The vet’s office was a sterile and cold environment, much like the vet herself. Dr. Johnson was a tall woman with short blonde hair and a stern expression. She had seen countless fluffies in her career, but to her, they were just toys, not living beings.
Lucy’s mother, Amanda Reed, held the brown fluffy gently in her arms as she waited for the vet to examine Poopy. Poopy was whimpering softly, her body trembling with fear and pain. Dr. Johnson took Poopy from Lucy’s mother, placing her on the metal exam table.
The vet immediately went to work, examining Poopy’s injuries. She prodded and poked at the fluffy’s broken leg and injured eye, causing Poopy to chirp in pain. Amanda winced at the sound, but the vet remained unfazed.
After a few minutes of examination, the vet spoke in a cold, clinical tone. “The leg is broken in two places, and the eye is severely damaged. If you want my professional opinion, I would recommend amputating the leg and removing the eye. It would be the most cost-effective solution.”
Amanda gasped at the suggestion. “No, absolutely not. Lucy would be devastated if we did that to Poppy. She loves her new pets so much.”
The vet sighed, clearly annoyed. “Fine. The other option is surgery, but it will be much more expensive. And even with surgery, there’s no guarantee that she’ll regain full use of her leg or eye.”
“How much?”
The vet quoted a price that was far beyond what the Reed family could afford. Amanda cringed at the price. They had already spent so much on purchasing the fluffies; she didn’t expect to spend so much again so soon. It would be another few weeks before they could start earning it back by breeding Princess.
"Is there any other way to reduce the cost?” she asked, desperate to find a solution.
The vet nodded, a strangely excited glint in her eyes. "We could perform the surgery without anesthesia. It would be cheaper, and don’t worry, fluffies generally have a high pain tolerance.”
Amanda looked skeptical, but she took a deep breath and made the difficult decision. “We’ll go without the anesthesia. We can’t afford it.”
The vet nodded and asked Amanda to go back to the waiting room while the vet tech brought Poopy into the operating room. Poopy felt sad. She didn’t know Amanda very well, but she was a familiar face.
A few minutes later, Poopy lay on a different cold, metal table. She felt so small and vulnerable. The vet tech had squeezed her out over a bio waste receptacle, re-secured her limbs to the new table, then walked out again. The harsh fluorescent lights overhead cast a painful glare in her remaining eye.
She could hear the muffled sounds of her owner and the vet talking in the other room, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying.
She whimpered softly, her broken leg and injured eye still paining her. But the physical pain was nothing compared to the emotional turmoil she was feeling. Did she deserve this? Was she as worthless as first Sammy and now Johnny had said she was?
Just then, the door to the exam room opened and the vet tech walked in again, carrying a buzzing electric razor. Poopy’s heart sank as she realized what was about to happen.
The vet tech didn’t say a word as she turned on the razor and began to run it over Poopy’s leg. The sound of the buzzing blades filled the room, drowning out Poopy’s soft whimpers. She could feel the vibrations of the razor against her skin, and she closed her eyes tightly, trying to block out the sensation.
As the fur was shaved away, Poopy felt a chill run through her body. She felt exposed and humiliated, and she couldn’t help but wonder if she would ever feel warm or loved again.
The vet tech worked quickly and efficiently, not pausing to offer any comfort or reassurance to Poopy. When she was finished, she turned off the razor and left the room without a word to get the vet. Poopy was left alone once again, her body shaking with cold and sadness.
Part of her once-fluffy leg had been shaved down to the skin, leaving her feeling cold and naked. She couldn’t stop the tears from welling up in her eyes as she thought about everything that had happened the last few days.
The voices in the other room stopped, and Poopy heard a set of footsteps.
Dr. Johnson entered the operating room, her face as uncaring as ever. If she’d had anything left, Poopy would’ve let out scaredy pee-pees. She approached Poopy, who was still trembling on the table.
“Alright, let’s get started,” Dr. Johnson said, snapping on a pair of latex gloves. She picked up a scalpel and began to make an incision on Poopy’s leg. The fluffy let out a soft whimper as she felt the blade cut into her naked flesh.
The vet worked slowly, her movements precise and calculated. She made a series of cuts, exposing the broken bones beneath the skin. Poopy could feel every tug and pull as the vet manipulated her leg, trying to set the bones back into place.
The vet tech stood by, watching with a mixture of discomfort and fascination. She had seen Dr. Johnson perform surgeries without anesthesia before, but it never got any easier to witness.
“There we go,” Dr. Johnson muttered to herself, as she began to screw in a metal plate to hold the bones together. Poopy could feel the screws digging into her flesh, and she let out a scream of pain.
“Quiet, you,” Dr. Johnson snapped, giving Poopy a sharp smack on the nose. The fluffy yelped and fell silent, her body shaking with fear.
Once the leg was set, Dr. Johnson moved on to Poopy’s injured eye. The vet used a pair of metal forceps to pry open Poopy’s swollen eyelid, revealing the mess beneath. As the vet began to work on removing the splinters from Poopy’s injured eye, the fluffy let out a blood-curdling scream that echoed through the sterile room.
Poopy thrashed and writhed on the metal table, her tiny body convulsing with pain as the vet probed deeper into her eye socket. Blood and pus oozed from the wound, staining the light brown fur around her eye a darker shade. The vet’s assistant struggled to keep her head in place, but Poopy’s panic was overwhelming.
“Hold still,” the vet growled, as she continued to poke and prod at the fluffy’s eye. Poopy could feel the tools digging into her sensitive tissue, and she couldn’t help but let out another loud cry of pain.
As the surgery continued, Poopy’s screams grew weaker until they stopped altogether. The vet tech checked her vitals and realized that the fluffy had passed out from the pain.
“She’s out,” the vet tech said, relief evident in her voice.
Dr. Johnson, however, did not share her relief. With Poopy unconscious, the job was no longer anywhere near as enjoyable.
The vet’s hands moved quickly, but without the same precision as before. She no longer took the time to savor each cut and stitch, instead rushing through the procedure as fast as possible. The vet tech watched in horror as the scalpel slipped once, twice, causing more damage than necessary. But Dr. Johnson didn’t care. She just wanted to finish this and move on to her next patient.
As she worked, she muttered to herself under her breath. “Stupid fluffy, passing out on me like that. I was having so much fun…”
The sound of the surgical tools clanging angrily against the metal table filled the room, echoing off the sterile walls. The smell of blood and antiseptic would’ve been overwhelming if Poopy had been conscious.
Dr. Johnson’s movements became more erratic as she grew more frustrated. She yanked on the sutures, pulling them too tight and causing the thread to break. She cursed under her breath, throwing the damaged thread aside and reaching for a new one.
After what felt like an eternity, the surgery was finally over. Dr. Johnson stepped back, admiring her handiwork. Poopy’s eye was only slightly less of a grotesque, mangled mess than when they started, and her leg was bandaged heavily in a splint. The vet tech couldn’t help but feel sick to her stomach at the sight.
“She’ll need to stay here overnight for observation,” Dr. Johnson said to her assistant, breaking the silence. “Make sure she’s given antibiotics. And don’t let her move around too much, we don’t want her to reopen her wounds.”
With that, she left the room, leaving the vet tech alone with Poopy unconscious on the cold, metal table. For now, the brown fluffy was mercifully unaware of the vet’s disappointment and the damage she had caused.
Back in the waiting room, Amanda was nervously tapping her foot as she waited for the vet to finish with Poopy’s surgery. She had never wanted the fluffies in the first place, but Lucy had begged and pleaded for them, and Amanda had eventually given in.
When Poopy had been injured at Lucy’s birthday party, Amanda had been more concerned about the cost of the vet bills than the fluffy’s well-being. She had agreed to bring Poopy to the vet, but only because she hated to see Lucy so upset on her birthday.
As she waited for the vet to finish, Amanda couldn’t help but feel a bit of guilt. She knew she should care more about Poopy, but she just couldn’t bring herself to feel the same level of attachment that Lucy did. She had always been more of a cat person, and the fluffies were so needy and high maintenance.
When Dr. Johnson finally emerged from the operating room, Amanda stood up to meet her. “She’ll need to stay here overnight for observation,” the vet said brusquely. “And she’ll need to come back in a week for a follow-up appointment.”
Amanda nodded, trying to hide her disappointment. She had been hoping that Poopy would be able to come home today, and she didn’t relish the thought of having to find time in her busy schedule for another trip to the vet. “Thank you, doctor,” she said.
Dr. Johnson simply grunted in response and walked away, leaving Amanda to worry about her daughter’s injured fluffy. She sat back down in the waiting room, feeling a mix of guilt and frustration. She sighed deeply as she thought about the upcoming phone call to her daughter waiting anxiously at home.
Meanwhile, Poopy was waking up in an unfamiliar cage. She could feel the metal in her leg, and the stitches in her eye pulled tight with every movement. Her eye was protected under a bandage.
As the night passed, Poopy’s pain only grew worse. She could feel every beat of her heart, every breath she took, as if they were amplified a thousand times. She could hear the distant sounds of the vet’s office, the muffled voices of the staff, and the occasional bark or meow of another animal. But all of that seemed so far away, so distant, compared to the pain that consumed her.
The vet tech came a few times throughout the night to administer medication and check on her, but other than that she was alone.
She tried to cry out, to beg for someone to help her, but her voice was weak and hoarse from her screams during the procedure. She could barely find the energy to move. All she could do was lie there, trembling and whimpering, as the pain threatened to consume her.
And through it all, she couldn’t help but wonder if this was all her fault. If she had been a better fluffy, if she had been prettier or smarter or nicer or more useful, maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe she wouldn’t be lying here, broken and alone, with no one to comfort her.
But those thoughts only made the pain worse, and Poopy soon found herself lost in a haze of agony, unable to think or feel anything beyond the torment of her own body. She didn’t know how much time had passed, or if anyone would ever come to help her. All she knew was that she was in hell, and she didn’t know if she would ever escape.
[Some AI idiocy plus way too much time spent on photo manipulation to put said idiocy over a stock photo. This picture is more for next chapter featuring a jealous Princess, but I thought it was getting a bit long.]
