Alice’s world had been turned upside down.
Just over two weeks ago, she had made a Youtube video, as she often did. In the video, Claire’s fluffy Strawberry, whom she had recently given away at the Fluffy Convention, had talked about a place called “Skettyland”. Somehow, the video had gone viral.
“Stwawbewwy hav PAWTANT news fow AWW fwuffies. Stwawbewwy wan teww Fwuffies 'bout Sketty-Wand. Stwawbewwy wan teww fwuffies about da SNAKE DADDAH, who is da WAWD an PWOFET of Skettywand…”
A popular Youtuber, called The Hugboxer, had seen Alice’s video, which normally would only get about 57 views, and had reposted it. In no time at all, thousands, then hundreds of thousands of people and fluffies had seen her video.
Millions of fluffies and their owners would watch The Hugboxer’s videos, which normally revolved around fluffies, their babies, and other things that wouldn’t be out of place on FluffTV, who endorse and sponsor The Hugboxer to make more videos. But now things had gone too far.
It turned out that there were strict laws about never mentioning Skettiland on TV. Claire had been just a little older than Alice when Cleveland fell to the megaherds. The creation of Skettiland, and the Uni the Unicorn TV show had convinced fluffies all over America that a promised land of endless spaghetti existed in Cleveland Ohio. From that point onwards, it was only a matter of time until megaherds of feral fluffies and escaped domestics descended on the city, in their hundreds, and their thousands, and eventually, in their millions.
It had been a total disaster, causing humans to abandon the city, and a military intervention, which led to wildfires spread by fleeing, burning fluffies, and an underground gas explosion caused by methane from fluffy poop and corpses, which levelled half the city, causing lake Erie to flood into a crater where much of Cleveland had been. Hundreds of humans, and millions of fluffies had died.
Since then, there had been an enforced media blackout of any mention of “Skettiland”, in order to prevent future disasters. Alice’s Youtube video had broken that law.
Police had turned up at Alice’s house, then Claire’s house. They had insisted on talking to Alice, to Claire, their parents, and even their fluffies. Things had been horrible for a couple of days, but eventually the police realised that the girls were not to blame. Claire told them that she had given the red fluffy known as Strawberry away, and didn’t even know where her new owners lived. It was just like Strawberry to shit all over everyone and get away unscathed.
That was not what had turned Alice’s world upside down though. The stress of the video had pushed Alice’s parents to argue again, and finally shout so badly that they decided to get a divorce. In the ensuing argument, Alice’s father had said he regretted ever adopting Alice and her brother Steven in the first place.
And so Alice discovered that she had been adopted.
Claire’s mom said that Alice needed to stay at their house for a few days, while her parents sorted things out. Claire let Alice sleep in her bed that night, along with her fluffies Wendy, Rebecca and Humphrey. Claire let Snowflake and Nutella join them, so as not to feel left out. The girls slept in a fluffpile, and the fluffies did their best to give Alice “bestest huggies” to make her heart hurties go away.
“She’s not my real mom,” Alice said, for about the tenth time that evening.
Claire hugged her cousin. Alice was an adorable girl, too sweet and innocent for the truths of this harsh world. Claire wished that bestest huggies could fix all life’s problems, but some things were too difficult for fluffies to understand.
“She is your real mom, its just that she didn’t give birth to you. It means you have another mother, somewhere else.”
Alice looked up at Claire, so sad she could barely move her head from the pillow. Nutella crawled closer to her, and started to talk.
“Mummah-Awice, Awice nu am Nutewwa-mummah, Mummah-Cwaire nu am Nutewwa-mummah, even Snowfwake nu am Nutewwa-mummah, nu WEAW mummah, but it nu mattew to Nutewwa. Cwaire an Awice an Snowfwake is aww mummahs, because giv huggies an wuv, an pway, an giv nummies. Dat is wat WEAW mummah means. Nu just have babbehs mummah.”
Claire couldn’t have explained it better herself. Real mothers give love, not just life.
“Humpfwee hav wost weaw mummah,” the green fluffy explained, “But Mummah-Awice am da weaw mummah fow Humpfwee naow. Humpfwee wuv da Awice-Mummah, yu am da bestest mummah eva!”
Snowflake, Wendy and Rebecca also told Alice how much they loved her, as did Claire.
Alice hugged the fluffies, and eventually managed to fall into an exhausted sleep, surrounded by the fluffies.
Claire could not sleep though.
She wondered why Alice’s parents had adopted her, and never told her why. Who were Alice’s real parents? Why had they abandoned her? Why would anyone abandon a baby?
Unable to sleep, Claire gently extracted herself from the fluffpile, and reached for her laptop. Navigating to the PETA forum, she logged in, and started to read more of the “The Truth About Fluffies” thread. At least it would distract her from the exhaustion, grief and restlessness of the last few days.
The forum was fascinating. Scientists, world governments and the UN were all aware that fluffies had human DNA. It was not actually a secret. Technically, Chimpanzees, which shared 98% of their DNA with humans, were more closely related to humans than fluffies. The issue was that fluffies had almost all of the 2% of the DNA that distinguished humans from chimps. Genes involved in language, in the “fronto-parietal network” and “superior temporal gyrus”. It meant that fluffies brains were primed to develop language, and that some Alicorn fluffies had the potential to be nearly as intelligent as humans.
Claire delved deeper into the forum. It excited her to discover a secret and hidden world, lurking just beyond the fairy tales and propaganda of her own. There were some things she didn’t want to read about. In Japan, some people were selling fluffies in cans, dispensed from vending machines. In Russia, they had made a machine that fed starving fluffies spaghetti, but only if they pushed their foals into a funnel, from which they would never escape. Claire couldn’t even bring herself to click on the threads about fluffy abuse, she had seen enough on the leaflets.
The human experiments were even more terrifying. This was all officially denied, unlike the human DNA issue. People posting on the forum claimed to have heard from PETA operatives, who were now being hunted by the government, about the HASBIO raids back in 2024 and 2025. There were claims about hospitals wards and pregnant women, giving birth to “designer babies” who had been genetically engineered, using findings from the fluffy breeding experiments. The idea was to create humans with better memory, language and intelligence. The forums claimed that some of these women and babies had escaped, and that genetically engineered children were living amongst us.
Children about Alice’s age.
The next day, Claire attended her first PETA meeting. Mostly it was hipsters and environmentalists, who Claire liked, but realised they had just read the forums like she had. The purple haired woman from the protest were there though, and Claire stayed at the end to speak to her.
“Hey, weren’t you at FluffyCon?” the purple haired woman, who’s name was Angela, asked her.
“Yeah, that was me,” Claire answered.
“Well, what did you think about tonight?”
“I… liked it. And I agreed with everything. But it seems like…” Claire hesitated.
“No, go on, please tell me what you think. We need feedback to learn how to fight for the cause better.” Angela told her.
“Its not that people don’t know about fluffy’s having human DNA, its that they don’t care. They don’t care about Dolphins or Chimps very much either…”
“We have to make people care, that’s what the fight is all about.”
“Yes, but…” Claire started, she sighed and looked Angela in the eye. “Is it really true, about the human experiments? Do some humans have the fluffy genes, for rapid cognitive development?”
“Yes. It is true. I’ve met some people that went on the raids back in '24. I can’t prove it to you, but its true.”
“If it was true, that humans had fluffy DNA, would it be possible to detect… if you had a lab?” Claire asked.
“You don’t need your own lab, you can just post a DNA sample to any sequencing lab and get next day results, its only like $20 now. The problem is getting the DNA sample. We don’t know where any of Hasbio’s children are now.”
Claire swallowed, summoning the bravery that she needed to ask her next question.
“Do you think you could get this hair analysed?” she asked, handing Angela a tangle of blonde strands that she had taken from Alice’s hairbrush.
