis, daddeh?” she asked. It had little bubblies in it and was all fizzy, like the sodas that daddy drank but never shared with her.
“It’s called ginger ale. It’ll help you feel better. Drink it, I promise it’ll make you feel better.”
She hesitantly lapped at the ginger ale. It tasted weird to her, but it didn’t taste not-pretty. She lapped a little more up and found that if she drank it faster, the taste didn’t seem as weird. Pretty soon the bowl was empty, and she belched a tiny fluffy belch.
“Wouisa du buwpie,” she said, giggling.
“How does your tummy feel, girl?” daddy asked.
Louisa thought about it for a second and realized that her tummy DID feel a little calmer. “Feewin bettah nao, daddeh. Fank yu.”
“I’m glad. I’ll bring another bowl for you to drink if you wake up later and feel bad, okay.”
“Dat am gud, daddeh. Wouisa wiww dwink mowe.”
“Okay, good. I’ll go get more.”
But while he was gone she suddenly felt sleepy. Very, very sleepy. She yawned a little, then yawned a big, long yawn. She was so sleepy now! It had been a long, hard day and she was so, so tired. Before her daddy could come back with more of the fizzy drink she tucked her snout between her forelegs and fell asleep.
===
Louisa woke up in her comfy nest and yawned a big yawn, stretching out her legs and mumbling to herself sleepily. She nuzzled her stuffy friend and nudged him aside while muttering “gud bwight-time, babbehs” to her tummy babies. She looked around the room and saw her bowl, already filled with kibble, just a little way from her nestie. She stood up and arched her back, stretching the sleepiness out of her muscles, and waddled over to get some food and water.
Halfway to the bowl she stopped.
She was walking. She could WALK. She looked back at her nestie; it was just her old, comfy nestie, not set beside the litterbox. No, the litterbox was across the room, where it had been before she got fat and couldn’t walk so good. But now she…oh no, she was walking good, which meant…
“BABBEHS?” she shouted, sliding to the floor and rolling over to get a good look at her tummy.
Her tummy was normal again. Besides, she could feel that there weren’t any babies in her tummy. They weren’t kicking. They weren’t THERE. There was NOTHING. Her tummy babies were GONE!
“BABBEHS!” she screamed, hysterical. “WHEWE AM BABBEHS? BABBEHS PWEASE COME TU MUMMAH NAO! BABBEHS! OHHHHH NUUUUUU PWEASE BABBEHS!” She ran around the room, frantically pawing at her blankets and trying to find her babies. Maybe they’d come while she was asleep! But they weren’t in her nestie! Where were they? THEY WERE BEING SO QUIET! She ran over to her litterbox and started turning the litter over. They weren’t in there, either! Just poopies! NO BABIES AT ALL!
“DADDEH! DADDEH HEWP!” she screamed over and over at the top of her lungs. She was frantic, completely lost in fear and grief. First her stuffy friend disappeared. Then her sketties. Then her toysies. Now her BABIES had disappeared! Her thinkie-place was being VERY BAD to her! It was the WORST thinkie-place ever! It had made her forget where her babies were!
“What the hell’s going on in here?” shouted her daddy, throwing the door open.
“BABBEHS AM NU HEWE NU MOWE!” she screamed. “WOUISA TUMMEH BABBEHS AM GONE!”
“What the…what? What are you talking about?”
“BABBEHS, BABBEHS, DADDEH! BABBEHS! DEM BABBEHS NU IN WOUISA TUMMEH NU MOWE!”
“What babies?” he asked, looking annoyed. “Oh my god, are you going to tell me that you had babies now? All the shit you’ve been imagining, and you’ve imagined BABIES, too?”
“WOUISA HAF TUMMEH BABBEHS, DUMMEH DADDEH! DEY IN WOUISA TUMMEH FOWEVAH! NAO DEY NU AM! DUMMEH DADDEH, DUMMEH DUMMEH DUMMEH!”
“No!” he shouted. “I’ve had enough of this bullshit. Louisa, you’ve NEVER HAD BABIES! When I found you in the alleyway you said a ‘kitteh munstah’ had eaten your babies and your special friend. Don’t you remember? THINK, FOR FUCK’S SAKE! REMEMBER!”
She was breathing heavily, worn out from running around and screaming. She tried to think about it for a minute. Oh, she’d lied to her daddy and told him that a kitty monster had given her special friend forever-sleepies. But she didn’t think she’d told him that she’d lost some babies, too. Did she? She’d only had these babies in her tummy. There hadn’t been any babies that came out of her tummy. So there couldn’t be…but then again, her special friend didn’t really take forever-sleepies. That was a lie. There had been so many lies that she’d told to so many humans.
Did she lie about forever-sleepies babies so her daddy would feel bad and take her to his housie?
Did she lie about babies and then start to think they had been real?
Did she lie about babies, knowing how much she really DID want babies, so much that she started to PRETEND that she had babies? Did her thinkie-place trick her into believing in babies that weren’t real?
WHAT WAS REAL ANYMORE? WHAT THE FLUFF WAS REAL?
“Daddeh, Wouisa…Wouisa wemembuh tummeh babbehs.” But did she really? She was starting to doubt everything. Nothing made any sense.
“No, you WANTED tummy babies. I told you that maybe you could have them one day, but not yet. You didn’t have them yet. Louisa, there WERE NO TUMMY BABIES!”
“Buh, buh…BABBEHS!” she shouted, then lapsed into long, anguished screams. She ran out of her safe room and bolted from room to room, looking under furniture, craning her neck to see shelves and things that were high up. There were no babies to be found. She couldn’t hear any chirping. No babies were crying for her. The more she looked without finding anything, the more she screamed. It was loud and it was constant. Her daddy was following behing her, yelling things at her, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was finding her babies.
Finally she’d been everywhere in the housie and hadn’t found a single baby. She was exhausted. Her throat hurt. She waddled back into her safe room and launched herself into her nestie, burrowing under the blankets and sobbing uncontrollably. Every now and then she’d stop sobbing long enough to scream, but her throat was hurting worse and worse, so the screams became less frequent. Eventually it was just sobbing. Deep, heartbroken sobbing.
“Babbehs,” she cried. “Babbehs, babbehs, babbehs.” Over and over, the same word. Gradually it became more and more delirious.
She heard her daddy behind her trying to say comforting things. His words didn’t matter. He didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered right now were her tummy babies and whether or not they were real. The only thing that mattered now was her thinkie-place, and her fear that she was going completely crazy. That she’d start to forget other things, too. Maybe she’d imagined her old daddy. Maybe she’d imagined the stallion who have her good feels. Maybe she’d imagined sketties! It was all so confusing.
Eventually she heard the safe room door shut; her daddy had left her to have her emotional and mental breakdown. That only made her need him even less, made her care about him even less. He didn’t care enough to fix things by finding her lost babies, so why would she want him giving her huggies and comfort? He was the worst daddy ever. As soon as she got a chance she was going to run away from him and find a new daddy, one who would give her everything she wanted always forever, just like her old daddy.
But no matter how mad she got, no matter how upset she was, she couldn’t shake the thought that maybe her daddy wasn’t a big dummy after all. Maybe he was a great daddy, and maybe she’d been forgetting things and making things up forever now and he’d just been putting up with it.
No. No, it wasn’t her. It was him.
But maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was her.
She cried until her voice was hoarse, then sobbed silently until she ran out of tears. She laid in her nestie, curled up into a ball, and hugged her tail tightly. Her body shook and trembled, and she whispered two words into her fluff.
“Wan die.”
===
“Louisa?”
She didn’t open her eyes. Her daddy was in the room, close to her. His voice sounded concerned. She didn’t care.
“Louisa, are you okay?”
“Gu way. Nu wan tawkies. Gu way.”
“Look, I don’t know what’s going on with you, but…”
“Wouisa thinkie-pwace pwayin twicksies on Wouisa. Am gif wowstest heawt huwties.” She kept her eyes closed and kept hugging her tail. “Nu wan tawk. Wouisa…Wouisa wan die.”
“So you’ve realized that you’ve been imagining things.”
“Nu knu wha weaw an wha am twicksies fwom thinkie pwace. Nu cawe nu mowe. Nu haf babbehs, an babbehs make evewyfing bettah. Onwy babbehs can hewp. Buh nu haf babbehs. Evewyfing gun be bad fowevah. Wan die.”
“Just because you don’t have babies now doesn’t mean you can’t ever have babies at all, girl.”
“Nu cawe.”
“I’d like to take you to a doctor to find out what’s wrong with your brain. I’d like to see if it can be fixed. I want you to get better. Will you let me do that?”
“Nu. Nu cawe. Wan die.”
“Louisa, you…”
“Nu cawe.”
“Look, I love you, but…”
“Wouisa nu wuv daddeh.” She opened her eyes and stared at her daddy, still clutching her tail to her stomach. Her voice was quiet and emotionless. “Nu wan daddeh. Jus wan wawm housie fow babbehs, an bestest sketties fo Wouisa an babbehs. Buh dewe nu am babbehs. Jus dummeh daddeh an dummeh thinkie pwace. Aww am dummehs.” She closed her eyes again. “Jus wan die.”
“I…I’ll come back later with some food.” He sounded shocked and sad, but he walked out of the safe room and shut the door behind him.
As things usually were with Louisa, all of this was partly an act designed to make her daddy feel bad for her. Her sorrow over her disappearing babies was real. Her fear over her failing thinkie-place was real. She really was confused, scared, sad and tired. But she didn’t really want to die. She HAD wanted to, but only briefly. The desire didn’t last long. She knew she could have more babies. But what she’d realized is that she could use this, all of it, to break her daddy and make him do whatever she wanted. He felt so bad for her now. He wasn’t punishing her for calling him a dummy. If this kept going, what else wouldn’t he punish her for?
She’d let him take her to a doctor. Maybe the doctor COULD fix her thinkie-place. Then her daddy would bring her home and he’d be so happy that she wasn’t broken anymore that he’d give her bestest sketties and bring her a new special friend to put babies in her tummy again. And whenever something went wrong, whenever she did a bad thing, she’d just have to cry and blame it on her bad thinkie-place and her daddy would let her get away with it! It was a really good plan. She would finally get everything she wanted, forever. All she had to do was wait out her meanie thinkie-place, let daddy get a little more scared and sad, and then let whatever doctor fix it all.
So she embraced her feelings, turned them up to eleven, and sobbed into her tail fluff.
After a while her daddy came back in with a bowl of food and some fresh water for her bottle. He placed the food in front of her and ruffled her head fluff.
“Sweetie, you need to eat something. And drink.”
“Nu wan.”
“Please, sweetie. I’ve made an appointment with Dr. Jackson tomorrow morning. She’s going to run some tests, check you out, and try to figure out why your brain is being weird. Okay? Can you please eat something?”
“Nu wan. Nu cawe. Wan die.”
He sighed. “I’ll leave this here for you. Please, please eat. I know you say you don’t love me, but that’s just your broken brain talking. I know you love me. I love you.”
“Nu wuv. Nu wike. Wan die.”
“You don’t mean that. Look, eat some food, get some rest. Everything will be better tomorrow.”
“Nu.”
“You’ll see.” He ruffled her head fluff again and left the safe room, shutting her in with her misery and deceit.
Eventually she realized he wasn’t coming back. She stood up and shuffled over to the water bottle, drinking her fill. Then she waddled back over to the bowl of kibble and slowly ate it all. It didn’t bring her the joy that sketties did, and she wasn’t eating for babies anymore, so eating wasn’t really much fun. It was necessary, but not fun. Soon, though. Soon she’d be eating sketties again and growing the bestest tummy babies ever.
She curled up in her nestie with her legs wrapped around her stuffy friend, sighed sadly, and went to sleep.
===
Louisa woke up in a pile of dirty, scratchy rags and yawned a big yawn, stretching out her legs and mumbling to herself sleepily. She nuzzled her stuffy friend and…
Wait, no. She looked around, confused. Dirty, scratchy rags? No stuffy friend? And it was SO COLD in her safe room. Did daddy turn off the heat? Why did he…
She stared. Across from her nestie was the trashy nummie place. Her nestie wasn’t big and comfy; it was a cardboard box full of rags. She was back in her boxie. She could feel a cold breeze blowing past her nestie. She was back in the alley.
“DADDEH?” she shouted as she got to her hooves, shivering in the brisk winter air. “WHEWE AM DADDEH?”
But daddy wasn’t there. It was just her, standing alone in the cold, dirty alley.
“Dis nu am weaw,” she muttered to herself. “Dis am thinkie pwace pwayin twicksies. Nu am weaw.”
But it sure FELT real. The cold wind biting through her filthy fluff, making her shiver, making her teeth chatter. Wait, dirty fluff? Daddy always kept her so clean! She looked closely at her fluff; it was FILTHY! She could see some dried poopies on the fluff near her tail, too! Everything was just like it was before her daddy found her and rescued her! She patted her tummy to check, just to see. No, she still didn’t have her tummy babies. So not only did she NOT have her tummy babies, but she was a stray again, covered in dirt and poopies and living in a cold nestie.
How could this be happening to her, the bestest fluffy ever?
As she tried not to panic, she heard a voice coming toward her.
“Hey David, let’s just cut through this alley.”
Then, another voice. “Sure, whatever gets us there faster.”
She recognized that second voice. THAT WAS HER DADDY!
The first human stepped into the alley. Louisa was disappointed and a little scared; he was a big, strong-looking human and he looked kind of meanie. She backed up into her nestie and hoped he wouldn’t see her. But then the second human followed him into the alley, and she gasped.
IT WAS HER DADDY!
She launched herself from the rags and shouted. “DADDEH! DADDEH HAF COME TU SAFE WOUISA?”
“What the fuck?” he asked, stepping away from her. The meanie-looking human just stood there, near her box, looking confused.
“Dummeh daddeh!” she giggled. “Wouisa am waitin fo daddeh tu come back an safe Wouisa. Am su cowdies an…”
“I’m not your daddy, you ugly little shitrat. What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Da…daddeh? Daddeh fink Wouisa am…nu pwetty?” She felt tears leaking on to her cheek fluff.
“I’m not your goddamned daddy, I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. And yeah, you’re ugly as fuck. Look at you. Shit-brown fluff, puke-green mane. You’ve got the worst fucking colors ever. Who the hell would think you’re pretty? Hey, Kevin. You think she’s pretty?”
The meanie human laughed. “Hell, no. No one likes shit-colored shitrats. What is it they call each other? ‘Poopie fluffies?’ Yeah, that’s a poopie fluffy right there.”
“N…nu! Nu!” she cried out, stammering. “Wouisa nu am poopie fwuffy! Am su pwetties! Daddeh, daddeh say Wouisa am su pwetties!”
“Then your daddy’s dumb as hell.”
“Buh…buh yu am daddeh!”
“I’m NOT your daddy! God, you’re pathetic. I walk by here all the time, and you think that makes me your daddy? You little shits will do ANYTHING to guilt humans into taking you home, huh?”
“Daddeh, pwease,” she whispered. No, she still didn’t love him. But she hadn’t expected him to REJECT her. To say such meanie things to her. He was using so many bad words, and his voice was so full of maddies! It had felt like everything was falling apart before, but now she felt her heart breaking.
“Please what? What do you want from me?”
“Pwease nu gif wowstest heawt huwties.”
“Why am I supposed to give a fuck about you again? Enlighten me. You’re the ugliest fluffy imaginable, you’re calling me daddy even though we’ve never met, and…” He paused, looking past her. “Oh my god.”
“Wha, daddeh?”
“Kevin, look at that. Look what this stupid bitch did.” He pointed past her nestie, to her poopie pile. She turned to look, too.
“Oh, Jesus,” the meanie man said. “She…fuck, she buried them in her own shit?”
“You’re HORRIBLE!” her daddy shouted. “You KILLED them and buried them in SHIT?”
Louisa stared at the poopie pile, her mouth hanging open. There they were; there were her babies. She couldn’t tell how many there were since they were all partly buried in her poopies. But they were definitely babies. They were definitely dead. She could even tell some of the colors through the poopies. One was bright blue; it was so pretty. One was yellow. One was…WAIT! MAYBE SHE COULD SAVE THEM! Maybe there was still time!
“NUUUUUUU, BABBEHS!” she screamed, running over to the poopie pile and digging through it with her hoofsies, pulling out the cold, lifeless bodies of her babies. She cried as she realized there wasn’t any hope. She stopped after the got the blue and yellow babies free and sat on her haunches, sobbing and wailing. “Huu huu huuuuuu, nuuuuu! Babbehs! Wouisa wuv babbehs! Wouisa nee babbehs!”
“You’re the worst mother ever,” her daddy said, his voice filled with disgust. “You’re the ugliest, stupidest, worst fluffy ever. No wonder your daddy left you here. No one would ever want you.”
“Huu huu, daddeh, pwease nu chirp say meanie fings tu peep Wouisa!”
“That’s all you deserve, you baby-murdering bitch.”
“PWEASE DADDEH, HEWP peep WOUISA! SAFE FWOM chearp COWD AN BADDIES!” She waddled over and tried to hug his leg.
“Get the FUCK away from me,” he yelled, kicking her hard. She sailed through the air and landed next to her poopie pile. “Jesus, you got shit on my pants. Now I’ve got to go back home and change.”
“It’s cool,” the meanie man said. “We’ve got lots of time.”
“Sure as fuck not cutting through this alley again, though,” her daddy said. They both turned away and walked out of the alley, leaving her behind.
“Nuuuuu!” she yelled, struggling back to her feet. Nothing was broken, but she was bruised and had lots of hurties. “Pwease nu chirp gu way, daddeh! Wouisa pwomise peep tu be gud fwuffy! Nu chearp ask fo NUFFIN nu mowe! Pwe…pwease, daddeh! Su sowwies! Su peep sowwies!” She managed to get out of the alley, only to find that her daddy and the meanie human were gone. They were gone forever! Her daddy was gone forever! He was never coming back!
“Nuuuuhuuhuuuuuuuu,” she sobbed, dragging herself back over to her dead babies. She dug through the rest of the pile and found three more. They would have been such beautiful babies! A bright blue unicorn, a yellow pegasus, a bright red unicorn, a purple pegasus, and an orange earthie. All her babies. All hers! She hugged them and snuggled them into her fluff, not caring that she was smearing herself with her own shit. She held them close and cried, and tried to figure out what was happening.
Her daddy said he’d never been her daddy. Had she imagined everything?
She didn’t remember having her babies. Had it all been a dream, the sleepy-time pictures that she sometimes had? It all seemed so real.
Had she killed her babies? Had she buried them in the poopie pile, then imagined everything else so that she could forget the heart hurties she had after doing such an awful thing? WHY had she killed them?
Everything was terrible, nothing made sense. She needed her mother. She needed her mother’s warm huggies and all her love. Nothing had been good or right for very long after she’d been taken from her mother.
“Mummah,” she sobbed. “Wouisa nee chearp huggies an wuv. Nee peep miwkies. Cawmen am onwy wittwe babbeh, nee chirp huggies peep an wuv an peep miwkies. Wuv. Wuv mummah.” She put a shit-covered hoof in her mouth and started to suckle on it.
“Cawmen nee mummah. Wouisa wuv. Cawmen. Wouisa. peep chearp Cawmen. Bab…babbeh. Babbeh. chirp Am onwy wittwe babbeh, pwease mummah. Mummah! chirp peep Come safe wittwe babbeh.” The hoof went back into her mouth, and the words stopped coming.
Eventually the only noises she made were chirps and peeps.
===
David stood in the darkness and looked down at the peeping, chirping fluffy. Her eyes were closed tightly and she still had one hoof in her mouth. She was still clutching her dead, shit-covered babies. If she heard him enter the alleyway she didn’t react. He was pretty sure that she was too far gone to notice him, or to notice anything at all. He shook his head and grinned, then walked around to collect the SD cards from the three hidden cameras.
If you’d asked David five years ago what he’d be doing with his life today, he never would have answered “getting paid a whole bunch of money to run a FluffTube channel full of hugbox and abuse.” He’d stumbled on it by accident, really. He was home with the flu for a week, and he’d decided to do some research on fluffies. He’d always found them fascinating and was thinking about getting one. A few dozen clicks later and he was down a FluffTube rabbit hole, watching some abuse videos that were just gratuitous gore. No style, no build-up. And it wasn’t always fluffies who DESERVED it. It was just random fluffies.
David felt that only truly bad fluffies really deserved to be tortured. Bad fluffies, smarties, they were incredibly rare. Good fluffies were way more common, and they were a lot of fun to have around. They freely gave their love and didn’t expect much in return. Just food, shelter, a few cheap toys to occupy their time, and some attention. The same thing any pet would ask for, really, if they all had voices and could vocalize their needs. He hated seeing good fluffies being tortured along with the bad. But he couldn’t bring himself to do the brutal things he’d seen in the videos.
So he decided to try a psychological angle. Pretty much nobody else out there was trying psychological torture. They wanted to break fluffies physically, quickly. David thought it would be more fun to break their minds, and to do it slowly. He set up a safe room, bought a bunch of supplies, and brought home a feral that he’d found wandering in the park.
But that fluffy turned out to be a very good fluffy. He was a purple and yellow unicorn, and he never broke any of David’s rules. He always made good poopies, never yelled or insulted his daddy, never demanded sketties, and always did what he was told to do. David couldn’t abuse him; there was no way in hell. So he kept him and made videos of his rescue and his journey to bring a very good fluffy. He uploaded the videos and got a really good response from the hugbox crowd. The abuse crowd hated him, though. And deep down he really WANTED to try abuse.
David’s friend Kevin was already raking in tons of money with his own FluffTube channel. He’d been ranked #1 in the hugbox category for two years running. He ran a farm that served as a sanctuary for good fluffies whose owners couldn’t keep them anymore. Instead of taking them to a shelter where they’d probably die, people just took them to David’s farm. He had twenty acres and thirty cameras set up to stream from the popular areas; the barns, the vegetable gardens, the troughs where they fed, and the corral where they could run and play and have special hugs. The good ones had a home for life. Bad ones snuck through sometimes, and would suddenly disappear. Nobody ever asked why or how, because none of Kevin’s fans wanted to admit that he might have a dark streak.
So David took the fluffy - named Harold - to live on Kevin’s farm. Harold was sad to leave his daddy, but that sadness faded somewhat as soon as he got a special friend. Then David got another fluffy, one he rescued from a last chance shelter.
That one was a total piece of shit. An orange and red unicorn, it had turned out to be a total smarty. In the end it had been stuck in a “wan die” loop, and he let it starve itself to death in the backyard, a camera recording everything up until he scooped the corpse up and tossed it into the garbage bin. He edited the videos down to ten hours of footage, uploaded them, and waited to see what happened.
The hugboxers HATED them. But the abuse crowd, they FLOCKED to his new videos. Suddenly he realized that he could actually make a living doing this and, if he could keep BOTH crowds happy, he could make a TON of money. Now his channel was ranked #3 in hugbox and #5 in abuse. Yeah, a lot of people still preferred the edgy, gory violence leveled against random fluffies. Can’t win 'em all, right? Besides, he didn’t have to work an office job. Handle a fluffy, edit footage, and spend a few hours a week managing his sponsorships? Yeah, he’d take that over an office job any day of the week.
Louisa had been a little more of a challenge. He’d wanted to try breaking down a “soon mummah” for months, and was glad to finally have the chance. How had he pulled everything off, though?
First, drugged food. Lots and lots of drugged food. Everything she ate at night was laced with a slow-acting sedative. It took a while to kick in, but once it did it’d keep her out for a couple of hours. That gave him plenty of time to take things out of her safe room, empty the cabinet of sketties, whatever he needed to do for the low-level mind games.
The babies had been the real challenge. The Foal-B-Gone had worked like a charm; he’d scooped the corpses out of her litter, mixed them in with the shit from her litterbox, tossed them into a container and stashed them in the garage in the freezer. But there was SO MUCH more to do, and she needed to be asleep for all of it. So every four hours he had to inject her with a sedative to keep the sleep going. He cleaned her up and put her right back in her birthing nest.
See, he knew he’d have to give her time to heal if he was going to really convince her that she’d imagined it. If she woke up sore with an aching cooch, well, she’d know something was up. So every four hours for FIVE DAYS he’d injected her with sedative. He’d slid a feeding tube down her throat for four days so she wouldn’t wake up totally starving. Finally he put her back in her old nestie, fresh and clean and healed up. Then he set everything up the way it was before she became immobile and waited for her to wake up.
The lack of sleep was starting to get to him. But now, seeing the end result of all of his work, he knew it had totally been worth it.
Setting the dead babies up in the alley had been easy. He’d already talked to the people who worked in the local businesses, and they didn’t care what he was doing. Some of them thought it was hilarious; he made sure to give them business cards so they could see the videos once they were done. Kevin, as always, had been glad to lend a hand in acting out the final scene. Oh yeah, he definitely had a dark streak. He loved seeing the bad fluffies as they suffered. He loved watching their minds break.
And now he was staring down at a broken fluffy who, a few weeks earlier, was convinced that she was better than everyone else, humans included. Now she peeping and chirping like a baby. She’d regressed too far to be brought back to reality, even if he’d wanted to. And he sure as hell didn’t want to. He put fresh SD cards in the cameras; his fans would want a proper ending. They’d want to see her actually die. At this rate, it probably wouldn’t take much longer.
As he walked back past her, he couldn’t resist seeing just how far gone she was.
“Little fluffy?” he whispered.
She lifted her head, but kept her eyes closed. She peeped at him, a scared, nervous peep.
“What’s the matter? Can’t talk?”
She peeped and chirped at him in response, backing up into her nest and pulling her babies as close as she could. Her mouth was slightly open, pursed up in a suckling motion. Like a little chirpy baby looking for her mother’s teat.
“You know what? Daddy never loved you either, you greedy little bitch.”
He walked out of the alley and smiled contentedly as the chirps and peeps faded behind him.