The Fall of the Hundred Acre Empire

The food stores were low again. Or actually, Pooh couldn't even recall the last time the cellar was well stocked. It seemed so long ago, like a few weeks after the night of October 1st when Christopher Robin, now a teenager, sat Pooh down in his tree house, now a little more sleek and modern in fashion. The old bear could still remember his best friend's face on that breezy night; Christopher looked a bit sullen, staring down mournfully into his cup of tea, barely speaking to his bear friend except to bring up short, failed conversations about the weather, and how his week was. The atmosphere sent an unfamiliar awkward, uncomfortable tingle through Pooh's spine. Christopher has never been so quiet. Especially not to him.

"Christopher, you look a bit down." Pooh had said, his voice full of concern. An awkward silence fell upon the room.

"No, no.." Christopher Robin replied, obviously not feeling okay. He put his cup of tea down, his hand shaking with anxiety that Pooh could feel so strongly. "I'm not down."

"Then why do you sulk? Are you sick? Do you want me to get more tea? Oh bother, maybe I should fetch some honey from home as well... I'll be right back."

Christopher put up a hand to stop his bear friend. "No, I'm not sick, Pooh." He tried to muster a fake smile. "Here, you want a biscuit? I made them myself."

Pooh took one, nodding, and bit into it. He licked every last crumb off his paw with gusto, and took that can of soda Christopher had out for some reason and washed it down. That biscuit was good. Pooh looked past his soda can... Christopher looked unusually sad again. He looked closer. This wasn't the temporary sadness that Christopher had back when he was a small child and had to leave for school for the first time. That sadness faded so long ago! It took a while, but Pooh and the others finally got themselves to entertain themselves for about six to seven hours until their human companion arrived home in the late afternoon. It got especially easier when Christopher had one day brought home a "tablet" and a "laptop"(Tigger and Roo had since then become gamers and hogged those two devices every hour of the day, or until Kanga took it away). No, it wasn't that sadness at all. It was deeper, like he'd lost something, and the loss penetrated his heart deeply.

"Pooh?"

"Yes, Christopher."

"I just want you to know that you were my very best friend."

Something in that sentence hit Pooh like he had ran into a brick wall at the speed of sound. It began to tighten around his heart, causing it to ache. But he wasn't sure why.

"Yes, Christopher?" Pooh answered, loyally.

Christopher brushed his long brown hair out of his face. The bear was surprised to see that there was even more sadness in his big brown eyes. Who knew eyes could carry the most emotion? Some of the sadness was starting to leak out as well. Pooh got up from his chair with a grunt of effort and wiped away the salty liquid with a friendly smile.

"I will remember and cherish every special moment we had together. Even the not so great ones." the boy whispered, his voice cracking. "I want you to tell the others this, and I'll give you a note to read for them too."

Pooh stood there, a bit confused. Christopher is so distraught that he forgot that Pooh doesn't know how to read. Oh well, he thought. He let his best friend continue.

"You know those classmates of mine that I have in high school? They say it's not right for a boy of my age to still play with bears and tiggers and piglets and eeyores."

"Oh, but Christopher!" Pooh gasped, clapping his paws to his mouth in shock. "I thought we told you that those... 'classmates' of yours just have too much fluff in their brains to open up their minds." Pooh felt his voice unusually harden. "Those jerks don't know what they're talking about."

The boy snapped back, "Really? I've been getting bullied since seventh grade. Last night, Trevor and his gang beat me real good on my way home. That's been happening so frequently now. I can't even show my face at school anymore without anyone calling me a "furry", whatever that is. I can't live like this anymore, Pooh. I just can't."

Pooh stood in shocked silence, his heart hurting. Was his truest friend really going there? No, Christopher couldn't just throw away his best friends like trash. Not after all they've been through. Then he remembered the time Christopher brought Piglet(who was small enough to hitchhike in his backpack) to middle school, and Piglet came back content, compared to the time Piglet stowed away to go with Christopher to his first day of high school, despite their boy's complaints. Piglet came back crying. According to the trembling swine, he was just playing a small game of Candy Crush(his favorite game) on Christopher's phone and browsing his Instagram when he felt the bag jerk violently into a hard metal surface. He poked his head out, about to snap at Christopher for not being careful enough, when he found out that a group of unfamiliar pairs of hands were rummaging recklessly in the pockets. Piglet was nearly kidnapped and torn apart alive by the boy Christopher called Trevor. Since then, no Hundred Acre Wood citizens were allowed to hitchhike, which made sense. Perhaps Christopher just wanted them to hide?

"I'm going to have to leave this place." Christopher blurted out.

Pooh fell back into his chair. "Excuse me? We've come so far! Look, it was just nine, ten, twelve of us back when you were ten, and now look at the Wood. We're practically a whole city now, how do you expect us to continue life without you?" Outside the window, was in fact, not an empty forest anymore, but a bustling, glowing city of tree houses. Over the years, more friends migrated to the Wood, expanding their industrial side until it was just like the place known as New York City in America. Why would Christopher want to leave? There was much to stay for!

"I mean it, Pooh. This isn't some late April Fools prank. I'm leaving. Rabbit will be mayor. He can pick the government from there." Christopher paused, scribbling something on a paper. He handed it to Pooh before calling two security guards to escort Pooh back home. Christopher was never seen again. But like their former leader said, Rabbit became the mayor, and everything ran smoothly, as normal, if not better, as it was before. But five days after Rabbit was brought into office, he was reported dead with a gunshot wound to the head, chest and stomach. A shady looking fellow, Henry(a pig and Rabbit's second in command), became mayor, but immediately changed his title to Emperor and suddenly the Hundred Acre Wood became the Hundred Acre Empire. It was utter h*** after that.

Henry divided the city into eight different sectors that represented eight different industries(Farming, Oil, Manufacturing, Electricity, Mining, Medicine, Fishing and Water Supply), and made them all work non-stop, everyday. Even children three years old and above had to start working. Pooh, who was now in the Farming Sector, never remembered a single day where he didn't go hungry. In the Farming Sector, the other Sectors were of higher priority when it came to food distribution. So Farmers always got minimum shares of the food they make. Sometimes they got nothing at all and starved. Henry was a cruel emperor, that's for sure.

Snapping back to the present, Pooh felt a light tapping on his thinning shoulder. It was Piglet, who was in the Medicine Sector. Tigger(Fishing) was laying on a hay bale, coughing violently, covered in bloody bandages.

"Pooh, I don't have anymore Comfort Leaves anymore." Piglet whimpered. "He's starting to feel pain again, and I can't go on with the healing if he feels pain. Do you have any?"

Pooh dug around in his dusty gray overalls, and pulled out five spiky evergreen leaves. Piglet muttered his thanks and sprinted back toward Tigger, who was groaning in agony. Pooh tried not to look, but there was no escape. Out the corner of his beady black eyes, he saw mangled orange and black striped fur bleeding out rapidly. For Tigger, this was actually a normal occurence, as he and his fishing crew were forced to fish for the largest, most vicious fish in the oceans, the Sherk. But this time, a Sherk had gotten a huge part of his hind paw. Of course, you would expect Tigger to bleed stuffing, because he's a stuffed animal, but since Christopher Robin left, the citizens slowly became flesh and bone, only adding to Emperor Henry's bloodthirst.

He continued to search the cellar for any sign of any food at all, but all he could muster up was a small chunk of stale, moldy green bread, a dusty french fry, and a bean. Piglet looked at him, dismayed. But everything became dismaying now. Honey soon became rare until supplies ran out and the luxurious sticky liquid was no longer sold in the small, dirty grocery stores they had. That was one of the worst days of Pooh's life.

"Oh my goodness!" Kanga's voice gasped from the entrance of the cellar. Pooh could only stare as Kanga rushed over to her husband and tearfully fussed over his mangled leg. "What happened?" she demanded.

"Sherk attack. The oil tanks on the ship exploded too." Piglet replied shakily, almost tearing up himself. "He's lucky to even be alive at this point, but I think I'm gonna have to... um, amputate his right leg, knee down."

Kanga let out a cry of anguish and buried her face in Tigger's chest. Piglet gulped back his own cry of anguish and dabbed a dirty wet washcloth on the forehead of Tigger, who was barely awake. He had stopped groaning in pain now. Pooh turned away, his head lowered, and he saw Roo standing at the entrance, gaping in shock at his step-father's condition.

"P-pooh?" Roo squeaked, his eyes growing big and watery. "What does amputate mean?"

"You'll find out very soon." Pooh whispered gently. He wasn't about to go and dump the gruesome truth on innocent, pure Roo. Then he saw the gleam of the amputation saw.
"Erm, let's go out now, shall we?"

They walked out of the cellar, and sat down on the burnt grass above it, looking down on their ruined city. The once beautiful trees were burned down, cut down, and replaced with giant gloomy metal factories and ash-sprinkled apartments. Eeyore, was in fact, in one of the factories right now, working his usual Manufacturer's job, alongside Owl and Gopher.

"Pooh?" Roo whispered. "I liked it a lot better when Rabbit was Mayor."

"So did I, Roo." Pooh replied glumly.

"I wish we could do something about it. We should kill the Emperor. That'll get rid of this terrible place forever."

Pooh, who would have argued if he was still himself, found himself saying, "Yes, Roo. We should."