Disclaimer: this will be three chapters. Based on the tumblr artwork by Iguanamouth. (Please follow this user and support their artwork).
"Pull the trigger, Piglet."
Winnie the Pooh's paw, ragged and covered in the crumbling pieces of long forsaken blood, is stretched outward, out into the open, already showcasing the signs of the fatal virus infection.
His bead-like eyes scan the face of his pink swine friend.
Piglet is a trembling, gawking mess. Even now—after all these years of enduring the pain of a zombie-fighting lifestyle— he's still uncomfortable with a shotgun. It's awkward and saddening in his paws.
The gunshot is loud. The eternity that follows the blast is nonexistent— gone before Pooh can even begin to comprehend his newfound nothingness. It is finished.
One week earlier
"Rooh went out with Bunny," Pooh says, entering the small make-shift campsite located in the corner edge of the hundred acre wood. He is carrying a bundle of wooden sticks in his thick yellow arms. He casually approaches his leader, Christopher Robin, who is taking a break and lounging against an oak tree. "I got the firewood."
"Excellent," Christopher Robin nods. He leans forward, shifting his weight, and hand-picks one of the bigger, stronger looking sticks from the bunch. "Hey, maybe I can make a dagger out of this. You know, if I cut the edge off the end piece."
Pooh stares blankly at the stick as it rolls around in Christopher Robin's long fingers. Christopher's grown a lot now. He had a growth spurt over the springtime when he crossed his fifteenth birthday. Now his brown hair reaches slightly past the tips of his ears, and his legs are long, jutted and skinny to the bone. He's a spitting image of his former self; but his soul, weak and tattered by the systematic life he endures today, is far differed.
"Tigger went hunting for meat," Christopher Robin adds, settling back down against the oak, resting his hands behind his head. "He went by himself. If you ask me, it's suicide. Especially in this time of the day. That's when the fuckers are out the most. They'll bite ya' if they see ya' walking through by yourself."
He is, of course, referring to the zombies that aimlessly roam the trenches deep inside the forest.
"Oh bother, I do hope he retrieves a pot of honey," Pooh grins sheepishly, plopping himself down next to Christopher Robin. As he watches Christopher Robin toss the stick back into the pile, an idea pops into his fluff-brained mind:
"Christopher Robin," he says sweetly, "want to play Pooh Sticks on the bridge?"
Pooh Sticks, of course, is a game they played long ago.
Christopher Robin's eyes droop slowly. He's tired, and his attention isn't exactly sharp. Slowly, he turns toward Pooh, disinterest adamant in his expression. "Pooh, honestly, we're both a little too old to play games. And don't call me Christopher Robin. Just say Christopher."
With this, Christopher turns on his side and drifts into a quick sleep.
Pooh fumbles with his paws and then walks off.
When Pooh returns to camp, it's nearly dark, and his camp mates are enjoying the dinner that Tigger caught. Pooh enters on his tippy toes, even though he's too fat for that, trying not to draw attention to himself.
"Pooh, where'd you run off too?" Kanga questions loudly with his scrappy nine-year old voice, noticing Pooh enter through the side entrance. He scarfs down a chicken wing. "You almost missed dinner. My mom cooked you a chicken leg over the fire."
"That's nice," Pooh says, placing his rifle under a blanket of leaves and sticks. "I went out to find some honey. Figured it'd taste good on our meat."
"But you didn't get any," Rabbit observes.
"No," Pooh says, somewhat dejected. "Seems to be a low supply these days."
He is handed his chicken leg, and as he thoughtfully chews the meat, Eeyore slinks over to Pooh's side.
Eeyore wears an eyepatch over his left eye; it covers a nasty scar slashed across his eye, which was injured in a three-way zombie raid from the time Christopher Robin mistakenly made the group form an alliance with the Lost Boys from Neverland. Their leader, Peter Pan, ended up turning against Christopher Robin, wanting to enslave Pooh and the other animals for forced labor purposes.
But Eeyore snuck up from behind the floating Peter and stuck an arrow through his jugular vein. Pan died; Eeyore lost an eye.
"We need to move on," the donkey says. "Leave camp and move out of the hundred-acre wood."
The animals, Pooh, Piglet, Roo, Kanga, Tigger, and Rabbit, each nod at this statement. It's true; they want to leave. They're fed up with staying in the same place, eating the same things, never having adventure. Never eating honey.
"Nobody's leaving," a cold, chilling voice says.
The animals whip around; they see Christopher standing on the cliff up above, fists on his hips.
"Christopher Robin," Rabbit says, peering upward at the adolescent boy.
"It's just Christopher. Fuck the 'Robin'."
"Christopher R-r-... Christopher, please. We need to move on. Find other survivors!"
The cold light of the black, orange-twisted sunset silhouettes Christopher's clouded expression. His figure seems as if it will never bend, and his hollow eyes, gaping and yellow, sear hotly into the night's crisp air.
Christopher's response is a simple, "No", and with that, he turns around and goes back into the tree house.