The Fruit Epidemic - Please Read <3

[Numaix]

I've always told myself little fanfics about CS help I'm getting addicted but I never bothered to write them down. They're actually pretty long - they'd probably be about novel length if I typed. But I was just looking through the forums today and though, what the heck, I'll just write something. Better to have it recorded or what.
Just as a warning, I'm not the best writer in the world. >> So yeah.

The story is about a sort-of "glitch" in the system. One of the player's data got screwed with and merged with the data of someone's pet rat, so the player can morph in between. Pretty sketchy, yeah - and the rat also got into the player's head. Know how rats like to eat things? Well, this player-rat of very high intelligence is scurrying around and hoarding UR fruits. Which means, banana population + apple population + grape population + cucumber population = in danger.
And because the rat is inhabiting a high-intelligence account thingy, it's gaining a sense of superiority. And it's getting more and more ambitious. And its heart is sort of souring and...stuff. And because it's kind of glitchy, weird stuff happens around it. Joy.

Well, the characters onsite (so far) are:

Pet's name: Squishy

Yeah, you might have guessed him - Squishy is a kind of cutesy little banana, but he's pretty intelligent. Unfortunately, he can't converse with humans that well, so he communicates using a series of emotes and facial expressions. Sometimes he might give little un-fruit-like squeaks.
Example conversation:
Me: HELP ME I'm dying.
Squishy: o_0


Pet's name: Priscilla

Priscilla is kind of prickly. She's kind of sarcastic and assumes that everyone is out of her league - ugh. So totally out of it. And she's so darn pretty, she doesn't deserve to be exposed to any - sigh - riffraff.
Example conversation:
Me: HELP ME I'm dying.
Priscilla: Suck it up, loser.


Pet's name: Tin

Tin is kind of the warm friendly kind. He's pretty responsible, but mostly indecisive and lacking much self-confidence.
Me: HELP ME I'm dying.
Tin: Oh! Should I go...um, get help?


Pet's name: Lumis

Lumis is...naughty. He's a peeve. He's kind of a bully, too, sneaking around and getting in everyone's way. He sneaks into people's places and steal their food, and sometimes he harasses their pets, too. He's not generally a very good guy, but he's undeniably loyal, and since he's Tin's friend, he's got a spot on the team. For now.
Me: HELP ME I'm dying.
Lumis: Well...ouch.


Pet's name: Chester

He's off-account, but he's always been a character of mine - so I was pretty thrilled on getting him, anyway.
Chester is a loyal, somewhat resourceful cat, slightly paranoid and slightly grouchy at the worst times, because he was found in an empty car and rescued by a few helpful people. Later, he broke away to rejoin the forces of nature. So.
Me: HELP ME I'm dying.
Chester: Wait here! I'll go get help.

And lastly (for now)...


Pet's name: Drakkil

He's the...yeah. The superintelligent rat.
And he wants your food.
And your fruit.

Me: HELP ME I'm dying.
Drakkil: I care not for your troublesome issues, foolish human!

[Numaix]

Prologue

The apple peered past the leafy recesses encircling. Sunlight dimpled the surrounding canopy, and the apples around it were settled down contentedly on their branches. He couldn't help but worry; reports had been swift and well confirmed around these parts. On a regular basis, the apples had nothing to fear. They were decently out of reach and whatever had the ability of flight usually was harmless.
But rats could climb.

He wasn't sure what had happened, exactly.
There had been news - stolen things, ravaged trees. Missing apples, but that was only occasional, and it was assumed they had fallen off the tree or been picked or whatever else could occur. A freak accident. That was it. The apple knew that it was just a freak accident, that it had to be. But it still couldn't explain the blown-apart bark, and the furrows in the bark, and the soft scuffling that sometimes peeled apart the peace at night.

It was nothing.
Nothing.

It couldn't be anything.
Bizarrely enough, he wouldn't allow it to be.

So why am I so nervous? I shouldn't be this nervous.
Everyone's calm now.
Everyone's fine.
So why am I nervous?

Then the scuffling came, soft and shifting, the sound of something minute and deadly pattering on the bark on the tree. The apple froze, his juices icing over in their circulation. Adrenaline thundered into wild existence, and then there was a flash of eyes, suffused in cold red light.

~

The apples searched for days.
And then they uncovered his old branch. Crudely etched into the wood were the jagged words:
HELP ME

[Numaix]

Chapter One

Chester crouched in the leafy undergrowth, muscles tensed, ears uplifted. It was deathly quiet, and the soft whisper of rain reminiscent in the treetops stirred in the gloom like a second pulse. The air was moist against the roof of his mouth, rain moist, moist from early budding showers. The rain had sated the general thirst around the area, Chester knew, but it had expelled the sun to its cloudy regions. The jaded forest clawed upward in their desperation to reach the watery warmth of the sun. It blurred in its wet haze, and it hung overhead like a spent ember, cold and unyielding.

Chester suppressed a shudder, and moved on, his tail tip twitching idly. The musky, redolent scent of watered-down wildflowers encased the air, and it was spicy and exotic, full of dead vibrancy. It was so quiet in the world, and he felt it, too. The only accompanying sound was the rain, in the treetops, in the wind. And the wind sighed in his path as he prowled closer, listening.

There.
In front of him.

A slender black rat, ruffled and crowned with a curving horn, crouched there. It clutched something in the vise grip of its jaws, something rusted and vaguely green. Before Chester could investigate, it bolted, leaping in the bushes with an unnerving haste. He slid out of his crouch, standing, his facial features disrupted with uncertainty. It was gone - but it had taken that thing in its mouth with it. There was strangely disturbing about it. He stood there, speculating. The rat was gone. The parcel it carried-

"RAAAHH!" roared a voice behind Chester, and he spun, claws outstretched, throwing up dust. His pelt bristled, wild-eyed, but it was just a dog. The idiot, Lumis. His features spread into a leery grin and his tongue fluttered along his lips, as if the cat's fear was indescribably delectable.

"Hello, Lumis," Chester said frostily.
"Why, hello, brother!" Lumis thundered back. "How are you today?"
"I'm fine, thank you."
"Good to hear. Good to hear," Lumis grinned, flashing a series of glittering white teeth that could serve as shrapnels. "So tell me, Chester, my bud, how's your day going?"
"Fine." Soon enough, Chester reasoned irritably, the raucous, crowing furball would notice that the cold shoulder was starting to worm its way in.

Lumis didn't notice.
"So," he said, the jackal's grin still plastered sloppily on his face, "What's up?"

Oh, mods, no.
"I'm looking for something of mine," Chester said snippily. "Until you came."

"Oh, but I could help, friend o' mine," Lumis continued, the snide beam still clowning his features.
"No, sorry," Chester said. "I really don't think so." Please leave already.

"Hey, Tin!" Lumis spun with a high-pitched yip. "Hey, buddy! Chester's icing me out, man!"
A second pair of eyes flashed from the dusky semidarkness. "Really?"

"Yes," Chester called. No point lying.
Tin emerged, his handsome gray coat rippling along exercised muscles. His subdued green eyes flashed again, catching the radiance in gentle winks. But Chester saw the unmistakable rents in his fur, along his shoulder and neck, and he knew that the dog had had a rough history.

"Was Lumis bothering you?" Tin smiled, genuinely.
"Yeah, I was, bro." Lumis waved his tail like a proud bayonet.
"Hey, then, don't do it."
Thank you! Chester wanted to cry with relief.

Out of the bushes, two red eyes gleamed, haggard and unwavering, like two concentrated lasers.
Chester fired it a glance in bewildered return, but they were gone.

"...come on," Tin was saying. "Let's go back."
"Yeah, bro," Lumis continued. "I'm starving."

Chester stared into the bush.
Nothing was there.

"Yes," he agreed finally. "Let's go."
But as they turned to leave, he saw them again, somehow up in a tree, those two red eyes gleaming down at him from the darkness.

[Numaix]

Chapter Two

The three of them shared a small den cornered up against the jungle of roots of a large tree. When it rained, they carpeted the wooden ceiling with a roof of leaf mold, hoping to at least bare the entrance of some of the runaway moisture. The damp floors were in disarray, marred with murky puddles and eroding nests. But Chester constantly felt like an intruder here, since the dogs had found him years ago and invited him to stay. And it was home.

Centered in the room was a pitiful attempt to raise a fire. Charred twigs sprawled across the tight quarters, and some lay smoking weakly in the moisture. The down bedding of their nests overflowed and tore and the wood around their lodgings was tarnished and paled, deadening by their constant scrapes and interactions. In the corner, a half-gnawed shard of bone lay, marrow gleaming, from Lumis' attempt to chew on something. Those feral shrapnel teeth constantly were seeking something to work on, almost in a rodent-like nature.

In a small, leaf-bound nest positioned in the corner, was Squishy.
The banana had been there since before Chester. He wasn't quite sure where the fruit had originated; all he knew was that there was a cute, rotted banana in the corner, and that he sometimes gave it piggyback rides around their sad old shelter.

Tin shared an expanded nest with Lumis. They were friends, and they had been for a while - brothers, almost. Both had been adopted from the Pound by an owner, although Tin had been the older one. When Lumis arrived, they had just clicked. Or so Lumis seemed to think, being a friendly, although not very affable, dog. But Tin had decided to take Lumis under his wing, and he frequently thought about how it wasn't half bad having a brother, or however close to one he could get. Lumis was a blockhead, but that was all endurable.

But then Tin thought about the day his owner had attempted to trade Lumis away to someone. Horrified and more than mildly heartbroken, Lumis had fled - Tin remembered. Specifically because on that day, pulled together by their bond of friendship, Tin had followed. Maybe Lumis had overreacted. The trade was blatantly unfair, anyway, and more than likely to be cancelled. But Lumis could not be convinced. "She tried to trade me away, bro! That's, like, unforgivable!"

"You wouldn't have been traded away, anyway." Tin had said. It would have cancelled. Etc. He went through the procedure, again and again, desperate reassurances. He missed their old owner. He missed the way she would call them, and play with them, and the way her eyes shone when he finally learned how to do tricks. But apparently Lumis wasn't prepared to go back.

"Well, it's the thought that counts," Lumis had huffed. "And the fact that the trade was highly unfair makes it even worse - our owner hates me and doesn't know how to judge rarities."

And Chester, that cat.
At first, Lumis had struggled against allowing the cat to stay with them. Tin never really admitted it to anyone, but Squishy had been in the den first. Tin had gone scouting, had seen the banana. The banana was occupying the space, really - but he allowed them to stay as well. And although it sounded overly soppy, Tin wanted to pass on this act of kindness. And really, he tried to convince himself, you could do a lot worse than Chester.

[Numaix]

Chapter Three

That night, a new announcement arose. From the moderators themselves.

Unfortunately, we have to admit that we have no idea what's causing all these fruits to disappear. We don't know where they're going, and we don't know what's happening to them. We can't provide a refund if yours disappeared, although we offer you our strongest apologies and we wish for the best.
We became aware of an issue of vanishing UR fruit (banana, apple, grape, and cucumber) approximately a week ago. It is most likely a Glitch, but we are in the process of investigating. However, we confirmed that, while Glitches are more of the corrupting creatures, the cause of this disappearance seems to be moving slower than a Glitch. It has left large pieces of evidence around the globe of CS and we're fearful of what is to become of our site. We're thankful, however, that it has not extended further than fruits. It's a shame such loss has to occur but as a community, I know we can stand strong and work for the better. We'll survive this, don't you worry. And we'll try our very best to get back the elusive fruits.

The replies came quickly:

OMG I'M FREAKING OUT. D: What's happening? I came on today and my grapes were gone? Will I ever see them again? HEEELPPPPP!!!!!!

This is terrible. I really hope something happens quick. Thanks for the heads up, though.

This is sad hey there's a rat in my account Do you guys see it?

This is sad hey there's a rat in my account Do you guys see it?

Please don't spam. >> Anyways, this is pretty bad. I'm gonna keep a veeery close eye on my fruit now...scared to death!

This is sad hey there's a rat in my account Do you guys see it?

Please don't spam. >> Anyways, this is pretty bad. I'm gonna keep a veeery close eye on my fruit now...scared to death!

NO REALLY there's a rat on my account! DDD:

Pandemonium broke out among the users of CS. The pets, listening and watching and spreading the news, were wary. But sitting in the den, Squishy was wary. And Chester was fearful, fearful for whatever was coming.

Tin was strong. He tried to keep his composure.
But it was hard, so hard, when things emerged, and especially when panic was abundant.
And everywhere around the site, there were missing fruits, panicked users, and red, red eyes.

[Numaix]

Is no one reading? :c

[Betta132]

I'M READING!!!

[Numaix]

Is it decent so far?
Should I continue?
But thank you soso much. <3

[Betta132]

Yeah, it's good.