Chell continued on her way. Mummah, her Mummah, had to be around here somewhere, the mummah arm couldn’t have brought her that far away from Mummah.
As she suddenly remembered the existence of the grabby arm, she looked up.
Above her were many of the rails the mummah arm had travled on, all criss-crossing with no obvious order to their layout. Chell saw several arms carrying fluffies, some with foals and some with older fluffies. Every last one of the foals was bawling its eyes out, and most of the older fluffies were fighting with all their strength, trying to squirm out of the mummah arms. One of them even managed to wiggle free, and Chell watched it fall from far above her down until the darkness below swallowed it up. She just stared at where it had disappeared until she forgot why she was looking there.
The walkway Chell was standing on shifted slightly, groaning as it did, and also stirring Chell back to movement.
Onward the little filly continued, gradually hearing what sounded like fluffies not-screaming. Chell’s brain buzzed again and almost unbidden she uttered “Cheww wan fwends,” and having said it, the truth of her statement was the most obvious thing in the world. Chell rushed towards the voices as fast as her tiny legs could propel her.
Rounding a corner, Chell finally saw them- other fluffies, so many other fluffies, so many friends. The room they were in was, in stark comparison to the rest of the facility, brightly colored, and filled with everything a fluffy could possibly want. Warm and soft looking carpet covered the floor, balls, blocks, plush toys and soft looking fluffy beds were everywhere. Even the litter boxes were perfect, as Chell watched a fluffy finish using it, only for the litter box to slide into a hole that had opened in the wall. After the wall had closed again, a moment passed before it opened and the litter box returned, pristine and unfouled. It looked like heaven to Chell, and she rushed forward to introduce herself.
Chell was stopped abruptly and painfully when her nose slammed into the clear plexiglass surrounding the safe room.
“WHY MEANIE NU-SEE-WAWW HEWT CHEWW?” Chell wailed, holding her nose with her hooves for a while before again glimpsing the fluffies inside.
“HI NU FWENDS! Cheww am cawwed Cheww!” Chell shouted happily, her bumped nose forgotten, as she pounded her hooves on the plexiglass. She could hear all the fluffies inside as they shouted and laughed and played, so why couldn’t they hear her.
The fluffies in the safe room showed no sign that they had seen her, and continued to run and play and eat and hug and shit and sleep, all without Chell.
“Fwends? Cheww nee git in safe woom! Pwease hewp Cheww, am onwy widdow babbeh, nee hewp!”
Again, the fluffies inside did not respond. Chell stayed there a long time, trying everything she could think of, but nothing made the fluffies inside help her.
At one point one of the fluffies, a colt about twice Chell’s size, waddled up to the wall where Chell was and seemed to look right at her.
“NU FWEN? YU GON HEWP CHEWW?” She shouted, her hope suddenly renewed, but even though the colt was looking right at her, it was clear even to Chell that he could not see her. After fixing his mane in the reflection of the one way mirror, the colt spotted a ball and ran after it. Feeling defeated, Chell sat down, unable to stop watching the other fluffies. Even if they were meanies who didn’t want to be friends, Chell felt better just by being near them.
It was hours before Chell moved again. She watched the fluffies chase balls, stack blocks, hug each other, make good poopies, and even cuddle into a fluffpile which constantly shifted as fluffies entered and exited it. Chell also saw one of the mummah arms bring a tiny, sobbing colt into the safe room, whereupon he was surrounded by the other fluffies, all eager to hug his saddies away. Chell would have done anything at that moment to be him.
Later Chell saw a mummah arm pick up one of the adult fluffies and take it away. She heard several fluffies telling the ‘meanie gwabbie cwaw’ to ‘nu num fwen’ to no avail. While they couldn’t see where he went after being lifted up and over the safe room wall, Chell was able to see the mummah arm carry the fluffy, screaming and crying all the while, down the hall Chell had come from for a long time until it made a sudden right turn and disappeared. Her trance broken, Chell realized that she was very hungry.
“Dummeh-meanie-nu-am-fwend fwuffies nu eben gib Cheww talkies, su pwobabwy tuu stoopi tu gib nummies, Cheww nee fin own nummies.”
Conclusion reached, Chell continued past the safe room, unable to read the sign that labeled it ‘viewing/sales room’.
It wasn’t long before Chell found another room filled with the soft green nummies. Each of the moss rooms she had found had been different, with sizes ranging from closet sized to giant ones like the one Chell had landed in after the mummah arm had dropped her. Of course, Chell was too busy stuffing her face to notice- growing fluffies did need a lot of food, after all.
After many forevers of soft teeth grinding softer moss, Chell finally felt full, and even though she wanted to go back where fluffies were, something in the back of her brain told her that there was nothing for her there.
Chell sighed and continued down the tunnel walkway. Even with her tummy-hurties gone, Chell’s heart-hurties felt somehow worse.
