“Dig hewe. Nee nuu howme fow soo’ mummas.” Bwu was a micro, a smart micro by most standards, not that a micro knew what smart, or standards, or knowing for that matter was. He was directing his herd in the construction of new rooms, for sleeping, for playing, for mummahs, and for purple nummies.
They had belonged to a child named Chase; a little boy too young to care for a real fluffy. He liked to shake the microfluff cube around and watch as they all would panic and scream, scrambling desperately as the orientation of the tunnels became a series of gentle ramps to unclimbable shafts.
One day while Chase was playing in the sandbox, his mom called him in with a promise of chicken nuggets. Chase was hungry and did not notice as he knocked over his sealed box of microfluffs precariously balanced on top of a stack of sand pails.
The fluff cube hit the wooden frame of the sandbox and shattered, the cube of gel ripped in half horizontally and scattered microfluffs that had gathered in the central chamber like a bag of chips that had been violently opened. Fortunately, micros were too small and weightless to take fall damage. The bottom half landed precariously oriented to trap the dozen microfluffs in vertical pits. The other half landed upside down. The microfluffs trapped inside began to climb up towards the now exposed main room.
Blu the smarty called all the micros together. They had an opportunity to escape from the mumma muntah Chawse. It was a difficult decision, but they abandoned their trapped friend in the bottom cube half. Even though just a few seconds of numming would have torn the gel enough for them to squeeze out. Only forty adults remained.
He found his spechow fwen Gwee and then they began a long and arduous odyssey to the raspberry bush ten feet away. They arrived after night fell and the micros collapsed in exhaustion. Three had dropped dead on the trek over, due to starvation, and would be found by birds the following morning.
Another six had froze to death over the hot summer night as the slightest breeze and the damp ground sucked the heat from the fluffs too weak to join the fluffpile or foals too small to maintain constant body temperature.
With Just over thirty mircros, their chances started looking slim. They were all on the verge of starvation and did not know any food besides the gel of their tank. “Guu bak!” “Nu knu wewe!” “Tuu hungy tuu guu!” Blu was terrified, he didn’t know what to do. As he began pacing around the herd and looking for a solution he felt something squishy under his hoof. It felt like poopies, he looked down. It was purple, purple poopies? He leaned down to smell it. It smelled good. Were these nummies? He chomped down on it, unaware of the concept of poison, only food and not food. It tasted good.
“Fwens! Numehs!” They all came over and devoured the rotting berry. “puwpuw jew!” Blu looked around for more gel but could only find weird purple balls. He got angry and stomped on one, it squished, and inside was more purple gel! “Jew am ‘side puwpuw baws!” They all got excited and began popping the rasberries and numming the food inside. Blu was the best they all thought.
Next was shelter. This was too open for a micro fluff. He didn’t consciously think this, but having lived an entire life confined to claustrophobic tunnels he felt something was wrong. Cautiously he poked at the ground. It wasn’t gel like the cube, but the reddish ground was softer than he expected.
He leaned down and bit at it. Yuck! This wasn’t nummies. They needed tunnels to make nests and they couldn’t make tunnels inside the purple ball nummies. He spit out the dirt and took another bite. His special friend came over. “Wut am bwu du?” He spit out the next mouthful of dirt. “Am nee’ ness’ fo sawf mummahs!” The other stallions gathered around him. “Buh, nuh am numehs.” Yewwo said. “Nu numeh bu nee’ ness!”
His logic was unassailable. They began to gather around him and help dig. Four of the stallions died of colic, they swallowed the dirt instead of spitting it and clogged their bowels. They pushed the dead fluffies away, so they didn’t have to smell them. In the end they had a room big enough for all the mares by the next dark time. The stallions stayed up top on their pile of dirt keeping watch when they didn’t sleep. A big toad came along and swallowed up the dead. It’s big eyes watching for movement, a watchy munstah.
By the next day they had another room for the stallions. Then the next, a nummie room so the soon mummahs wouldn’t have to climb up to eat, then another room for the foals to play and so on and so forth. It was hard work, but they forgot all about the gel block.
Soon enough their numbers doubled again. As they dug deeper they found weird plant stringies, it made digging harder, but it also prevented cave ins. One night they had lost half a room, six mares, to rain as the roof collapsed on them. Then they doubled again, it was harder to share all the nummies, blu made sure the soon mummahs got to eat first, then the nursing mares, then the foals, and finally the stallions. Blu knew that they would find a solution, they always did.
“Bwu bwu! Wook!” It was Yewwo, not the first Yewwo, but the other one. Microfluffs in truth were not smart enough to choose names without human assistance. They defaulted to colors and would learn to call each other things like emotions and actions: love, hug, happy, ect. With enough human intervention. It was outlined clearly in Chapter 2 of the Microfluff care guide.
Blu followed Yewwo to the lowest layer where they were digging a new addition to the nest. You would imagine that they could not see in the absence of tranparent gel, but micros had exceptional dark vision and once adapted to the tunnels could see perfectly fine with just the ambient light that bounced down their main shaft. There were tiny tunnels with little wriggly white thingies he sniffed at them, then took one in his mouth. “wiggwe numeh!” They all began to cheer. No more sleeping with tummy hurties!
The ant warrior looked up at the blue intruder that towered over him with his compound eyes. Pathetic vermin, you smell of feces and death, your puny colony is unfit even to serve as food for our newborn drones. We shall make quick work of you degenerate filth. I shall alert my brethren. He turned around and climbed back into his tunnel.
Blue smelled something funny from the red many weggie friend. He paid it no mind and went back up to tell his special friend the good news. He heard screaming coming from below. He went to look down and saw a swarm of weggie frens hugging the diggers. Yellow climbed quickly, making huwtie yells. “sabe fwuffeh!” Blu ran after him as they came out the hole at the top.
Blue froze in terror. The nummie munstah was back. Yewwo was still screaming, unaware of mustah. Why was yewwo screaming? He wouldn’t find out. The nummie munstah’s tongue shot out and grabbed yewwo. His screams muffled and then silenced. Blue dove back down the hole. He saw leggie friends carrying newborn foals down to the bottom level. “Siwi wegeh fwens! Bebe tu smaw fow wiggwe numeh!”
“Oww! Sabe mumah!” It was Gwee. Why was his special friend screaming? He ran to the mummah room and was met with an image of terror. The leggie friends were… leggie munstahs? Mares were being dissected by the fire ants as they bit hard into their fragile flesh. His special friend’s tummeh had been split open and they grabbed he tummeh babbehs out while she screamed. Blu was overcome with terror, letting out a thick stream of shit. Other microfluffs had already evacuated their bowels in fear, pain, or both.
The main tunnel was swarming with leggie munstahs and the watchy munstah was waiting outside. He ran down a level into the poopie room, he smacked face first into Yewwo, the first one not the one currently dissolving in a frog’s stomach. Behind them, the doorway collapsed as fluffies above stomped in circles. No weggie munstahs could get in at least. “Bwu, nee ‘scape!” Yewwo meekly bleated out. Blu’s infinitesimally small mind snapped:
“Wisten! Fwuffeh nu can ge owt. Fwuffeh nu can ge owt. Dey hab takie da tunnew an mummeh howe… da poo is up tu da waww. The Watchy munstah nummed yewwo! Fwuffeh nu can ge owt! Fowebah sweepies am cowm! an den nums, nummies in duh deep.”
The Micros dug too greedily and too deep. You know what they awoke in the darkness of the raspberry bush.
Chase’s dad was upset that chase lost his expensive microfluff cube the day before. He went outside searching and quickly found the cracked acrylic box and the two gel halves with the twelve remaining micros. He fitted the pieces back together and glued the acrylic box around the gel again. The dozen survivors would be enough to restart the colony after a quick inspection as there were both males and females inside.
He glued the tank to a sturdy wooden base that Chase couldn’t manhandle and placed it on the media console. The micro tank would live a long and prosperous life with dozens upon dozens of generations before becoming catatonically imbecile and sterile from constant inbreeding.
Today’s episode was brought to you by the letter ツ
Writing prompt: “Losing is Fun!”
I wanted to make one slight addition but I forgor and may never rember so I won’t delay posting any longer.
consider this elaborate LOTR shitpost a gift for @LurkLab