Mr. Adams’ Guide to Practical Fluffs - Part 5 – Episode 1: PostFluff
by Oculus
Featuring art by Squeakyfriend, Mutagen and KMEB
continued from Part 4, the ESF Tribute, and the April Fools/Halloween Special
“Deaw wif’ it.”
“SKETTIS! SKETTIS! SKETTIS! SKETTIS!
As the three fluffies - a Fluffsplosion, an Inkiepie, and a Fillialcacophony - attack you while chanting the word Sketti, you reach for the door knob, in a desperate attempt to escape. However, in doing so, the door shatters, and collapses into a black hole. As your body encounters spaghetiffication, and numbness overcomes your body, brain, mind and senses. You hear that unearthly word S W A G, as you await your fate…
~
~Mutagen~
~A tribute to Postfluff~
Your eyes are heavy. Your vision is blurred, and you try your best to stand up. You slip, as you land on all fours. You crawl on the ground like a toddler, slowly learning how to walk. Grabbing a nearby object, you hoist yourself up. You regain the feel of your limbs. Your legs and arms feel like they are on pins and needles. You are not sure what is causing this paresthesia, but it hurts like hell. Slowly, you can feel your limbs move normally, and the blurriness gives way to clarity.
You remember being at the ABAP building. At least that is what it was claimed to be. And yet, even though Sam claimed he brought you to ABAP, you feel like what you had seen was the interior of the upper echelons of Hasbio’s darkest secrets. And even then, you cannot tell if any of it was real. The elemental fluffies looked like nothing that should be scientifically possible and felt more like something out of a fantasy novel or an RPG. Hell, they had a dreamlike quality to them. But that would be weird, because, if that was a dream, then are you waking up from another dream? Just how far does this rabbit hole go?
The city in ruins (Artist:Mutagen)
Surveying the landscape though, you are reminded of the deepest dream layer depicted in the movie Inception. An entire city in ruins.
“My god.”
You gasp aloud. Did fluffies do all this? It seems improbable - fluffies are not as strong, and even the mass feral herds that live in the wild are incapable of this level of damage. As you keep looking, you can still see the signs of damage from explosives, not something that fluffies can do. Craters mark the roads around you, and what city had been here, if any, has long been abandoned, perhaps by the result of the bombing, a clear sign of war.
But what war could there have been? You don’t remember any mention of a war yesterday. Then you remember that you just got sucked into a black hole.
You suspect that the fluffies have whisked you to an alternate timeline. It sounds like fresh bullshit to any normal person, but after what you have encountered in the past few months. it wasn’t improbable. But you need proof. You need clues. This is a city, which means, even if it had been deserted, and shelled out by bombing, there had to be some kind of writing, some sort of belonging, anything, that indicated a human presence beyond just the remains of buildings. But you also need to be careful.
You take a quick moment to examine yourself. You’re not naked, thank god. You’re wearing the clothes you had worn from the previous encounter. Okay. So you still have your wallet, though you doubt your wallet and ID will be of relevance here. You’re not sure what hostiles or horrors you might encounter in this wasteland, so you need a weapon of some kind.
You are standing on the concrete floor of a building whose walls must have been damaged by the bombs. Aside from the craters, you can see the damaged remains of a television and a sofa. This had to be a house at one time. You keep walking, and slowly, you realize that vague “outlines” on the floor indicate the previous presence of walls. And if you’re hunch is right…
Yes, you’ve reached what was the kitchen! You can see the remnants of a pipeline that suggest a sink had been here. Looking through a pile of rubble, you find the first thing that you might need. A knife. Better yet, a set of knives, some sheathed. Keeping one knife in its wooden sheath, you place it in your pocket, while you take a second one to arm yourself. You’re going to need a bigger weapon later, but for now, this is your first weapon.
As you survey the concrete floor, you try to gauge what the occupants of this house may have been like. But no reading material seems to have remained - it may have gotten burnt up or buried. You however, seen the remains of an LCD watch, and an LCD calculator. Technology from the 80s at least. It gives you a rough idea of the time period, but its not enough. You may need to move on from here if you’re going to find out anything.
~
After some walking, you see the shelled remains of a building with a pile of debris. A few walls remain. You see a pile of broken gas masks near you. Still not a definite clue.
But wait, the walls seem to have posters on them. As you carefully study the chiselled figures of soldiers and workers, you realize that what you are staring at, in all its Cyrillic glory, is Soviet Propaganda.
“Russians, huh? Damn fluffies.”
So the fluffies brought you to a war-torn Russian city. Maybe the fluffies brought you to the Second World War? But nearby, there seems to be signs of technology from the 80s. A broken LCD screen. Damaged computers. If there had been a war in a Russian city, it would have been one in the 80s, and this was clearly not the case
An alternate timeline, you bemused. Sam had told you that he encountered alternate dimensions, and you had a dream of the parallel timeline where the roles of the humans and fluffies had been switched with each other. Sam said that dream was really just an experience of a parallel universe, maybe it was the case here? ( >>25348 >>25370 >>25398 )
But you need more clues. What could have caused this war? As you rummage through the debris to see if you can find more clues, you hear a whirling sound.
You are on edge. Hiding behind a pile of debris, you clench your knife, as you turn around to see what made the sound. Nothing. You slowly crawl. Whatever hostility was here, you feel like you may never return home at this point. You put on a brave face, and stand up, shouting, “Come at me!”
“Huwwo! Nyu fwen?”
Its a fluffy. A flying fluffy. Not a pegasus though. Through some appendage at the back of its body, it is whirring around like a helicopter, hovering around you.
“Sketties? Fwen have sketties? Wan be nyu daddeh?”
The fluffy looks like the Type 2s that Sam told you about. It does resemble a Gowdie fluff like Mauve. However, through the use of the appendage where its ‘tail’ should be, it has attained an unnatural form of helicopter flight. You try to smile, as you calmly explain to the fluffy.
“Sorry fwuff, but daddeh has no spaghetti.”
“Aw, otay.”
The helicopter fluffy whizzes by you. You think a bit. Fluffies are a fairly modern invention, having been made in the 21st century by Hasbio. Yet a lot of the technology in the city, so far, has the trappings of 80s technology, way before fluffies had been created. As you keep thinking, you head the unmistakable sound of another fluffy, saying “Excuse fwuff, kind mistah.”
The various mutant fluffies of the Postfluff (Artist:Mutagen)
You turn around, and to your shock, towering over you is fluffy. It has two, very long, human-ish legs. As you sheepishly move aside, the fluffy continues about its business. First a helicopter fluffy, now a giant fluffy. You think a bit. What if this was a world where the Cold War never ended, and a nuclear war did break out? It would explain the bombings and the archaic technology. The radiation may also explain the mutations that these fluffies are now experiencing. But fluffies are an American invention - even if they had been introduced to Russia, it wouldn’t have happened during the Communist regime. It is just mind boggling.
From the pile of masks you saw earlier, you managed to find one that was not broken and still in good issue. Fearing the radiation, you decided to wear it. Upon doing so, you start searching the city for food. Killing a fluffy seemed like an option, but you can’t bring yourself to harm one. Luckily, after much scrounging, you managed to find the one thing that will keep you satiated - a tin of baked beans. The baked beans had been near the remnants of a fire, along with a half-eaten sausage and bread. You could tell it was fairly fresh, as if somebody had been eating them, but left them behind. Whoever it was, they didn’t seem to come back after a while. Still, you left behind some food, in the hopes that whoever it belonged to would at least have some remnants of their meal to return to. Keeping the sausage in your pocket, you ate a portion of your beans. You got to ration out the food.
~
It is night time. You had been walking about the city, wandering through the various debris and shelled out houses. You wish you had a Geiger counter - there is definite signs that there was a nuclear war here, based on the fluffy mutations you have seen, and you are certain that you have encounters at least some radiation exposure. On the bright side though you don’t feel ill, yet. Find a house that had a little of its roof left, you take shelter there, and lay upon the floor.
As your eyes close, you enter the mental void of sleep. In the murkiness and depth of the dream state, the images slowly form, creating that phase of rapid eye movement that we call “dream”. However, this dream is unusual. The lines slowly form until they come together to form the figure of a fluffy. And then you realize that its Joseph, the Squeakyfriend.
"Hewwo!
Am Test!"
~
You wake up. You remember that Joseph was the one who opened the box and released the Filialcacophony that started this whole mess. Well, at least that is how you understood it - nothing that happened in the previous encounter made any fucking sense. But you dwell on the fact that Joseph had entered your dream, the way the Fillialcacophony had done so. What is Joseph trying to achieve? What is he up to?
As you are thinking heavily on this, a terror lights up your ears.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEE”
The fuck was that? You are on high alert. As you ready your knife, you hear the sound of a struggle.
“Of just once. LETTINGS ME SLEEP!”
It is not in Fluffspeak. And the accent was of a strong, heavy Russian influence. Whoever it was, one thing is clear. There is human life! But he’s in danger. Intending to investigate the source of the commotion, you slowly crawl toward the area where you hear the current turmoil.
“Back! Abominations Back!”
The Russian is clad with a gas mask, Ushanka, and a cape. Wielding a crowbar, he is fending off against some form of nightmare creature. The creatures are brown have six legs, and possess very, very sharp teeth. The Russian, however, has been having the upper hand, and has managed to kill two of them, as well as driven the rest away.
All seems good at first. But one monster is behind the Russian, and you noticed that it is creeping on him, ready to strike.
“LOOK OUT!”
You don’t know who said that, but you don’t care. Before the Russian can react, you run up, your knife ready.
The monster leaps onto the Russian’s back. However, with all your might, you grab the monster with both hands. As the Russian tries to get the monster off of him, you tug at the monster until it comes off, following which you proceed to throw the monster onto the ground. The monster is lying on its back, and wiggles its legs, attempting to force itself back into a more mobile position. Before it can do so, you plunge your knife deep into the creatures heart area.
“SCREEEEEEEEEEE”
The creature writhes loudly as you twist the knife. Its cries go softer. And then, it is no more.
“You saved my friend!"
You are taken aback. Not by the fact that you had managed to kill a monster by yourself, but by the fact that you’re talking to a fluffy who is NOT speaking in fluffspeak. He is a grey unicorn and has a body similar to the mutated fluffies you saw earlier. However, he seems perfectly normal, same for his perfect command of English.
“You, you talk normal! For a fluffy that is.”
“I get that a lot. You can call me Greg.”
Greg (Artist: Mutagen)
~
A campfire has started. Over a few hours, you spend some time talking to Greg and the Russian, and you come to learn about the world you have entered. About how, in this timeline, the Cuban Missile Crisis did not have a peaceful resolution, and that a nuclear war did break out.
“Thats Fucking insane!”
“Nyet. Is politics.”
It still doesn’t explain the fluffies though. Not even Greg seems to know about his origins.
“I lived my whole life in a dumpster. I didn’t choose to be able to speak like this, it just ‘happened’. And don’t ask me where me or my kind came from.”
You remember that in the Fallout games, a fairly retro-futuristic America got involved in a nuclear war with communist countries. Perhaps that was a similar situation here, and could explain how fluffies, a symbol of American corporate influence, could have made their way to the communist state of the USSR. But there hasn’t been enough evidence to suggest that you are in something like the Fallout universe.
After a while, both Greg and you fall asleep. The Russian chooses to stay awake, as the three of you have worked out a schedule on who acts as guard while the others rest.
~
It has been about two days.
The Russian and Greg has given you a backstory of their lives, as well as their current goal: find the Metro. Though the city of Stalingrad has fallen, word is that the survivors have mostly retreated to an underground Metro that connects the cities of Russia.
The Russian himself is still unsure where the fluffies themselves come from. Although he said earlier they are the result of “those capitalist pigs”, he also talks about the existence of a Zone of Exclusion, where there was an alien invasion.
“Aliens?”
“Da. Land of much wonder. Alien leave artefact like American leave picnic at roadside!”
You had previously thought the fluffies themselves came from America, but given their existence as a 21st century invention, and their rather anachronistic placement in an alternate 1980s where the Cuban Missile Crisis caused a nuclear war, it seems more likely that this was a temporal invasion from another reality. After all, if Sam himself had used the fluffies to cross dimensions and timelines, it is plausible that many people would have done it before you, perhaps even large scale.
But it begs the question - who or what would be responsible for whisking away this many fluffies to this timeline?
~
On the fourth day, you had another disturbing dream.
Untitled (Artist:KMEB)
A fluffy had appeared to you in your sleep again. But it is not Joseph. You experience a rather vivid dream of a fluffy brood mill, where young foals are taken away from their mothers, only to be sold. It is a dream. It should be a dream. Yet it felt real. While playing the role of the breeder removing the foals, you kept hitting and pinching yourself. Wondering how you got yourself into your position, you tried very hard to break out of it, but it felt like you were strapped to a tram ride, a mind experiencing and feeling a body that it couldn’t control.
As you try your best to scream, you notice that, while you could self-harm your body, you cannot utter any other new words in the body you inhabited, only the preprogammed lines.
You stand before the customer. And you tell him.
“Here’s the KMEB foal you ordered.”
“Thanks! My daughter always wanted a KMEB!”
In the background, you can hear the fluffy mare crying. You’re against this. You’re against the sale of foals, taken away forcibly from their mothers. Or at least done in a manner that was against their consent, unlike how the breeders do it nowadays.
“STOP THIS!!!”
You are back in the ruins of Stalingrad. The Russian is fast asleep, having dowsed two bottles of vodka. Greg, who is currently doing the watch stares at you, as he asks
“The fucks wrong with you?”
~
It has been two weeks now.
You’re getting used to the life a stalker. Not as in an obsessive psychopath determined to haunt the every waking moment of a victim, but in the traditional meaning of the word, as a hunter of game. You learn from the Russian about stalkers, the brave men (and women) who braved the Zone, and in this case, the post-apocalypse. Some stalkers are altruistic, like the rangers, who dedicate their lives to protecting the little pockets of Humanity who endure and find Hope in the man-made Hell. Others risk their lives in the Zone to understand the unnatural surroundings, for the betterment of mankind. Some are mercenary, and hunt for the artifacts or unusual things, purely for profit. And there’s always a bandit, the traditionally evil stalker out to rob, trespass and kill needlessly.
In the Russian’s case, he’s a survivalist, but the Metro poses the best chance he has for survival, especially for Greg. For the moment, getting to that Metro, wherever it is, is the best interests for all three of you. For a few days, the Russian has trained you in the use of your knife, and eventually, you found your own crowbar. It seems like you’ll never get back home now. But maybe that’s how it is.
You will miss Sam. You will miss your family. You will miss the life you once had.
But for now, you really don’t have a choice.
~
It is daytime. It has been a month since you have been whisked away from your own reality to whatever this reality is you are living in now.
The Russian and you have found house that has been mostly undamaged by the war. It was Greg who discovered it during reconnaissance. Aside from his good understanding of English and intelligence, Greg’s small size makes him a good scouting unit, much to his chagrin. He is fully aware that the Russian also sees him as slightly expendable.
Nevertheless, Greg has found the house to be mostly clear. The Russian and you are currently checking out the house to find food, and hopefully, clues. The Russian has gone into the kitchen to raid what remains of the long-deactivated refrigerator. Most of the food has spoiled, but there are few things to scrounge. As you look through the rooms, you find one room that has a locked door. Grabbing the knob, you keep trying to twist it. Using your feet, you try to kick down the door. You’re not doing much damage. Not too far from you, Greg is looking through some Russian magazines.
However, while perusing the periodicals, he seems to have found something.
"GUYS! COME HERE!!
I THINK I KNOW WHERE THE METRO IS!!"
“Oh really?”
Just as you say this, the door opens in front of you. Because you had been trying to kick the door, you lose your balance. But there’s another problem. In front of you is not a room.
Its the void.
“OH SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT”
As you tumble down the void, you can hear Greg and the Russian calling out for you.
“COMRADE!”
“OH FUCK!”
The image of the Russian and Greg keeps getting fainter, and fainter, as you keep falling into the void…
~
You keep falling through the void. You close your eyes. Falling indicates the presence of gravity, and while it is possible that you could be falling in a bottomless pit, forever trapped in unending terminal velocity, it is also possible you may be falling towards a definitive end. Both prospects do not seem appealing to you, and you would rather not bare witness to it.
Suddenly, you’re starting to slow down. You can feel the velocity of your falling body diminishing, until you are floating.
You open your eyes. You are a few centimetres above a kind of floor. Though it is dark, the void has diminished until you can see the floor before you, your body hovering above it. You reach out your arms to touch the floor, and you slowly feel gravity acclimating to your hand. You then move your feet onto the floor, until you feel like you are in a push-up position. You slowly raise yourself up, until you’re standing.
There is a vague light, but you’re not sure where its coming from.
Pap!
And very quickly, a light comes out, a spotlight from the heavens. The light shines upon a man seated in a rocking chair. He is an elderly man, way past his prime. His face and hands are covered in wrinkles, his hair completely white. Wearing a suit, he is also covered in a shawl, perhaps to keep himself warm. In his lap, you can see a green fluffy, not quite like others you’ve seen before.
“Sorry for that translocation, but I had to take you away from that timeline for a while.”
You recognize the voice, as you cry out in full emotion, “SAM!”
However, Mr Adams holds up his hand. He is happy to see you. But at the same time, his eyes betray a mildly bittersweet feeling.
“My dearest friend. It really is good to see you after so long.”
“Have I really been gone that long?” you ask, full of fear. Was this a situation where you return home, only to find a friend aged even further?
“I am Samuel Adams, but not the Samuel Adams you know.”
You can already guess what he means
“I take it you met the other Sam before?”
“I have. A few times in fact.”
Interesting, you think. You feel tempted to ask the next question, but this Sam seems to be able to read your mind.
“I’m afraid you can’t meet your counterpart at this time. In fact, we are the only ones in this mode of reality, in this plane I have created.”
“Plane of reality? Hang on a minute, what place is this?"
You look around the unending void, as you try to make sense of the thing that you encountered on April Fools Day.
“Reality is a weird thing to understand. It is like, moving in and out of dream. There are certain chemicals that prevent your brain from confusing the dream you experience, with reality. The same could be said of the differences between the parallel realities - the reality that you come from, or the ones you enter, will always be real, but there needs to be some kind of state that prevents the different realities from merging or colliding with each other. This void we’re experiencing serves as that.”
“That’s all very riveting, but why are you telling me this? And what do you want of me?”
The elderly Sam smiles, as he explains, “I don’t want anything of you. In fact, the person who is looking for you is the Sam you know, my much younger counterpart. As of this moment, he is working various measures to find you. However, it is very difficult for him to do so. It is one thing to achieve teleportation, it is another to shift into another plane of existence.”
“So why aren’t you helping him?”
“I am, actually. Being in this location will make it easier for him to find you. But he will need some time. And, I guess that time will allow me to introduce you to some aspects of Hasbio that you are not familiar with.”
As he stands up, you notice that he has a badge on his right collar. It is the Hasbio logo. Startled, you cry out, “Y-you’re from Hasbio! Does that mea-”
“No. My younger counterpart is nothing like me. If anything, he’s far more of a genuine and honest soul than I will ever be. A bit too horny, but everyone has a weakness.”
“Does that mean you are his contact in Hasbio?”
“No,” he shakes his head, as he explains, “I did show him some of the inner workings of Hasbio, but most of what he knows, he found out through his own research. The only thing I could show him were the darker and more personal aspects of Hasbio, speaking as a man who was involved with it from the start.”
“The start?”
“Fluffies have a long history. Your own Sam will tell you that. The history will differ from each reality, but for the one that matters to both of us, there are some people that existed in both timelines, and achieved similar results.”
“Similar results?”
“Let me show you.”
He places his hand on your shoulder. You feel a slight dizziness. You stumble.
“What did you do to me?”
“This will take a moment.”
As you fall again into sleepiness, and knowing that this man is not the same genuine friend as the Sam you know, you say, rather meaningfully, “Fuck you, Sam.”
~
You cannot believe what you are seeing
An actual fluffy city! (Artist:KMEB)
An actual fluffy city! You are baffled by how fluffies were capable of building something far beyond cardboard boxes, but, they’ve done so here! You see the largest and most well-developed structure is a building that has a sign which reads “hospitul”. It is made from cardboard, milk crates, plywood, and plastic tarps. Similar crates have been used to create water towers.
“Wow… seetee…”
Your voice sounds like a fluffy. You look at your hands, and they are now hooves.
“Oh poopies.”
~
You’ve spent a good hour exploring the city. And you’ve taken in the many sights. One of the things that has caught your attention is the agricultural area, where the fluffies have developed a complex farming system that allows them to harvest grass, berries and dandelions.( >>51689 )
The fluffy city seems to be a mix of three different types of fluffies, all a variation of the Type 1 fluffy that Sam told you about before, but with a few minor differences. You want to keep gawking an appreciate it fur-
“Enjoying what you’re seeing?”
You can feel Sam’s hand on your shoulder. He then whispers in to your ‘ear’.
“Would you like to stop now?”
“Yes please.”
Sam lifts the VR headset away from you.
“Was none of that real? Did it never happen”
“No, it was very real. It did happen The concept of a fluffy society, whether its a Fluffytown, or a Fluffy City, is not new. Sometimes, it is man-made, and fluffies are placed through it, often for insidious reasons. The more interesting times, though, are when the fluffies built it for themselves.”
You are baffled though, as you question that incredulous notion. “Just how can fluffies be able to build a city? I mean, I love fluffies, but they seem to act a little dumb sometimes. No, more then that. They’re kind of retarded if you don’t raise them properly.”
The elder Mr Adams sighs.
“I don’t think we’ll ever fully understand what we had created at Hasbio. Some of the executives wanted to stick to calling them toys, but the amount of meddling that we had done with the natural order has resulted in the creation of a chimera that we just don’t understand. It is a fact that has affected fluffy enthusiasts like the Sam you know, as well as geneticists such as myself. Its why many people leave Hasbio, and in the process, stop working on the breeds they created.”
Sam snaps his fingers, and a screen appears behind him.
Excerpt from Mutagen’s famous cat comic (Artist:Mutagen)
The screen narrates the story of a pregnant fluffy dam of the Mutagen breed. A single parent, the dam gives birth to two foals. However, it comes across an abandoned newborn kitten. The dam takes the kitten into her brood, and raises it along with her children. At one time, the dam risks her lvies to protect her charges from some vicious rats. She survives, but at the loss of her eye. Nevertheless, her family thrives, with the cat she raised serving as the guardian of her family. In time, her children find their own special friends, and even the cat finds a mate, resulting in a herd with its own feline brethren. The dam lives to a ripe old age and dies, the matriarch of a strong feral of fluffy-feline bonding. ( >>30711 )
“That’s beautiful.”
"If it had been any other mare, she would have just abandoned the kitten. But there’s a level of empathy and cognition that fluffies slowly have been able to develop. What we saw as toys ended up slowly developing an intelligence that we tried to limit, but couldn’t keep in check. The few cities that existed espouse this.
The fluffy that you saw was of the Mutagen breed. They inhabit the alternate Stalingrad you just saw, and they were quite a popular breed in both your reality, as well as mine. They were named after a well-known engineer, who decided to take on the name of Mutagen."
This is the first time you have heard of the name Mutagen.
“What happened to him?”
"He moved on. He lost interest in fluffies, and over time,d eveloped a relationship with a fellow creator at Hasbio. The two left Hasbio and amicable terms, and are now on to better things. They had to change their name though, as they don’t want their past lives to be associated with Hasbio.” ( >>33756 )
“I see.”
“They’re not the only ones though."