Part Five
A7wje8JhwIowl028…for the ten millionth time Bjorn cursed his past self. Well, that wasn’t exactly fair, was it? The needlessly long password for the euthanasia console was intentional, after all. Not for security, of course. Just to give him plenty of time to be absolutely sure.
Bjorn was terrified of the idea of this kind of thing becoming automatic. Sure, he killed a lot of fluffies. Hell, there was probably a good-sized swimming pool’s worth of fluffy blood on his hands. But he wanted to be mindful about it. It couldn’t be something done purely out of habit, could never be something he let become habit. If that meant making it more difficult for himself than it needed to be, then that was a small price to pay.
He killed when it was necessary, whether that be to support him and his own fluffies or because all other options had run out for the poor bastards under his care. He had enough understanding of human nature to understand that, eventually, there would be a day when he was too tired or too distracted and would make whatever call got the job done fastest. So he did what he had to in order to ensure that ending a life would never be the option that got the job done fastest.
That being said, it was a pain in the ass entering this password every damn time.
Anne opened her eyes, which was strange. Wasn’t she supposed to be forever-sleepies? Did you still have eyes, wherever you went? Maybe so. Still, that raised an alarming question, which was answered as soon as she stood. Her back legs were still in agony.
There wasn’t much around her, just a little island of grass in the concrete and asphalt that made up the city she called…had called home. How had she gotten here? Was this really what forever-sleepies was like?
If so, then the whole thing had been a waste of her time. She still hurt. She still felt all the grief and sorrow and violation. Worse, her family wasn’t even here! It would have been bearable if they’d been here! But she was alone, again.
Anne took a few steps, wincing each time. She remembered this place! This was the place where once, in the barely-recalled mist of the past, a nice lady had given them sketties! Of course, Anne had been too young to eat any, but she still remembered the sketti-milkies being so, so delicious. This had been possibly the happiest day of her short life. So long before before…
Best not to think about that. This was a happy moment, so Anne wanted to protect it. She had so few happy moments she could remember. Mostly it was cold, damp, hunger, and fear, like a night sky with the stars of happy and loving moments barely visible.
But it wasn’t the same, now. Before, she’d had mummah and daddeh and her siblings, they’d romped in the grass and laughed and had fun. Daddeh hadn’t had to leave to find nummies, the only time Anne could remember him playing with them. Rain, sun, or storm, he’d always been on the hunt for more nummies, fighting a war he couldn’t win against the shortening days and the babbeh’s growing appetites.
She tried running around the grass, tried to pretend her leggies didn’t hurt, tried to recapture the magic. Nothing. She began to realize that there was nothing special about this place. That it hadn’t been the moment, but who she’d shared it with. She slumped.
“Wai am Anne awone eben in fowebah-sweepies?” she asked, getting no reply.
Sandy snapped out of her daze, realizing she was laying on something warm. Her vision swam as she looked up, seeing daddeh’s blurry face looking down at her. Her head throbbed. She tried to roll to her feet, but slumped down when the blood rushed to her head and the throbbing grew into a blinding lance of agony.
“What happened?” daddeh asked.
Sandy didn’t want to answer. He knew. He had to know. How else would she have gotten hurt like she had? “Sandy am sowwy,” she murmured.
“I was only gone a few hours,” daddeh said, and she felt overwhelming regret at the pain in his voice.
“Sowwy.” she repeated, not knowing what to say.
“Why?”
“Nu wan die!” she yelped. “Nu wan die, bu’…” she trailed off.
“Nu wan die bu’ huwties nu gu 'way! Huuhuuhuu! Am aww Sandy’s fauwt! Sandy am bad babbeh! Daddeh nu wub Sandy! Sandy am dummeh stoopy ugwy munstah babbeh! Famiwy aww gu fowebah-sweepies fow Sandy be bad babbeh!”
“Christ,” daddeh muttered. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you blamed yourself.” His eyes widened in realization. “That’s why you asked me why your…Sandy, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know you blamed yourself!”
Wayne felt like an idiot. No wonder the filly had asked him why her family had died! No wonder she’d reacted so poorly when he said there wasn’t a reason! She’d been practically begging for something to assuage the survivor’s guilt and he’d reinforced the idea that nothing else was to blame but her.
He’d already felt like a piece of shit the entire time he’d rushed her to the clinic, the entire agonizing waiting, the whole drive home. Now he felt like an insensitive prick, too. It wasn’t as if he didn’t understand the concept of survivor’s guilt, but it’d never occurred to him that it might apply to fluffies.
Sandy felt like the worst babbeh ever. She did nothing but hurt people. It was her fault nobody loved her. It was her fault her family was gone. Now she’d hurt daddeh, too.
“Daddeh, pwease nu weabe Sandy,” she pleaded. Of course, she deserved to be left all alone. She deserved the pain and the grief. Deserved to sit alone in the horrible silence with nothing but her own self-loathing.
“I won’t, I promise.”
“Sandy am sowwy fow be bad babbeh. Am sowwy fow gib chiwpy-babbehs scawdies. Am sowwy fow sae hatchu. Sandy am wowtest babbeh ebah.”
“No!” daddeh snapped, and she flinched. “Listen, I should have told you this earlier. It wasn’t your fault. None of it. It’s not your fault if you’re hurting too much to take care of the other foals. It wasn’t your fault what happened to your family. Do you understand?”
“Tank 'ou, daddeh.”
“Sandy?”
“'es?”
“You said you were okay when I said I was leaving to go to work. What happened?”
“Sandy wewe otay,” she tried to explain. “Am otay wen daddeh am wif Sandy. Bu’ wen Sandy am aww awone fow su wong, heawt-huwties an’ bad-finkies git wowse.”
“But you’re fine sleeping alone.”
“Nu…nu am otay,” she forced herself to admit. “Bad-finkies an’ scawy sweepy-time-pictuhs. Bu’ if daddeh am wif Sandy fow bwite-times, Sandy feew bettah.”
“Bu’ if daddeh am gu 'way fow bwite-times tuu den Sandy onwy hab bad-finkies!” she wailed. “Nuffin’ bu’ huwties an’ saddies! Jus’ wan’ huwties to stahp! Nu wan die! Nu wan be awone! Nu wan be bad babbeh!”
Anne sat on the island of grass and stared at nothing. What was she doing here? Without her family, this place didn’t mean anything. No. This place had never meant anything to begin with. What had mattered was the who, not the where or when.
Even if she came back here, it wouldn’t change anything. There was nothing here for her anymore. It was useless if she was alone. It was time to move on.
She got to her hooves unsteadily and walked off, stepping off the edge of the island of grass. Then, nothing.
She jerked awake, back in the strange little box where the nice mister had put her, had told her she would go forever-sleepies. How? She’d gone forever-sleepies! You didn’t come back from that! It was for forever! If it wasn’t, it’d just be regular sleepies!
She shuddered. The time she’d had forever-sleepies was foggy, like a sleepy-time-picture, but she remembered the brief, cold touch of oblivion too well. The moment of ceasing, of being nothing. How could she remember that? Her mind slid over the memory like a bead of dew on a blade of grass.
She was still in the forever-sleepies box! If she stayed here she’d go forever-sleepies again! Whatever miracle had brought her back, she doubted it’d happen again. If she didn’t get out, get out now, she’d be trapped in oblivion forever. Panic consumed her, giving her the strength to launch herself towards the no-see wall of the box and pound on it frantically.
She had to get out.
She had to get out.
She had to get out.
Bjorn returned to the departure room with the gas cylinder. Today was just not his day. Forcing himself to hit the button, to overcome his personal investment in Anne’s survival and give the filly what she wanted, had been hard enough. Only to realize he’d taken the cylinder out to refill it on Friday and forgotten to put it back.
At least the filly had taken it really well, all things considered. Most non-catatonic fluffies, even if they’d asked for him to euthanize them, panicked when the time came. When it suddenly went from conceptual to real. He couldn’t blame them, and usually the experience was enough to make them give life a second chance.
No such luck with Anne. The filly had just laid down and gone to sleep as soon as she’d been placed in the chamber. It was equal parts depressing and badass. Bjorn knew he would never look death in the eye with that attitude.
He glanced over at the sleeping filly, surprised when she lurched towards the wall of the chamber with speed he never would have guessed a fluffy could manage, particularly one with two injured legs. She began tapping on the plexiglass while shouting something muffled and staring at him. Huh.
He popped the lid open and Anne’s words went from muffled noises to a string of nearly incoherent pleas. He couldn’t understand ninety percent of it, but the phrase “nu wan gu fowebah-sweepies 'gain” repeated over and over.
He lifted the panicked filly out of the chamber, making comforting noises. So, she’d “died.” Well, if that’s what she thought and it gave her the will to give living another shot, he’d accept it.
Probably best not to let her know it’d all been placebo effect, though.
Part Seven
good story but I give up I won’t read any more it’s too much Hugboxer, but I had a lot of doubts regarding the costs because in numbers it wouldn’t make sense for a fumigator to earn enough money for so much shitrat but I won’t discuss anything xD
Dude… you’ve got some writing chops. I’m fully invested. Honestly pt. 5 and 6 are feeling more sad-box at the moment (in the best/worst way) than hug. I mean there’s some real existential crisis here !
Your fluffies are more anthropomorphised than the usual in their internal monologue. I’ve liked the conceit of having their thoughts be coherent and represented by proper English than fluffspeak before, but Anne and Sandy are speaking to some real relatable anxiety and panic and … well, needing psychiatric medication, very likely. I don’t know how much the SSRI I’m on keeps me away from the edge, but I still get there sometimes. I look forward to a huggy ending of course but I’m savoring the darkness here - I’m trying to read Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure and goddamn, it is some deep dark shit about terrible things happening to everyone in sight. It’s like tragedy porn. Dickens could be like that, too. Thing is, if your tragedians are fuzzy-wuzzy childrens toys that talk like babies, they’ve got quite a bit more empathy-value than 19th century working class schlemiels.
Seriously the dew on grass analogy astonished me. That whole paragraph touched off a lot of thoughts. I’ve thought a lot about how or if we can remember unconsciousness. Awareness is so slippery in altered states, like Anne was in (sort of, placebo gas??) - I remember sleep as little blips of wakefulness, just a few seconds where toss and turn, adjust the blankets, get up to pee, etc. The rest ofthe hours, I might as well have been literally dead. When I’ve been given a general anaesthetic and wake up in the recovery room, of course, I’m still floating on a soft cloud of propafol, but it’s a blackout. I remember the gas, counting down from 10, then… there’s not even a gap. When I’ve answered by daughter’s questions about death (we’ve lost two cats in the past month, really tore her up), the only truth I can offer is I know the one that was sick is no longer in any pain. That’s all I got for her. That’s not a lot. Bjorn’s answer to Anne was … pretty close, to what I expressed not in so many words.
Sleepy-time-pictures, as exist in canon, do indicate a level of sentience because a mind is bored. A purely programmed biotoy would have no use for dreams, no subroutine. A lizard might dream of sidestepping a snake to “rehearse” the move and connect the neurons that, who knows, might one day fire and produce the life-saving dodge. The only “emotional” content there is an in-dream analogue of adrenaline. The lizard’s legs kick in its sleep. I don’t think lizards are going to dream of sadness or loneliness. A fluff though - I mean, the sentience is an emergent property, I do believe that. It’s not a comforting thought. Anne waking up and survival instinct kicking in is full lizard brain though.
Okay, Chapter 7 come on with it
This is really good. Thank you for sharing