Chapter II

Monday had hit the town at last. Mondays were always troublesome and lead to horrific deaths later in the week. No one liked Mondays and for that was the reason to even fear the start of the deathly week. However everyone had been giddy to look forward to the Winter Festival. When something like a celebration were to happen in town, most friends kept their heads up high, not even caring with their daily deaths. However setting up such a wonderful celebration meant lots of labor. And that is why a small group dedicated themselves to wear out their charts so they wouldn't have to worry. Of course the planned suicides didn't always work, but for the most part, they did. After the charts were filled the friends would have nothing to fear while they worked for the celebration.

The group was normally made up of Lumpy, Cuddles, Giggles, Handy, Sniffles, Petunia, Truffles, Toothy, and Nutty. Sometimes even Pop and cub if they were willing enough, the same for a few others but they normally wouldn't bother to associate with them, not likening the idea of messing their demising nature. Sniffles and Lumpy were the ones in charge, well mostly Sniffles but when it came to gathering up the others, Lumpy was best suited for the job since he loved gathering the friends up as he smiled brightly, washing any grimness away. They would all write a different death to rearrange the same blandness that they would have to re-do every couple of hours. These were drawn from Handy's hat by random and led the path to their early deaths.

Flippy never chipped in to sacrifice himself with the others, fearing he'd be alone for the mass suicide while he would have killed the others. He liked dyeing with his own paws, knowing what would kill the young veteran. Only he knew what would and wouldn't send him into the light or fire before waking up in his bed, snug in the warmth of his blanket and pillows that would calm him down considerably after the never ending traumatic experience.

The green bear sighed to himself, awaiting his first death of the week. He wanted to just get them over and done with just like everyone else, but this time it wasn't for the festival, this reason was to spend time with a nice friend who deemed to be rather concerned for Flippy instead of being concerned about his terrifying split personality. It was early in the morning as the sun was rising behind his humble base constructed like home. He sat in his soft chair to relax himself while setting his own ill-fated trap. As long as he was in his home, he could be safe and not harm any friends.

With a small whimper he had cope himself from all the anxiety, pressure, stress, and psyched pint up emotions. The paws shakily put a cartridge into a small hand pistol, both objects were able to be held firmly without any chance of dropping them. Slowly Flippy set the pistol up that was only used for this situation. A slow painful death was much different than a speedy almost painless one, and those ones were the most savored from all of the friends in town. With a few deep breaths Flippy opened his mouth to slowly insert the gun's barrel in, making the metallic object shift to an angel that would just blast threw his brain. With a twitchy unstable finger, he nervously cocked the gun finally making the twitch stable enough to assure he wouldn't miss. As one firm finger drew itself around the trigger, he solemnly closed his eyes and inhaled a long deep breath that gather into his lungs.

As he was ready to squeeze the deathly trigger, his ears managed to catch a faint sound of... Singing? Flippy dropped the gun, letting all the paranoia and fear overcome him, destroying all of the courage he had built up. Those courage's walls were now shattered and quickly absorbed fear. With a startled yelp he kicked the top part of the gun away when it landed on the carpet, making sure it didn't trigger somehow and away from him. If it was one thing he feared other than harming his friends, it was indeed death. He had always feared it most before his 'flip-outs' started to happen. So afraid that he even snuck into his fallen comrade's corpse to avoid it... But that was a different story.

Dropping to the floor, the bear crawled up to his window, taking in a breath as he sat up on his knees to look outside. " What... N-No wh-why are they here?!" Flippy tensed up so much that he didn't even realize that he was shaking so much that it was making his dog-tags chime together. Outside where he felt safe was the small-if not a large group. Before every mass suicidal the group would sing a song that was picked randomly, switching from upbeat to downright sad, even some were hilarious or startling.

The group sat down while Sniffles sang, " Ooh death. Whooooah death. Won't you spare me over 'til a another day? Well what is this that I can't see, with ice cold hands taking hold of me."

Flippy had heard this heart wrenching tune before, he would sometimes sing it on the battlefield to himself quietly after he heard it being sung so much by his sergeant who had always made the soldiers fearful to encourage them to fight for survival. It was a bit harsh, but how tough the sergeant was on them, made them fight back with effort. But all that had stopped once peace spread out. The only one who would care to sing it was his other side to torment Flippy about how things use to be and how his bloodlust was filled, making the killer happy from all the cruel acts he did onto others. Flippy covered his ears as he curled up knowing all too well his other side would soon start singing along. And of course it happen to quickly, ' Well I am death none can excel, I'll open the door to heaven or hell.'

Sniffles went on with the saddening and sorrow filled song, " Whoa death some friend would pray. Could you wait to call me another day? The friends prayed, the preacher preached-"

' Time and mercy is out of your reach. I'll fix your feet so you can't walk. I'll lock your jaw so you can't talk. I'll close your eyes so you can't see, this very hour come and go with me. Death I come to take the soul, leave the body and leave it cold. To drop the flesh up off the frame, dirt and worm both have a claim-Ehehehahaha!' Flippy's other side mocked him and was beginning to really enjoy the song for some reason, but the good natured side couldn't focus why from the horrid singing.

" Ooh death. Whooooah death. Won't you spare me over 'til a another day? My friends came to my bed, placed a cold towel up on my head. My head is warm my feet are cold, death is moving upon my soul. Oh death how you treating me, you closed my eyes so I can't see. Well you hurting my body you make cold, you run my life right out of my soul. Oh death please consider my age, please don't take me at this stage. My wealth is all at your command, if you will move your icy hands." Flippy could no longer hear Sniffles sing solemnly, all he could hear was the inner monster of himself wickedly chuckle out the song.

' Oh the young, the rich, or poor, hunger like me you know. No wealth no land no silver or gold. Nothing satisfies me but your soul. Ooh death. Woooooah Deahahahath!" At the last part Flippy had his paws out, he even had his claws peer out through his green coated fur. Once noticing the threatening expression he gave to the lonesome room he stumbled back and shook his head violently, jerking it side to side. With the tiny claws retracting he let out a small faint gasp before putting the paws up to his mouth. His entire fuzzy body shook with small tremors, he couldn't believe that he started singing along, his dark side almost breaking free from any inner chains that bound him from the outside world.

Flippy soon got up only to make it past the chair to hear a loud blaring siren ring off into his ears making him bump into the chair and flopping over, tripping, " Ah damnit!" With his paws clutching his ears he tried his best to completely block out the ringing sensation that was clawing at the back of his head to break loose into a wild ravenous frenzy.

Outside was another story as all the friends plugged their ears as well while Lumpy had earmuffs on, pressing the top of a can. The can let out that sound of a siren alarm, he kept his finger on the button until Handy couldn't stand it anymore as he wasn't able to do anything about the horrid sound but dig his head into the snow. Handy jittered all over until blood started gushing out from the bottom of his dandelion colored hard hat. The non-pawed beaver dazedly fell onto his back as blood poured onto the ground, reddening the snow and ice under him. Finally the siren can was slapped out of Lumpy's hands by Petunia who was moderately annoyed.

Sniffles unhanded his ears with everyone else in the group. Since Sniffles was the leader of the group, he shuddered in a bright red robe made of some fine silk. " Ugh... Lumpy! We said if he didn't come out within a minute, we would go onto the second death card-In fact why did you write down to make our friend snap instead of something more pleasant! What in the world made you brain think that this was a good idea anyways?!" The small aardvark literally hopped up with his arms out.

" 'Cause uhhh... He's good at it?" He said after looking away and all around before pin pointing the thought. Sniffles put up a finger in retaliation to say something to how Lumpy's statement was wrong. The finger only lowered as no words left Sniffle's mouth.

With a grumble through his snout's end and tiny rub on his forehead, the blue friend told the others what to do now. " I still can't believe that your card was picked-Come on guys let's go with Toothy's plan with the piranha infested pool."

Lumpy watched shamefully as the others groaned, still drained from the constant blur of the ring in their ears. " Ehehe... S-Sorry. Sorry." With a sigh he got out a megaphone, which made the other friend flinch and put their paws to their ears again. Sniffles looked back to his helping hand, in an odd matter.

" Lumpy, I doubt plan two would work-How did you even get that megaphone?" the tall moose stared back before looking back up at the megaphone in his hand.

" I don't know... But lemme' try it please!" The moose begged his younger and smaller friends. With a grumpy sigh from the same colored aardvark, he gave out a small wave of the paw to indicate Lumpy to continue his little ruse. Lumpy smiled happily and gleefully put on the speaker button and began to talk into it, out of the device came a gruff sounding voice that didn't seem like it was from Lumpy at all, " This is the general, come on out solider."

The group of friends blankly stared at Lumpy in amazement before blinking to focus on how in the world he did that voice, Giggles leaned over to her sunshine colored rabbit friend to whisper, " Wow he's really good..." Cuddles nodded, still trying to figure how Lumpy pulled that off. After a few quiet moments nothing happen, thus making the group start to walk away from the base like home. That was until Lumpy fell foreword onto the dirt snout first. Since he was carrying the megaphone in front of his face, the head was spliced into the back, making a large yet thin roll of meat and brain pop out of the back of his head. Blood gushed out from the new found hole of the skull.

The other friends looked back to see their fallen village idiot and shrieked at the top of their lungs. Toothy backed up away from the now dead body to a bush which the green bear was hiding in. With a stomp on the beaver's tail, Toothy yelled out, letting a green paw grab a hold of the upper part of the mouth's roof. The other green paw clung to the purple beaver's neck while the other started to pull his head back, finally making it snap with a sickening crackle and soon fully torn off its owner's lower head. The beaver cried out, only managing to let out a gurgling yelp which started to become even worse with blood profusely filling up the left over jaw. The bear reached into his pocket, receiving a glimmering bowie knife, that was used for slicing open the beaver's back to uncover his spinal grinned and slashed at the surround meat until; he was able to get his paws on the spine which was quickly torn out, tail attached.

Remaining members of the group scoured from where the yelling was from since the beaver had backed quite a distance. Cuddles squinted and frantically searched desperately for his best friend. The yellow rabbit pointed to a bush about to exclaim to the other where Toothy straggled off to, except the top part of the head only peeked out from behind the bush. The head bobbed back and then weaved forward, flying out from behind the bush. The upper skull of the dead beaver whizzed into Cuddles, the long gapping front buck teeth singed into the rabbit's forehead, piercing the brain. Cuddles dizzily backed up from the blow before collapsing onto his back, crushing some of the snow under his weight. Giggles gasped out in shock and hurriedly tried to pull the deceased beaver's skull out of Cuddles.

Petunia who was nearby her two friends turned and ran as she looked back at the fellow girl desperately pulling the beaver's skull. The blue skunk bumped into an unknown object, making her take a step back before seeing the horror that stood in front of her. That would be Flippy, a sadistic wide grin spread across his face, which opened partially, showing sharp and jagged teeth poking into sight behind his lips. He held up the bloody spine of Toothy's, as well as the spine of Handy who had already died earlier from the booming sound of the siren. Flippy swung one spine, letting one of the beaver's tail slap harshly against Petunia's cheek. Leaving a large red mark on the side of her face, only to have the other side smacked against her as well. This was continued until both sides of her face were red and dark purple before one tail was slammed onto the top of her head, severely cracking some of her skull, along with her lower jaw as it smashed into the ground. Flippy held both of the battered tails back before swinging them foreword, smashing a final blow on both of Petunia's head's sides, allowing them to smack right together as her head exploded into several chunks that littered the snow.

Meanwhile with Giggles who was trying so hard to tear the skull of Cuddled, Nutty twitched wildly and soon ran by, bumping Giggles onto the rabbit who finally gave way and turned into a cold corpse. As Giggles groaned, paws on the ground, pushing herself up, she realized that one ear of the rabbit was now tugged snuggly around the front of her neck. A hollow evil laugh came from behind her before the long ear was tightened, crushing her windpipes. Flippy held the newly cut ear from where it was cut and the tip. He put it through a knot that he made from the ear and tightened it greatly making Giggles choke out for a quick breath of cold icy air. Backing up, he watched the pink chipmunk flail about, tugging at the ear, gagging out in desperation before plopping down dead from no precious air flowing into her lungs.

Flippy grinned deviously, looking over at all his handy work. Until his green eyes and tiny pupils landed onto a friend who hadn't budged an inch, the robe wearing aardvark. Sniffles only stood before him, a bit away. Sniffles clasped his paws together, sighing in relief oddly enough, " Okay... Come on." With that being said the scientific aardvark spread out his arms and closed his eyes, waiting for the bittersweet embrace of his oncoming death that could no longer be avoided. Sniffles' small ears twitched foreword, hearing the crunching of the ground's snow, letting him acknowledge Flippy's murderous streak closing in to snuff out the aardvark's life. The odd thing was that the light footprints in the snowy ground stopped. This made Sniffles open his eyes, which he started regretting thinking surely Flippy was going to approach him from behind. Only he didn't. Instead he saw red squirrel, wearing a darkened blue mask strip around their eyes. The squirrel's lightly red colored tail waved a steady wag as its owner held the green military bear up by the neck.

Flippy choked out, claws clung onto the squirrel's paw that held him up with ease. Flippy squirmed around, kicking and snapping at the air to get loose from the tightened grip from the red friend. " He-HEY! What do you think you're doing?! Let him go!" The aardvark cried out in anger.

The squirrel glanced to him, glaring daggers at Sniffles, then returning his frustrated gaze back onto the green bear who was starting to be less spastic. " I'm saving you, you idiot. Now run far away." The red squirrel told out in a harsh temperament.

" No! You don't understand! We have a festival to build up and he's helping us fill out our death charts so we don't mess up and worry about it!" The squirrel gave him a bizarre look, like if he was as if he was turning into a sugary frenzy like Nutty mostly did. With a smooth swing, the bear was let go, flying him into the door of Flippy's small shack where tools of farming was held. Flippy crashed into the door, making a new dent, along with a fine small crack in it. The bear dropped to the icy ground coughing severely and gasping out to inhale deep sharp cold breaths. The squirrel simply ignored the periwinkle colored friend, moving up to Flippy to continue his 'justice'. Sniffles ran up between the two friend, spreading out his arms, steaming with anger as he looked up to the squirrel. " No! I need him to kill me so I can hurry back and be with the others!" Flippy slowly rose up and put his paws on Sniffle's shoulders, as his eyes were having trouble seeing the area around him.

A small sigh escaped the crimson's friend's mouth, " Okay, hurry on back then. Your getting in my way." With a lightning speed swing, the red friend's fist uppercut the aardvark, making his head pop off instantly on contact. The head flew into the sky while blood jutted out from where the neck had been attached. Flippy squinted to see who was in front of the light blue body, trying to focus as his surroundings spun around. The red friend pushed the standing body out of his way to grab the bear by his dog-tags and swiftly throwing him onto the white clean snow.

While in the sky however, a familiar looking blue squirrel was flying through the clouds happily humming a merry tune until the decapitated aardvark head floated in front of him before plummeting down back onto the world. A small shriek cried out as the blue squirrel stopped in mid-flight, shielding his eyes that had been covered with a strip of red cloth. " What in the-" He didn't even finish his sentence when he descended down through some of the white marshmallow and pillow like clouds.

Once the sapphire colored squirrel lowered himself to the icy snow, his eyes met the eyes of a rival. Both eyes locked onto each other with sheer dislike of one another. " Splendon't..." He acknowledged the fellow super squirrel.

" Splendid..." The other stated back to him. Splendid's eyes widened a bit once he saw the ruby colored squirrel's foot standing triumphantly on Flippy's head. A smug smirk grew onto Splendot's face as he stood there, folding his arms and skin flaps, " Jealous? I stopped this little quivering psycho in five seconds."

The red friend gloated to the blue one who was just staring in a startled state of alert, " Wha-what..." With a shake of his head and a few blinks Splendid scowled to the other squirrel, " He's not a psycho! Get your foot off of him! Do you go out of your way to harm those in need?!"

Splendon't grew a distressing look on his face, " What? What?! You moron, I was saving these guys from him! He killed them with his bare paws! Well.. His bear paws are bare-But still!" Splendid scanned the area, indeed seeing the blood and gore that lay waste in the snow.

" Not possible! They set off something and dragged that poor friend into it!" Flippy's eyes were slowing opening to see what the fuss was going on about. Groaning a bit, he whined as his pupils started to painfully dilate. He didn't make out anything as the argument went on however.

" Fine, don't believe me about this little insane bastard." He shrugged to his rival. Splendon't then pressed down on the bear's head with more pressure. Flippy coughed out a light squeak before his head became large chunks covered in deep red. The chunks landed all around where the vicinity of where the head had been, along with brain matter and teeth. " There, now you don't need to worry about sending him to jail. See you loser." With a smirk the crimson red squirrel flew off, leaving the stunned Splendid to stare at the horrifying trauma that had just occoured.

The bear's eyelids opened very slowly as the world around him came into focus. Flippy was now awake in his room, just like everyone including himself would begin the rest of their day after their regularly gruesome demise. With a tiny groan escaping him, Flippy sat up with a splitting headache, whenever they died a small pain where they had received the most damage would tend to feel numb, stingy, or either a twinge in the muscles. The emerald colored bear stretched his back, popping some bones in his back before taking a gander again. He however noticed someone reading nearby in a chair, or was reading since the book lay sprawled open on their face. A small screaming yelp later and Flippy instinctively rolled off the side of his bed, waking the friend in the process.

The sleepy friend's long light blue tail puffed from being startled and nearly jumped out of his seat, making the book fall flipped off of him. The blue friend gazed over to Flippy who was huddled in the corner of the other side of the room, near his bed, holding out a vase that contained a fake rubbery flower. The vase shook greatly as the bear held it frightfully, " Wh-Who are you?! How'd you get in my house?! Pl-P-Please! Don't hurt me, take anything you w-want!"

The familiar blue squirrel with the strap of red stood up putting his paws out, not defensively but to try and assure the paralyzed bear that he meant no harm, " Woah. Woah... Calm down. I'm not going to hurt you, nor would I want too. Take it easy buddy. I just thought I'd wait inside until you regenerated-to check up on you is all." He told the bear in a calm soothing voice which let Flippy lower his guard, but only slightly.

The bear quivered still as he held the vase, " O-Ohh... I-I thought... You were that other squirrel." Flippy's voice was calmer now, but he had not gotten over his shaking. After the war, that was a thing he couldn't get rid of, possibly the only minor thing that he couldn't stop.

" The red one?" Splendid questioned the green friend who only nodded in his response. " No. I'm not like him... I mean I might be related somehow-but I am defiantly not like him. I don't hurt those, I help them." A slight bite on the tongue for that one since he had purposely killed the thieving raccoons and mole once-even shake up Giggles by accident, but he was already to get back to just helping those in need. " Try not to worry about him, he lives in the big city far away. He only comes every so often each week." He stopped seeing as the bear was still keeping up his excitation of what seemed like fear. His keen eyes kept their glance at the bear who wouldn't stop shuddering, he decided to try and calm him a bit more, " Hey uhm... What-what type of flower is that?"

The shakiness soon leveled out to only a small jitter, " O-Oh... This. It's a Japanese peace lily. Only it's fake. I got ripped off by the twins, even though my mentor said to try and obtain one. It'd make me calm down." Ears flopped down a tad since Flippy had looked everywhere to get a real one. After a while he put the vase back up and timidly held his paws together, " Tha-thanks?" Though grateful, he still didn't like the idea of a stranger in his home. With more focus instead of trying to fend himself, the squirrel might hurt him, he noticed a similar pattern to the blue stranger, " Do I know you? You look familiar. I just can't put my finger on it. Almost like..." He squinted to figure this odd puzzle out.

" Oh! I'm uh-cousins with Wally!" A small stutter dropped out, followed with a nervous smile. " We-we live together, he lives with me, I mean!" Out came a small nervous chuckle. " I'll tell him you said 'Hi' and-and all-Oh I hear someone screaming-Gotta' go!" Splendid flew straight up, breaking the part of the roof that now lets the sunshine rise into Flippy's home. " Shit-Sorry! I-I'll fix that later!" He yelled down to the house before rushing off at supersonic speed. Flippy blinked as he just witnessed a super-hero bust out from his home, making a hole in the ceiling. A small piece of debris of the roof dropped in, crumbing into the ground before Flippy, making him step back with a shrill squeak of alertness.