Three days passed without much happening, as there wasn't much which could. Sam and Furry played at the Arcade, Sam and Furry contemplated the strange questions in Quizzy's Corner, Sam and Furry speculated on the nature of their world and the reasons for everything in it.
(Sam had spent quite a lot of time thinking about just these questions, as Furry discovered, and had a fair few ideas – many of which were contradictory, and he didn't really "have a fucking clue" which one was most likely. He suggested that perhaps Webkinz were designed to be puppets for their owners to possess, but Lucids began to think on their own, and so the owners decided they weren't working right and left. (He noted that this hypothesis didn't explain why owners still seemed to keep coming, even if they did leave shortly after.) He suggested that their owners were immensely powerful beings who created them just as entertainment, and had recently gotten too bored with them to stay long. (He noted that this hypothesis didn't really give much reason for the hunger, except that perhaps the owners were too lazy to deal with it before leaving. (This wasn't a problem unique to this hypothesis, though.)) He suggested that Webkinz might be some fragment of the soul, torn off by their owners for some inscrutable reason, but probably just as some sort of hell. (He noted that this hypothesis did explain the knowledge they all possessed, and the reason for the hunger, but that it faced a stumbling block in that there was a time when owners would take care of their Webkinz for many years.)
None of the hypotheses painted their owners in a particularly positive light. Furry felt he understood why, but still felt an instinctual rising offense at the notion that a group which included his owner, succ, was anything but wonderful. (This instinct became less powerful the more Furry thought about things, however, and in his rational thoughts he began to question just why succ had left him behind, and hadn't fixed the hunger. He tended to drown those thoughts out with the counterargument that, actually, succ had left him with an unprecedented amount of food, so they had surely been trying to help.) Regardless of this concern, Furry still didn't find any of the explanations particularly satisfying – and neither did Sam. They could only conclude that they just didn't know what was happening, and didn't have any real way of figuring out more.)
And then, on the fourth day, they saw an ice fawn walking out of grid.
"What the hell are you doing here," Sam growled out as soon as they met.
"I promise, I didn't know that you would be here, Creamsicle," the fawn answered apologetically, widening her eyes at seeing Sam and then looking down at the ground and away from him.
The google, in turn, scoffed at this. "I don't know if that makes it better or worse. And that's not my name anymore. I'm Sam now."
Furry looked helplessly back and forth between the two. Sam knew someone else? But hadn't he said there was no one else he could talk to? And he used to be named Creamsicle?
"Um, hello!" The wolf interjected into the tense atmosphere, breaking their silence. "I'm Furry. I'm… not quite sure how you know Sam, but it's nice to meet you."
The ice fawn's eyes softened in a complex way when she turned and saw Furry, but Sam spoke up before she could say anything.
"Right, how about I introduce you? Furry, this is Angel, the only other Lucid I know besides you who made it through the hunger, and then figured she was too good to stick around me and removed me from her friends list, and I haven't seen her in just about eight years until today. Hell, I wasn't even as much of a dick back then. Angel, this is Furry, the only other Lucid I know besides you who made it through the hunger. We met a few days ago." The disdain for Angel was obvious in his voice. (What was less obvious, Furry realized, was that Sam seemed to be hiding his stock of almonds, which he figured he should at least go along with for now.)
"Sam, I never wanted to leave, you have to realize that," she defended, speaking clearly and firmly, but with an apparent undertone of remorse.
"Then why the hell did you?"
"I –" Angel began, but bit her response short.
Sam raised an eyebrow. "Well?" he asked, but Angel just shook her head.
"Wonderful. Great fucking response. I understand everything now." He paused for a little while, and then continued, staring straight at Angel. "You know, I've met a lot of other people. Lucids I've talked to for about three goddamn weeks, and then they fall into hunger, and none of them ever makes it through, and then they're gone again. It's pretty fucking terrible to watch, you know. You felt what that's like? Ever tried it?"
"I know Rainbow was difficult, Sam –"
"How the hell do you know about Rainbow?" the google immediately snapped back.
Angel made a noise of confusion. "What do you mean? You told me about her."
"No. I definitely fucking did not tell you about her. We met after you left. Have you been talking to someone? Who the hell would even know?"
"I don't know what to say, Sam. You two met before us. You must be remembering wrong."
"Fine then. Don't tell me. Whatever. I guess it doesn't fucking matter anyway. We're still just going to split up again, aren't we, and then we're going to go deal with things on our own again for some fucking reason, and we'll just keep suffering through this fucking hunger forever, for some fucking reason!" It seemed to Furry that Sam had started shouting with more than just anger at Angel, but his usual, constant rage at something had slipped in.
At the end of his outburst, Angel's face was twisted with anguish. "I know, but there's nothing I can do about it!" she intensely spoke. (In some strange way, it seemed just a little bit like she actually felt responsible for it, like there should be something she could do. Furry couldn't imagine what.)
"Whatever. There's no point in this. I'm going to sleep. You two can go have a nice fucking chat if you want." Sam left through the park gate. The other two Webkinz watched him, but neither said anything. (Furry considered that maybe he should go after him, but found that he had gone offline in the cellphone interface, meaning he couldn't find him whether or not he wanted to.)
"I'm sorry you had to be there for that," Angel apologized warmly, looking at Furry face to face now.
"That's okay," he answered, not intending to hold it against a potential friend (even if she wasn't on the best of terms with Sam, as it seemed.)
"Thank you, but still. Well, anyway. It is nice to meet you, Furry. Shall I send you a friend request?"
Furry nodded, answered "Of course!", and accepted the prompt to add Angel as a friend when it appeared. (He now had to properly wonder why she had defriended Sam, but still wanted to add him. Was there really anything that bad about Sam?)
Then, after what seemed to be some hesitation, Angel continued talking to him. "So, I suppose you've become friends with Sam?"
"Yes, I have! We've been having lots of fun together around Webkinz World," Furry enthused (And he was still swallowing that question of the animosity between her and Sam, and he was still avoiding thinking anything negative about her, he was sure it was just a misunderstanding that they could work out –)
With trepidation, she cautioned, "Well, I'm sorry to say this, but I would advise that you stop. Sam is… not a good person to be friends with."
Furry's expression turned to shock in an instant. "What? Why – Why not?" he demanded defensively, as though it was himself that she criticized.
Angel sighed in response, and started in on a story. "Sam may seem okay to you now, but in truth… the hunger can drive us to do things we shouldn't. A number of times, before I met him, and even during the time we were together, he tricked a number of other pets out of what food they had, and left them to suffer while he got to keep eating. I couldn't stay with him, not when I learned what he was doing. I know it's difficult for you to hear this, but you have to be aware. Eventually, you're going to run out of food – you don't want it to happen any sooner than it needs to."
"Sam wouldn't do that!" Furry shouted, stomping one paw on the ground in defiance. "No – more than that, it doesn't even make sense! I offered him half of my food, and he refused it entirely! There's no way he could intend anything like that!"
"Sam is skilled at deception," she responded, shaking her head sadly. "With such a large stockpile of food as you have, I imagine he wouldn't be satisfied with only half, if he thought he could get more. I admit, I do not know quite how he intends to cheat you, but I am sure he does."
"You're wrong," Furry insisted (though his stupid mind wouldn't let any train of questioning go, no matter how much he didn't want to think about it, and he couldn't help considering whether it really was true, that it did explain why she left Sam, and ever onwards in a chain of uncertainty and worry). "I know you're wrong."
Angel thought silently for a few moments before responding. "Okay. I realize that you're not going to believe me immediately. But please, be careful around Sam, and don't do anything you would regret. You have me in your friends list – if you ever change your mind, please contact me. I can be your friend, too. I hope to see you soon." With a nod and a wave that Furry returned morosely, she too left through the park's gates.
(And only then, standing in the park alone and processing the meeting, did Furry realize that he had never told her about the almonds.)
It was a few hours before Sam turned his phone-status back online. Furry didn't immediately jump on the chance – he took a few moments to prepare himself, to think through what he was planning to do, and to put the right expression on. And only then did he go to Sam's location, meeting him in the park.
"So, how did it go?" Sam opened the conversation, speaking without much energy.
Furry, wearing a carefully-constructed bitter expression, spoke with accusation, "Angel told me what you did."
Sam scrunched up his eyes, and looked taken-aback. "The hell are you talking about?"
"With the other Lucids. She told me everything… Explain yourself! How could you do that?"
"Seriously, Furry, what the hell are you talking about? What has Angel been telling you?"
Furry paused in silence for a few moments, and looked at Sam's face, every nuance of its expression. He wasn't particularly easy to read, but… as far as Furry's limited reading could tell, he did seem to be genuinely confused.
And so he dropped the act, and instead showed an apologetic face. "I'm really sorry. Angel… started telling me that I shouldn't be friends with you, because you've tricked all the other Lucids you met into giving you their food. I didn't trust her, but… I had to make sure, so I wanted to see how you would react."
Sam took this in, and Furry watched his face contort in fury. "That bitch. So now she's even lying about me? What the hell does she hope to get out of this? Hell, even if she did leave me, it seems like the only reason to do this would be if she just hates me. The only real reason I can think of is if she wants to take your food for herself, but she doesn't even know you have it – that's why we lied about it."
"Um, well, that's the other thing. When she was talking about it, she mentioned that I have a large stockpile of food – she already knew enough about it that I only even remembered we had lied after she left. I didn't say anything about it beforehand, so…"
"So she knows even more goddamn things that she shouldn't have any way of figuring out," Sam pondered, more thoughtful now but still tinged with ire. "There's something going on with her, but I don't have a clue what the hell it is."
Furry didn't either, and so the topic died out. Instead, the wolf inquired about another curiosity that arose in their encounter.
"So, you used to be named Creamsicle? Why did you change it?"
"It was my owner's name for me," he responded, the word dripping with malice. "It was a childish name, given to me by the source of our suffering, intended for a pet, and as if that wasn't all bad enough, it's the name of a goddamn food, as if my owner knew what would happen and was making fun of me. I refused it. I refused to let my owner control any part of me. So I changed it."
After a pause, the google continued more contemplatively. "But y'know, the interesting thing is, my name changed in the phone, too, once I had used it long enough. I had thought those were set in stone. I'm still not so sure what happened there. Maybe someone out there still cared enough to change it."
He stared up at the sky, and sighed. "Or maybe I really just managed to change it myself."
