The Sleeping King: Part Three

     “Morning, Patch,” he said cheerfully, forgetting about all his previous thoughts from last night.

     “You’re looking very positive today!” laughed Patch.

     “I think it’s because I’m settled in now. Being so close to The King makes me happy.”

     Patch nodded, smiled, and turned away, as if Bluetail’s answer had been nothing out of the ordinary. Bluetail however, covered his mouth, ashamed of his answer. What was happening to him? How could he have said such a thing when he hated The King so much? But even as he thought this he realised that he didn’t seem to hate The King anymore, and that his reply to Patch was completely and utterly true. He felt happy, exceedingly happy. Maybe The King wasn’t so bad after all.

     “Bluetail?” asked Teeth, wriggling his eyes.

     Bluetail looked up. “Yes?”

     Teeth laughed. “It’s breakfast!”

     Bluetail smiled, and the three residents of row 10 ran (or slithered, in the case of Teeth) to the breakfast queue, where they collected their bowls and filled them with porridge. Then, as yesterday, Teeth moved away from them and went to sit with Hugs, Flower and Droopy, while Patch and Bluetail went to sit with Biscuit.

     “Why doesn’t Teeth sit with us?” asked Bluetail, still not understanding why the separation at breakfast occurred.

     Patch leaded near to Bluetail and whispered in his fluffy ears, “He doesn’t like Biscuit.”

     Biscuit continued eating, not having heard.

     “Why?” said Bluetail, a little too loud for Patch’s liking.

     “Keep your voice down!” he whispered harshly, and then gave him reply, “They say that Teeth was friends with Biscuit before I arrived. He and Hugs were the newest, so Biscuit looked after them, and then I came and–” He lowered his voice even more, looked round to check that Biscuit couldn’t hear. “Well, then Biscuit ignored Hugs and chose me over him, not letting him sit near him or anything, ignoring him.”

     “And that’s why he doesn’t like him? Because he was cruel to Hugs?”

     Patch nodded. “I don’t remember when I first arrived, but that’s what people say.”

     How could he not remember arriving? Bluetail was confused, but didn’t ask the question anyway, as it might seem rude. Instead he continued to eat his breakfast in silence.

     After breakfast people went on doing their daily duties: cooking, cleaning, exploring and so on. Each one knew exactly what to do without thinking. They went about their jobs as if each were some sort of robot. Similar species walked in the same way, and even at lunch Bluetail noticed that they chewed in the same way too. It was like an army of clones, all of them servants to The King, a figure that did nothing but sleep. Bluetail had no reason to look up to The King, after all he had done to these poor petpets, and yet he held him in great respect. I’m going to become just like they are, thought Bluetail, a clone slave. But that wasn’t the worst of it; the worst of was that he didn’t even mind.

     ***

     Days passed with the same routine, days turned into weeks, and weeks turned into months. Before he knew it, winter outside seemed to be fading into spring, and The King began to swallow trees, covered in blossom, and many flowers. Bluetail’s past faded into a forgotten memory, hidden away in some distant part of his mind. He rarely saw Stripes and seemed to forget him too. He could barely remember anything from one day to the next, and consequently never got bored of completing the same daily tasks. It hardly seemed like toil to him; it was more like fun. Pleasing and serving The King was all he needed to keep happy, and he did keep happy. For nothing seemed so much fun as obeying. If he could have possibly remembered the first few days of his life inside The King’s belly, the plushie puppyblew would have been quite ashamed. No one else seemed to notice the change, as no one else seemed to remember past events either. As Bluetail’s bed was the last in line, everybody knew that he was the newest member of their little community, but not one petpet could actually remember his arrival. Not one petpet, except Stripes.

     But of course, what Stripes could remember hardly mattered, as Bluetail’s memory of their few meetings had vanished along with his other memories and Stripes spent most of his time in the other passages, unseen. Everyone knew of his existence, but only the occupants of row 1 knew what he looked like. To everyone else, he was just another part of the system, another part of the strange, mysterious life that they never questioned, another part of The King’s realm, another part of existence.

     ***

     But as spring pushed on and slowly turned into summer, Bluetail met Stripes again, for the first time.

     He had been wandering around the lower passages during his break – not out of curiosity, of course; he had none of that now – but because of he was looking for something; he was scavenging. However, instead of equipment or any such things, he found Stripes.

     The rainbow Spyder had been sitting on the ground, completely alone. He looked up as Bluetail came nearer and smiled. “Good morning, Bluetail,” said Stripes, in his usual cheerful voice.

     “Who are you?” was Bluetail’s only reply. It wasn’t that he particularly wanted to know, it was just that it seemed the right question to ask to someone you didn’t recognise.

     “My name is Stripes,” said the Spyder, standing up. “But we’ve met before!”

     Bluetail blinked. “Really?”

     “Yes,” Stripes sighed. “And you didn’t believe me when I said you would change!”

     Bluetail looked at him as if he were mad.

     “You were very different then, Bluetail,” he continued, “as it was only when you first came here. You hated Turmaculus; you wanted nothing more than to be free from him, you hated it here!”

     Bluetail moved backwards, alarmed. “You’re mad!” he exclaimed.

     Stripes laughed.

     “You are! I was never like that!” He spat on the ground as he said those words. “And you shouldn’t call him that name! The King or nothing. He must always be called The King!”

     Now Stripes was past the stage for laughing. “I was so hopeful,” he began grimly, “I thought you might last out longer. But no, you’re just like the rest. Another hopeless slave of Turmaculus.”

     “Stop saying that!” cried Bluetail.

     “You’ve forgotten it all, haven’t you?” whispered Stripes, coming close to Bluetail. “Your past, your friends, your owner!”

     “My owner is The King!”

     Stripes sniffed, a tear brought to his eye. He turned away, crying, “No matter! No matter! I suppose it was evident that you’d turn out like that one day.”

     And then he was gone.

     He must have gone back into another passage, but he must have moved quickly, for Bluetail didn’t see him; to him he seemed to vanish into thin air. However, it didn’t seem abnormal. After all, in The King’s stomach, anything was possible.

     ***

     Spring turned into summer, summer into autumn, autumn into winter. Although Bluetail had no idea, he had now been there over a year. No more newcomers came, and the time flew past with no interruption to their daily routine. Everyone was content, even happy. Bluetail’s love for the King grew and grew and grew. It was too late now; he was just another clone.

     ***

     Then one day, as the three inhabitants of row 10 were on salvaging duty, something strange occurred to vary their monotonous – yet very interesting to them – routine. For the first time in a year, Bluetail was not the newest member of the community.

     Teeth, Patch and Bluetail were wandering around the very chamber in which the latter first arrived in. It was a large space, with many passages leading off it, and it was in one of those passages, while Bluetail was separate from the others, that the newcomer was found.

     The newcomer was a faerie snowbunny, with bright purple wings and pale pink skin. Bluetail approached her carefully, as she was sitting down against a wall and appeared to be crying.

     “Hello there?” said Bluetail softly. Luckily Turmaculus hadn’t taken away his kindness.

     The snowbunny looked up very quickly and then looked down again. Once more, she burst out in tears. Then there was a long silence, in which Bluetail looked around helplessly for some way to comfort her. He longed to get Patch and Teeth, but was frightened to leave her, as she was so distressed.

     At length the newcomer spoke, her voice very quiet. “Am I dead?” She looked up very briefly as she said the words, but then once more buried her in her pink paws.

     “Dead?” Bluetail asked, unable to remember that he had thought the exact same question when he first arrived. “You don’t look dead to me!”

     She looked up again, this time very, very slowly. “So I’m alive?” She sounded quite doubtful on the subject, so Bluetail explained exactly what had happened and where she was. At the end of his little speech, she burst out into tears once more.

     “What’s your name?” he asked, not sure how to continue. “Mine’s Bluetail.”

     “Flutter,” she managed to gasp between tears.

     “Don’t cry.” His first words were comforting and kind; his next were not. “There’s no reason to cry, after all, you’re with The King now.”

     She looked up, a little angry at his words, but said nothing except, “Are there other petpets down here?”

     Bluetail nodded. “Almost 100 of us.”

     She raised her eyebrows, wiping her tears away. “That’s a lot. Is there no way out?”

     Bluetail looked at her oddly. “Even if there was, why would anybody want to leave here? Wherever The King is is paradise.”

     “So we can’t get out?” She sounded as though she was going to cry again.

     Bluetail shook his head. “Why don’t you come back to the main room now? Everyone else is there and you’ll feel better after you’ve had some food.”

     “I’m never going to see my owner again,” she murmured, ignoring Bluetail’s question.

     When at last Bluetail persuaded her to go back to the main room, she didn’t seem to like it there either. She was issued with a sleeping mat and a food bowl, but even after eating she felt no better. She just continued to cry.

     ***

     As Flutter awoke at the dawn of her first day inside Turmaculus’s stomach, she saw that the lights above her were on and every single petpet around her was asleep. She stood up and stared down at her sleeping mat; it was stained with tears. Turning it over to hide them, she looked around her; she could smell food. Just as Bluetail had done on his first day, she crept across the ten rows of sleeping mats and reached the cooking pot. Walking around, she came face to face with Stripes.

     “Another recruit!” he exclaimed, his voice full of despair. “Another hopeless hope!”

     Flutter blinked. “Who are you?” Just as Bluetail had done at a similar time last year, she whispered each word.

     “My name,” answered the Spyder, “is Stripes.”

     At his loud answer she looked around at the rows of sleeping petpets, expecting them to wake.

     “Oh, don’t worry!” said Stripes, as cheerfully as always. “They can’t hear you. All of them are under Turmaculus’s spell. They don’t wake until he wants them to. They’re all his slaves.” Here Stripes paused and sighed. “You will be too one day.”

     Flutter shook her head. “They’re all mad. They’re all obsessed with a giant, lazy petpet that does nothing but eat petpets! I’ll never be like them.”

     Stripes sighed and, coming closer to her, he pointed to Bluetail, lying at the back of the room. “He said that too, you know; he thought he could last out. But look at him now and tell me if he managed it? The answer is no. He didn’t – he couldn’t. So instead he just forgot and became another clone slave.”

     Flutter looked around at all the petpets, all of them sleeping in exactly the same position. “This place is mad,” she whispered.

     Stripes looked at her sympathetically. “Don’t worry, that opinion of yours will soon change.”

     She shook her head, but didn’t seem to have taken in what he said. “If I stay here forever,” she thought aloud, “I’m never going to see my owner again.”

     ***

     Later that day, she asked Bluetail about his owner. If he was the newest there, then there was a chance that he might remember something. However, to her disappointment, he simply shrugged, saying: “The King is my owner now.”

     “But what about your old owner?”

     He shrugged again. “I can’t remember.”

     He didn’t ask about her owner, yet Flutter missed him so much that she felt a great desire to talk about him and consequently did.

     “He bought me about nine months ago,” she began. Bluetail listened politely, although he had little interest in anything except food, card games, and The King. “I remember when he first arrived in the shop, him and his friends. 'How beautiful!' he said as he stroked me. Well, his owner could hardly not buy me after that! Oh I loved him!” A tear was bought to her eye as she said those words. “And now I’ll never see him again, and he’ll never see me! Oh, poor Tonubakanari!”

     Bluetail head turned toward her sharply. “Tonubakanari?” He sounded so surprised that Flutter was quite distressed.

     “That was my master’s name,” she explained.

     “I know that, but–” Bluetail paused. Tonubakanari – he knew that name! But where from? Somewhere in the back of his mind, something was reaching out to him. Something was telling him to reach farther. Remember whispered a voice in his head. Bluetail closed his eyes. In his mind’s eye he could see visions, visions of everything! His owner, his friends, his parents, his childhood, his arrival, his life! All of it flashed before his eyes. And then, when he opened them again, he could remember. He could remember everything.

To be continued...