Littlest Pet Shop: Space Monkey: Part 01/02

Littlest Pet Shop

Space Monkey

Part I

She awoke with a jolt, her body numb against the cold, hard floor, and her heavy, bloodshot eyes shooting wide open. All she could see was a fuzzy grey blur. It would take a moment for her vision to return to normal, but it did not matter. She was engulfed in darkness as always, what did it matter if she could see it or not?

The numbness in her body went away first. The hard and icy metal surface she was sprawled against made her shiver, goose pimples forming all over her skin and her pink fur stand up on end. A horrible ache persisted within her skull, as if a long, sharp piece of metal was shoved in between her eyes, and her body was wracked with dozens of sore spots – large bruises. Something was tied tight around her ankle, pinching her tender skin; that would be her id tag. Next, her sight returned; darkness, nothing new there, but she could just about make out the shiny metal bars in front of her. In no time, she regained her sense of the smells around her; she could smell old and fresh blood, urine, excrement, putrid chemicals and the sharp, sour scent of fear. Lastly, her hearing returned. In all honesty, she wished she had gone deaf by now, if just so she could no longer hear the morbid hymn of blood curdling screaming outside her dark room. The humans, all they could hear was primal shrieking, but she could understand every word they were saying.

"Let me out! Please! I can't stand it any longer!"

"I'm gonna kill you-you, you monsters!"

"Why!? Why!? WHY!?"

Their shrieks mixed into one voice. A voice composed of millions of mourning screams. They all came to a height at the blinding white flash and horrific 'BZZZT' sound that immediately followed, which caused her heavy body to jolt up from her back.

She steadied herself on all fours, her mangled tail somehow still managing to give her balance. She fumbled around the darkness of her unbearably small space, unable to go more than a few feet without stumbling or bumping hard into the bars. It was maddening; nowhere to stretch, nowhere to climb, nowhere to swing! Such confined space rendered her to scuttle around the dirty floor and curled up like some wretched, dirty insect.

Her strained, frayed mind put back together that this was not just some small dark room, but a cage. Her cage. Yes, her teeny, tiny box in a giant tower of hundreds. The one they had made her permanent home. Her home, prison and tomb.

She let out a long, pained groan when she recognized the parchedness of her throat; it was drier than the smack dab middle of the Sahara desert. She desperately needed a drink or she was going to pass out from dehydration.

Looking around, she spotted the reflection of light in the corner of the cage; it was the water from her bottle. She crawled towards it, searching for the spout and when she found it, suckled on it like she used to her mother. It was room temperature and stale, but it was still water and she was more than thankful for it.

Her massive thirst now quenched brought her some relief, but short-lived when she found herself doubling over, grasping her tiny belly, which was letting off a horrendous growl befitting the largest, mightiest beast. Putting her hands to her side, she was shocked by just extremely skinny she had become; she could literally run her fingers up and down her ribs like a xylophone.

How long had it been since she had last eaten? Since they had filled her bowl with food? She began to panic. What if they had not? What was she going to do then?! Those monsters! They were going to let her starve, she just knew it!

By now, her eyes had got back used to the darkness and thank the almighty monkeys in the sky, she quickly located her bowl. She was in luck; the humans had refilled it with a mountain of nuts and berries. Like the water, they were by no means fresh and they had an odd smell about them, but in her situation, she could not afford to be picky and she ravaged through them, occasionally stopping to chew.

"Hey…”

She stopped, her mouth stuffed like a chipmunk's with a little bit of drool dripping out her mouth. She swallowed them all and cocked her ear, trying to confirm what she thought she just heard.

“Hey, you! Over here.”

The weak, faint voice was coming from the right side of her cage. She turned around and made out the outline of someone in a cage next to her.

“Who... who’s there?”

BZZZT! The preceding bright flash to that horrible sound and subsequent screams of pain confirmed her worst fears. She gasped and held her hands to her mouth at what she saw.

A dark green monkey sat before her, passed the two walls of bars that separated them. He looked so weak and dishevelled, like he had been put through a wringer, literally. Parts of his matted green fur has been shaved off, namely around the head, where she could see large, horrific, infected-looking stitches.

“What... what did they do to you?” was all she could muster to ask through her fingers.

An eerie laugh resonated from the green monkey, sounding just like a knife rattling around his ribcage. He then stopped and winced in pain, raising his hand to the afflicted area on his head. He looked in so much excruciating pain, far more than her.

"Oh, they just, heh heh... they did something to my head. I don't know what they did, heh heh heh heh, but I remember big... metal—Gaaah!" He broke down in a strange fit of wailing and laughing, grumbling like a paper bag to his knees, still holding his head, which was now pulsating.

She felt such sympathy for this poor, wounded creature. She knelt down and gingerly maneuvered her hand through the bars and stroked his coarse furred cheek. It seemed to pacify him and he ceased his mixed cries of joy and pain.

“I know...” he said, the odd giggle getting in the way. “I’d trade places with you any day.”

“What... what’re you talking about?”

"They took you away three days ago and... when they brought you back, I thought... I thought you were dead." Her eyes widened in horror and she pulled her hand back, but he added earnestly, "But hey, relax, you were just asleep. They kept taking you away and bringing you back for days. What, can’t you remember anything?"

She closed her eyes and did her best to recall the events of the last three days, but as hard as she tried, the pain made it too difficult for her to concentrate. The best she could draw up were fading memories of being carried roughly around in the chilling air, passing random ear-piercing screams and the horrid feeling of a long tube being forced down her throat. She was not sure she wanted to remember more.

"No," she finally admitted miserably, burying her dirty face in her hands. "I can't remember anything, just... pain." Monkeys physically could not cry, but they could still feel, and if it were possible at this moment, she would be on the verge of tears. What terrible things had those monsters done to her this time? Had they shocked her? Force-fed her? Injected her? What?!

“Hey, uh... you mind giving me some of that food? I-I haven’t eaten anything in days.”

She snapped back to reality and nodded and went to grab her bowl. How could she deny his perfectly reasonable request? She had plenty to spare. She brought her bowl back and held it up for the green monkey, who shoved his hands through the bars and into the bowl, shovelling large clumps into his mouth.

“Okay, that’s enough!” she snapped, yanking the bowl back possessively, her own rumbling hunger still not satisfied and not prepared to let him ravage all her precious nuts and berries.

A frightening scowl formed on his sore, stitched up face. He reached greedily out for the bowl, but she kept it out of his reach.

“Gimme that food!”

“No! It’s mine!”

He made another grab, only this time he caught her by the hair and pulled her hard against the bars. The bowl fell to the floor, the fruit and nuts scattering over the floor. She tried getting him to let go by biting and scratching him, but he then took her tight by the throat, cutting her breath short and effectively strangling her.

“Let go of me!” She wheezed, feeling her head starting to go dizzy. “Let... let go!”

“Get me those berries, you idiot!” He hissed, his rancid, gag inducing breath beating against the nape of her neck. Even if she wanted to, it was not like she could. His grip was so tight, any moment she was going to pass out.

All of a sudden, he released his grip on her and she fell forward, gasping for air. She looked back and saw the green monkey now clutching his stomach. A low, pained moan emanated through his jittering clenched teeth, and he stumbled around his cage until he collapsed on the floor, rolling around in agony.

She watched him in awe, wondering what in the world was wrong with him, until the answer came to her in the form of a sudden burning sensation in her stomach. It spread up into her chest and to her arms and legs. It felt like someone had force-fed her a gallon of gasoline and then tossed a lit match down her throat.

Keeling over, she rolled around and pounded the floor. She managed to gather her thoughts in despite the increasingly intense pain giving her the feeling of burning alive. They had done something to her. They had somehow poisoned her...

Her eyes rolled over to the nuts and berries littering the floor and she quickly picked up and sniffed it. The horrid smell humming off them made her gag; they had laced her food with chemicals!

They tricked her! They starved her and starved her until they knew she would eat anything and she walked right into their trap. She had been a fool, and now she had digested whatever those monsters had cooked up in the labs. Why?! What could poisoning her food possibly have to do with the program?!

BZZZT! The flash that illuminated their cages was so bright that, for a split second, she thought she had gone blind. Her tail had the misfortune of touching one of the walls, sending the shock up into her body.

She crawled to the centre of her cage and curled herself into a tight little ball, squinching her eyes shut and pulling her knees against her stomach to alleviate the pain. There were still sparks in her eyes from the flash, and the burning in her stomach simply would not cease. She could not budge from that little spot without getting shocked. That little, cramped, excruciating spot on the floor.

"I'm... a... space monkey," she chocked through her non-existent tears as she rocked back and forth against the floor. "I'm a space monkey, space monkey, space monkey..."

She heard someone talking outside her cell. “Doctor, the subject seems to have ingested the food.”

“Good. Remove it from its cage and bring it to the operating room. I want to monitor and analyse the side-effects, immediately.”

The cage door opened and a large, gloved human hand reached in for her, forming a tight grasp around her neck and shoulders, shaking her around like a rag doll.

"N-NO! NO!" She screamed and she began yanking on her light pink hair. "I'M A SPACE MONKEY!" Overcome with terror and agony, her screams joined the others, her voice adding to and strengthening the mourning and tragic song of creatures trapped within bared boxed in which they would expire. "SPACE MONKEY! SPACE MONKEY! SPACE MONKEEEY!!!"

And then Minka woke up.

---

“Thanks again, Anna. I’m going to be very busy at the university, today. My baby’s in one of her... special moods, again.”

“Of course, Donna. I’ll set the little dear down by her tire swing.”

Minka felt herself lifted from the soaking but warm embrace of her owner and into the thin, gentle, caring arms of Mrs Twombly. She did not resist it or fidget. The monkey was so zapped of energy she barely kept her eyes open.

Donna began stroking the tips of her fingers through Minka’s hair, cooing her, “Bye, sweetheart. Momma’ll be back later.” But when she turned to leave, Minka started whimpering; she did not want her to leave. “Oh, sweetie, you’ve got to stay.” She then planted a tender kiss against the monkey’s furry cheek, making her purr with affection. “Momma’ll be back, I promise.”

Checking her watch, Donna hurriedly bid her farewells and left the pet shop. As Mrs Twombly carried her off into the pets’ day camp area, a chocked sob escaped Minka’s throat for her beloved owner. No matter how much she loved coming to Littlest Pet Shop, today she desperately wanted to stay with Donna. She wanted her company.

Mrs Twombly took her to her beloved spot in the day camp with the tire swing and canvases and paint cans. She set her down on a big soft pillow, right next to a huge pile of bananas, her favourite.

“There. Now you just stay here and do what you want, sweetie,” she told her, petting her head before returning to the counter.

Now she was all alone. It was early and none of the other pets had arrived yet and Blythe was probably still asleep upstairs. No Donna, no Mrs Twombly and none of her friends to keep her company.

Minka’s eyes rolled over from her paint cans to her banana pile. She licked her lips, feeling her belly growl, grabbed and ravaged it, getting more on her face than in her mouth. She flung the peel away and moved onto the second.

She had been scoffing herself a lot lately, as evident by her swelling belly. It was all she could think to do. It had been days since she opened up the paint cans and worked on her latest masterpiece. But now the mere thought of getting up and painting anything was swamped deep down in her skull by her basic primal desires to eat and sleep.

The weather outside did not help lift her creative spirit, whatever little there was, and instead but her in an even more sullen mood. Dark clouds completely blocked out the sun and it had been raining cats and dogs since she woke up, the large raindrop bullets pounding loudly against the window panes. And to think Blythe had to go to school in all this.

She finished off her fifth banana and was already halfway through her sixth. She was not even hungry; she was eating purely for the sake of it.

“Blah,” she grunted, dropping the half eaten banana to the plush white carpet. Turning her head, she spotted her beloved tire swing. It made a surprisingly comfortable bed she could snuggle into, and right now, that sounded like a plan.

Minka groaned and yearningly tried to sit herself up and climb to her beloved tire, but she could not get past her pillow before giving up and slumping against its cool surface. The poor monkey was more tired than she thought; filling her belly up with bananas like a bag with bricks sure did not help.

Her effort spent, she laid on her back, staring up at the ceiling. There she saw the overhead light dangling right over her head flickering wildly, creating this strange sound that made Minka cringe uncomfortably. It sounded like a there was a furious bee trapped inside. It must have been on its last leg.

Regardless of her discomfort, something compelled Minka to keep staring at it, almost like she was under some kind of trance. This must have been what those silly flies feel like.

Feeling her fatigue overcome her, the little monkey’s body became lax; she did not even realize it when sleep came.

---

“Dr. Drachenko, we’re having problems with this one.”

“What is it this time?”

Minka backed up frantically against the wall of her cage, keeping her tightly shut lips as far away from the plastic spoonful of icky blue and foul smelling liquid. The overhanging light shone down on her face with the intensity of the sun, making her squint her eyes.

“I’m not taking it!” She screeched hysterically, banging against the thin metal bars. Every time one of the humans reached their arms further through the open cage slit and put that spoon too close to her mouth, she hissed and lashed at them with her growing, sharpening nails. “You can’t make me! Can’t, can’t, CAN’T!”

“We can’t get it to take the medication.”

“Why not?”

“It won’t let us get near it. It’s becoming violent.”

“Yeah, that nasty thing nearly bit me!” cried one smaller female human, hiding behind her accomplices, eying Minka with fear.

“Oh, for God’s sake—give me that!” Drachenko took the spoon from one of the smaller humans and yelled at the other humans in the room. “Get out your clipboards. I want you to make notes of this.”

In a blink of an eye, the smaller humans, all of them dressed in white coats, whipped out their clipboards and clicked their pens. There were two tall, strong-looking humans approaching the table, both of them standing in front of the cage. Minka gulped and curled up in fear in an attempt to make herself as small as possible.

“You see, animals are a lot like children. Sometimes, you must treat them as such.” She reached into her lab coat pocket, pulled something out and set them down in front of Minka’s cage: a thick set of jangling keys.

The monkey crawled towards the opposite cage wall and stared at the keys. The light reflected majestically off them like a valuable piece of jewellery. She wanted them.

“Ooo, pretty!” she said in awe, a grin forming along her stretched, dirty face. She shoved her tiny, bony arm through the bars, but they were nowhere near within her greedy reach. The humans laughed, but Drachenko glared them silent.

Drachenko then opened the cage door. Without a moment to pause and think, she ran out of the cage and snatched up the keys and rubbed them against her face. They were cold and hard, but they were nice and shiny. That was all that mattered.

A hand grabbed her by the back of her neck and before she knew what hit her, she was flipped around and pinned down against the table, the keys snatched away and her head, arms and legs held firmly in place. She winced; the humans’ hold was so strong, any further pressure and her head would split open.

“And sometimes, like with a child, you must assert a firm hand.” Drachenko reached forward and took her by the chin. She forced it open and practically jammed the spoon in her mouth, knocking some of her front teeth.

Minka wanted to vomit the moment the liquid touched her tongue. She may have done just that, if not for Drachenko clamping her hand firmly over her mouth. Not only that, she used her free hand to pinch her little nose shut, cutting off her air. Minka resisted with her remaining strength, but the scientist’s vicelike grip would not budge.

Her head began to go fuzzy and her skin was becoming cold. Suffocation imminent, she forced herself to choke down the bile. Her throat felt like she just swallowed white-knives, cutting up the tender flesh like tissue paper. She could have sworn she was about to cough up of blood.

“Now, let us watch the symptoms. You two, keep it in place!”

Drachenko removed her hand and Minka gasped for air like a beached fish. The cold air did nothing to ease her throat, a pain quickly replaced by the formidable beating pulse in her head, the churning of her stomach, and the clenching of her bowels. Her entire insides felt like they were moving towards her mouth and she braced herself for what was next.

The vomit spewed out of her mouth like water from a burst overfilled balloon, covering her fur and the whole table with her stomach contents. The humans all either gasped or screamed in disgust, some of them taking some steps back. Even the humans holding her down released her, not wanting to get any of it on themselves. Drachenko, meanwhile, remained stone-faced and silent.

When she was done, she was so weakened she went limp against the table surface, coughing and spluttering and allowing herself to be swamped in her own sick. Her heavy, bloodshot eye lifted up to look pathetically at Drachenko, who just removed her gloves and walked off, almost like nothing happened.

“It seems we have some changes to make to the mixture. Have all this cleaned up and put the subject back with the others.” She then held her nose, gagging with revulsion. “Oh and… ugh, give it a bath, first.”

A bath. A warm, comfortable bath. She had not had one of those for longer than she think she could remember. Her fur had become coarse and rough, stained and clotted with old blood and now her vomit. Minka was actually grinning at the prospect, spittle beginning to pour from between her rotting teeth.

The humans gingerly lifted her up and tossed her back into her claustrophobically small cage like she was disease-ridden (she probably was). They carried her off, and soon the sounds of her fellow monkeys’ cries faded from her hearing.

Her memory was fuzzy after that. All she could remember from the incident from that point was the feeling of icy cold water engulfing her body, rubber gloved hands thoroughly scrubbing her fur, and then... nothing.

---

The rain continued outside, louder and heavier than it was hours ago. The other pets had arrived, dropped off by their respective owners. She watched them all from her cushy pillow going about their common daily activities. She saw Vinnie doing some kind of weird foreign dance she heard him telling Penny Ling was from Central Europe. From a distance, she heard Zoey’s singing and some of Pepper’s stand-up. All was how it should be.

She wanted to be like them again: happy and ignorant. Right now, she should be swinging playfully from her tire or dipping her entire arm in a paint can and going to town on her canvass and showing it off to her friends. But inside, deep down, she was hollow like a carved out pumpkin. How could she do that when she could not even find the strength or will to get up from her pillow?

It was the same thing every year. The memories of the labs came flooding back, no matter how much she resisted them, and depression hit her like a ton of bricks. It would go away, eventually, it always did. But every year it struck, the longer it stayed and the worse it became.

Minka was eventually forced to get up when Blythe came walking into the pet shop, carrying a stack of boxes that towered over her sight of vision. Russell was perched on top, acting as her eyes. They must have been the new pet equipment Ms Twombly ordered. She just had to bring it over to her spot.

“Sorry about this, Minka, but do you think you could move for a while?” she asked, setting the heavy boxes down right in front of her. “We need to go through and see all the stuff’s here and make sure nothing’s broken.”

Minka lifted her head, her eyes flickering and yawning groggily, “Just do it somewhere else.”

“There’s not enough room,” said Blythe, jabbing her thumb at the dozens of cardboard boxes littered around the pet shop. “There was a sale and Mrs Twombly went full out. We’re gonna be at this for a while.”

The pink monkey just shrugged uncaringly and turned on her side with a grunt, pretending like neither were there and drawing the orange hedgehog’s ire.

“C’mon, Minka, we just need you to move for a bit. We’re not asking a lot.”

An irritable growl rattling her vocal cords, Minka jumped to her feet, snapping at them, “UGH! Fine! Just kick me outta my spot! Whatever!” She grumbled something bitterly under her breath and stomped off, pulling her pillow behind her with her tail.

“We’re not—ugh!”

Blythe and Russell watched her go, both of them taken aback by their friend’s sudden curt behaviour, though the latter seemed more frustrated than he was shocked.

Blythe blinked, asking him slowly, “Okay... what’s up with Minka?” For as long as she had known her, Minka was nothing short of an overactive bundle of never-ending creative energy. To see her little monkey friend act anything less was enough to get her worried.

He sighed tiredly, climbing down from the boxes, “Ehh, she just gets like this this time of year. It’s nothing.”

“What? Why?”

Russell began to look uneasy, rubbing the back of his head. “Well, she... it’s kinda personal. She doesn’t wanna talk about it.”

“You’re serious?”

“Look, Blythe, Minka just likes to be left alone when she gets like this. She’ll be back to her old self soon. Just give her her space.”

Knowing to press further would bring her no answers and there was more important work to get on with at the moment, Blythe took a clipboard and a box cutter from the top of the boxes and proceeded to open up and go through the deliveries. Russell, naturally, was there to help her through it with his usual enthusiasm for organisation. She sighed inwardly; at least one of her friends was acting liking himself.

---

Forced to crawl around the pet shop like a verminous little cockroach, Minka searched fruitlessly for somewhere else to sleep. Nowhere matched her spot by the tire swing where she had become so accustomed to over the years. It was practically hers, and Blythe and Russell felt like they could just barge on in and tell her to beat it? Who did they think they were?! It made the already irritable simian hiss and punt a nearby chew toy in her frustration, sending it flying all the way across the room.

“What have we got, Doctor?”

“It’s not good, Nurse Penny Ling, not good at all.”

Her anger subsiding and replaced by a sense of curiosity, Minka turned her head and over in the corner where she spotted some of her friends gathered around a small, round plastic table, seemingly oblivious to her presence.

Her friends – Vinnie, Penny Ling and Sunil – were obviously playing one of their many games of make believe. She and the other pets were pretty resourceful, making the best of whatever toys and equipment they could find laying about the pet shop. Today’s activity was one of their favourites: a good old fashioned game of operating theatre.

On top of the table a large rag doll was laid out strait like a real life patient. The pets were dressed up in little light blue outfits meant to represent scrubs and clothes around their mouths to act as surgical masks. It looked like they were about to undertake a risky procedure.

“Oh no! What’s wrong with—hi, Minka!” Penny Ling suddenly greeted the monkey, who blinked. “You wanna play?”

“Penny Ling!” Vinnie chided. “You’re breaking character!”

Minka grunted something along the lines of ‘no’, and dropped lazily against her pillow. This would have to make do for a temporary sleeping spot. She lay on her side and snuggled up, spectating her friends play their little game with half-closed glazed eyes.

Shrugging their friends’ despondence off and resuming their game, ‘Dr. Vinnie’ inspected the ‘patient’s’ body over, before pulling down his mask and telling them in a faux professional manner, “The symptoms this patient shows lead me to believe that he is suffering from bonus eruptus; it’s a rare, terrible disorder where the skeleton tries to jump out of the skin.”

Penny Ling’s paws flew over her mouth. “What do we do, Doctor?”

“We have limited options available to us, the best one being those… those electric pad thingies.”

Sunil cocked an eyebrow, asking unimpressed, “The defibrillators?”

“Yeah, those.”

“I’m quite sure that’s not what they are designed for.”

“Who’s the doctor here?” Vinnie asked, prodding the mongoose in the chest with a digit lost in an oversized plastic glove. “Now, I’m gonna need a golf cart motor and a thousand volt capacimator, stat!”

“Doctor!” Sunil gasped, going wide-eyed at the idea. “I cannot in good conscience—”

“Gah! Now there’s no time, man!” He slapped his forehead in frustration and turned to Penny Ling. “Our one last chance is to cut the patient open and beat the skeleton back in place! Nurse, I need a sterilized scalpel, stat!”

She searched the ‘tools’ laid out in a neat row on the floor and picked up and gave him a dirty, greasy butter knife. The light from overhead reflected off its dirty surface, making it shine.

Minka’s eyes went wide when she saw it. It was filthy, but it looked sharp enough to cut through fabric, maybe even flesh.

“Will this do? We got it from a seafood restaurant.”

“Close enough.”

Vinnie snatched the knife and stabbed it right through the doll’s blue overalls and into the stomach. He proceeded to calve it open from the stomach right up to the doll’s neck, revealing a large amount of thick cotton wool stuffing.

At this point, Minka’s belly became ice cold and she found her hand awkwardly reaching up to touch something running from her chest to her belly, cosily hid beneath the fur. It was still there, to fade but never fully go away.

Her other hand flew over her head. In her mind, she heard the little doll scream as the heartless creatures surrounding it carved it up like a roasted turkey. It was crying in agony for its mommy to come and save her, but she would never come. It was crying for mercy from its oppressors, but who all gave no quarter and continued their torture. The screams, the cold hard steel of scalpels and needles piercing tender flesh, foul stench of antiseptic that burned yout nostrils and sinuses, the blinding seizure-inducing lights shone right in your eyes! They were all coming back to her, clear as day!

She wanted to be sick.

“I can’t see the skeleton with all this cotton in the way!” Vinnie climbed onto the ‘operating table’ and frantically began ripping out the cotton, trying in vain to search for the ‘skeleton’. “Where is it? Where is it?! Forget it! Nurse Sunil, gimme the hammer!”

“Only if you stop calling me ‘nurse’!”

“It’s the correct term! Hammer! Now!”

Sunil reluctantly and unenthusiastically passed the wooden mallet from under the table to him. The gecko raised it over his head and began pounding the now mutilated doll with so much force that anymore and the table would buckle.

“No... No, no, no! We’re losing her—BEEEEEP!!” Vinnie stopped pounding the doll with the mallet and froze on the table, clenching his teeth and making a high-pitched sound of a flat lining heart monitor. He tossed the mallet aside, threw his arms in the air and let out a mournful shriek, “NOOOOOOOOO! I’VE LOST ANOTHER ONE! NOOOOOOOOOOO!”

The panda and mongoose looked at each other uneasily out the corner of their eyes as their friend became, to put it lightly, submerged in his role; it was a common occurrence whenever they played operating theatre. It was funny the first few times, but now... it was just creepy.

He began throwing pieces of cotton up in the air, letting them fall back down over him like a flurry of snow. “WHY? WHY?! WHYYY?!”

Sunil took a deep breath and sighed, slowly taking off his blue ‘scrubs’ and ‘mask’. These same games they played were growing tedious. He would not have minded if he was allowed to play the lead role every now and then, but he did not have the guts to try challenge Vinnie for it.

He was about to go off to get something to eat when a horrifying shriek made him freeze on the spot.

“Stop it! STOP IT! SHUT UP!”

The turned and Vinnie almost fell off the table when he saw Minka standing right there, shaking like a leaf and her fur and skin paling white as if she had lost a lot of blood. She was pulling on her pigtails with enough force they nearly tore her right off her scalp.

Penny Ling threw aside her ‘mask’ and ran to her side, concerned. She held her thin bony shoulder, trying to calm her down, “Minka! Minka, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“Get off!” she snapped, pulling herself away from her comforting paws, trying to keep as much a distance she could from them. She narrowed her eyes and glared hot daggers at them all. “What’s wrong with you?!”

“Hey, whoa, cool down, Minka,” Vinnie said with a reassuring tone, getting down from the ‘operating table’. “What’re you getting upset about? We’re just having fun.”

Her head snapped in his direction with the harshness of a whip crack, speaking to him in a low, angry voice with an intensifying glare, “You... you think this is fun?”

The other pets suddenly felt themselves intimidated by their friend’s demeanour. Never before had they actually witnessed Minka this angry; she could get annoyed and frustrated at the rarest of times, but nothing like this.

Vinnie gulped, stammered as he rubbed the back of his neck, “Well, uh... I-It’s kind of fun… w-when you, uhh--”

“FUN!?” The spider monkey raised her voice to a shout, climbing onto the table and picked up the doll’s head and one of its legs and holding them out at them. “You all think this is FUN!? WELL IT’S NOT!”

“Minka, please, calm down—” Penny Ling begged.

“Don’t you tell me to be calm!”

Sunil, who had been shocked silent for the most part, managed to catch his voice. “It’s only a game, Minka,” he whimpered, trying to reason with her.

“Ohhh, a gaaame!” Minka sounded like she was caught between yelling and laughing. “Sure, it’s all just a gaaame!” She used her tale to pick up the butter knife Vinnie used to vivisect the doll and impaled it in the ‘face’. “Let’s just cut their eyes out! Who cares if they’re in pain or suffering or anything, cuz it’s just a game!” She jumped off the table and practically shoved the head into his face. “Here! Wanna take a turn at your game, Sunil!?”

“Hey! Back off!” Vinnie suddenly appeared between them, meeting her eye-to-eye with their noses nearly touching. He may have been scared by her outburst, but he was not going to let her push around his best friend like that. “What’s your problem?! You’re acting like a psycho!”

Minka’s chest began heaving and veins appeared in her large bright blue eyes, the fire raging in her belly rising up in her throat. “GET OUTTA MY FACE, LIZARD BREATH!” She screeched. In an arc of pink, she unleashed her unfilled nails and swung her hand hard at the gecko’s face. Vinnie reacted just in time that only the tips of her nails scratched his cheek, but the force of the strike sent him collapsing to the floor.

Sunil gasped horrified and knelt down to assist his friend. There were a couple of scratches on his face, but nothing serious. A few inches higher, though, and Minka could have taken his eye out. The mongoose looked up at the still snarling monkey pitifully, almost as if pleading with her.

Looking into his sad, watery yellow eyes, Minka felt the fire in her belly suddenly doused and the red clouding her own vision began to part. She lowered her fists, her eyes widening in horror at seeing the red tint of her friend’s blood on the tips of her fingernails.

She wanted to say something, but by the time she worked her way through the swelling lump in her throat, someone else beat her to the punch.

“Minka, what did you do?!” She heard Zoe’s shocked voice shout from her right ear.

She turned around and saw the rest of her friends arriving on the scene. They were all looking from Vinnie and Sunil, to her and the blood on her hands with absolute mortification and horror. They must have put it all together in their heads.

“I... I didn’t mean to,” she stammered, her mind abuzz with a million frantic thoughts. She tried wiping the blood away, but it only stained into her fur. Deep down, she knew she should be on her knees, saying ‘sorry’ until her tongue fell out, but something was preventing her. It was not her fault! They were the ones being insensitive to her. It could not have been her fault. She was the victim here! Desperately, she pointed at Vinnie. “H-He started it! It’s his fau—!”

“How could you, Minka?!” Penny Ling shoved past her and went to help Sunil with Vinnie, who appeared shaken and disoriented from the attack. She glared at her, her white fluffy cheeks blushing with indignation. “Vinnie’s our friend!”

“Minka!”

A positively outraged Blythe marched up in between the pets, her hands held at her hips and glowering down at Minka with the same anger and disappointment a mother would have. She could not believe what she had watched with her own eyes while she and Russell were trying to go through the new equipment. She was willing to let earlier slide, but not this. If you hurt one of her friends, you had to deal with her.

“Alright, what is your problem?!” she demanded. “What’s with you today?!”

Minka felt like a wild animal that was cornered by its prey. All eyes were on her now, judging her, scorning her, burning holes into her. There was no way she could escape this; she knew she crossed the line.

The only thing she would allow herself to do was to shrink away, uneasily snapping at them, “L-Leave me alone!”

“No, I won’t! How dare you treat Vinnie like that! What gives you the right?”

Vinnie, not wanting to be at the centre of all this, tried to diffuse the situation by coming in between the two girls, despite his weeping cut marks, trying to calm them both down.

“Hey, Blythe, uh... look, c’mon, it’s not a big deal. I shouldn’t’ve—”

Blythe cut him off with a firm wave of her hand. “Don’t make excuses for her, Vinnie. She knows what she did.”

“It was his fault!” Minka brayed, stomping a tiny foot.

“I don’t care,” said Blyth as she knelt down and took Vinnie’s shoulders, her protective mother mode kicking back in. “You owe him an apology, right now.”

Inside her head, Minka sensed an aneurysm moments away. Why was she doing this to her? She had no idea what she was going through, none of them did! Who was that stupid human to tell her what to do, after all the suffering her kind put her through? And the rest of them, none of them were at her side to defend her. What kind of friends were they?! They were all out to get her, humans and her so-called animal friends. She knew it; they were whispering behind her back, talking about how stupid they thought she was and probably how they hated all her paintings. Well, she was not going to apologize for something that was not her fault, especially to fake friends like them!

She turned away, her arms crossed and huffing defiantly, “No!”

“Minka, say you’re sorry.” Blythe’s finger was now inches from Minka’s face, like she was about to poke her.

“Won’t!”

“Minka!”

She gave her a sharp prod to the head.

That was it.

"EEK EEK EEEK!"

The pets let out a collective gasp. Faster than they could register what happened, Blythe let out of a cry of pain and shrunk away from her, holding her right hand. Minka just grabbed Blythe’s hand and bit her fingers as hard she could! Hard enough that she swore she heard a small cracking sound.

Minka stood there, her fists raised in a challenging pose, her feral eyes twitching and breathing heavily through her nose and bared teeth. She was daring any one of those punks to try anything else on her.

A dreadful silence filled the room, all words and thought struck dead by what transpired. But when Minka looked at them, right into her friend’s terrified faces, like a comet through the stratosphere, reality came crashing down on the monkey.

She looked down at her nails, still stained with traces of her gecko friend’s blood. In her mouth, she awaited the taste of human blood, but thankfully found nothing. The awful feeling of shame of herself crawled up on her and tightened its body around her little neck like a ravenous python, chocking not only her heart but her voice, too.

“I... Blythe, I...”

Blythe would not give her the chance. She breathed and told her in a quiet, shuddering voice, “Save it, Minka,” She knelt down and scooped Vinnie up in her arms. “You want us to leave you alone? We’ll all leave you alone. C’mon, Vinnie, let’s get you looked at.”

The coldness in her eyes, the acid dripping off her words. Minka never imagined such hatred radiating off such a kind, loving girl like Blythe, aimed at her, especially. But after what she just did, how in the world could she possibly blame her? That was not the worst part; behind the façade, Minka could see the glistening of tears in her eyes and picked up the wobbling in her breaking voice.

Desperate, she looked towards her friends, her true friends, hoping to find some kind of support, but all she received were even worse looks of revulsion and contempt. For them, it must have felt like they were properly seeing their friend for the first time. The Minka they knew and loved, who brought fun and energy into their lives at the pet shop had somehow disappeared, snatched and replaced by this horrid, feral beast who harmed not one, but two of their close friends without hesitation.

She wanted to talk, but no words came. They, on the other hand, had plenty to say.

Zoe, naturally, was the first, who chastised her, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Minka!”

“You... you’re nothing but a big bully!” Penny Ling yelled, already visibly distraught. There were puny tears of anger rolling down her white fluffy cheeks in beads.

“But... I...”

Pepper just scoffed and walked off in disgust, remarking, “Hey, c’mon guys, let’s go, before she takes a bite out of us!”

With that, they began to leave and follow after Blythe so to check on the well-being of their true friends. The only ones that stayed behind were Russell and Sunil. The two stared at the pathetic animal, not with anger but with shame. They shook his head slowly and left, neither uttering a word between them.

As her friends abandoned her there in the former play area, Minka stood stunned, her brain trying to process what had happened in the last five minutes. The shame that she could do something so awful to the ones she loved or even think they were conspiring against her created the feeling of a black hole in the pit of her stomach sucking her in.

Feeling her bottom lip tremble, a long, drawn out cry resonated from the monkey’s throat and she ran off as fast she could, accidentally bumping into the table along the way. The remains of the destroyed doll fell off the table and scattered in lumps of fabric and wool along the floor.