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Untitled Document
This is a story of abandonment.
You may at this moment be thinking, "Oh great, another one of those sappy 'my
owner loved me, but had to leave Neopets because their parents banned them from
the Internet because of bad grades/too much time on Internet/other, and I get
abandoned but I get adopted by some nice person and get painted and live happily
ever after' stories." Or maybe not, you could be thinking, "Oh, I love these
stories, they are so sad, but then it's so nice when the pet finds a nice owner."
Either way, it isn't that kind of story.
***
"What do you want to do?"
"I dunno, what do you want to do?"
"Hmmmm. I dunno, what do you want to do?" Nick
and Richie were two ordinary twelve-year-old boys. Bored boys, at that. "Hey,
Richie, I heard about this weird site. www.neopets.com. Let's look at it."
"Richie, your mom just called, you have to go
home for dinner!" a voice called out from downstairs.
"Gotta go, bye!" Richie hopped up from his spot
slumped in a chair.
"Bye." Nick called after him.
***
After dinner that night, Richie got online. After surfing around for a while,
he got bored and went to the Neopets site. He signed up as coolduderichie1156,
and got a yellow Grarrl named IMCOOL345829. He surfed around the site a while,
until he had to go to bed. He logged about a week later, after a long search
for the paper he had written the name and password on. His pet was hungry, but
he didn't care.
"How do you feed them anyway?" he wondered aloud.
"This site is boring." He was about to log off, when he noticed the pound link
in pet central. He went there, for the sole reason that he felt like it. "Whoa,
freaky lizard thing with hair!" He clicked the abandon sign. "Yeah, whatever,
I'll just abandon him. It's a dumb site anyway." This story has been from Richie's
viewpoint so far. But let us go back in time a little to when IMCOOL345829 was
born.
***
A crack grew in the large speckled yellow egg, and a young yellow Grarrl crawled
out. Me. I looked up at my new owner, already growing attached. My new owner!
He didn't pay any attention to me. All I knew was my name. Owner didn't tell
me anything else. Didn't even speak to his new-born Grarrl. Though I was young,
I knew that something was wrong. Owner didn't even seem to really know I was
there. He wandered blankly around Neopia, not truly seeing his surroundings.
I followed behind him, trying to get his attention. It was no use. Then Owner
suddenly disappeared without any notice. I whined sadly, (Well as much as a
whine as a Grarrl can make.) And found an empty cardboard box in an alleyway
of Neopia that I curled up and went to sleep in.
***
Owner was back the next day. I cried out happily, and ran up to him. He took
no notice. Once again, I followed him around Neopia, wondering how he could
walk along, and not even see what was right in front of his eyes.
"This site is boring," said Owner.
"Boring?" I said, talking for the first time.
"What about me? Why don't you play with me?" He didn't even hear. Owner was
about to leave, when he spotted a large, drab brick building up ahead. He went
inside. I, of course followed, not realizing where we were going. Now I wish
I had just run away, right then and there. He walked up to a strange yellow
Techo with grey hair.
"Whoh, freaky lizard thing with hair!" said Owner.
"What?" said the Techo who I now know as Dr.
Death, in an annoyed manner. Again, Owner didn't seem to hear him. So it isn't
just me! I thought.
"Yeah whatever, I'll just abandon him. This
site is stupid anyway." He put some Neopoints on the desk, not even seeing what
he was doing. What? Abandon? What is a site? I thought Neopia was a world. Those
were some of the thoughts going through my head. The Techo looked at him as
if wondering what was wrong with this person, but took the Neopoints, and then
took me through a door into a back room. Tears in my eyes, I watched as Owner
disappeared from Neopia. Forever.
I blinked, and looked around the room. Cages
of every size lined the wall, most filled with sad looking pets. The Techo put
me in a cage, muttered, "Sorry," and left. I sat in the cage, dumbfounded. Thoughts
raced through my head at the speed of a Poogle racer. What had just happened?
Where was I? And where was Owner? And why had he put me here? I looked at the
pets around me. A big, fierce looking green Lupe was in the cage on my left,
and a yellow Lenny to my right.
"Welcome to our little family." I turned around
sharply, and saw a blue Kougra in the cage across from me.
"What? Where am I?" The Lenny shook her feathery
head.
"He's young."
"Where do you think you are? Faerieland?" I
turned. It was the Lupe.
"Ignore him," said the Kougra "That's just Ripurhedoff,
or Rip as we call him. He isn't very good at being social. His owner abandoned
him because of his stats. Rip looks big, but his stats aren't to be desired.
His owner had wanted a fighting pet. You are at the pound.
"What's the pound?" I asked.
"It's a place where owners put their unwanted
pets. Then other people can come and adopt us." Unwanted? What was wrong with
me? My stats were okay, and I didn't have a personality problem, as far as I
knew. "What's your name?" I snapped back to reality.
"IMCOOL345829" The Kougra nodded.
"We get a lot of weird names here. I'm Blue_Moon99999.
Call me Blue. The Lenny is uglybuns_neo. We just call her neo. Except for Rip,
he actually calls her uglybuns." The Lenny nodded. "The green Grundo to my left
is OoOoSPACEMANoOoO.
"Hey."
"The red Zafara to my right is zgorf983b48ffjkds939.
We call her zgorf, or Z." The Zafara held up her paw in a sort of wave. "We
don't really make contact with anyone else here."
"Tell us your story, cool," said spaceman. And
so I told them. I told them everything there was to tell. I paused.
"Do you guys know why he was like that?" Blue
nodded.
"People in Neopia don't even realize that their
pets are there. They don't pay attention to them, or their surroundings. It's
like they aren't really here at all. At least that's how our owners were." There
was a hint of contempt in her voice.
"But where are they then?"
"Who knows. Maybe humans have their own world
out there. One where there are no Neopets That's what I heard anyway." I pondered
this for a moment.
"What about you guys? Why are you here?" And
so they told me their stories.
Apparently, Blue was abandoned because the Shoyrus
came out. Her owner wanted one, and had to get rid of a pet to do so. Neo was
abandoned simply because her owner didn't like her. She was only created as
a joke. Rip, as I already knew, was abandoned because his stats were bad. Spaceman,
because his owner didn't like Neopets anymore. And zgorf was abandoned for the
sole reason that her owner wanted to see what happens when you abandon a pet.
That, I suppose, was when I grew my hatred for
humans. That was the moment I realized, humans weren't nice, they just bring
you into the world for no reason, and then abandon you. They just get rid of
you like yesterday's trash when the mood takes them. That was also when I realized,
that with Owner, it was never really there. What, you may ask? Love.
"We've all been here for a while," said Blue.
"And now, we have another addition to the society
of freaks. Welcome to the worthless of Neopia, kid."
"Shuddup Rip," said spaceman. "Don't get the
little one down."
"But, why haven't any of you been adopted?"
I asked innocently.
"Well, me because I erm, react badly with humans,"
said Blue.
"You mean you go ballistic when a human gets
anywhere near you," corrected Rip.
"You could say that... Well anyway, Rip because
of his stats. Neo simply because, well, erm, no one likes Lennys"
"We are the hated species of Neopia."
"Spaceman, well, no reason why he shouldn't
be adopted. Guess it's just bad luck. And Z.... Well, lets face it, who wants
a pet named zgorf983b48ffjkds939? All of a sudden, the lights went off and it
was pitch black. I yelled out in surprise.
"Lights out time," said the voice of Neo from
somewhere around my right arm. I then realized how exhausted I was. I lay down
on the straw in the corner of the cage and went off into a troubled sleep.
To be continued...
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