Maddie breathed deeply as she stepped off of her skateboard and looked to the warehouse before her. Mom told her not to go near the docks, but desperate times called for desperate measures. She looked at herself in the reflection of a small puddle and frowned, she wasn’t able to go home and change out of her cheer uniform. She pushed her worries down, sixteen was nothing, she’d heard of abusers involving their five-year-olds in fluffy torment.
Picking up her skateboard and fixing her hair, she relaxed herself and made her way in. This warehouse held a secret, it was owned by Hasbio in the 80s. It was where their Ironport division stored the original fluffies, the creepy, discontinued fully robotic ones. Maddie hated Hasbio and what their shitpigs stood for, but she was grateful for one thing: The fact that their product could suffer and die made destroying it very satisfying.
The door opened before she could knock, the one to answer it was a scrawny college-aged man with long, greasy blonde hair. He wore a gray bomber jacket and black jeans. He looked her over and raised an eyebrow, “Shouldn’t you be in school?” he asked semi-sarcastically.
“It’s out,” Maddie responded, “I’m here for the 4:30 job interview.”
“Thirty minutes early, how polite. I have time now, I suppose, follow me.”
Maddie obliged as he held the door open and beckoned her inside. The warehouse’s shelves were stocked completely with crates, each one big enough for, by her guess, five average adult fluffies. Six or seven if their discomfort wasn’t a factor. She guessed it wasn’t, as she saw a few with eight. The fluffies were dirty, malnourished, and each in some state of misery. Some were crying, some were angry, some had blank, jaded expressions. But hopelessness was consistent among all of them.
Maddie laughed, “My kind of fluffy store.”
“Heh, yeah,” remarked the man, “I’ve got one with nice conditions in the city. Some abusers want to buy a happy, healthy fluffy so they can crush its happiness. This warehouse is for folks who don’t give a shit and just want to torture something. I’m Buck, by the way.”
“Maddie,” she replied as he stopped at a door to an office of sorts. He entered and sat at a desk, gesturing to Maddie to sit across from him.
“So, why do you want this job?” he started bluntly.
“Well, my mom lost her job when Hasbio did their whole ‘absorb as many small companies as possible’ stunt, so we both hate fluffies a lot. I’m pretty creative and I just got a good camera for my birthday. So I figured I could make something abusers would enjoy.”
Bucky wrote some things down and looked back at her, “Interesting. And what experience do you have?
Maddie thought for a moment, “I trained our dog to attack fluffies, so now they don’t go near our house. And one time I snuck one into school so the football team could use it as a ball.”
Bucky laughed, “Well, certainly looking good so far. I’d say I’m convinced you can handle the final test. You must inflict severe mental trauma onto a fluffy without physically harming it in any way. And I mean scar it, the thing must be debilitated by the end. Document the entire process, send it to me, and if I’m entertained, you have a job.”
Maddie grinned, “Deal.”
Bucky stood from his desk and pulled out something from under it, a sorry box, handing it to Maddie.
“Your fluffy is in here. Don’t open it until you get home."
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a month and a half later, Bucky had been sent the video this afternoon and was now watching it after work. He pushed play and was met with a black screen with the words “Day One”.
It then showed Maddie, dressed in the same cheer outfit she was in during her interview, likely recorded the moment she got home. She was sat in her bedroom, a homely and tastefully decorated one. She cleared her throat, “Uh, my name is Madelyn Mercer, and this is Orion.”
She held up a smiling and giggling unicorn, a male, an older colt on the cusp of stallion-hood. He had black fluff the color of the midnight sky and a mane that was an Aurora-like mix of deep purple and blue. His eyes were yellow like twin suns.
“What do you like to do for fun, Ori?”
“Owion wub dwawing!” squealed the young male, “Make pwetty staws!”
Maddie looked to the camera, “My project will be based on that. Painting.”
The screen went black again with white text saying “Day Eight”.
It revealed footage of Maddie, now with her hair tied, wearing stained overalls and an old red t-shirt. She had evidently been working. She was in a garage. She stood out of the way and revealed a doghouse that had been put on four table legs, underneath it rested a paper shredder and a fluffy litterbox.
Maddie took the camera and walked around the doghouse with it, revealing it to be outfitted with a swinging door that could be padlocked shut. The rear had custom latches in it which led to food and water bowls. The interior was painted with the same blue skies, rainbows and butterflies as standard Hasbio saferooms. There was a cat bed, a stuffed elephant, and a the same food and water bowl that the exterior latches connected to, as well as a tiny hole that most likely led to the litterbox, and a slit that led to the shedder. But most peculiar were the finger paints, glitter, and enormous pile of copy paper on the corner.
“Orion will be locked in this enclosure. I told him he will be released and sent to Skettiland once he makes a perfect drawing. Once finished with a piece, he will insert it into the slot. Orion believes that the shredder is a monster that judges the quality of his work, and if it’s bad, the lighting in the doghouse will flash red and punish him with five minutes of loud noise. And if it’s sufficient, it will flash green and I’ll take him to Skettiland.”
She took a sheet of paper and slid it through the slit. The shredder did its thing and the doghouse lights flashed red and a hidden speaker emitted ear-splitting screams. Maddie turned it off.
“The light can only flash red. And the shredder shreds everything, obviously.”
The screen went dark and said “Day Nine”
The camera was hidden in a little nook in the doghouse. Orion was set gently inside, he looked towards Maddie and giggled.
“Remember, Ori. You can’t come out until you make another perfect drawing.”
“Hehe! Otay mummah!”
It cut to a happily humming Orion finishing his drawing and dragging it happily to the slot. He pushed it in and waited eagerly. He jumped and screamed when the shredder noise, then began to cry and hide himself in the cat bed when the five minutes of noise began.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A misty-eyed-but-still-confident Orion hummed more quietly as he finished his second drawing. He hesitated before putting it in, “P-Pwease wike my dwawing, nice munstah…Owion wan gu to skettiland wif mummah…”
He flinched and began to cry when the red light and noise started, but didn’t run away.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Fifteen, Painting Forty-Four
A hysteric Orion went between working on a drawing and banging on the door, **”MUMMAH”*, he sobbed, ”MEANIE MUNSTAH NU WIKE OWION’S DWAWINGS, HUU HUU.”
He sniffled a bit before finally working up the courage to put it in, shrieking and collapsing to the floor in tears as the red lights and noise began.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Twenty-Eight, Painting Seventy-Two
A manic Orion idly ate from his bowl before staring fearfully at an empty sheet. He was out of paint and glitter.
“M-mummah…” he wheezed, his voice hoarse from screaming for her, “Nu mowe dwawing juice…”
A timelapse began, Orion simply paced in circles around the doghouse for the five-hours shown. It slowed down when Orion finally stood before the sheet, crying, “O-Owion sowwy mummah…nu wan make bad-poopies…but hav tu…”
He turned his back to the sheet and released, then smeared it about the sheet. He didn’t react when the red lights and noise began.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Thirty-Nine, Painting Two-Hundred-Five
A cackling and wild Orion laughed maniacally as he pushed a piss-and-shit-smeared sheet into the shredder and screamed along with the subsequent noise. He absentmindedly chewed at a bald spot on his shoulder and stared at his dwindling supply of canvases.
—------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Day Forty-Two, Painting Two-Hundred-Nine
A dazed, dead-eyed Orion looked at his last sheet of paper before cackling wildly, “HAHAHAHA, SMAWT MUMMAH! Yu got Owion good! Owion so STOOPI”
He hit his head with his hoof, although a bit harder than most fluffies would be comfortable with, “Munstah nu wan Owion’s dwawings, munstah wan Owion!”
He bit at the last sheet and tore it apart, spitting at the remnants of his rage. Then he approached the slit and sat down. Another timelapse, Orion just sat there for seven hours. Finally, he began to bang his head against the slit. Again, again, again. Eventually his horn dislodged and the shredder caught it, the red lights and noise began. Orion continued, his skull began to crack and his nose began to bleed.
Again, again, again. He fainted for a few seconds, but went back to it the moment he woke up. Eventually, he fainted and never woke up.
The video ended.
—-------------------------------------------------------------
Bucky raised an eyebrow and texted Maddie.
“I said no physical pain.”
“No, you said I couldn’t inflict the pain. Ori did.”
“Consider yourself hired.”
