“Pwease gib nummies?” The small voice peeped. Harry looked up from his phone, not having actually registered what was being said, only being aware of a shrill voice-sounding noise coming from near his foot.
“What?” He muttered, looking down at it. His eyes landed on a filth-encrusted blob of shaggy hair, which at one time might have been a nice color like purple or yellow, but was now caked with grime and dirt to the point of being a mottled shit-brown with delicate highlights of vomit.
“Pwease gib nummies?” The thing asked again in it’s chirpy, sing-songy voice. “Mama nee’ make miwkie-nummies fow babbehs!” It peeped at him.
“You’re one of those fluffy things, yeah?” Harry asked, happy to have a distraction. He’d been waiting on his bus for ten minutes now, fucking driver was probably stoned again, meaning it wouldn’t be here for another twenty minutes at least, and that’d leave Harry late for work again, and that’d bring the Boss Bitch down on him again…
“Yus! Am mummah!” The fluffy declared proudly, as if propogating it’s invasive degenerate species was some kind of achievement worth celebrating. “Hab big wittah of babbehs! Buh babbehs nee’ miwkie-nummies, an’ mummah nee’ nummie-nummies fow dat…”
Harry looked down at her. He could see five vague shapes shifting around on her back, at first he’d mistaken them for clumps of knotted hair, or potentially infected sores, but upon closer inspection, he realised they were in fact her much-lauded ‘babbehs’.
Just like their mother, any potential coloring they had was buried under layers of dirt, but despite that he could still see how thin and feeble they looked. They must have only been recently born, and had probably never known the joyous feeling of having a full belly.
“You need food? Well, the answer’s obvious, isn’t it?” Harry asked, turning back to his phone. “Eat your damn kids.”
The fluffy mama gasped.
“WHA-A-A?! NU-U-U! Could nebah num on babbehs! Babbehs bestest fing ebah! Nebah num babbehs!” She stated with a decisive snort. Harry looked back down at her.
He had plenty of time to kill waiting on his bus… why the hell not have some fun during it?
“Well…” Harry said, putting his phone away. “You do need food, don’t you?”
“Yus!” Mama replied brightly, apparently expecting Harry to pull a plate of steaming spaghetti out of his pocket that very moment.
“And you have five foals… surely you could eat at least one of them, right?” Harry reasoned. “You would hardly even notice only having four, and I’m sure the remaining ones would appreciate having some milk to drink, wouldn’t they?”
Mama thought about it, her five foals aggressively chirping on her back as their tiny tummies groaned loudly.
“Buh… buh mummah nu can num babbehs… babbehs nu fow numming…” She replied, deep in thought.
“No, but do you see any other food lying around here?” Harry asked, gesturing at the empty (and remarkably clean) street around them both. No random litter to be seen, no stray crusts of bread dropped by careless pigeons, no half-eaten pizzas dropped by drunks…
The street was truly devoid of any food.
Mama heard her foals chirping again, as another loud belly-gurgle sounded from deep within her fluffy back. This wasn’t a decision that could wait forever, she needed to figure it out already.
But, as her own stomach began to rumble, she knew there was only one choice. At the end of the day… food was food.
Reluctantly, mama crouched down until her belly was resting on the cold concrete ground, then tipped herself over until her five babies rolled off of her back, softly tumbling onto the stone slabs.
Mama looked them over, she was sure one of them had been her ‘bestest’ but couldn’t tell which it was anymore, they all looked and smelled the same now. They were all equally thin, all unable to talk, walk or see, and all were constantly chirping, begging for mama to feed them.
So, steeling herself, mama picked out the one closest to her, wrapping her teeth around it’s hind legs and pulling it away from it’s siblings. The taste of the filth-encrusted fluff was enough to make mama feel sick, but that mildly unpleasant taste was nothing compared to what she knew would come next, as she slowly began to sink her blunt teeth into her beloved foal’s rear legs.
The foal’s sporadic, patternless chirping immediately changed to a constant high-pitched squeal as it’s back legs were filled with searing pain, feeling skin tearing and bones cracking as mama bit down harder on her baby’s body-parts.
Mama could hear her baby crying and felt tears welling in her own eyes. She hated having to do it, but there was just no other option, she had to eat something! Couldn’t her baby understand that?! Desperate times called for desperate… uh… something!
Finally the two legs came away in mama’s mouth. She chewed them briefly, then swallowed them. The taste wasn’t awful, but the knowledge that she had wounded her own child was enough to sour anything she ate.
But she couldn’t stop yet.
Her stomach was barely filled by those tiny, twig-like limbs, and more importantly, her foal was thrashing in endless agony, it’s shrieking growing more hoarse as it’s already-weak throat was shredded by the effort.
So mama once again lowered her mouth to the ground and pulled the foal in with her tongue, tasting filth mingling with warm blood as she bit down once more, this time on her foal’s rear.
The biting caused the foal to begin shrieking all over again, thrashing it’s remaining front limbs in a frantic dance of desperation and torment.
Fluffy pony teeth weren’t designed to tear through living beings, it took several gnaws before mama successfully bit through her own foal’s torso, her blunt jaws tearing through muscles and organs as she forced herself, through her tears, to savagely injure her own beloved baby.
She chewed as quickly as she could, forcing herself to swallow (despite the rising urge to vomit) until the foal’s rear half was safely in her belly.
Now all that remained was the front half.
The foal’s shrieking had stopped completely. It was breathing rapidly but quietly, and it had stopped moving otherwise. It had either passed out from the pain, or from the exhaustion of it’s screaming and flailing. It was alive, but only barely, as more and more of it’s still-warm blood seeped out of it’s desecrated half of a body.
Once more, mama opened her mouth, and picked up her baby, biting down on it’s head and chewing furiously, disgusted with herself but knowing she had no other choice.
She had to eat something.
Meanwhile, Harry couldn’t believe it.
Not that the mama was eating her foals, he’d heard plenty of fluffies resorted to cannibalism. No, he was just surprised she’d gone in for it so fast. But then again, he told himself, fluffies were simple creatures, so logic, however simple itself, would still make plenty of sense to them. That, and she must have been truly desperate for food after all.
He watched as she swallowed down the last mouthful of her foal, her face soaked with tears, her throat hitching as she resisted the urge to vomit, looking down at the droplets of already-drying blood that had spattered across the concrete sidewalk.
“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” Harry asked. Mama glanced up at him, but didn’t say a word. She looked like she was almost at the ‘wan die’ stage, but was still somehow holding it together.
“Mummah num… num babbeh…” She murmured, still trying not to vomit. “Nao hab miwkie-nummies fow oddah babbehs…”
“Hm, I’m not sure…” Harry said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “I mean, are you still hungry?”
Mama thought about it, then nodded slowly.
“I thought as much.” Harry said. “I’m sorry, mama, but I don’t think you’ll be able to feed your babies.”
“Wha…?!” Mama gasped.
“At least… not yet. You’ll need to eat a lot more than just that foal in order to start making milk for your babies. I mean, that’s just common sense.”
Mama thought it over. Her stomach did still feel very empty…
Gazing at the remaining four foals with sickness in her heart and sorrow in her soul, mama crouched down once more and began to chew and gnaw at yet another foal. Harry simply continued to watch, still unable to believe that she was desperate enough to devour her own spawn.
A few minutes later, and the second foal had been consumed, leaving only three.
Yet it was still not enough to sate mama’s hunger.
Another foal was eaten. More tears, more shrieking, but it was over soon enough.
And still mama’s belly was not full.
Another foal. More blood, more sickness, but it too was gone before long.
Yet still mama was not satisfied.
At long last, with one more foal’s bloody, chewed corpse slipping down her throat, mama began to feel full again. She had eaten plenty, which was slowly being digested through her body, as her teats began to fill with milk once more.
Finally, she began to smile.
“Mama hab miwkie-nummies!” She said proudly, her face sitll soaked with tears. “Mummah gun’ be gud mummah to babbehs nao! Mummah gun’ gib miwkie-nummies to babbehs!”
“…but where are they?” Harry asked.
Mama looked down at the sidewalk… and froze.
There were no babies left.
Mama’s tiny, half-baked brain worked itself into overdrive as she frantically recounted everything that had happened over the last few minutes.
She had eaten a foal, then another, then another, then one more, and then another… that was two, and two, and one all together (whatever stupid number that was). And as for her foals, well, she had two, and one, and two… which was the same number of foals that she… had… eaten…
“NU-U-U!!!” Mama shrieked, hurling herself to the ground. “BABBEHS! COME BACK!” She wailed, punching her stubby hooves into her belly as she frantically tried to get her chewed-up foals to return to her.
“It’s too late now.” Harry replied, standing up as he noticed the headlights in the distance, indicating his bus was finally coming. “They’re gone forever now, mama. But hey, here’s some good news.” He said.
Mama looked up at him, faint hope glistening in her wet, tear-filled eyes as Harry looked down at her, digging around in his pocket.
“At least you don’t have to worry about feeding your babies anymore.” He said, pulling out a granola bar and unwrapping it to take a bite.
After all, food is food.