“See ya later Sarah!” You glanced up from the desk to see John walking out.
“That was quick, you’ve still got another 15.”
“Yeah, I got it out of my system.” He didn’t look back as he left. You frowned, it wasn’t like him to leave early. In fact you usually had to remind him when his time was up. You decided to investigate, and started down the hall to the rage room.
The door opened to reveal a mess of shattered glass and ceramic splattered with fluffy blood and vicera. In the center of the room, stepping carefully around the scene, was one of your new hires.
“Nicolas, didn’t see you come in.” He looked up at you, a pleasant smile on his face.
“Good morning Mrs. Michaelson! Came in through the side door just in time to see the patron leaving, thought I’d see what I could gather.” He looked back to the blood splatter at his feet.
“I told you, just Sarah is fine.” You leaned against the door frame.
“Sarah then, my apologies.” He didn’t look up, instead examining a shattered thrift store plate. “He likes to throw things, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah.” You replied, watching Nicholas intently. “He books this room just for it.”
“He likes to take out his frustrations on fluffies rather than humans.” He stated calmly.
“Uh… yeah. How do you know that?”
Nicholas pointed to the shattered bottles against the wall. “If he wanted to just hurt her, he would. Instead he stood back and threw bottles. He wanted to work out some aggression before moving to the main course, as it were.” You followed his finger as he pointed out the bloody trail leading from the plywood table to the broken mare lying in the corner. “He started with her here, used her for target practice for a while.” He gestures at a brown splatter on the table. “He wanted to get her good and scared, probably imagining someone in his life that had wronged him.”
You smiled, watching him step lightly around the room. “You’re good at this.”
“I’m going to school to be a medical examiner, this is all textbook.” He glanced around the room looking for the next breadcrumb to follow. “He must have gotten tired of throwing things.” He pointed to a bloody bottle neck lying on the floor. “If this was a murder, I’d call that the primary weapon.” You moved in closer to examine it. You didn’t see anything but bloody glass, but Nicholas clearly saw more. “He sliced her with it, but that wasn’t the killing blow.”
“How can you tell?” The mares blood was everywhere, thick and congealing in large puddles. It seemed like more than any fluffy could survive losing.
He pointed at the trail leading away from the table. “She could still walk after that.” He stood and looked around. “Going off the lack of prints in all this blood, he just stood and watched her drag herself.” He walked over to the mares corpse. “She gave a good show though, clearly.” He leaned in closer. “Looks like he stomped her rib cage to end it, she’s got-” he cut himself off, staring intently at the mare. “Oh, hello there!”
“What is it?”
“Seems the victim is still with us!” He prodded her side with his shoe, causing her to gasp. “Can you tell us what happened, fluffy? It would be very educational for me!”
The mare just gasped, her breath rattling in her throat. Nicholas prodded her a few more times, each with less of a response.
“Mmm. Pity, a useless witness.” He stood, watching the mare try to hug her own chest back together. “Did he pay the killing fee?”
“Yes, he-” Nicholas’s heel slammed through the mare’s head before you could finish your sentence, splattering brain matter against the wall.
“There we go, now this is a murder investigation!” His smile didn’t falter as the mare twitched once, then went limp.
“Damn. That’s cold.”
“No room for emotions in this sort of work.” He shook a skull fragment off his boot. “I’ll get this cleaned up in a jiffy, ma’am!” He grabbed the mare by the scruff, lifting her limp form off the ground. “Do you want this one in the cannibal kennels?”
“Nah, just toss her. The cannibals like their food a little more… intact.” You gestured to a cabinet on one wall. “Look in there for cleaning supplies, there’s biowaste bags and gloves too if you want them.”
“Oh, I’ll be just fine without them, but thank you!”
You decided to leave him to his work. The door shut behind you, and you leaned against it. You called yourself an abuser, sure, but this? This was a bit much. You looked down at your hand, gripping the door handle with white knuckles. You liked fluffies enough to offer them a last chance, the rehab room. Every one that made it to this point had done something to deserve it, and had shown no remorse.
However, some part of you wondered if they really could understand what they’d done. They were created to be children’s toys, to understand very little and feel a whole lot. They acted on instinct and gut feelings, not logic or reason. Mothers rejected and abused their young not out of spite but because their poorly assembled chimera bodies told them to. How could they understand the gravity of it? How could they know anything but the artificial fantasy world they were programmed to feel? And if they couldn’t understand what they’d done…
You couldn’t handle the implications of that.
A chime at the door broke you from your thoughts, a blessed reprieve. You smoothed your hair, put on your customer service smile, and started back down the hall. Moral quandaries won’t keep the lights on.
