The man Mash Buttons calls his dad isn't his biological father. All of the kids that he lives with aren't his biological siblings, or in any way blood-related to him. The home that he lives at was an orphanage, and he was an orphan.
"Mash Buttonsy!" Sweetie Belle was waving at him from across the field. Mash Buttons smiled and ran across the field back toward the house.
"Coming!" He tripped and fell flat on his face right in front of her. Sweetie Belle stifled a laugh, helped him up, and they both went inside.
At least, that's what he thought he was.
…
At 6:00 sharp, the clock will ring. That means it's time for breakfast.
Mash Buttons sat up in his bed. He stared into space for a minute before realizing the time. He stretched and smiled at everyone.
"Everyone, wake up! You're gonna be late for breakfast!" Mash Buttons's yell seemed to wake up the whole room. All the big kids and little kids sat up straight. Some rubbed their eyes, some stretched, others yawned and laid back down. Soon enough, the room was filled with noisy chatter.
"Mash Buttons! I can't tie my shoeees!" Two kids whined at the bluenette. Mash Buttons smiled at them.
"Don't worry! I'll help you!" He helped the small children with their shoelaces, messing up only twice. The two kids grinned up at him before running off to go play or do whatever they do best. Mash Buttons smiled again before following out.
"Good morning Snips, Snails!" Snips waved her hand at him and Snails nodded in acknowledgment. Mash Buttons was one of the oldest out of the 38 kids who live here. That made him a big brother to everyone, despite how childish he acted for his age.
"Okay! We made it!" He grinned as he was about to sit down at the table when he felt someone shove him from behind. Mash Buttons looked around and saw two twins with orange-yellow tinted hair smiling up at him.
"Come get us!" "You're it!"
"Watch out…" Mash Buttons smiled at them before giving chase. "I'm going to eat you!" After chasing after them for a good couple of minutes, Mash Buttons scooped them up and carried them back to the dining area. The twins laughed and tugged on the side of Mash Buttons's mouth. "Mowning!"
Diamond Tiara and Sweetie Belle looked over at Mash Buttons. They were currently helping set up the table, food and all.
"Good morning, Mash Buttons." Diamond Tiara smiled at Mash Buttons.
"' Mowning' Mash Buttonsy." Sweetie Belle laughed slightly. "You've got so much energy, how old are you again? 5?"
"I'm 11, the same as you guys!" Mash Buttons set down the twins. "You're so mean, Sweetie Belle!"
"Mash Buttons, can you give me a hand over here?" Mr. Grouper, otherwise known as 'Dad' by the orphans, stifled a giggle. Mash Buttons pouted as he trudged over to him.
"Daaad! I wanna redo my entranceee! And you're laughing at me!" Mash Buttons whined.
"Why? I love that part about you." Mr. Grouper patted the bluenette's head.
"That I'm 5 years old on the inside?"
"No." Mr. Grouper shook his head. "The part where you deeply care about your family."
After processing this compliment for a moment, Mash Buttons grinned up at Mr. Grouper. "Thank you!"
Their skin tones, hair color, height, gender, and personalities are all different, but Mash Buttons loved them all. Even if they weren't related by blood, they were his family. The orphanage was his home. Everything there was normal.
Mash Buttons had never doubted any of that for his whole life. This was their ordinary, daily life.
They've got everything. A warm bed, absolutely delicious food, an all-white uniform, the I.D. numbers tattooed on their necks, and most of all, the daily test.
It takes place every day after breakfast. All of the children would sit at a desk and fill out answers to questions. According to Mr. Grouper, it was 'for the future' and 'for themselves.' He also had said that these tests take the place of schools.
Each child began their test. Most of the questions were math-related since this was type 1. The next time was Language Arts, then Science. It was all for their future according to Mr. Grouper.
Eventually, after much thinking and writing, the buzzer sounded, signaling the testing time was over. The orange-yellow tinted hair twins both stretched.
"Whew! We're done!" "I'm so tired. I think I got almost half." "Wow! Really?"
"I have the results." Everyone turned their attention to Mr. Grouper. "Diamond Tiara, Sweetie Belle, Mash Buttons. Perfect scores again! Well done!"
"YAAAAY!" Mash Buttons cheered. Sweetie Belle blew a lock of hair out of her face. Diamond Tiara only smiled at Mash Buttons's reaction. No one really hated the tests. It was a nice feeling, being praised by someone you love or admire.
After the tests, the orphans would always be allowed to go out and play. The game they would normally play was tag, and today was no exception. Diamond Tiara was it. And she had caught almost everyone in no time flat. The only people left were Mash Buttons. But…
"SHE CAUGHT ME AGAIN!" Mash Buttons laid on the ground, repeatedly banging his fist against the dirt. He was frustrated.
"But you survived alone for ten minutes. New record." Sweetie Belle's focus on her book didn't waver in the slightest.
"Why is Diamond Tiara so good at taaag?!" Sweetie Belle looked over at the bluenette.
"Question." Mash Buttons looked over at Sweetie Belle. She closed her book. Mash Buttons crawled over. "What does Diamond Tiara have that you don't?"
Mash Buttons thought for a moment before giving up. "There's too much to list." She had cool-headedness, the ability to plan, overwhelming intelligence, and more. Way too much for him to be able to list in one sitting.
"Strategy." Mash Buttons perked up. "If it's about simple physical ability, then yeah, you've got the advantage. But Diamond Tiara's version of tag is a little deeper than that. She had brains like no other, and you're playing tag which is a strategy game. How will the target run away? What are the moves it will make? You need to observe and analyze the situation. Reading your enemy's moves and using that against them is necessary. You're basically just playing chess but with your entire body."
Mash Buttons felt a headache coming on. "I don't really get it but okay."
"That's how Diamond Tiara plays it." Diamond Tiara walked over to the two and joined them, sitting down next to Mash Buttons.
"That's what makes tag fun." She smiled at Mash Buttons. "Sweetie Belle has strategy too. She's way more of a tactician than me, too."
"Don't give me too much credit." Sweetie Belle rolled her eyes and returned to her book.
The other orphans watched the three from afar. "Those three are something else." Snips shook her head. Snails nodded in agreement. "Diamond Tiara's a genius who has the best brains out of everyone. Sweetie Belle is just as resourceful and knowledgeable. Mash Buttons has incredible athletic ability and his learning ability lets him keep up with the others."
Snails nodded. He hugged his stuffed animal plush closely.
…
The orphan's lives don't last there forever. They're assigned foster homes and have to leave before they turn twelve. That is another one of the rules at the orphanage.
"Snails! Are you ready?" Mash Buttons practically burst into the room. Snails jolted and dropped his plushie. Quickly picking it up, he nodded and smiled slightly at Mash Buttons.
"What do you think?" Mash Buttons grinned at Snails.
"You look great!" Snails smiled at him. He thanked the bluenette for the compliment before leaving to follow Mr. Grouper to meet his foster family. He had already said his goodbyes to everyone and was just as excited as every kid to leave the orphanage to meet his new family.
No one at the orphanage knows their real parents or wherever they were born. Getting a new family and departing from here was always exciting. Still, saying goodbye to someone you care about deeply is hard and very upsetting. Mash Buttons, Diamond Tiara, and Sweetie Belle were the oldest out of everyone here. The next one could be any one of them.
Mash Buttons was sweeping the kitchen after Snails's depart when he noticed something amiss. He looked at the dinner table. Snails's stuffed cat was still there.
"Snails?! HE FORGOT IT!" Mash Buttons panicked, promptly dropping the broom. Snips and Diamond Tiara, who were helping him clean at the time, looked over.
"It might be too late. Snails's gone already." Diamond Tiara rested her hand on his shoulder in an attempt to comfort the bluenette.
"Maybe not." Both Mash Buttons and Diamond Tiara looked over at the doorway. Sweetie Belle was leaning against it. "I saw from the bath window that the lights at the gate were on and Dad, who saw him off, isn't back yet. There might still be time."
"Let's deliver it to him." Diamond Tiara smiled at Mash Buttons. "I know the correct thing to do is to have Dad send it to him later, but Snails would be happier if we did something now, right?"
Mash Buttons grinned. "Good thinking, Diamond Tiara!" He went over to the back door and tried to open it. The handle wouldn't budge. "Ugh, the back door is locked! It's hopeless!"
"No problem. I can pick this lock." Diamond Tiara pulled a bobby pin out of her hair and picked the lock with ease. A click sounded in no time flat. "We can get in trouble later together." They both ran toward the gate that Snails was sent to his foster family at.
The two explored the tunnel leading away from the orphanage. A truck with a huge sheet was bigger than any Mash Buttons had seen before, covering the back end. "Wow, a truck! I've never seen one before." Diamond Tiara walked over to the front and peered inside the driver's side.
"He's not in the front." Diamond Tiara began to walk back over to Mash Buttons when a weird noise stopped her. She glanced around, curious, only to see water dripping out of a pipe.
"Maybe he'll notice if I put it in the back." Mash Buttons pushed a corner of the sheet to the side, peering inside the back end of the truck. "Snails? You in here?"
Mash Buttons dropped the stuffed cat almost immediately. Diamond Tiara's gaze moved over to Mash Buttons. He looked rather traumatized for someone who was just returning a stuffed animal to someone.
"Diamond Tiara."
Diamond Tiara walked over and joined Mash Buttons, standing next to him. She peered inside the truck. When she saw its contents, her expression was the same as his.
Snails was dead.
"Is someone there?" A voice that neither of the two recognized echoed in the tunnel. Mash Buttons scrambled to pick up the dropped cat and they both ran to hide underneath the truck. A door could be heard open, then close shut almost immediately after.
"Did you hear voices just now?" "Probably just your imagination." "Damn. If it was a cat, I woulda eaten it." "Ew, you eat things like cats?"
After much hesitation and deliberation, Mash Buttons decided to peek out just a little bit to see what was there. He froze.
There stood two majorly disfigured creatures. Their joints bent in the wrong places. They had strange faces, their features looking to be carved out of concrete had cracks in them and had eyes lined up vertically instead of horizontally. Their skin looked a sickly white, seeming to be melting off but stuck on the muscle underneath. They both wore black cloaks with large horns sticking out of the hoods. Mash Buttons fought the urge to vomit right there.
One of the creatures that looked significantly less muscular than the other picked up Snails with its long, slender claws. It opened its mouth rather slowly, revealing rows and rows of teeth. The creature sighed. "Man, it looks delicious. Human flesh is the best." It dropped Snails's limp body into a container filled with liquid, most likely there for preserving his body.
What?! What's going on?! Did they kill Snails?! Human flesh? They eat humans?! They're just like…
Demons.
"Where's Papa?" Mash Buttons whispered quietly. Diamond Tiara quickly covered his mouth and shushed him.
"Damn, I wish I could just have a fingertip." The other demon, the muscular one, shook its disfigured head.
"You can't. It's valuable merchandise." It sighed. "Not something the likes of us could have. The humans produced by this farm are high-quality meat meant for the rich."
Mash Buttons felt tears streaming down his face. Memories of his family played back in his head. The fun times they all spent together, the delicious food they all ate. They were living just so they could get killed off and eaten?
"Another young one. We've been harvesting normal ones recently." The demon traced its finger down the clipboard. "We'll be able to harvest some high-quality ones next, though. Prepare to bring the three that get full marks."
"Understood." Diamond Tiara and Mash Buttons's eyes widened. Mr. Grouper was standing there, associating with the demons.
"The feed is in the storage. I'm looking forward to it next time." Mr. Grouper's lips twisted into a cruel smile.
"You can count on me." The demon dismissed the group, and the three adults began to leave before one stopped them.
"Wait. I smell something." The demon looked around before eyeing the underneath of the cart. It bent down and glanced around a little, spotting something that caught his interest.
…
Diamond Tiara and Mash Buttons were running as fast as they could back toward the main house. Mash Buttons tripped over a rock and fell on the ground. Diamond Tiara stopped running and stood there in front of him. He didn't pick himself up. He didn't move. He just sat there breathing heavily.
"Demons are imaginary creatures, right? A-And everyone found foster homes!" He looked up at Diamond Tiara, smiling and looking like he could cry at the drop of a hat. "Dad's the usual, gentle Dad, right?" Mash Buttons shook his head, more of a way to reassure himself than to dismiss the thought. "That boy on the bed of the truck, that wasn't Snails, right?!"
Diamond Tiara sighed and rested her hand on Mash Buttons's head. "That… That was Snails." Mash Buttons felt tears well up in his eyes. He screamed out as loud as he could, hoping that God would hear it.