Wind chills the alleys of New York City, wafting the everpresent stench of fluffy shit into the streets. Alone, an engineering major walks under the December moon, holding his winter coat tight around his torso. It is frigid out tonight, the young man is barely able to walk through the snow back to his apartment. As the student walks he shoots a passing glance down a sidestreet with a particularly pungent odor. The scene before him spiked his morbid curiosity.
A number of foals huddle around a damp cardboard box. Beside the box is a stiff mass of rotten meat covered in neon fur. Stale blood is pooled under the body, freezing it to the ground where it lies. The man slowly sneaks down the alley, careful not to make any noise. He doesn’t want to disturb the macabre scene of artificial animals displayed so perfectly before him.
As he approaches the sagging cardboard shanty the number of foals reveals itself to be five. The fella is honestly sort of impressed. That is an incredible amount of fluffies to remain alive for any feral family. It shocks him even more as he feels the biting cold on his skin and hears the traffic fill the chill night air. Looking over to the box house he sees what appears to be a mare, lying face down in a puddle of red. The babies are crowded around their mother and house, weeping and blubbering. A pitiful song of mourning fills the air with all the articulation of a distressed Helen Keller.
The young man looks down on this scene with apathy. He doesn’t pity these escaped freaks of nature, but he feels no malice either. He is completely empty about the whole event. Just as he silently turns on his heels to resume his walk, an idea fills his head. College is about to be on winter leave for a few weeks, and this gentleman has no plans. His parents also just so happen to own a lake house not too far away from the city. A devious smile creeps across the man’s lips. He has always wanted to do this, but his low end studio apartment would never allow for it. Honestly, if he didn’t take this opportunity it would haunt him. It was practically served on a silver platter.
The man turns back to the ponies on the ground. They are shivering, sobbing in their own waste, clearly distraught and unable to process the deaths of their parents. The man quietly scans the back alley for a container and his eyes land on an old pho takeout container. He creeps over to it, pokes a few breathing holes in the top, and slowly slithers back to the foals. As quickly as possible, he snatches one of them from off the concrete and tosses it into the makeshift transporter. The other foals are still too consumed by grief to notice. The man picks them off one by one until he reaches the last rat.
This pest breaks away from his sadness long enough to notice his missing siblings.
“W-whewe am bubbas an sissies? B-babbehs need stay by mammah, it too cowd fow babbehs.” Babels the fluffy before noticing the shadow looming over him and his mothers cold corpse. He spins around on his hooves and looks up at the giant before him. Fear consumes him, and the foal shoots a stream of feces behind him. This effort to deter the monster works, as the shadow retracts its hand for a moment. The baby wastes no time capitalizing on this moment.
The small fluffy sprints down further down the alley, dodging rubbish and rotten food. Although he hasn’t even gone a yard, the colt’s little legs feel like collapsing beneath him. The freezing air fills his throat with imaginary cuts and frozen tears sting his eyes. All the stress fills his mind and clouds his vision, he never even sees the shard of glass in front of him. The foal runs full speed into the broken glass, deeply gashing his front leg. The baby tumbles head first into the ground, landing with much force for his brittle body. The world goes dark.
The man scoops the now unconscious foal into the cup, reminding himself that he’ll need to take care of its leg down the line. He can appreciate the tenacity of the little tyke, his will to get away was something slightly admirable. Before any of his plans can go into effect he has to make a few trips. He’ll have to call his parents, pick up some fluffy supplies, and gather a few odds and ends. The man tucks the container of sobbing foals into his coat, hoping to warm them up for the walk home. They are going to need their strength. Their little, short, insignificant lives are going to change permanently, starting now.
The Next Day…
The student gets a call back from his parents. He steps away from the peeping foals he poured into an old plastic container and walks into another room.
“Hey honey, so you wanna use the cabin?”
“Yeah mom, schools about to be on break and I need some space for dad’s leg.”
“Oh don’t spend your break on that ol thing, you know your father hates it when you work yourself to the bone on that.”
“Mom I’ve got a breakthrough coming your way, don’t worry about it. I found some willing volunteers to run tests on.”
“If you insist, I won’t stop you. Just make sure to leave it how you found it, and remember to come by for Christmas Eve and Christmas. Your cousins are gonna be there.”
“Alright mom, I’ll head out there today. Love you.”
“Love you too! Bye.”
The man returned the phone back to his pocket and returned to the closet. The foals were still going wild with pathetic noises, begging for their parents and promising to be “gud babbehs”. When they saw the man reenter the room, half of them went and cowered in a corner while two of the colts remained to face down the terrible beast.
“Mistah pwease, babbehs am gud fwuffies… Need wub an wawm housie… Pwease nu gib huwties to bubbahs and sissies…” Meekly chirped a colt while his brother stood next to him, not saying anything but giving his brother confidence. The speaking fluffy was the one whose leg had been cut. The student reached down and picked up the foal, who strangely didn’t protest other than shivering and peeping, even though he probably could walk away on his injured leg. His brother had gone and joined the rest of his family in the corner, collectively shitting themselves.
The foal in his hand rested in his palm. It was a light blue, almost cyan in color. His mane and tail were both white with subtle streaks of black. He had teeth and could form complete sentences, so the man assumed that the foals were about six weeks old. They all looked malnourished, probably because they were weaned off protein rich milk to banana peels and discarded street pizza. The man had slapped a bandaid onto the foal’s injured leg the night before since he didn’t have anything to stitch it, but it was obviously more serious than that. The man removed the bandage which incited peeping from the colt as his tender leg was being ripped off its light fur.
Despite covering the wound it was obviously infected from the waste inside the pho container. The cut went down the bone, which had also been sliced. Flesh undergoing necrosis caused the gash to gape open, giving bacteria more opportunities to invade it. This leg would have to be amputated, there was no way the man was going to go to the vet and get this fixed. He was going to amputate their legs anyway for the experiments, so this was the perfect chance to practice.
The man rebandages the leg and begins to set the child back down with his siblings in their temporary home. Before he can get all the way the foal looks back at his family then pipes up to the man.
“Mistah pwease nu gib huwties to sissies and bubbas… Fwuffy wiww take aww da huwties fow dem, but pwease nu gib huwties… Fwuffies onwy wittle babbehs…” The colt said, pathetically glancing up at the looming figure. It was a noble plea, especially selfless coming from a fluffy. Although the man would give him and his siblings much pain, he would try and make it as bearable as possible. He would have to read up on fluffy painkillers.
“Alright little man, I won’t hurt your family unless they are bad. That is more than fair to y’all, especially since I’m gonna give you food and a safe, warm room.” Spoke the man to the fluffy in his hand, settling him down into the box. He made a point to say it loudly so that the other foals would hear him. They piped up and slowly turned around, seeing that their brave brother was returned to them unharmed. The smallest foal, a green filly, approached the side closest to the man.
“Mistah nu gib huwties? Mistah gib babbehs nummies an toysies an wub?” Said the girl hopefully, eyes full of pathetic pleading, like if she thought hard enough it would come true. The man thought for a minute, scratching his chin.
“Yeah I don’t see why not. Keeping y’all in good spirits would probably make the experiments run smoother. Maybe if you’re really good I can get you like, uh, fuckin’, spaghetti if that’s what you like.” The mention of pasta sent them into a frenzy. All the babies, even the blue colt that had to scramble to his siblings with a painful limp, all began singing some childish song about love and spaghetti. It was extremely grating, but he would bear it. They couldn’t help the fact they were so irritating. Patience is key to fluffies, just count to ten and breathe deep.
The man packed the fluffies and supplies into his old Honda Civic. He planned on being out there for about two weeks, so he brought all the things he thought he needed. There is a grocery store about fifteen minutes away from the cabin so it would be all good. Getting in the driver’s seat and drowning out the fluffies’ questions and rambling, the man set off, down the road and out of the city, to the isolated cabin by a lake.